[Rarebooks] fa: JONAS HANWAY - A SENTIMENTAL HISTORY OF CHIMNEY SWEEPERS IN LONDON 1785

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auctions ending Sunday, May 31. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/mr3mju3

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


Jonas Hanway: A Sentimental History of Chimney Sweepers, in London & Westminster. Shewing the Necessity of putting them under Regulations, to prevent the grossest Inhumanity to the Climbing Boys. With a Letter to a London Clergyman on Sunday Schools. Calculated for the preservation of the Children of the Poor. [London:] Sold by Dodsley in Pall Mall, & Sewell in Cornhill, 1785. FIRST EDITION. Small 8vo (15.75 cm) in early period calf, rebacked with later but not recent vellum, leather spine label lettered in gilt; marbled endpapers; [2], xl, 191, [1] pp.; engraved title-page and one engraved plate (complete). ESTC T93936; Goldsmiths-Kress 13090.

Boards rubbed and worn at the corners, inner hinges repaired; damp-staining and browning to the front endpaper and first 2 leaves and to the outer margins towards the rear; fraying to the margins of the initial leaves with loss to the top corner of the title-page just touching the ruled borders; mild toning to the contents with occasional small spots and stains, corners a trifle bumped; otherwise quite clean and sound, firmly bound. Complete with the engraved title (sometimes counted as a second plate) and one plate (often found as a frontispiece but here bound in at p. 101).

Uncommon, influential work on the plight of young chimney-sweeps or "climbing boys" by Jonas Hanway (1712-1786), merchant, traveler and philanthropist. Having traded and traveled for many years in Russia and the Middle East (he published An Historical Account of British Trade over the Caspian Sea in 1753), he returned to England and set his mind to good works. In addition to his efforts on behalf of sweeps, he conducted campaigns against tea-drinking, tipping, and hackney coachmen. He was also said to be the first Londoner to carry an umbrella. His vivid, emotional description of the miserable and hazardous conditions endured by chimney sweeps, some as young as four years old, led to legislation raising the minimum age to eight — though, alas, even this meager advance in the law was rarely enforced.