The School of Arts; or Fountain of Knowledge. Containing Several Hundred Truly Valuable and Useful Receipts, Selected from the Works and Communications of the most Eminent British Artists

Book Description

London: Printed by W. Darton, Jun., [1819]. [iii], viii-xii, [i], 14-64pp., 12mo. Folding engraved frontispiece dated March 19, 1819, pagination erratic at beginning but complete, the title with “Several Hundred” neatly scored through and with “166” substituted in manuscript. Original printed drab wrappers; chafed and with the backstrip partly missing and sewing broken, causing the frontispiece and a few other leaves to come loose. First edition, not in The Dartons, presumably because the title does not suggest a children’s book, but all of the figures in the folding frontispiece are young boys. Recipes include such things as softening ivory, “To make sky-rockets,” “A black varnish for gentlemen's old straw or chip hats”, “To bronze plaster figures,” and “To make the phosphoric match bottle.” Six copies in OCLC.

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