12mo. [4], 168pp, [8]. With four terminal leaves of publisher's advertisements. Original publisher's red roan-backed marbled paper boards, ruled and lettered in gilt. Rubbed and marked, loss to head of spine, corners exposed. Early inked ownership inscription of John Johnstone to FEP, without free-endpapers, scattered spotting. William St Clair's copy, with his distinctive pencilled ownership inscription and manuscript note to FEP: 'Could this be Godwin's Rural Walks? Note the advertisement for his Scripture Histories. Not in Osborne, BL, Bodleian, CVL, or NUC'.

The sole edition of a work intended for the instruction of children, consisting of eleven pedestrian excursions to Hampstead, Highgate, Richmond, Kew, Grove- Hill, Norwood, Twickenham, Edmonton, Muswell-Hill, Amwell and Waltham Abbey, during which a father educates his young sons in the wonders of creation.

In his succinct manuscript note, St Clair tentatively suggests that this may be William Godwin's Rural Walks, a title which appears in the publisher's records but of which no copy appears extant.

William St Clair (1937-2021), British scholar and senior civil servant, notable as the author of The Godwins and the Shelleys, The Biography of a Family (1989) and The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (2004).

OCLC record copies at seven locations (BL, California, Florida, Miami, NYPL, Oxford, and Toronto); COPAC adds no further.