Lot 128•
PRYNNE (WILLIAM) Histrio-Mastix The Players Scourge, or, Actors Tragedie, 2 parts in 1 vol.,1633; PEACHAM (H.) The Compleat Gentleman, 1622, FIRST EDITIONS (2)
Ending from 19 November 2025, 12:00 GMT
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PRYNNE (WILLIAM)
Histrio-Mastix. The Players Scourge, or, Actors Tragedie, 2 parts in 1 vol., FIRST EDITION, second state with list of the "Errates", with opening blank and blank 5N4, one leaf (pp.546-7) defective with loss to lower portion of book, fore-corner of pp.558-9 torn away touching side-note, some toning and occasional light damp stains, final leaf re-inserted and with small institutional stamp on final page, two passages are underlined in ink by a later reader, one of which reads "a great signe of corrupt and perverted discipline, that these effiminate persons and furtherers of most dishonest pleasures, are [held] in greate esteeme", modern morocco, gilt lettered on spine, rubbed [ESTC S115324], small 4to, Printed by E.A. and W.I. for Michael Sparke, 1633--PEACHAM (HENRY) The Compleat Gentleman Fashioning Him Absolute in the Most Necessary & Commendable Qualities Concerning Minde or Bodie that May be Required in a Noble Gentlema[n], FIRST EDITION, WITH CANCELLANDUM LEAF [X4], engraved architectural title by F.Delaram, with cancels X4.5, X5, Y4 & Y5, and also cancellandum Sig [X4], woodcut coats-of-arms in the text, ink notes in a seventeenth century hand on final blank (off-set onto final printed leaf), without initial blank, title cut to size and window-mounted with a few small abrasions, inner margin of several leaves strengthened with tape, one ink and 2 later marginal annotations, Brixton Library label inside upper cover, library cloth, short tears at joints [ESTC S114333; Pforzheimer 787], 8vo, [John Legat for] Francis Constable, 1622 (2)
Footnotes
Histrio-Mastix was a virulent attack on the performance of stage plays, but Prynne's denouncement of female actors at the moment that Queen Henrietta Maria was participating in a court masque, led to his being tried for sedition. He was found guilty, fined £5000, and sentenced to have his ears cut off and to life imprisonment.
The Compleat Gentleman "occupies a significant place in the history of courtesy literature. Its immediate inspiration was Peacham's conviction... that the education of young English gentlemen was markedly inferior to that afforded to European gentry" (ODNB). This copy retains the cancellandum, Sig [X4] which according to Pforzheimer "has been preserved apparently only in the British Museum (Grenville) copy".