Cobbett, [William]. Cobbett’s Two Penny Trash 1831-1832. No.1 Vol. II (July 1831) to No.12. Vol.II (July 1832). London, Published by the Author, 1831 / 1832. 17.5 x 10.5 cm. 288 pages. Contemporary half leather over marbled boards. Binding poor, text block in good condition. Binding rubbed and bumped. Hinges and joints weak. Ex Library ( Henshaw Street Mutual Improvement Society’s Library). Internally age darkened, with a few library stamps. A good reading copy.

William Cobbett (1763 – 1835) was an English pamphleteer, journalist, Member of Parliament and farmer born in Farnham, Surrey, one of a popular agrarian faction seeking to reform Parliament, abolish “rotten boroughs”, restrain wanton foreign activity and raise wages, to promote peace and ease poverty among farm labourers and smallholders. He backed lower taxes, saving, reversing commons enclosures and resisting the 1821 gold standard.
By 1815 the tax on [British] newspapers had reached four pence a copy. As few people could afford to pay six or seven pence for a daily newspaper, the tax restricted the circulation of most journals to those with fairly high incomes.
In 1816 Cobbett began publishing the Political Register as a pamphlet. It now sold for only two pence and soon had a circulation of 40,000. Critics termed it “two-penny trash”, a phrase Cobbett adopted. Cobbett’s journal was soon the main newspaper read by the working class. The Radical campaigner Samuel Bamford later wrote:
’At this time the writings of William Cobbett suddenly became of great authority; they were read on nearly every cottage hearth in the manufacturing districts of South Lancashire, in those of Leicester, Derby, and Nottingham; also, in many of the Scottish manufacturing towns. Their influence was speedily visible. He directed his readers to the true cause of their sufferings-misgovernment; and to its proper corrective-parliamentary reform.
This made Cobbett a dangerous man, and he learnt in 1817 that the government was planning to arrest him for sedition. With the government intending to suspend habeas corpus, and fearing arrest for his arguably seditious writings, Cobbett again fled to the United States. On Wednesday 27 March 1817, he embarked at Liverpool for New York on the ship Importer, with D. Ogden as master, accompanied by his two eldest sons, William and John (Wikipedia).

• Keywords: Classical & Old Literature · Great Britain · History · History & Culture · Politics · Social Sciences
• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 102997AB

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