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Jarndyce, The 19th Century Booksellers

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Politics for the People, or A Salmagundy for Swine. Consisting of the choicest viands, contributed by the cooks of the present day, and of the highest flavoured delicacies, composed by the caterers of former ages. The Fourth Edition.

Periodical; (Part I) Nos. I-XVI, complete; Part II Nos. I-XIV; 6pp. index to both parts; lacking pp. 13-16 from pt. IV, pp. 1-6 from pt. V and pp. 1-2 from pt. IX. Contemp. half calf, at some time well rebacked retaining orig. spine. Ownership inscr. 'Andrews' on leading free e.p. ESTC T147431, 2 vols, 'Fourth Edition' I-XVI, vol. II, I-X. All collections of this rare radical periodical are erratic; vol. I is relatively common, but issues from vol. II are rare. The best run appears to be ESTC P2734 at Durham Nos. 1-XIV and I-XXX (although no other location goes beyond XVI nos. in the second volume). This weekly publication, beginning life as Hog's Wash before changing title to Politics for the People, included contributions written by the prominent radical Thomas Spence and was published by Daniel Eaton, the leading radical publisher who was prosecuted seven times for his publications. Politics for the People lays a fair claim to be the most important periodical of the reform movement, helping to maintain the survival of a free press in the 1790s. Thomas Spence, 1750-1814, was a revolutionary radical advocating the common ownership of land, universal suffrage, financial provision for the unemployed, an end to aristocracy and landlords, self-governing parishes, and the rights of children. Like Eaton, he suffered several periods of imprisonment. Daniel Isaac Eaton, 1753-1814, was a fearless publisher and self-proclaimed 'patriotic bookseller'; his address to the public in Part II., No. I, was written from Newgate where he was incarcerated on a charge of sedition, prior to his acquittal, for publishing John Thelwall's article comparing King George to a tyrannical farmyard cockerel, entitled King Chaunticlere; or The Fate of Tyranny, as it appears here in the issue of Politics for the People for November 8th, 1793.