The british controversialist and impartial enquirer...Volume I.
London.
Houlston and Stoneman, 1850.
First edition.
8vo.
viii, 288pp. Original publisher's green cloth, stamped in gilt and blind. Rubbed, marked, and dulled, joints starting, corners exposed. Contemporary inked ownership inscription 'Mr Johnson, Spalding, Feby. 53' to FFEP, index leaf detached, light staining to endpapers, scattered spotting.
The first collected volume of the British Conversationalist, a periodical, serialised between 1850 and 1872, which sought to influence 'public opinion' by prioritising essays from working-class readers.
Frequently proclaiming its 'impartiality', the publication was hampered by its increasingly restrictive regulations on form and authorship. This first volume, consisting of alternate affirmative and negative responses on each topic, contains dialectics on questions as varied as 'Is Beauty a Quality inherent in Objects?' and 'Ought Capital Punishments be abolished?', accompanied by a selection of Societies and a traditional terminal list of notices cataloguing literature and periodicals.
£ 75.00
Antiquates Ref: 34044
Frequently proclaiming its 'impartiality', the publication was hampered by its increasingly restrictive regulations on form and authorship. This first volume, consisting of alternate affirmative and negative responses on each topic, contains dialectics on questions as varied as 'Is Beauty a Quality inherent in Objects?' and 'Ought Capital Punishments be abolished?', accompanied by a selection of Societies and a traditional terminal list of notices cataloguing literature and periodicals.
