First Steps to Thorough Base; In Twelve Familiar Lessons Between a Teacher and Pupil
Boston: James Loring, 1833. Hardcover. Sixteenmo size, 109 pp. Good +. Item #19050406
Lowell Mason (1792-1872) was an influential figure in music education and church music in the United States during the nineteenth century. He composed many hymnal arrangements including those of "Joy to the World" and "Nearer, My God, to Thee", and wrote this book to teach thorough base (often styled "thoroughbass"), to children. The book is replete with musical notations illustrating the lessons, which are written as a discussion between a teacher and pupil, an approach to teaching that Mason felt important with this particular branch of music theory.
___DESCRIPTION: Quarter navy leather with marbled brown paper boards, gilt lettering and rules on the spine, musical notations interspersed throughout the text; sixteenmo size (6" by 3.75"), pagination: [i-v] vi-viii [2] (pagination skips) 10-110.
___CONDITION: Volume is a bit better than good, with clean boards, a strong, square text block with solid hinges, and no prior owner markings; overall rubbing to the edges, joints, and corners, light soiling and foxing throughout the interior pages, front free endpaper is creased at the top right corner and has a small closed tear to the fore-edge, the gutter at the first page of the Preface is starting to crack, but text block is still strong, and there are two small spots of red sealing wax on each of the paste-down endpapers (we surmise the remains of a long-gone homemade "dust jacket").
___CITATION: OCLC no. 19825763 and 191249393 which records 7 libraries total with this 1833 edition (the earliest noted in OCLC); not in ESTC (by this title). No auction records and only one other copy online (ex-library) as of this writing.
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Price: $125.00