The Travels of Cyrus : to which is annexed, A discourse upon the theology and mythology of the pagans by Chevalier Ramsay.
Burlington, [New Jersey]: Isaac Neale, 1793.
Price: $250.00
About the item
352pp. 8vo. Original mottled calf, red leather label. Very Good. Evans 26052; Felcone 222.
Item #302918
First American edition of this influential description of an ideal kingdom, populated with figures from classical Greece. Ramsay was born in Ayr in 1686, the son of a baker. As a young man he fought with the English in the war of the Spanish Succession, and while on the Continent sought to reconcile his religious qualms byjourneying to see the renowned French divine, Fénelon. Deeply moved, he converted to Catholicism and remained with Fénelon until the mystic's death in 1715. The Voyages de Cyrus, Ramsay's best known work, consciously imitates Fénelon's Adventures of Telemachus by integrating figures of classical Greek mythology into an ideal kingdom. Here, Cyrus journeys through the ancient world, continually appraising his own society
This copy belonged to Jonathan Kirkbride, possibly the Jonatahmn Kirbride (1739-1824) who was the minister of the Society of Friends and was from Lower Makefield in Bucks County Pa. He was the grandfather of Thomas Story Kirkbride, a physican who greatly influenced the treatment of the insane.
