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COBBETT, William : A Geographical Dictionary of England and Wales

Wm. Cobbett, 11, Bolt-Court, Fleet-Street; and may be had of all booksellers, London, 1832

Octavo (215 x 135 mm.), contemporary half calf, marbled paper boards, gilt ruled, spine with raised bands, gilt ruled, gilt title. With typographic title page, pp. lxxxiv, 546, (2), with 43 maps, consisting of 1 general and 42 of the counties of England and Wales, some light offsetting, otherwise in good condition.

The Geographical Dictionary was written by William Cobbett (1762-1835) but the cartographer is unidentified. Cobbett was self-educated and the son of a labourer. An avid reader in his youth, he served in the military from 1783 to 1791, including a spell in New Brunswick, Canada. Although rising to the rank of sergeant-major he took up the cause of the underpaid and poorly treated soldier’s in a pamphlet. This did not go down well and he fled to France before going to the United States between 1792 and 1800. He wrote on several subjects, usually under the pen name Peter Porcupine, including some against the French Revolution and Thomas Paine. Being pressurised by a libel case he returned to England in 1800.The government under William Pitt, pleased with his anti-Jacobin stance, offered him the opportunity to run a government owned newspaper. Preferring independence he later launched the Political Register, a weekly work, from January 1802. From 1804 he actively collected and printed parliamentary debates since the Norman conquest. He also launched Cobbett’s Complete Collection of State Trails. Extending himself too far he was forced to sell his interest in 1812 to T. C. Hansard and the Parliamentary debates have been known by that name ever since.In 1805 he acquired a farm in Botley, Hampshire, and settled into the farming community with ease. Constantly willing to tackle the issues of the day he spent time in Newgate prison between 1810-12 and had to flee again to the United States in 1817. He was a prolific writer, the Oxford English Dictionary stating that he ‘wrote and published some 30 million words over the course of forty years (perhaps more than any other English writer)’. The Geographical Dictionary of 1832 records his thoughts in the Explanatory Preface; ‘Table No. IV. gives the names of all the rotten boroughs wholly cashiered, and also of those half-cashiered, by the Act of 4 June, 1832 [the Reform Bill], together with the counties in which they are, and the number of voters which they formerly had, this being matter which never ought to be effaced from the minds of Englishmen’. He concludes ‘it is a truly curious act that I am putting this on paper in the VERY ROOM in which Dr. Johnson wrote his plaintive preface to the prodigious production of his patient toil’. The simple maps only show the county boundary and key towns. Indeed, their proportions are only guidelines and are not accurate. A quick look at those of Cornwall and Devon will illustrate that. There was a second edition in 1854 but none of the examples found bear any maps. Provenance: bookplate of Alexander Speirs Esqr. Elderslie' pasted inside upper board. Batten & Bennett (1996) 106; Carroll (1996) 97; Chubb (1927) 440; ODNB.

COBBETT, William : A Geographical Dictionary of England and Wales

Geographical Dictionary of England and Wales, London, 1832

Octavo (225 x 140 mm.), uncut, contemporary quarter cloth, paper boards, rebacked preserving original spine, with original publisher's paper title label, light wear. With typographic title page, pp. viii, 546, (2), ix-lxxxiv, with 43 maps, consisting of 1 general and 40 of the counties of England and 2 of Wales, printed on thick paper cut shorter than the binding, otherwise in good condition.

The 'Geographical Dictionary' was written by William Cobbett (1762-1835) but the cartographer is unidentified. Cobbett was self-educated and the son of a labourer. An avid reader in his youth, he served in the military from 1783 to 1791, including a spell in New Brunswick, Canada. Although rising to the rank of sergeant-major he took up the cause of the underpaid and poorly treated soldiers in a pamphlet. This did not go down well and he fled to France before going to the United States between 1792 and 1800. He wrote on several subjects, usually under the pen name Peter Porcupine, including some against the French Revolution and Thomas Paine. Being pressurised by a libel case he returned to England in 1800.The government under William Pitt, pleased with his anti-Jacobin stance, offered him the opportunity to run a government owned newspaper. Preferring independence, he later launched the 'Political Register', a weekly work, from January 1802. From 1804 he actively collected and printed parliamentary debates since the Norman conquest. He also launched 'Cobbett’s Complete Collection of State Trails'. Extending himself too far he was forced to sell his interest in 1812 to T. C. Hansard and the Parliamentary debates have been known by that name ever since.In 1805 he acquired a farm in Botley, Hampshire, and settled into the farming community with ease. Constantly willing to tackle the issues of the day he spent time in Newgate prison between 1810-12 and had to flee again to the United States in 1817. He was a prolific writer, the Oxford English Dictionary stating that he ‘wrote and published some 30 million words over the course of forty years (perhaps more than any other English writer)’. The 'Geographical Dictionary' of 1832 records his thoughts in the Explanatory Preface; ‘Table No. IV. gives the names of all the rotten boroughs wholly cashiered, and also of those half-cashiered, by the Act of 4 June, 1832 [the Reform Bill], together with the counties in which they are, and the number of voters which they formerly had, this being matter which never ought to be effaced from the minds of Englishmen’. He concludes ‘it is a truly curious act that I am putting this on paper in the VERY ROOM in which Dr. Johnson wrote his plaintive preface to the prodigious production of his patient toil’. The simple maps only show the county boundary and key towns. Indeed, their proportions are only guidelines and are not accurate. A quick look at those of Cornwall and Devon will illustrate that. There was a second edition in 1854 but none of the examples found bear any maps. A manuscript note is pasted in following the title, informing any future binder that two sections of the book were bound incorrectly and that any future rebinding take this into account. It has never been rebound. Pasted in the back are 12 pages of works available printed on smaller paper. Similarly, an advert for Anne Cobbett's 'English Housekeeper' is pasted in the front. Batten & Bennett (2008) 106; Carroll (1996) 97; Chubb (1927) 440; ODNB.

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