With Six Folding Plates
Defensive Instructions for the People:. Containing the new and improved combination of arms, called foot lancers: miscellaneous instructions on the subject of small arms and ammunition: street and house fighting, and field fortification.
London: Printed and Published by J. Smith, 1832.
Full Description:
MACERONE, Francis. Defensive Instructions for the People: Containing the new and improved combination of arms, called foot lancers: miscellaneous instructions on the subject of small arms and ammunition: street and house fighting, and field fortification London: Printed and Published by J. Smith, [1832].
First edition. Octavo (8 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches; 207 x 130 mm). [8], 72 pp. With full color folding frontispiece and five additional folding plates, four of which are in color.
Quarter modern calf over contemporary marbled paper boards. Spine lettered in gilt. Some rubbing and bumping to boards. Previous owner's old ink signature on front pastedown. Some fraying to edge of plate 4, just touching a few letters. Some minor toning. Overall a very good copy.
Francis Maceroni was a soldier and mechanical inventor revolutionary, balloonist (as recorded by Sophie Blanchard), and author. "Maceroni designed 'the best paddle-wheel in the world', some improved rockets, a design for an armoured ship, and other military and naval inventions which were never patented. He also wrote Hints to Paviours (1827), in which he advocated asphalt paving. In 1829 he went to Constantinople on receipt of £1000 to assist the Turks against the Russians, and returned two years later 'poorer than he went'. At the time of the first Reform Bill he published a physical-force pamphlet, entitled Defensive Instructions for the People, Containing New and Improved Combination of Arms, Called Foot Lancers (1832). The combination was a fowling piece and a 10 foot lance for street fighting. Maceroni says that he had great difficulty in finding a printer for the pamphlet, which he published without any return when he and his children were in great poverty." (Oxford DNB).
HBS 69460.
$400.
Price: $400.00
Item #69460