![JOHN BON -- John Bon and Mast person. London: J. Smeeton [for Machell Stace, 1807].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2005/NYR/2005_NYR_01595_1141_000(102655).jpg?w=1)
Details
JOHN BON -- John Bon and Mast person. London: J. Smeeton [for Machell Stace, 1807].
4o (240 x 185 mm). 4 leaves of type facsimile, plus colophon leaf. PRINTED ON VELLUM, one of 25 copies. Black letter, one woodcut; roman type for colophon. Contemporary blue morocco gilt, Sykes arms and initials. Provenance: Sir Mark Masterman Sykes (1771-1823, M.P.), Evans sale, 28 May 1824, lot 92, to Rivington -- Cornelius Paine (signature, bookplate) -- Jean Furstenberg (1890-1982), bookplate.
Two copies of the original edition, printed by John Day and William Seres in 1548, are known (British Library, Newbery Library). The anonymous verse satire, commonly attributed to Luke Shepherd, takes the form of a dialogue between honest John Bon and the devious parson, Mast, on the catholic doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the eucharist. The woodcut shows a group of priests carrying an altar on their shoulders. The colophon of Smeeton's typographical facsimile quotes the late Richard Forster, from whose original copy the text is reprinted: "Daye ... and also Seres, were brought into much trouble for printing only a few copies--which were nearly destroyed by the Zealots of the old Religion. There is no doubt but the buying up and destroying those kind of Books (which were obnoxious to Cardinal Wolsey and others,) was very common in those days, and made them very rare even in their own time."
Richard Heber's copy of the reprint was inscribed "With Machell Stace's Respects. 25 copies reprinted on Chosen Parchment," but the British Museum general catalogue, which lists an ordinary-paper copy, a large-paper copy and a vellum copy, and Alston (p.35) state that THE VELLUM ISSUE CONSISTED OF 12 COPIES ONLY.
4
Two copies of the original edition, printed by John Day and William Seres in 1548, are known (British Library, Newbery Library). The anonymous verse satire, commonly attributed to Luke Shepherd, takes the form of a dialogue between honest John Bon and the devious parson, Mast, on the catholic doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the eucharist. The woodcut shows a group of priests carrying an altar on their shoulders. The colophon of Smeeton's typographical facsimile quotes the late Richard Forster, from whose original copy the text is reprinted: "Daye ... and also Seres, were brought into much trouble for printing only a few copies--which were nearly destroyed by the Zealots of the old Religion. There is no doubt but the buying up and destroying those kind of Books (which were obnoxious to Cardinal Wolsey and others,) was very common in those days, and made them very rare even in their own time."
Richard Heber's copy of the reprint was inscribed "With Machell Stace's Respects. 25 copies reprinted on Chosen Parchment," but the British Museum general catalogue, which lists an ordinary-paper copy, a large-paper copy and a vellum copy, and Alston (p.35) state that THE VELLUM ISSUE CONSISTED OF 12 COPIES ONLY.