8vo. [2], 8pp. Recent blind-ruled calf, lettered in gilt to upper board. Original publisher's powder blue wrappers bound in. Label (dated 1986) to FEP of the Robert Raikes Reference Library at Gloucester, later paper repair to upper wrapper, inked annotation to REP: 'Purchased at sale of Mark Skillicone's books, march 1936. Roland Austin(?)'.

A rare survival of Gloucester-based printer and topographer Samuel Rudder's (bap. 1726, d. 1801) prospectus for publishing, by subscription, a revised edition of the established history of his county, Sir Robert Atkyns's Ancient and Present State of Glostershire (1712). The following year William Herbert, a London bookseller with whom Rudder had earlier discussed a collaborative effort, published an unrevised second edition of Atkyns at a lower subscription than that at which his was advertised ('two guineas and a half') and 'hurried to the press to come out before [Rudder's] new history could be finished' (Gloucester Journal, 12th Sept 1768). This setback to his plans led Rudder into a public controversy with Herbert, but also ensured that his work would be more ambitious than first planned, a truly new history of the county. It took him twelve years to complete. A New History of Gloucestershire, which had Rudder's name on the title-page only as printer, was published in June 1779.

ESTC records two copies at a single location in the British Isles (Oxford), and one further in North America (Huntington).