CASTAING ( John )

An Interest-Book, at four, five, six, seven, eight per cent. From thousand pound, to one pound. For one day, to ninety two days ; and for three, six, nine, twelve monhs. To which is added, tables of compound interest and annuities, &c. The ninth edition, exactly examined.

      FIRST IRISH EDITION(?), pp (6), 174, (18), 12mo, old half calf, rubbed, old rebacking in cloth : a small, faint, stamp in three places, otherwise a strongly bound and very good copy. The first and only Irish printing : ESTC locates two copies : D and Du - none in UK or USA. The first edition was published at London in 1700 (Wing C 1217a) and was frequently reprinted. ESTC locates a copy at the BL of a 1706 London printing for the Dublin bookseller John Gill, but the 1724 Dublin printing is the first edition printed in Dublin recorded there. The blank margins of the section of tables for six per cent interest have been tabbed with manuscript numbers keyed to specific days in the loan cycle. Castaing co-edited the London financial paper, 'The Course of the Exchange, and Other Things', from 1701 to April 30 1725. All editions are very scarce. Kress lists the 1712 third edition, and postulates - incorrectly - that the first edition also appeared that year. In our copy, the first gathering appears to have been incorrectly composed or bound, with the preliminary blank following the title-page, and pages 3/4 and 5/6 reversed. Not in Higgs, Goldsmiths' or Black.