12mo. 29pp, [7]. With a woodcut frontispiece and a further seven woodcut illustrations in the text. Original publisher's printed buff wrappers. Wrappers included in pagination. Extremities a trifle rubbed. Early inked gift inscription to verso of upper wrapper.

The second located copy of the first edition, preserved in original state, of prolific children's author Mary Martha Sherwood's (1775-1851) immensely popular pastoral narrative concerning an ungodly young orphan boy, who, fond of torturing insects - in particular 'humbuzzes' - is ultimately led to a life of Christian devotion following an encounter with a clergyman who chastises the boys cruelty towards God's creation through a thinly veiled reference to the stigmata:

'How should you like me now to take out my penknife, and thrust it through your hand? And yet you have cause these little insects to suffer as mush as you would suffer, if a sharp instrument were forced through one of your limbs'.

COPAC records a single copy (Oxford); OCLC adds no further.