An Authentic Narrative of some Remarkable and Interesting Particulars in the Life of ********.

THE VERY RARE FIRST EDITION OF NEWTON'S REMARKABLE CONVERSION

Communicated in a Series of Letters, to the Reverend MR. Haweis, Rector of Aldwinckle, Northamptonshire, And by him (at the Request of Friends) now made public.

 

First Edition. 8vo (152 x 98mm). [6], 208, [4, advertisements]pp., with the emblematic frontispiece and the folding map of the Guinea coast. Some very light staining to the title-page, glue stain in the inner margin of ******, a few gatherings a little browned, map slightly creased but otherwise fine, first couple of gatherings have slipped slightly in the binding. Contemporary sprinkled sheep, covers ruled in gilt, spine with five raised bands ruled in gilt, plain endpapers, red sprinkled edges (corners slightly bumped, joints slightly split at the head and foot but holding firm).

 

London: by R. Hett, for J. Johnson, 

Very Rare. OCLC and COPAC record BL and National Library of Scotland; Huntington, Yale (Tinker), New York Public Library, Rutgers University, Harvard, Illinois, Newberry and Toronto. A second edition appeared in the same year as the first and eight further British editions appeared before 1800 along with eight America editions. Later editions appear infrequently but the first edition is remarkably rare - aside from the present copy the only other copy of the first edition recorded on Rare Book Hub was in a Sawyer catalogue in 1964 ("With frontispiece and map, post 8vo, half roan, RARE", £21). Mentioned in a list "New Books, since our last" in the Newcastle Chronicle Saturday 2nd March 1765 (priced at 2s).

 

The very rare first edition of a publishing sensation: the extraordinary (novel-like) life of John Newton who overcame illness, shipwreck, imprisonment and his own personal demons as he case aside his former horrifying life as a slave trader and turned abolitionist and leading evangelical clergyman. Newton's influential epistolary account - which "weaves together the themes of religious conversion and romantic love with his seafaring career" - ranges from the Gold Coast of Africa to the slaving plantations of America.

 

Newton's remarkable autobiography begins with an account of his early life and his great affection for his mother who taught him hymns but died when he was six years old marking the first of many personal tragedies for the young man. Newton’s father was a mariner who traded in the Mediterranean and took the young John to see from the age of eleven before he too died in 1750 when he drowned whilst acting as governor of Fort York for the Hudson’s Bay Company.

 

Newton had intended to undertake religious training but his father had planned to set him up in business as a sugar plantation owner in Jamaica but instead he was sent to sea on various voyages before being press-ganged on board HMS Harwich in the days leading up to the War of Austrian Succession (1739-84). Newton escaped from the ship but was found and treated as a deserter: "I walked through the streets guarded like a felon - My heart was full of indignation, shame, and fear. - I was confined two days in the guard-house, then sent on board my ship, kept a-while in irons, then publicly stripped and whipped." (p.50-1) Forced on a voyage to the East Indies the ship set sail for Madeira with the desperate Newton admitting: "I cast my last looks upon the English shore; I kept my eyes fixed upon it till the ship's distance encreasing, it insensibly disappeared; and when I could see it no longer, I was tempted to throw myself into the sea...But the secret hand of God restrained me" (p.53) Newton managed to inveigle his way into transferring on to a slave ship bound for Sierra Leone. Newton describes his own behaviour at this time: "I was exceedingly vile indeed...I not only sinned with a high hand myself, but made it my study to tempt and seduce others upon every occasion..." (p.64) Newton stayed on in Africa where he suffered great hardship through ill health and starvation by his master. 

 

On his eventual return to England Newton was on board the Greyhound, an English ship making the triangular route from the coast of Africa via Brazil and Newfoundland before heading for home. On this journey the ship encountered a storm which led to the begin of Newton's spiritual awakening:

 

"But now the Lord's time was come, and the conviction I was so unwilling to receive, was deeply impressed upon me...I went to bed that night in the usual security and indifference, but was awaked from a sound sleep by the force of a violent sea..."

 

Newton was employed in pumping water from the ship as it was in danger of sinking:

 

"I saw, beyond all probability, there was still hope of respite, and heard about six in the evening, that the ship was freed from water - there arose a gleam of hope. I thought I saw the hand of God displayed in our favour; I began to pray - I could not utter the prayer of faith; I could not draw near to a reconciled God, and call him father. My prayer was like the cry of the ravens, which yet the Lord does not disdain to hear...The great question now was, how to obtain faith? I speak not of an appropriating faith (of which I then knew neither the nature nor necessity), but how I should gain an assurance that the scriptures were of a divine inspiration, and a sufficient warrant for the exercise of trust and hope in God" (p.115-7)

 

This moment began Newton's remarkable conversion which would be completed when he was struck by a terrible illness while in Africa: "I continued much in prayer; I saw that the Lord had interposed so far to save me, and I hoped he would do more. The outward circumstances helped in this place to make me still more serious and earnest in crying to him who alone could relieve me; and sometimes I thought I could be content to die even for want of food, so I might be die a believer" (p.130)

 

On his return to England (in 1750) he married Mary Catlett who he had long been infatuated with and continued his own personal theological study. Newton continued to undertake voyages on slave ships after his marriage and conversion but became increasingly drawn to the teachings of George Whitefield and John and Charle Wesley. Newton wrote of this time:

 

"During the time I was engaged in the slave trade, I never had the least scruple as to its lawfulness; I was upon the whole satisfied with it, as the appointment Providence had marked out for me; yet it was, in many respects, far from eligible. It is indeed accounted a genteel employment, and is usually very profitable, though to me it did not prove so, the Lord seeing that a large increase of wealth would not be good for me. However I considered myself a a sort of Goaler or Turnkey; and I was sometimes shocked with an employment that was perpetually conversant with chains, bolts, and shackles..." (p.192)

 

"Newton has sometimes been accused of hypocrisy for holding strong religious convictions at the same time as being active in the slave trade, praying above deck while his human cargo was in abject misery below deck. He was not, however, within the orbit of evangelicals such as John Wesley, who had advanced views against slavery, until he had already left the sea. He was a typical European of his time. Later in life he had deep regrets and repented of his involvement in the traffic, supported William Wilberforce in his abolition crusade, gave evidence to the privy council, and wrote a tract supporting abolition, Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade (1787)." (ODNB).

 

Newton undertook civil service work in Liverpool and continued to devote his time to studying scripture and applying (for many years unsuccessfully) for clerical positions. 

 

"In the end that draft of his autobiography acted like a curriculum vitae, which Thomas Haweis used to introduce Newton's case to the young evangelical nobleman Lord Dartmouth. In April 1764 the earl provided a letter of introduction that pacified the bishop of Chester, Edmund Keene, when Newton needed the bishop to authenticate his letters testimonial. Lord Dartmouth also used his influence to overcome the remaining obstacles with the archbishop of York, Hay Drummond, and the bishop of Lincoln, John Green, in whose diocese the living of Olney lay—the living which Lord Dartmouth intended for Newton. At long last Newton received deacon's orders, on 29 April 1764, from the bishop of Lincoln; he was priested several weeks later on 17 June. He could fairly be said to have ended his own seven years' war. A little later that same year Newton's Authentic Narrative appeared in print and it immediately established his place as one of the leading evangelicals in the revival. It went through ten British and eight American editions before the end of the century and was quickly translated into several other languages." (ODNB).

 

"In 1767 the poet William Cowper, having recently come to evangelical convictions, settled at Olney to be near Newton. Cowper shared in the religious life of the parish and in 1771 he and Newton began to collaborate formally on a project to publish a volume of their collected hymns. It was to be a sort of mutual Festschrift, celebrating their friendship and spiritual ideals. With the onset of Cowper's third bout of serious depression in 1773, however, the whole project was cast into doubt, for from that point Cowper wrote very few more hymns. In the end Newton decided, nevertheless, to publish what they had. Many of the Olney Hymns (1779) addressed specific situations in the parish but the hymnbook became popular more widely. Newton's most famous contributions are 'Glorious things of thee are spoken', 'How sweet the name of Jesus sounds!', 'Approach, my soul, the mercy-seat', and 'Amazing grace'. The style and tone of these hymns fit somewhere between the sobriety of old dissent in Isaac Watts's Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707) and the exuberance of Wesleyan Methodism in the standard Collection of Hymns, for the Use of the People called Methodists (1780).

 

Newton's story is far from straightforward and his reputation and legacy has fluctuated much since his death. An Authentic Narrative though, is an astonishingly frank and distressing account of a tumultuous life that was formed amidst great personal tragedy, brutalised in the horrific world of the Atlantic slave trade and eventually (and incrementally) transformed into a beacon of religious fortitude and inspiration. The preface to this book notes that publication was required, "as several imperfect copies have been handed about, and there has been cause to think some surreptitious edition might steal through the press into the hands of the public", and the clamour for the text would continue even after publication. As D. Bruce Hindmarsh notes in the ODNB the earliest drafts of An Authentic Narrative served as Newton's curriculum vitae and essentially forced his way into the established church. Newton's relationship and work with Cowper (founded on Cowper's reading of the book) is a testament to the inspirational qualities of the story and "Amazing grace" remains one of the most famous hymns ever written.

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• Provenance: Mary Ann Johnson, contemporary signature on the front pastedown. 

Stock Code: 252397