Freeman, Enoch W. A Selection of Hymns: including A Few Originals, designed to Aid the Friends of Zion in their Private and Social Worship. [Exeter, NH]: [John C. Gerrish], (1829). First Edition. [8655]
Olive leather spine with gilt lines & "Freeman's Hymns." Scuffed marbled boards, joints with crude sewn repair, 12 cm (4 3/4 x 3 inches). [4], 288 pp. Leaves complete but with several torn edges affecting some text. Contents worn and well-used. Fair.
The title page has no proper imprint; publishing info gleaned from the copyright page, Advertisement, and another first edition in our catalogue. We have compared this with an 1829 Exeter imprint by Gerrish, and the page numbers and other matter match, but the title page here is without the printer's imprint. It is the true tp however, with the copyright information on the verso.
This appears to be a very early printing with the publisher's imprint erroneously left off the title page - all other aspects of the title page are identical to the other 1829 edition in our catalogue - the Advertisement page has a few periods lacking that are in the (probably) later printing of this first edition.
Starr, A Baptist Bibliography, Fo1235.
"The work of revival which has been carried forth in this town for more than three years past, and which is still progressing, seems to call for a greater number and a more extensive variety of hymns than are usually found in collections of this kind...Care has been taken to select those hymns which are best adapted to be sung in 'times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.' It is fondly hoped that this book may be useful as an instrument in exciting and perpetuating those glorious revivals of pure religion which so signally characterize this age in which Zion is breaking forth on every side in songs of praise." - Author's Advertisement.
Enoch Weston Freeman (1798-1835), of First Baptist Church, Lowell, Massachusetts. "This collection of 286 texts was reprinted several times over the next few years, indicating that the revival continued and that the choices Freeman made proved useful. The book's first hymn, one of seven by the compiler, shows in punctuation and typeface, as much as in vocabulary, the tone of urgency that characterized this movement..." - Music & Richardson, "I Will Sing the Wondrous Story", p. 172.
With a signed provenance card from the collection of A. Merril Smoak, Jr., DWS.
