Lot 313: KING, HENRY.

A Sermon Preached at Pauls Crosse, The 25. of November. 1621...touching the supposed Apostasie of...John King... Felix Kynston for William Barret, 1621

4to, [second edition], preliminary blank (A1), minor corrections to pp.44-45, modern boards, paper label on upper cover, lacking final blank (M4), some occasional light spotting and soiling, covers slightly bowed

STC 14969 (see notes); Keynes King 46

John Sparrow, booklabel (Christie's, The Celebrated Library of the late John Sparrow..., 21 October 1992, lot 191 [part of]), this copy listed by Keynes

Henry King (1592-1669), Bishop of Chichester, was a member of a literary circle which included some of the leading writers of his time, not least his close friend John Donne, who appointed King his executor and left him various of his books and manuscripts (which, however, were largely dispersed following the seizure of King's episcopal library by Parliamentary forces in 1643). King's circle is, indeed, reflected in a number of neatly written manuscript verse miscellanies which were largely produced under his supervision for limited distribution in the 1630s-50s. King was himself a very competent poet and writer of sermons. A number of the latter were published individually from the 1620s onwards. His poems were not published until 1657, probably with his tacit authorisation, though the publishers claim to be printing at the behest of his friends who, they say, "furnished us with some papers which they thought Authentick". King's finest and best-known poem is his Exequy on the death in 1624 of his twenty-four-year-old wife, Anne.

The present series of works by King would seem to be the finest collection of books by him to be offered at auction.

The present volume is Henry King's impassioned sermon refuting baseless allegations that his father John King (1559?-1621), Bishop of London, had converted to Roman Catholicism on his deathbed.

it is the only known copy of this edition recorded by geoffrey keynes and illustrated in his bibliography. Loosely inserted is a one-page autograph letter signed to "dear John" [Sparrow] "with love Geoffrey" [Keynes] dated 6 January 1977. Keynes notes three editions of this sermon and records this as the second "not yet found anywhere else". He states "this will have to be recorded under Copies... I am not including other private collections..." Keynes' three editions are not separately recorded in the STC.