£300
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs | 659
Auction: 22 September 2021 at 11:00 BST
[London: printed by Gartrude Dawson..., [1653]] Small 4to, later calf, this issue bound with A Treatise concerning the Plague and the Pox and Some other few additionall observations as is usual, lacking the initial four leaves (the title-page and "To the reader...") and the final leaf, the text begins with p.1, some browning, neat repairs to B2 and B3, some staining and fraying to a few leaves [ESTC 41664]
Provenance: The flyleaf contains manuscript notes by John Gordon of Huntly dated 1912. He traces ownership of the book from his ancestor, Dr. William Gordon, (alchemist of Old College, Aberdeen) who participated in ‘ane ordinance against witchcraft’. The book was passed to Sir Robert Gordon in the 17th century. Skilled in alchemy, he had an underground laboratory in Gordonstoun and is still known today as the 'Wizard of Gordonstoun'. His daughter, Lucy, inherited the book and on her death in 1739 the book was bought by a physician, John Eagelsfield. His signature appears twice in the book with the dates 1739 and 1745. Eagelsfield was said to have carried the book as a physician to the Jacobite army during the uprising. During the year 1746 he was a casualty, said to be at Culloden, when the book passed as booty into the hands of James Rice, who inscribed his name and "God Save the King" in the book which was carried to London as noted on page 96. The book was recovered by a member of the Gordon family who brought it back to Aberdeen at the beginning of the 19th century. In 1871 it was still in use in Huntly in the hands of Margaret Gordon, known locally as the Carlin wife (carline being an old Scots word for witch).
John Gordon received the book in 1886 from Margaret Gordon's daughter, also called Margaret. John Gordon gifted the book in 1912 to J.W. Brodie Innes whose signature is across the facing page. Brodie Innes wrote The Devil’s Mistress published 1915.