8vo. viii, 544pp. Original publisher's blind-stamped green cloth, lettered in gilt. Rubbed, joints starting, chipping to head and foot of spine, a trifle cocked. Endpapers browned, early bookseller's description pasted to FEP, scattered foxing.

The first edition of novelist and controversialist William Winwood Reade's (1838-1875) elaborate and learned impeachment of Christianity from a historical and ethnological standpoint. This book, which has been described as a 'bible for secularists', defies easy categorization. According to Reade, his original intention was to restore Africa to a central place in world history through a consideration of such themes as the role of Islam, the history of the slave trade, and the evolution of mankind. The book which actually emerged is a somewhat romantic study in universal history, treating the evolution of civilizations in the Mediterranean and the Near East in terms of the impact of war, religion, liberty, and the intellect on human life. Reade's militant agnosticism is manifest in his provocative account of the role of science in the modern world, in which Christianity itself is dismissed as the product of a passing age of superstition. Such sentiments were too radical for the orthodox press. Yet, despite unfavourable reviews, the book was to sell extremely well.