The True Reading Made Easy

Dublin: John Gough, 1795. Later printing. Leather bound. Good. Isaac Jackson's The True Reading Made Easy, printed in Dublin by Quaker printer John Gough in 1795, an important work in establishing piracy laws in England.. Sixteenmo, 142, [2] pp. Period leather binding, double ruled line border blind stamped on covers. Corners and edges rubbed, worn through in places. Spine worn, cracked with partial separation at front and back joints, some loss of leather at ends. Some soiling and dampstaining to covers. Despite issues, binding is stable. Woodcut illustrations, all pages present. Toning to text pages, some dog-eared pages from handling, corners torn on pages 65/66. No notations except for a gift inscription on the front pastedown. Additional title page precedes the 1795 title page, with the imprint listed as Dublin, Printed and Sold by and for Robert Jackson, 1793. Robert Jackson was Isaac Jackson's son, and he had printed an edition of this book prior to his death in 1793. OCLC locates only one copy of the 1793 edition in the British Library. No copies of this 1795 Gough edition located in OCLC or NUC. Even with its flaws, this is a nice example of a scarce eighteenth century primer. Isaac Jackson (1705-1772) was a printer, bookseller and typefounder. Before becoming a printer in 1737, Jackson was a Quaker schoolmaster. He compiled his first Reading Made Easy in the 1740s, and after several pirated editions began to appear, he revised this work in 1759. When Jackson died in 1772, his printing and bookselling business passed to his son, Robert (1748-1793), who printed The True Reading Made Easy in 1793. Robert died this same year, and the business passed to his sister Rachel (1755-1836). The following year Rachel decided to retire and chose John Gough as her successor. Gough carried a large selection of children's books in his shop, and he, too, printed The True Reading Made Easy in 1795. Gough died in 1818.