Offered for sale by Adam Langlands of 'Shadowrock Rare Books' - for more information please contact him via email at adamlanglands@gmail.com

Sir Thomas BROWNE (1605-1682).

Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into very many received tenents, and commonly presumed truths. By Thomas Browne Dr of Physick. The second edition, corrected and much enlarged by the author. Together with some marginall observations, and a table alphabeticall at the end.

London: printed by A. Miller, for Edw. Dod and Nath. Ekins, at the Gunne in Ivie Lane, 1650. Foolscap folio, signed in fours (11 3/8 x 7 1/4in; 289 x 184mm). Pp. [16], 329, [11]. Collation: A - I, K - U, X - Z, Aa - Ii, Kk - Uu, Xx4, Yy2. Initials and ornaments. Imprimatur on verso of last leaf of ‘Contents’,  Errata at end of ‘Table Alphabetical’. (Some marginal toning, occasional light spotting, a few small rust-holes). Contemporary vellum, yapp foredges (neat repair to the head of the spine [see images], lightly soiled). Provenance: early signature on front free endpaper scribbled out.

An excellent clean, large, copy: the second edition, revised and expanded from the first edition of 1646, with the side-notes and index added for the first time. Described by Wilkin in 1835 and Keynes in 1968 as “the handsomest as to typography” of any edition of this title, as Keynes also notes: “the second edition of 1650 . . . besides being better printed and produced, is considerably less common than its predecessor.” (Keynes, pp.56 and 51). Wing B5160; Keynes ‘Browne’ 74; Garrison-Morton 10032; Grolier 107; Heirs of Hippocrates 487 (citing 1st ed. of 1646); Wellcome II, p.253; CBEL, I, 2230.