The Origin of Primitive Superstitions. And their development into the worship of spirits and the doctrine of spiritual agency among the aborigines of America.

Philadelphia, PA, J. B. Lippincott, 1881. 8vo (23.0 x 15.1 cm). 398 pp.; 21 numbered text-engravings, five plates of which four originally hand-coloured, including a tissue-guarded frontispiece (= Plate I), Original dark brown buckram. Spine with red lines, gilt pictorial vignette and title; boards with red border; front board with pictorial gilt vignette. Dark green endpapers. = An excellent copy of the first edition of a rare work on North American indigenous religions. The illustrations are truly excellent. Rushton Mather Dorman (1849-after 1910) was an American scholar, book collector and antiquarian who lived in Chicago. His 4,000-volume library was sold at auction in New York in 1886. His library included Americana; ethnology; philosophy; Oriental literature; Greek and Latin; European mythology; Hebrew and Christian theology; occultism; chivalry and heraldry; poetry, drama, and music; European history and biography; and miscellaneous literature. Provenance: Frederick Broughton, probably of Brecon, South Wales (his armorial bookplate on the front pastedown), the Reverend E. A. Shattock of Kenley (handwritten dedication, dated August 16, 1927, on the frontispiece blank verso). One text leaf with a minor, marginal paper flaw (binding error), small ink smudge in one text leaf margin, otherwise fine. Very rare. No auction records after 1920.