"alienation of affection" can be found well before [1861] and 1867

[Joel S. Berson]

During my bedtime reading of Mather's "Tremenda" (1721), I also came
across "alienation of affection", which OED2 has from [1861] and
1867.  So I checked Google Books, and found many before then (but not
"Tremenda"), the earliest being 1647 -- and 9 more between 1647 and 1712.

"Alienation of affection" antedates OED2 "alienation" sense 1.b.
[1861], 1867--.

1)  1647 --

"He layeth another grosse aspersion upon us, in saying, _There was
distance and alienation of affection betweene_ Plimouth _and the_
Massachusets _at their first comming, each thinking I am holier then
thou: and as if wee were now united on purpose to scatter them_."

Edward Winslow
Hyocrisie Unmasked
1646.  [Probably Old Style; see below.]
In -- Burt Franklin: Research & Source Works Series 312, American
Classics in History & Social Science 60.  Originally published 1916;
reprinted 1968.  [GBooks]
Page 84.

ESTC identifies this as "London : printed by Rich. Cotes for John
Bellamy at the three Golden Lions in Cornhill, neare the Royall
Exchange, 1646 [i.e. 1647?]" and notes "Actual publication date
inferred from wording in title: 'November last, 1646.'"


2)  1721 --

"That they who should be, to one another, the Desire of their Eyes,
come to hate the Sight, and seek the Death of one another!---My
Friends, Take heed of all Discord, and watch against all Tendencies
to any Alienation of Affection from One another If once you Give
place to the Devil, You know not how it will terminate; what he may
drag you to!"

[This is in a sermon delivered on the occasion of the execution of a
wife-murder, one would suppose alienated from affection for her.]

Sermon delivered May 25, 1721.
Cotton Mather.
Tremenda. The Dreadful Sound with Which the Wicked are to be Thunderstruck.
Boston: Printed by B. Green, for B. Gray and J. Edwards, 1721.  [EAI]
Page 25.


Joel

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