Cottage Economy: Containing information relative to the brewing of beer, making of bread, keeping of cows, pigs, bees, ewes, goats, poultry and rabbits, and relative to other matters deemed useful in the conducting of the affairs of a labourer's family.
London: Printed and Published by C. Clement, No. 183, Fleet Street, 1822; [1821-22].
16mo. (19 x 11.5 cm.), [iv], 207, iv pages. Index. FIRST EDITION, original issue, bound from the seven monthly parts published between August 1, 1821 and March 1, 1822 (no entry for February, 1822 was issued); with an added title page for the whole, dated 1822, and an added Index at rear. An important rural handbook, from the English pamphleteer, journalist and British MP William Cobbett (1763-1835). Fleeing potential imprisonment in England, he spent considerable time in the Canada and the newly formed U.S., and even operated a bookstore with a decidedly loyalist leaning in Philadelphia. During a later stay on Long Island, he wrote one of the first works on American horticulture, The American Gardener (1821), in which he strongly disapproved of what he saw here. He returned to England and published this work the following year. Originally bound from the seven monthly parts; this copy removed from a later binding, and binding not present. Still, the text block is untrimmed and clean. Scarce. [OCLC is utterly unclear on this title, with most copies corresponding to the stereotyped edition which followed this (but who the heck knows?); Attar 46.1; Cagle 613; Pearl, William Cobbett 115].
Price: $250.00