Vice Unmasked. An Essay Being a Consideration of the Influence of Law Upon the Moral Essence of Man With Other Reflections.
GRAYSON, P.W. Vice Unmasked. Published by George H. Evans, For the Author, 1830.
First Edition, "Vice Unmasked'' American Imprints, Scarce!
GRAYSON, P.W. Vice Unmasked. An Essay Being a Consideration of the Influence of Law Upon the Moral Essence of Man With Other Reflections. Published by George H. Evans, For the Author. New York, 1830. First edition. American Imprints (1830), 1661. Octavo. [2, blanks], [i-iv], [2p, inserted catalog], [v], vi-viii, 2-168pp. Complete. Rebound in contemporary half red morocco over royal blue cloth boards, ruled in gilt on spine. Marbled purple and white endpapers. Bound with half title, title, and inserted advert. Binding cracked along spine extremities, although internally sound, tips bumped and rubbed, previous owner's contemporary pencil notations on verso of front free endpapers, some foxing to mostly margins, small oxidation spot to lower inner margins of pages 161-168. Overall, a very unattractive binding of a very important and scarce book. The Author, Peter Wagener Grayson (1788-1838), was an attorney, poet, soldier, legislator, and active in Texas from 1830, where he held several important positions before and after the Revolution (see Handbook of Texas). David Grimsted, "Rioting in its Jacksonian Setting" (American Historical Review, Vol. 77, No. 2, April 1872, pp. 371-372): "Vice Unmasked presents most coherently the intellectual structure of uneasiness with the law that ran through Jacksonian life. Grayson was unenthusiastic about law because he considered it the greatest obstacle to the realization of the promise of American life." Conclusion: "Man will never be virtuous, until his interests instruct him to be so." p. 168, Vice Unmasked.
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