8vo. xv, [1], 225pp, [1]. With half-title. Contemporary blind-panelled calf, lettered in gilt to spine, A.E.G. Rubbed and marked, some surface wear to boards and edges, slight loss to head of spine. Armorial bookplate of Christopher Cole to FEP, occasional light spotting.

The sixth edition of a highly successful collection of sermons by Henrietta Maria Bowdler (1750-1830), English religious writer and literary expurgator. Published anonymously, the volume reached nearly 50 editions, and was acclaimed by Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London, who believed it was written by a clergyman. Alongside her brother, physician Thomas Bowdler, Henrietta Bowdler published the first expurgated edition of Shakespeare's works, The Family Shakspeare (1807), from which around ten percent of the original scripts had been excised due to perceived lewd or indecent content. The term 'bowdlerisation', meaning to purge a work of anything deemed unsightly or inappropriate, was coined based on the work of the siblings.