1800. 12mo, pp. xii, 154; with folding engraved frontispiece map of the world, a folding plate of the spheres, and two further engraved plates of ‘Geographical terms and figures exemplified’; lacking the front free endpaper; some occasional light soiling, upper margin of frontispiece with faint stain, otherwise clean and bright; with a few neat pencil markings throughout; with the signature of ‘A. W. Wells’ on front pastedown, and of ‘Parker’ on rear pastedown; a most appealing unsophisticated copy in the original full sheep, ruled in blind, spine in compartments with raised bands, some loss of spine at head and tail, and upper joint cracked but holding firm, extremities a little rubbed; with the name ‘Parker’ stamped in black vertically on upper cover. A charming unsophisticated copy and a scarce provincial printing of this popular geographical work, first published in French by the noted historian Abbé Pierre Nicolas Lenglet du Fresnoy (1674-1755) as Géographie des enfans in 1736, with the first English edition appearing in the following year. One of the earliest geography text-books aimed specifically at young children, the work comprises a series of sixty-six lessons, organised by country and area, and adopts the question and answer format to help instil into young minds. Thus they are given the key facts about major cities, rivers, population and systems of government. The final lessons introduce the reader to the use of the terrestrial globe, and concluding with a table of longitude and latitude. By studying for an hour a day, ‘all this knowledge may be acquired in less time than three months’ (p. x).
Not only aimed at children, however, as the preface notes: ‘This outline may likewise be useful even to those of riper years, for there are many, who, though they have had a good general education, are ignorant even of the first rudiments of this science... the least propensity to learning by the help of this short treatise, will be sufficient to acquire a general idea of the science. Young ladies, in two months time, may be instructed in the rudiments of Geography, and be able to give a pertinent answer to a question, that they would blush if they were unable to resolve’ (p.iv-v). As the present Shrewsbury printed ‘Twenty-second edition’ attests, the work proved to be extremely popular and enduring.
The author of several works, Du Fresnoy published his more extensive Methode pour etudier la geographie in 1716, the 1736 presumably an abridgement based upon that work.