Books

London: printed for E. Curll: and sold by W. Mears and T. Jauncy without Temple Bar, W. Meadows in Cornhill, A. Bettesworth in Pater-Noster-Row, W. Lewis in Covent Garden, and W. Graves in St. James's Street, 1720. Paneled Calf. Fine. First Edition of this purported autobiography of the notorous London fraud, a deaf and mute fortune teller, once thought to be by Defoe (Moore) but more often attributed to William Bond, a Grub Street writer. 8vo (191 x 116mm): xix,[5],320pp, with copper-engraved engraved frontispiece portrait (signed "Hill pinx. Price sculp') and three plates, including a sign language chart. Contemporary Cambridge-style paneled calf, book plate of Thomas Symonds of Pengethly, presumably Thomas Powell Symonds (1762-1819), member of Parliament, or a descendant. A superb survival, tightly bound and free of foxing, clean and bright throughout (quires O and P lightly toned), with rich impressions of the plates. Furbank & Owens 432. Moore 432. McBurney 111. Subsequent…

The book details the biography of the deaf and mute Scottish gentleman Mr. Duncan Campbell, focusing on his life and the challenges he faced. It also explores his work as a prognosticator or soothsayer and includes colorful anecdotes about 18th-century London society.