[Bacon, Roger and Thomas Bungay] | The exploits of "Doctor Mirabilis"

[Bacon, Roger and Thomas Bungay]

The Most Famous History of the Learned Fryer Bacon … London: Printed for Tho[mas] Norris, [1720?]

4to (178 x 133 mm). Woodcut illustration on title-page, vertical chainlines in quires A and C; strong browning throughout, imprint on title shaved. headlines shaved or cropped, inner margins repaired and/or guarded. Contemporary half calf over marbled boards; boards somewhat worn, extremities rubbed.

An old chapbook written probably toward the end of the sixteenth century, on which Robert Greene may have founded his play "The honorable historie of Frier Bacon, and Frier Bengay." In the early modern period, Bacon was regarded as a wizard, famed for the story of his mechanical brazen head.

REFERENCE:

ESTC T173329; cf. Toole Stott 762

PROVENANCE:

Supreme Council 33, i.e., the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, U.S.A. (engraved bookplate by W.P.B. dated 1900 on front pastedown) —William G. Rowland (signature on front free endpaper)