Description
Edmondson, Joseph
A complete body of heraldry containing: an historical enquiry into the origin of armouries ... Glover's Ordinary of arms, augmented and improved, An alphabet of arms, containing upwards of fifty thousand coats, with their crests, &c. and A copious glossary, explaining all the technical terms used in heraldry. London: for the author, 1780. First edition, 2 volumes, 25 engraved plates (including a portrait frontispiece of the compiler), subscriber list, contemporary tree calf, spines decorated gilt in compartments, red and green morocco lettering pieces, occasional offsetting and a few leaves spotted. (2)
Note: Moule 650 with a six page description of the contents. Edmonston who began life as apprentice to a barber and continued a coach painting business, was "not a trained scholar and was a pushing and intrusive person, but he was an enthusiast and a man of excellent natural judgment, Of his published works the Complete Body of Heraldry was mostly Anstis and the Baronagium Genealogicum mostly Simon Segar. But he had the wit and enterprise to acquire their very valuable unpublished works, when others might have done so but did not; and his publication of them, even though without due acknowledgment, was a public service." (Wagner Heralds of England p. 390).
Provenance: With the book-plate of Harriet, Duchess of St. Albans.