1821 The Return to Nature; or, A Defence of the Vegetable Regimen

Description

Very Scarce

A vanishingly scarce contemporary edition of John Frank Newton's important work.

First published in 1811, this edition appeared as No. XXXVIII in Vol. XIX of 'The Pamphleteer', and here appears unbound.

A pioneering work on vegetarianism, in his work Newton explains his view that the natural food of man is vegetables, and that animal flesh is unhealthy. In his work, he uses personal anecdotes and explains that many members of his household adopted the diet for between three and four years prior to the publication of the work.

The work influenced fellow vegetarian Percy Bysshe Shelley, providing the basis of his 'A Vindication of the Natural Diet', and prompting Mary Shelley's depiction of the Creature as a herbivore in 'Frankenstein'.

With the stamp of the pamphlet collection of the British Library to the verso of the title page.

One of the more unusual claims in the work is that a vegetarian diet may eradicate syphilis.