£150
12mo, pp. [vi], 205, [3, ads] + frontispiece and 5 plates. Contemporary brown boards. Some scattered toning, ad leaves to rear a little waterstained. Sometime rebacked in black calf, spine divided by raised bands and tooled and lettered direct in gilt, endpapers renewed, boards soiled and worn with some areas of loss to paper covering, leather dampmarked.
A scarce juvenile work by Quaker author Priscilla Wakefield (1750-1832). 'Domestic Recreation, or, Dialogues Illustrative of Natural and Scientific Subjects (1805) features a mother and her daughters talking about such topics as the human eye, rainbows, and sea anemones. When the daughters wonder how to spend their time one rainy evening mother replies: 'None but the idle need want employment: there is always a great variety of pursuits, that are both useful and agreeable, for those who are disposed to fill their leisure properly'.' (ODNB). Library Hub records 3 holdings of this 1813 reprint, although it claims 4 plates and a frontispiece where this copy has 5, quite properly, being the same 5 plates from the 1805 first edition.
