The Polite Academy; or, School of behavior for young gentlemen and ladies. Intended as a foundation for good manners and polite address

London / Salisbury: Darton and Harvey, B. Crosby / B.C. Collins, 1790. Very Good. London: Printed for Darton and Harvey, B. Crosby, and B.C. Collins. By B.C. Collins, Salisbury, n.d., ca. 1790s. Tenth Edition. Small 12mo (11.5cm.); full 19th-century crimson gilt-tooled straight-grained morocco by R.W. Smith, gilt spine in six compartments, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers, blue laid flyleaves; 145,[1]pp.; twelve leaves of engraved copper plates (bound without final blank else collated complete). Leather a bit rubbed along margins, small chip mid-spine and at spine foot, one plate separated but present, ownership rubber-stamp of an Alexander Gardyne (truncated) dated 1883 on title page verso, else a Very Good, straight and sound copy.

Enormously popular and now quite rare in any edition, "The Polite Academy" provides a guide to its adolescent readers on how to adopt "genteel Behavior and agreeable Complaisance," as well as how to carry oneself while walking, how to salute and curtsey, and how to dance the minuet. The text also devotes rather extensive real estate to the story of Beauty and the Beast after the fairy tale of Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, first published in France in 1740.

ESTC T155219. (Inventory #: 32438)