I believe we have handled but one other of these in the last 20 or so years. This is the true first edition, first printing of C. H. Spurgeon's first and one of his most often reprinted works, The Saint and His Saviour.
He was just 23 years old when it was published and his lack of experience as a published author showed up even in the original preface, which we believe was replaced in later editions. In it, he begins, "I have no idea of what I'm expected to say in a preface" and presses on to compare preaching to liberty and writing to slavery, noting that it was not for nothing that an author's writings were called their "works."
Spurgeon, C. H. The Saint and His Saviour; or, The Progress of the Soul in the Knowledge of Jesus. London. James S. Virtue, City Road, and Ivy Lane. 1857. 471pp.
Good + copy in original cloth with decorative spine. Rubbed and bumped at extremities with small nicks to cloth at head and tail of spine. It appears that perhaps a lift at rear spine has been neatly relaid. It is quite smartly done. The prelims contain the signature of its original owner, Chatham, England Presbyterian divine, Charles Moir. Then the gift label of the Moir family to the Westminster College Library. And then period ex library stamps only on the pastedown and ffep. There are no other other ex library markings anywhere in the volume, including title page, text, or rear endpapers. Textually quite crisp and clean with the very early frontis engraving of Spurgeon, tissue guard, and title with very small chip at head of the leaf.
