Bees.- Purchas (Samuel) A Theatre of Politicall Flying-Insects. Wherein Especially the Nature, the Worth, the Work, the Wonder and the manner of Right-ordering of the Bee, is Discovered and Described, 2 parts in 1, first edition, titles within typographic borders, woodcut initials, errata leaf c2 misbound before c1, without longitudinal half-title but with 3pp. advertisements at end of part 1 and blank leaf following title to part 2, Penelope Jephson's copy with her contemporary ink inscription "Penelope Jephson her Booke 1666" to front free endpaper facing title, title lightly soiled and stained, some worming (mostly at beginning affecting lower border of title & a few catchwords, and a few letters towards end), Rr1 & 2 torn and repaired at lower outer corner, contemporary sheep ruled in blind, a little worn and marked, rebacked with red morocco label, corners repaired, [British Bee Books 35; Hagen 55.2; Wing P4224], small 4to, Printed by R[obert] I[bbitson] for Thomas Parkhurst, 1657.

⁂ A good copy of this work by the son of the author of Purchas his Pilgrimes, with an interesting contemporary provenance.

Penelope Jephson (1646-1725), daughter of Maj. Gen. William Jephson (1609-1658), M.P. for Stockbridge and a substantial landowner in Mallow, County Cork. She married Simon Patrick, a prebend of Westminster and later bishop of Ely, in 1675. The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC owns a manuscript receipt book of cookery and medical recipes complied by Jephson between 1671 and 1675. Recipe 64 is for honeyed gingerbread similar to modern Anglo-American treacle/molasses gingerbread.