1785 JOHN WESLEY. True First Edition of Wesley's Pocket Hymn Book after Pirated Editions.

A very rare first [and only] edition of Wesley's clunker of a hymn book. A rare publishing misstep on Wesley's part. 

In 1780 John Wesley issued what he considered the definitive Methodist hymnal, A Collection of Hymns for the People Called Methodists. This was the largest collection that he ever published, containing 525 hymns. But the cost was dear, unaffordable for many of the Methodist laity. Because of the cost issue, he also continued to reprint  Select Hymns (1765), with editions in 1780, 1783, and 1787. It was less than a third the length of the 1780 Collection, and sold one third the cost.

But Select Hymns did not mirror well the content of the 1780 Collection, lacking even such Methodist favourites as “O for a Thousand Tongues.” This created an opportunity for Robert Spence, a bookseller with Methodist connections in York. He had a solution and, in 1781, issued an abridgement of Wesley’s 1780 Collection, reducing it by two-thirds (to 174 hymns), retaining the most popular hymns among Methodists.

Spence, however, took this step without approval, and drew Wesley’s displeasure. But since he was not an itinerant preacher, Spence was not accountable to injunctions by Conference against publishing materials without Wesley’s approval. While his 1781 publication had limited success, Spence reframed it in 1783 in two ways that greatly increased its popularity. First, he added about fifty hymns by other authors popular in evangelical circles. Second, he printed the new collection on smaller pages (duodecimo), making it easier to carry. He titled the transformed volume a Pocket Hymn Book, designed as a constant companion for the pious. These revisions turned Spence’s Pocket Hymn Book into a commercial success.

As Thomas Wride, one of Wesley’s itinerants, complained the following year, it “makes great way among our societies. I have seen six at a time in a private house.” Part of Wride’s concern was that “the sale of such books must proportionably lessen the sale of Mr. Wesley’s, and render Mr. Wesley less able to help such as for years past have been helped by the profit of the books sold for Mr. Wesley.” Wride’s suggested solution was for Wesley to issue a smaller collection of hymns, printed in a size that could fit in a pocket, and selling for 1 shilling. He was confident that such a volume, if diligently spread by the preachers, would soon render Spence’s text “out of date.”

Within a couple of months of receiving Wride’s letter Wesley did prepare for publication a small collection, printed in an appropriate size to be titled A Pocket Hymn Book for the Use of Christians of all Denominations (1785). But as he made clear in the Preface, Wesley was not trying to abridge the 1780 Collection, selecting the most popular hymns. Instead he chose to supplement the 1780 Collection by devoting Pocket Hymn Book (1785) to other worthy hymns from earlier collections that had not made it into the 1780 Collection. Bad call, Mr. Wesley. Time would soon prove that there was little market for such a supplement, and this volume was never reprinted. It sold poorly, and copies today are rather scarce. [See HERE for source of the above and a more detailed accounting of the hymnal's contents]. 

Wesley, John. A Pocket Hymn Book, for the Use of Christians of All Denominations. London. Printed by J. Paramore, at the Foundry, and Sold at the New Chapel. 1785. 208pp.

A good + copy, bound in half leather, generally solid, with pages that are a bit handled, cropped unevenly, and have some toning. Binding rubbed with loss at label as shown.