Duke- The Druidical Temples in the County of Wilts - Edward Duke (1846) [Inscribed by Author]

Edward DUKE. The Druidical Temples in the County of Wilts. London: John Russell Smith, MDCCCXLVI [1846]. 

(190 x 110 mm) p. viii, 203, [2], 28 + three foldouts. Interior near fine, showing charming evidence of the pages having been cut. Some slight separation between  some gatherings. Yellow fly leaves and pastedown. Bookplate of Ernest Shackleton on front pastedown with his initials handwritten behind the bookplate. Bound in brown cloth with ornamental stamping. Gilt title on side with 5 s price. Some bubbling to cloth but not significant. Overall VERY GOOD.

The second fly leaf contains an inscription from Reverend Edward Duke: To Johnathan Rashleigh, Esq. with the Author's Kind Regards, March 24, 1846

The book is the complicated synthesis of the 19^th century’s attempt to revisit a pre-Christian past through the lens of Christianity and science, with the aid of the heavily biased archeology of the time. Reverend Edward Duke (1779-1852) remarks on the origins of Druidism, archeological sites in Wiltshire, paying significant attention to Avebury and Stonehenge. In the same year that this book was published, and that Duke inscribed it to the Cornish noble, Jonathan Rashleigh, Esq., Duke also proposed that ancient sacred sites may have been constructed with significant alignment-- an idea that would later be known as ley lines. 

The bookplate features a well-known name: that of E. H. Shackleton. While it is tempting to consider a connection to the Antartic explorer, this is not his bookplate.