{"id":968,"date":"2025-09-06T18:58:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T22:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/?p=968"},"modified":"2025-11-19T19:58:41","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T00:58:41","slug":"winter-evening-conference-between-neighbors-1686","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/winter-evening-conference-between-neighbors-1686\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Evening Conference Between Neighbours (1686)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"metaslider-id-961\" style=\"width: 100%;\" class=\"ml-slider-3-100-0 metaslider metaslider-flex metaslider-961 ml-slider ms-theme-default-base has-dots-nav\" role=\"region\" aria-label=\"Winter Evening Conference\" data-height=\"700\" data-width=\"700\">\n    <div id=\"metaslider_container_961\">\n        <div id=\"metaslider_961\">\n            <ul aria-live='polite' class='slides'>\n                <li style=\"display: block; width: 100%;\" class=\"slide-965 ms-image \" aria-roledescription=\"slide\" data-date=\"2025-09-06 18:50:37\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1766\" src=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8177-scaled.jpeg\" class=\"slider-961 slide-965 msDefaultImage\" alt=\"\" rel=\"\" title=\"IMG_8177\" style=\"margin-top: 15.5078125%\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8177-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8177-300x207.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8177-1024x707.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8177-768x530.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8177-1536x1060.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8177-2048x1413.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/li>\n                <li style=\"display: none; width: 100%;\" class=\"slide-966 ms-image \" aria-roledescription=\"slide\" data-date=\"2025-09-06 18:50:37\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2482\" src=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8181-scaled.jpeg\" class=\"slider-961 slide-966 msDefaultImage\" alt=\"\" rel=\"\" title=\"IMG_8181\" style=\"margin-top: 1.5234375%\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8181-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8181-300x291.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8181-1024x993.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8181-768x745.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8181-1536x1489.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8181-2048x1986.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/li>\n                <li style=\"display: none; width: 100%;\" class=\"slide-967 ms-image \" aria-roledescription=\"slide\" data-date=\"2025-09-06 18:50:38\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2246\" height=\"1878\" src=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8183.jpeg\" class=\"slider-961 slide-967 msDefaultImage\" alt=\"\" rel=\"\" title=\"IMG_8183\" style=\"margin-top: 8.1923419412288%\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8183.jpeg 2246w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8183-300x251.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8183-1024x856.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8183-768x642.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8183-1536x1284.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_8183-2048x1712.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2246px) 100vw, 2246px\" \/><\/li>\n            <\/ul>\n        <\/div>\n        \n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Title: Winter Evening Conference Between Neighbours<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Author: John Goodman<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Printed by J.M. for R. Royston<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Estimated year of printing: 1686<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Printed in the 17th century, this is my earliest example of a \u201cmoral guidance\u201d book.&nbsp; I love books on etiquette and moral guidance, as they are time capsules of attitudes and opinions from past eras.&nbsp; Where similar books from the 1700s and 1800s would have chapters on specific topics, this one is especially interesting because it\u2019s written as a series of conversations between several characters.&nbsp; Believed to make complex topics more approachable, the downside is that it has a tendency being very verbose, interspersed with pleasantries, and lacking any easy way to find specific topics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Written anonymously by John Goodman, an English clergyman and author, this book covers topics such as religion, morality, and philosophy.&nbsp; It spends a great deal of time warning against&nbsp; gambling, with no worries about being overly dramatic:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cDiversions of this nature having so much of chance and surprise in them, do generally too much raise the passions of Men, which it were fitter by all arts and endeavors to charm and suppress. . . .to say nothing of the usual accidents of common Gaming-Houses which. . . . are the most lively Pictures of Hell upon Earth, and where it is ordinary for Men to rave, swear, curse, and blaspheme as if the Devil was indeed amongst them, or the Men were transformed into infernal spirits.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Coming from a more agricultural era, the book references winter as a time for growth, since men can focus on themselves rather than farm: <em>\u201cWhen the Fields lie dead, and admit of no Husbandry, I then can cultivate the little Garden of my own Soul.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The publisher, Richard Royston (1601 &#8211; 1686) is notable in his own right.&nbsp; During and after the English Civil War, he was notorious for publishing anti-parliament works, and was jailed and punished while parliament was in power.&nbsp; Ten days after the beheading of Charles I, Royston published the first edition of <em>Eikon Basilike <\/em>(1649), the purported \u201cspiritual autobiography\u201d of Charles I which portrayed him as a martyr.&nbsp; When Charles II came into power, he made Royston the official bookseller of the King.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Historical context:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1687, shortly after this book was published, Isaac Newton\u2019s <em>Principia<\/em> was published, introducing his laws of motion and gravitation, and accelerating the Scientific Revolution.&nbsp; In 1688, England\u2019s \u201cGlorious Revolution\u201d involved an armed invasion by the Dutch resulting in the exile of the Catholic King James II and began the reign of his Protestant daughter, Queen Mary II.&nbsp; Meanwhile in the new American colonies, the Salem Witch Trials would soon occur in 1692.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Further reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.podibooks.com\/es\/libro\/a-winter-evening-conference-between-neighbors_2006625\" title=\"\">PodiBooks<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblio.com\/book\/winter-evening-conference-between-neighbours-two\/d\/1335716262\" title=\"\">Biblio<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Richard_Royston\" title=\"\">Richard Royston &#8211; Wikipedia<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Eikon_Basilike\" title=\"\">Eikon Basilike &#8211; Wikipedia<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/stream\/bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_a-winter-evening-confere_goodman-john_1694_0\/bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_a-winter-evening-confere_goodman-john_1694_0_djvu.txt\" title=\"\">Full text at archive.org<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Acquired August, 2025<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An early example of a moral guidance book, framed as a conversation between multiple characters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[63,42],"class_list":["post-968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-commentary","tag-highlight"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=968"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":993,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions\/993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}