New England Puritan clergyman (1639–1723) who served as the sixth president of Harvard College from 1685 to 1701 and was influential in the administration of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Very rare first collected edition of Increase Mather's "A Narrative of the Miseries of New England, by reason of an Arbitrary Government Erected there," pp. 29-32 , no. X in: A Sixth Collection of Papers Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England. London: Richard Janeway, 1689. Bound in late 19th-century brown calf, 6.25 x 7.75, 34 total pages. Book condition: VG/None, lacking first and last blanks, some pale spotting, and some scuffing and surface impressions to boards.
This is an early printing of Increase Mather’s influential Andros tract—his earliest and most significant printed effort during his mission in England to secure a new charter for Massachusetts, ultimately achieved in 1691. Originally issued separately in Boston in December 1688, the piece was reprinted only weeks later as No. X in Janeway’s Sixth Collection of Papers Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England.
Mather’s narrative addresses the Crown’s campaign—through quo warranto actions and related legal measures—to strip the New England colonies of the “ancient Rights and Priviledges” granted under their original charters. Central to the tract is a forceful protest against the arbitrary rule of Sir Edmund Andros. He includes a copy of a petition to the King—likely drafted by Mather—submitted by John Gibson (aged 87) and George Willow (aged about 86) on behalf of the inhabitants of Cambridge and neighboring towns, pleading for relief from Andros’s misgovernment.
A work of great historical importance, it received extended treatment from bibliographer Thomas J. Holmes, who details six subsequent editions and devotes twelve pages to its analysis. This example represents the variant state with the catchword “mads” on page 31.
References: Alden & Landis 689/169; Church 714; Holmes 79b; Sabin 81492, 46708, 9372.
Provenance: Lot 161, Christie's, December 3, 2007.
