The Religious Tract Society, usually abbreviated RTS, was founded in 1799 and primarily aimed to produce and distribute affordable religious tracts to promote evangelical Christianity among Britain’s working classes during the 19th century. Many of these books are still interesting today as they deal with travel and exploration. Here below two examples; an early and a late 19th century one.
1) Missionary Records. Sandwich Islands.
Author: Anonymous
Year: 1839
Edition: First edition
Publisher: London; The Religious Tract Society
Printed by John Hill, Black Horse Court, Fleet Street. Contemporary binding of 3/4 calf over marbled boards, 12mo, half title, title, pp. xii, (1), 1 (map), 356. Complete with the map of the Sandwich Islands. One table within the text. The spine divided into five compartments by four raised bands, gilt, with the titles in the second and fourth compartments.
The binding rubbed and the corners bumped. A handwritten remark on the front pastedown, a stamp on the second ffep and a different stamp on the title page. No other library marks. The first page of the main text with some offsetting from the map and some foxing, the rest of the text very clean. Page 179 misnumbered 779.
An often overlooked, yet important book on Hawaii, describing effects of the first intercourse between white men and natives, description of the geographical and physical pecularities of Hawaii and the other islands, physical character and number of the islanders, natural history, discovery of the island by James Cook, impressions produced by the event on the minds of Captain Cook and his companians, the arrival of the king of the islands and his visit to captain Cook’s ship, the death of Cook and subsequent intercourse between the natives and foreigners. The start of the Christening of the island population, the arrival of the first missionaries from America, the structure of the goverment of the islands, description of the gods worshipped by the natives, former island wars, arms and weapons, establishment of normal schools, the first newspaper in the Sandwich Islands, etc., etc.
A rare, interesting and important book with only one auction record in ABPC (Swann, 1979) and another one in RBH.
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2) Our journey to Sinai
Author: Bensly, Mrs. R.L.
Year: 1896
Edition: First edition
Publisher: Oxford, The Religious Tract Society
Bensly, Mrs. R.L. (Agnes Dorothee Bensly von Blumberg). Subtitled: A visit to the convent of St. Catarina.
First edition, 8vo, pp. 174, 16 (publisher’s ads). Original blue boards with decorated endpapers.
After the discovery of an early and important palimpsest*, containing a Syriac text of the four gospels, in Saint Catharine’s Monastery by Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson, Mr. Bensly visited the same convent in the company of his wife and a few others, amongst which Ms. Lewis & Gibson. After their return to England this book was written by Mrs. Bensly.
Original blue cloth with gilt still bright both on spine and boards. Some light wear to the corners and the head of the spine as well as some very minor rubbing to the boards. Small bookseller’s ticket of Goulden & Curry, Royal Library, Tunbridge Wells at the lower inner corner of the front pastedown. Interior very clean, illustrated with 14 b/w photographs about Egypt and the Sinai desert, some of which are full page with a blank reverse side, while others are in the text.
* Palimpsest: A manuscript on parchment or papyrus, which has been eraded respectively washed and which has been reused, usually containing a part of the New Testament. The later (newer) text often, but not always, is of less interest to us.
References:
R.L. Bensly, J. Rendel Harris, F.C. Burkitt, The Four Gospels in Syriac transcribed from the Sinaitic Palimpsest with an introduction by A.S. Lewis. Cambridge 1894; Cambridge University Press. xlvi, [2], 318 pp., 1 : front. (facsims.)
F.C. Burkitt, Evangelion da-Mepharreshe: the Curetonian version of the four Gospels, with the readings of the Sinai palimpsest and the early Syriac patristic evidence edited, collected and arranged (with literal translations of text and variants), 2 vol. University Press: Cambridge, 1904. xix + 556; vii + 322pp.
A.S. Lewis, The Old Syriac Gospels or Evangelion Da‑Mepharreshê; being the text of the Sinai or Syro-Antiochene Palimpsest, including the latest Additions and Emendations, with the Variants of the Curetonian Text, Corroborations from many other MSS., and a list of Quotations from Ancient Authors. London 1910; Williams & Norgate, lxxviii + v + 334pp.
Biblio: Weber I, 988.
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