pre-1777 NEW ENGLAND PRIMER. Unrecorded Edition Fragment with Unrecorded Woodcut.

A fragment, but a wonderful little piece of Americana. After a fair amount of research and in communication with the American Antiquarian Society [AAS], we have here what appears to be a previously unrecorded edition of the New-England Primer embellished with a previously unrecorded Colonial-American variant of "The Burning of Mr. John Rogers" woodcut. We have consulted Elizabeth Reilly's Dictionary of Colonial American Printer's Ornaments and Illustrations as well as the holdings of the American Antiquarian Society itself and trace no similar example on record. Reilly records 15 variants of the John Rogers woodcut in various settings, but this is not among them, the present certainly appearing more like the earlier, Colonial-era iterations.  The present is believed [in consultation with the AAS] to be pre-1777 and also more than likely a Colonial American imprint rather than British. The AAS catalogue of pre-1777 New England Primers lists 46 editions. This does not appear to be any of