A book containing a series of "Tracts" written about the life and death of Puritan Minister Joseph Alleine.

I found this book for sale on Ebay and couldn’t resist buying it in order to learn more about this ancestor who obviously made such a dramatic impact on Christian society. The book is a very small, leather bound volume with no title, author, or printer information listed on the cover or inside of it. It is 3 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches. A glued down leather cover obscured the original cover, and the first two pages are missing. It starts on page "iii" with the Preface, which is dated May 1827.

As far as the printing date of the book goes, I don’t believe it is as old as the preface date would have one to believe. The leather on the lower spine has come off revealing red paper and cardboard covering instead of the cloth that had been usually found covering books prior to WWII. In a corner of the cover, the leather has loosed enough to show a piece of what looks like marbleized paper glued over the red binding. The marbleized paper has very small typing on it, but it looks like the writing was already there before the paper was glued down onto the book since part of it is cut off. It is a list of names, followed by the word "agent" and a city. "Charles Pine, Agent, Pensacola" is the last readable name closest to where the paper was cut. String and glue is used to bind the inside pages, which are yellowed, brittle, and water damaged. The first several pages are loose and some are torn. The only other identifying marks belong to the various libraries and societies that had owned the book. There are several faded indecipherable pencil marks along with the words S.S. library, no. 40, no. 21, no 251, and Iowa City University hand written in ink. There is also the number 12816 stamped on the first page of the preface and on page 19, and the works "State Historical Society" written with little dots punched into the page also on page 19.

As stated, the book doesn’t list an author, but in a 1911 edition of an old encyclopedia, the author of the article about Joseph Alleine cites as among his sources a book entitled "Life" which he ascribes as being edited by "Baxter." No dates or other publication information is given. Since the first word at the top of the first page at the beginning of this book is "Life" with no other words on the same line, perhaps this is the book referred to in that 1911 encyclopedia.

I have copied the book word for word including the original spellings, although my word processor’s spell check complained bitterly the whole time. I apologize in advance for any mistakes and/or transpositions that might have occurred during transcription.

Teresa Terry

May 6th, 2003