The Historian’s Guide. In Two Parts. First, the Recovery of Lost Time; being a Compendious Chronology of the World, from the Creation, to this Present Age. Translated out of Italian. Second, Englands Remembrancer; Being a Summary Account of all the Actions, Exploits, Battles, Sieges, Conflicts, &c. And all Remarkable Passages in His Majesty’s Dominions. London, Crook, 1676.
First Edition in English. Small 8vo, (141 x 85mm), pp. [vi], 7-95, ‘86’, 89-122, [5] advertisements, pagination erratic but text complete, in contemporary mottled calf, gilt filet to covers, spine chipped at head and foot, simply ruled in gilt with red morocco label lettered in gilt, with the later booklabel of James Stevens Cox.
A handsome copy of this scarce chronology. Written in two parts, the first seems to be the only English edition of Doglioni’s Compendio historico universale, a work which appeared in different forms and numerous different editions. This section has its own title page, immediately following the general title page, in which the sub-title is repeated and extended: ‘The Recovery of Lost Time, being a Compedious Chronology &c.... to our present Age, with the most notorious Remarks that have occurred, Whether Ecclesiastical, Political, Domestick, or Foreign’. This section (pp. 7-33) consists of fairly brief entries, getting more detailed in the later years and ending with the year 1664 (1661: The death of the most eminent French minister of State, Cardinal Mazarin; The overflowing of Rome, by the River Tiber. The Beatification of Francisco de Sales, Bishop of Geneva).
The second and larger section is an anonymous work, also with its own separate title page: ‘England’s Remembrancer. Being a Summary of the Actions, Exploits, Battles, Sieges, Conflicts, and other remarkable Passages that have hapned in any of His Majesties Dominions, from Anno Domini 1600 until the present Year of 1675. Written by a Lover of his King and Country’. Starting in 1600, Nov. 19.: ‘King Charles the First, born at Dunfernling in Scotland’, this section also takes the form of a chronology, though a much more detailed one, mainly concerned with events from the 1640s to 1674. The short bullet points which are used to describe historical events during this turbulent period of history, and the fact that it is being written comparatively soon after the events, give the text an immediacy which makes for a very exciting read.
This work is sometimes wrongly attributed to Samuel Clarke, who wrote another work under the same title.
ESTC R202, listing several copies in England and Boston Public, Folger, Harvard, Huntington, Indiana, Clark, Vassar and Yale in America.
Wing H2094A.