[ECONOMIC REFORM] [WADE, John]

The Extraordinary Black Book: An Exposition of the United Church of England and Ireland [. . . ]

London: Effingham Wilson, 1831. Octavo (22.5cm). Later half brown calf, purple cloth over boards, and subsequently rebacked, with brown calf reinforcements to corners, top edge stained, other edges sprinkled red; orange endpapers; xx,576pp. Lacking frontispiece. Externally worn but skilfully repaired, internally clean with occasional spots of foxing: Very Good.

A key text of early nineteenth-century English parliamentary reformers: "a massive compendium of all the abuses, electoral, ecclesiastical, legal," that they "sought to abolish. . . its emphasis on the need to have practical as well as equitable representation lies at the root of parliamentary democracy." The book "passed through edition after edition, continually augmented with new arguments, new reports of abuses and new statistics"; this 1831 edition "was the most influential, coming as it did on the eve of the Reform Bill (1832)" (Printing and the Mind of Man, p.180). PMM296. GOLDSMITHS 23071. KRESS C.638.

Price: $150.00

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