WITH 61 ENGRAVINGS; NO COPY IN AUCTION RECORDS. 8vo. [17 x 10 cm]. (8), 120 pp, signed (A)4, B12, C12, D12, E12, F12. With engraved frontispiece signed by Charles Grignion after Samuel Wale, and 60 half-page engravings in text. Bound in contemporary gilt-ruled calf, rebacked. Leaf (A)1 containing engraved blank ex-libris has been pasted directly onto the pastedown (as in other copies) and was presumably issued as such from the binder’s workshop. It has been completed here in manuscript “For my God Daughter from ????”. Priced in a contemporary hand on verso of frontispiece, 2/6. Very rare sole edition of this curious, well-illustrated pedagogical work intended for both young readers and new coverts to Christianity abroad. Through a series of 60 half-page engravings (and frontispiece), the reader is guided through the sometimes violent imagery of the New Testament, including The Beheading of John the Baptist; The Stoning of St, Stephen; and in particular the fabulous apocalyptic visions of the Four Horsemen etc. in the Book of St. John (comprising the last ten plates, #s LI-LX). The engraved dedication to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts recommends the work “as a means to facilitate the Instruction of Children, and of those who, through the mission of your Society, are called to the Light of the Gospel”. Matthew 19:14 is appropriately illustrated in the frontispiece: “But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.”. The ESTC shows that the present work is remarkably rare in census, recording just two copies in UK libraries (BL and Oxford) and 2 in the US (UCLA, Southern Mississippi), as well as a copy in the Osborne Collection of Children’s Literature at the Toronto Public Library. No copy appears in auction records of the last 50 years. * ESTC N29139; Osborne Vol II, 751.