Vicesimus Knox — Epistles, Elegant, Familiar, & Instructive. Selected from the Best Writers, Ancient As Well As Modern; Intended for the Improvement of Young Persons, and for General Entertainment Being a Proper Supplement to Extracts in Prose and in Poetry

9.5" by 6, Rivingtons, Longman, Law et al, 1791. Leather. An extensive educational selection of eminent literary authors. With an engraved title page. Vicesimus Knox, 1752-1821, was an English headmaster and writer. "Knox's motivation was the education and improvement of a youthful and middling readership—"the man of a liberal profession ÂÂ- [and] the mercantile classes"—otherwise too busy to study classical literature in full (Extracts ÂÂ- in Poetry, 1805, vi). As in his own writing, the non-fiction essay and its modern exponents, among them Addison, Johnson, Richard Steele, and Hugh Blair, featured prominently in his selection of prose writers. While not ignoring classical writers, one of Knox's principal aims was to identify and introduce to the canon those elements of modern literature he believed of particular benefit for "the commerce of ordinary life". His focus also resulted in a noticeably generous coverage of eighteenth-century women writers" -ODNB. In a full calf binding. Externally, rubbed. With a gilt reference number to the spine. The front joint is cracked and the rear joint starting. Internally, firmly bound, with light browning and the occasional spot or mark, prominent to the first and last few pages. The first eight leaves are only partially attached. With a blank label to the front pastedown. Good Only . Ill.: None. Good Only .