Exceptionally rare signed book: Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time, Volume I. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1823. Hardcover, 5.5 x 8.75, 601 pages. Signed and inscribed on an East India College partly-printed bookplate affixed to the front pastedown in black ink, “Awarded to Gilbert Malcolm as first of his class in History, T. Rob’t Malthus, Prof’r,” and dated 1830. Autographic condition: fine, with mild scattered toning to the bookplate. Book condition: VG/None (with repaired hinges).
Malthus taught as a professor of history and political economy at East India College from 1805 until his death in 1834, where his students affectionately referred to him as ‘Pop,’ a nickname derived from his controversial 1798 essay on population growth. Gilbert Burnet began writing A History of My Own Time in 1683, with the final work covering the period from the English Civil War to the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. This would have indeed been an appropriate gift for a scholar who finished with the highest rank in his history class.
