12mo. iv, 135pp, [3]. With one, of two, terminal leaves of publisher's advertisements. Contemporary green vellum-tipped marbled paper boards, recently rebacked. Boards worn. Late nineteenth century loan label of Worcester Public Library to FEP, manuscript note tot title '3 days' - presumably the length of time the book could be borrowed, occasional browning and spotting, inked annotation 'Revd. W Cunningham' to final page of text.

A rare satirical novel, in the manner of Voltaire's Candide, and involving a lost race, designed to rouse attention to the care of the soul, by evangelical clergyman John William Cunningham (1780-1861).

An unusual philosophical allegory, the narrative involves a voyage the city of 'O.' inhabited by a mysterious race of soulless people who were 'a kind of connecting link, between man and monkey'. The protagonists, a young man named Gustavus, and an elderly philosopher styled simply 'M.', depart their idyllic home in Switzerland to examine the customs of the inhabitants of 'O.' They observe the city's entertainments, visit a 'madhouse', and, in a notable incident, attend a meeting of the senate. Here, the debate already begun, Gustavus attempts to discover the object of the speaker who first declares: 'What grounds of complaint are there, when twenty inches are allowed for the stowage of each?' Initially Gustavus believes he must be referring to bales of goods or perhaps livestock, but he is soon disabused of this notion when M. identifies the speaker as 'A friend, or a representative of slave-dealers', and the cargo of which he speaks as 'men who by birth are Africans, and whom frequently the most complicated villainy makes slaves'. There follows a discussion between the pair in which it is resolved that any man who could traffic slaves must surely be without a soul. The Christian Observer (September, 1805, p.543) received the work favourably: 'With much regret we quit this little volume, which, in spite of lesser faults, has highly gratified us. We have no doubt that it will become popular as it becomes known. For truth, novelty, vivacity, and feeling, it will rank high among the productions of the day. Time must determine whether its ideas are sufficiently abstract ed from localities to give it a lasting existence.'

OCLC records copies at just six locations (BL, Chicago, LoC, NYPL, Texas and Yale); COPAC adds no further.