Author: DEFOE (Daniel):
Title: Religious courtship: Being historical discourses on the Necessity of Marrying Religious Husbands and Wives being of the same Opinions in Religion with one another. With an Appendix of the Necessity of taking none but Religious Servants, and a Proposal for the better Managing of Servants. The AEighth Edition.
Description: London, Printed for J. Hodges..., MDCCLVI/ 1756, 12mo, 160 x 98 mms, pp. [viii], 351 [352 blank and inscribed in an early hand, "Anna Lowe/ [Fulham]/ Derbyshire"], engraved frontispiece, and Ms. Lowe's name again on the recto of the front free end-paper, bound in what looks like 18th century linen (soiled); several leaves of text sprung, frontispiece and title-page a little soiled, text fingered, along with other marks of having been read more than once. First published in 1722, Defoe's work is, writes Paula Backscheider, in her Oxford DNB entry, "is a lively set of stories advising young couples on avoiding cheats and selecting virtuous partners. In it a father formerly 'hurried in the world' has retired to his home with his three unmarried daughters, and his business is to marry them well. Defoe develops a list of questions that young women should ask, because, as he says in most of the conduct books and several novels, the 'hazard' is chiefly on the woman's side. This word and his plots highlight the gamble that marriage is, and Defoe's questions are an attempt to increase the rationality of the decision. Published a month after Moll Flanders and eleven months before Col. Jack, it outlines marriage themes and recommendations that the novels dramatize." ESTC N47548 locates only one copy, at Boston Public Library. This edition not in Moore, but see Moore 448.

Keywords: marriage religion


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