[Rarebooks] fa: THE BLACK DWARF 1817 - Thomas J. Wooler - Run of 49 Issues of this RADICAL LONDON WEEKLY

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, April 22. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/yabuzvzd

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


Thomas Jonathan Wooler (editor): The Black Dwarf, a London Weekly Publication. By T. J. Wooler... Vol. I 1817. London: Printed and published by T. J. Wooler, 1817. First edition thus; 4to (29 cm), untrimmed in original plain boards rebacked in modern cloth with printed spine label. Issues no. 1 (29 Jan. 1817) through no. 49 (31 Dec. 1817); 814 numbered columns of text (actually 784, as the numbering goes off-track after column no. 528) on 392 leaves, plus 2 preliminary leaves (general title-page and index) and copper-engraved frontispiece. Lacking one leaf (the final leaf of issue no. 29), else complete. Two issues (nos. 30 and 31) laid in loose and slightly smaller than the others. Contents with varying degrees of toning, occasional light browning, approx. 10 leaves with more pronounced spotting, else quite clean and sound.

A rare run of the first 49 issues of this influential radical satirical weekly edited, published and largely written by Thomas J. Wooler. Published from 1817-1824, The Black Dwarf  “was a strong advocate of parliamentary reform, but also took a stance in support of popular rebellion, with a definite French Revolutionary tinge” (Encyclopedia of Marxism, Marxists Internet Archive). Wooler’s targets included the administration, the Prince Regent, the poet laureate Robert Southey, William Cobbett, rotten boroughs, the penal system, and other symbols of the reactionary politics of the time. Like his fellow radical publisher William Hone (whom he eulogizes in these pages), Wooler was prosecuted by the government for libel and, again like Hone, proved an eloquent advocate for himself and was found not guilty by a jury. The instigating article, entitled “The Past—The Present—and the Future,” and found here in issue no. 10, is a rousing (and verbose) call on the people of England to awaken and oppose “those ministers who have practiced every delusion upon them... [These ministers] shall not find the laws which they have forcibly snatched from the people capable of protecting them from the indignation of the public. They shall feel distress, and tremble in their turn.”