Abednego Seller 1646/7-1705

Abednego SELLER 1646/7-1705

Biographical Note

Son of Richard Seller of Plymouth. Matriculated at Lincoln College, Oxford 1662, but did not graduate. Rector of Combeintegnhead, Devon 1682, vicar of St Charles, Plymouth 1686; deprived as a nonjuror 1689. He published numerous devotional and historical works, as well as ones in support of the nonjuring position.

Books

Edward Bernard's Catalogi manuscriptorum, 1697, lists Seller as owning 22 manuscripts. Some of his books were destroyed in a fire in 1700 but Thomas Hearne noted that he had owned a "vast number" of books; he also had a collection of ca.200 coins.. In his will, Seller made a number of specific bequests concerning books: a William of Malmesbury manuscript to the Bodleian Library; a set of Byzantine histories to Lincoln College; an Edward Herbert manuscript to John Woodward; and a copy of Geographia sacra and a quarto English Bible to Josiah King. He directed that all his "papers, sermons, adversaria and manuscripts (except such manuscripts as are fairly transcribed from other copies" to be privately burnt. The rest of his library would have been part of the residue of his estate, which his executors were to sell "with all convenient speed" for the benefit of his granddaughters.

Characteristic Markings

None of Seller's books have been identified.

Sources

• Will of Abednego Seller, The National Archives PROB 11/482/137.
• Handley, Stuart. '"Seller, Abednego (1646/7–1705), nonjuring Church of England clergyman and religious writer."' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.