29. Penn (William).- Bible, German. Das ganz Neuw Testament, presentation copy from William Penn to John Penington, woodcut device on title, some water-staining, a few upper margins trimmed just touching text, contemporary blind-stamped calf over wooden boards, worn, rebacked, lacking clasps, 16mo, Zurich, bey Christoffel Froschower, 1584.
est. £1500 – £2000
A fine association copy. The inscription on front free endpaper, probably in John Penington’s hand, reads: “Ex dono Affinis charisimi Guli. Penn tenet Joh. Penington. Anno 1685”.
John Penington (1655-1710), Quaker apologist and controversialist was the son of Isaac Penington (1616-79), the friend of George Fox and William Penn, and his wife Mary Springett, née Proude, the spiritual autobiographer. After his father’s death in 1679, Penington wrote his tribute in colleboration with other Quaker leaders including his mother, and then directed much of his later writing to vindicating his father and other Quaker authors. He was particularly active in attacking George Keith, who had fallen out with the Pennsylvania Quakers in the early 1690s. Penington responded to Keith’s criticisms of Penn, by pointing out Keith’s own inconsistencies and entitled one work Keith against Keith, or, Some More of George Keith’s Contradictions and Absurdities, 1696. Penington is buried at the Quaker burial-ground at Jordans in Buckinghamshire.