Calcott, Wellins. A CANDID DISQUISITION OF THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES OF THE MOST ANCIENT AND HONOURABLE SOCIETY OF FREE AND ACCEPTED MASONS…. London: printed for the Author and so by J. Hutchison, 1770. 8vo. [4], xxxii, 243, [1] pp., with errata to title verso and at end of subscribers list. Period 1/4 calf over marbled boards, nicely rebacked with label lettered in gilt. ************ Second issue, with cancel title dated 1770 (replacing the one dated 1769.) The nineteenth-century masonic historian Albert Mackey (Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Vol. I) wrote of Calcott that "it is a romantic fact... that words written down in 1750 or 1760 by this only half-known, gentle, much wandering man, two or three times described in Lodge Minutes as `in unfortunate circumstances,' should afterwards be on the tongues of millions of men who have never so much as heard his name!" ESTC records only the McMaster University copy of this 1770 issue. The List of Subscribers at the front is quite lengthy, and the subscribers to the 1772 issue would include the likes of Paul Revere.

Corners worn and board rubbed. Contents clean overall with only occasional very minor foxing or similar minor blemishes, a few leaves with very short closed tears to margins. Very Good.