Working-Man's Companion:. Containing the Results of Machinery, Cottage Evenings, and the Rights of Industry.
New York: Leavitt & Allen, 1850.
Early American Collected Edition
[KNIGHT, Charles]. [CONOLLY, John]. The Working-Man's Companion: Containing the Results of Machinery, Cottage Evenings, and the Rights of Industry. New York: Leavitt & Allen, [n.d.c.a.1850].
Early collected American edition. Three works in one octavo volume (6 5/8 x 4 1/2 inches; 167 x 115 mm). [1]-216; [2], [13]-215, [1, blank]; [1]-213, [1, blank] pp. With general title-page, and separate title-pages for" Results of Machinery" and "Rights of Industry." Half-titles for "Cottage Evenings" and "Rights of Industry." Title-page for Rights of industry reads:
The Right of Industry: Addressed to the working -men of the United Kingdom by the Author of "The Results of Machinery." I. Capital and Labor. First American Edition. New York: Leavitt & Allen.
"Cottage Evenings; or, Much Instruction from Little Reading" is a collection of 19 articles which is ascribed to John Conolly.
Publisher's original brown cloth. Boards stamped in blind. Spine lettered and stamped in gilt. Top edge dyed brown. Cloth with a bit of rubbing along edges and head and tail of spine. With some foxing, mainly to endpapers and preliminaries. A few pages with some soiling. Overall a very good copy.
"In 1831 writer and publisher Charles Knight of London issued a book entitled The Working-Man's Companion. The Results of Machinery, Namely Cheap Production and Increased Employment, intended for working men, and also presumably women, who were concerned, with justification, that mechanization was eliminating their jobs or lowering their wages. Notably Knight published this work anonymously, as part of a series he was issuing for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK)... In The Results of Machinery Knight explained how mechanization of papermaking and printing had increased the speed of book production while reducing costs during the previous 20 years, thereby greatly widening the market for books, and expanding an industry, and creating tens of thousands of new jobs... Capital and Labour, a basic work on economics, was also originally published in 1831 as The Working-Man's Companion. The Rights of Industry. [According to Knight] 'The Results of Machinery was written in by me at a period of great national alarm, when a blind rage against a power supposed to interfere with the claims of Labour was generally prevalent, and led, in the Southern agricultural districts expecially, to many acts of daring violence. That little book had a most extensive sale, and is still in constant demand. Fifty thousand copies have been sold since its first publication. I wrote a second tract, Capital and Labour, which was to form part of a Series entitled The Rights of Industry. This Series I never could find leisure to proceed with. It has appeared to me that the two parts might be advantageously incorporated. Machinery, in connexion with Capital and Labour, is one of the great instruments of Production. In this Volume, then, thus remodelled, the general object of The Production of Wealth is fully, though, popularly expounded. The original tracts were especially addressed to Working Men. This volume is addressed to all. The statistical details are brought up to the present time.'" (Norman. History of Information).
HBS 68590.
$850.
Price: $850.00
Item #68590