Book of Common Prayer, from the library of Liverpool slave trader Moses Benson. Oxford, 1775.

.pro-gallery-wix-wrapper {display: block !important;} .pro-gallery-wix-wrapper .gallery-item-container {opacity: 1 !important; display: block !important;}

Book of Common Prayer—from the library of Liverpool slave trader Moses Benson

Name: Book of Common Prayer—from the library of Liverpool slave trader Moses Benson
SKU: 271

Price

€ 850,00

An uncommon and attractive 4to edition of the Book of Common Prayer, made exceptional by its provenance: this copy bears the red morocco library label of Liverpool slave trader Moses Benson (1738–1806).

Benson’s career mirrors the darker side of Liverpool’s prosperity. Beginning in the 1760s as a captain in the West Indies trade for Abraham Rawlinson, he became Rawlinson’s agent in Jamaica before launching his own company.

By 1775, he had returned to Liverpool and entered the slave trade. According to the SlaveVoyages database, Benson was involved in over 80 slave voyages between 1775 and 1806. Though he continued to live on Kent Street, he invested his fortune in a Shropshire estate, Lutwyche Hall, in the 1780s. With Judith Powell, a “free mustee,” he had six children, including Ralph Benson (1773–1845), later a member of parliament.

This volume is a striking artifact of paradox: a Book of Common Prayer—bound with the influential New Version of the Psalms of David by Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady—owned by a man whose fortune rested on human bondage. Tate and Brady’s psalms, first published in 1696, left their mark on English religious life; their version of Psalm 34 is still sung today.

A book that embodies the tensions of Britain’s 18th-century wealth, religion, and slavery, rare both for its edition and for its telling provenance. An opportunity for collectors interested in religious history, transatlantic slavetrade, and the moral contradictions of empire.

Title

The Book of Common Prayer, and administration of the sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies of the church, according to the use of the Church of England: Together with the Psalter or Psalms of David.

Oxford, Printed by T. Wright and W. Gill [...] and sold by S. Crowder, in Paternoster Row, London; and by W. Jackson, in the High Street, Oxford, 1775.

[Bound with:]

Nicholas Brady & Nahum Tate.

A new version of the Psalms of David, fitted to the tunes used in churches.

London, printed by H.S. Woodfalls for the Company of Stationers, 1775.

Physical Description

4to (26 x 21 cm). [412]; [52] pp. Contemporary gold-tooled reverse calf, all edges gilt (faded). Some browning. Much of the gold-tooling on the binding gone, edges bumped and damaged. Expertly and inconspicuously rebacked. The front board with the gold-tooled red morocco library label of Moses Benson: “Moses Benson 1786”.