Three Letters to a Friend

London: Printed by A.J.Valpy. 1833.

Impious

First and only edition. 8vo. 208x130mm. pp. 155 [1bl], [2]. Four tipped-in slips of text. Eight plates, two of which are hand-coloured and one diagram in the text. Contemporary red morocco, gilt decoration to boards, spine lavishly decorated, and lettered in gilt. All edges gilt. Some wear to joints, corners very slightly bumped and rubbed. A tear to p17/18 at gutter but it is still attached and there are two ink corrections in the text but otherwise a very good copy of a rare book, Worldcat locating six copies. 
Catherine Housman was an indefatigable creationist, challenging scientists, historians and theologians whose writings failed to demonstrate a strict accord with the literal word of the Bible. The aim and subject matter of Three Letters is set out in a prefatory statement. "The First chapter of Genesis by which is revealed to us the creation of only one earth, one sun, and one moon: the truth of which is verified by Moses, the Prophets, and Apostles, and now placed in the balance against the delusive hypotheses of Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton, and their Epicurean followers; who impiously treat of invisible atoms forming themselves by the imaginary principles of attraction, repulsion, and condensation, into millions of systems of suns, earths, and moons".

Ref. 4361