[The Royal Primer; or, an easy and pleasant guide to the art of reading...Brentford, c.1800]. 24° (83 x 65mm). Collation: A-C.2. Woodcut "frontispiece" in introductory text on A1.; with woodcut alphabet grid on pp.8-9 and 25 woodcuts in text. (A1 and C12 pastedowns; lacking A2 [title-page]; C3 mis-signed C2 and C4 mis-signed C. Dutch flowered paper over boards (worn and faded), pencilling on front pastedown and the remains of sealing-wax (?) at edges of both pastedowns. See Roscoe J 234. The Royal Primer was one of Newbery's earliest and most notable publications, gathering together alphabets, syllabaries, secular and religious verse etc. in a novel combination. The earliest known edition has a 1746 inscription and other early survivors show that the book was first published as a smaller 32°. Later editions were reduced to a smaller 24° format and had much less detailed woodcuts. This edition belongs to the later series and, from the mistaken signatures can be identified as a printing put out by J. Norbury of Brentford to Wham the Newbery blocks eventually passed. -- And Volume II only of A Compendious History of the World...for T. Carnan, 1788. 32° vellum backed boards. Roscoe J 77(4). (2)