[CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENTS] HOLYOAKE, George Jacob

The History of Co-operation in England: Its Literature and Its Advocates

London: Trübner & Co., 1875, 1885. First Edition. Mixed set: first edition of vol. I, third edition of vol. II. Octavo (20cm; 21cm) in two vols. In brick red cloth stamped in black and gold; dark gray coated endpapers; vol. I: [xii], 419, [17]pp, with 16pp of the "Co-operative Advertisement Sheet" at rear; vol. II: x, 501pp. Ex-library from the Mark Skinner Library, Manchester, VT, with remnants of labels at base of spines, pencil call numbers to dedication leaves, and library card pockets to rear pastedowns, but no other library markings. Tight, straight, bright copies with minor shelf wear, vol. I with slight rubbing to head and tail, vol. II with two quarter-inch tears at head, both internally clean: Very Good or better. An appealing set, though mixed. The two volumes were first published in different years (1875 and 1879) and are now uncommon in the trade.

Holyoake (1817-1906) was an active figure in the British co-operative movement, as well as its historian. He was an active promoter and propagandist for the Rochdale Pioneers, who are now identified as a starting point of the modern British co-operative movement; and he presided over the opening of the Co-operative Congress in 1887. Today over 7000 cooperatives, with 17 million members, are active in the UK.

Holyoake was also influential as an Owenite social missionary and as editor of freethought periodicals including the atheist Oracle of Reason, The Reasoner, and The Secular Review, in which he developed the term "secularism" in its modern sense.

Price: $450.00

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