The working-man's companion: containing the Results of Machinery, Cottage Evenings, and the Rights of Industry. Addressed to working-men
New York: Leavitt & Allen, [between 1852 and 1863]. Hardcover. 3 volumes in 1 (216, 215, 213 pages), illustrations, tables. Good. Bound in red publisher’s cloth, gilt stamped spine title and ornaments; blind stamped on front and rear covers. Former owner’s inscription on front flyleaf: “Mr. Emmanuel B. Miller, Limerick Square, Montgomery Co., Pennsylvania, Dec. 9th, 1856.” Date of publication, given incorrectly in Checklist of American Imprints as 1831, is based on the publisher’s years of activity (see American Antiquarian Society Library catalog). Minor foxing on leaves throughout.
Collected works on economics and labor addressed to working class readers. "Results of Machinery" was among the most popular and bestselling works by the British publisher and author Charles Knight. In it, Knight, writing in 1831 in a response critical of the Swing Riots protesting agricultural mechanization in southern and eastern England, argues that automation and mechanization in fact benefit working people by reducing the cost of goods and increasing the supply of jobs. Shortly after in that same year, the first part of “Rights of Industry,” entitled “Capital and Labour,” was published. Though intended to be a multi-part work, only the first part was completed and published. Sandwiched between these two is an instructional work concerned, like much of Knight’s work, with self-improvement of working class folk. Numerous chapters with advice on saving money, saving time, and moral tales on Alfred the Great and Benjamin Franklin. All works were first published by Charles Knight in London and by Carey & Hart in Philadelphia in 1831. They appear here together in one volume for the first time with a new collective title page and modified individual title pages (with a new imprint and a caption referring to the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge removed). Otherwise, a comparison of the 1831 Carey & Hart edition and the present Leavitt & Allen edition show the main text was printed from the same plates; further, there are several instances of type damage in the Leavitt & Allen sustained by over more than two decades of use, storage, transport, and re-use. Carey & Hart ceased operations in 1849; Leavitt & Allen was active from 1852 to about 1863, closing shop due to a national financial crisis during the Civil War.
Cat.No: 3679
Price: $225.00