The Black Book: An Exposition of Abuses in Church and State, Courts of Law, Municipal Corporations, and Public Companies; With a Precis of The House of Commons, Past, Present, and to Come. A new edition [fourth?]. Greatly enlarged and corrected By the Original Editor. [By John Wade] With An Appendix. London. Published by Effingham Wilson, 1835.
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John Wade's Black Book is an extremely interesting and rare early exposition of the corruption and financial abuses of the British government, as well as the army, church, East India Company, and many other parts of 18th and early 19th century British society.
A quote from the book: "The object of the Editor at first was, and now has been, to show the manifold abuses of an unjust and oppressive system; to show the dire calamities it has inflicted on the country, and by what ramifications of influence it has been supported. Government has been a corporation, and had the same interests and the same principles of action as monopolists. It has been supported by other corporations; the Church has been one, the Agriculturists another; the Boroughs a third, the East-India Company a fourth, and the Bank of England a fifth: all these, and interests like these, constituted the citadel and out-works of its strength, and the first object of each has been to shun investigation. We have, however, rent the vail; those who before doubted may, if they please, come and see, and be convinced."
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Size: 143 x 223 x 51 mm (approx.)
Condition:
[frontis, i-xxxii, 683pp, advertisement]; [frontis, xii, 132pp]
This rare book is housed in a full calf binding, probably original or near contemporary with intricate gilt tooling to the spine retaining a tooled morocco label which in a rather ominous fashion reads "The Black Book". Minor rubbing to joints with both boards securely attached, the binding firm and without shelf lean. Minor shelf wear & wear to extremities as typical. Edge toning to endpapers as commensurate with the calf binding. Some pencil inscriptions to ffep. Some foxing to endpapers but remarkably clean through the text block. Main frontispiece slightly loose but present. Collated as complete including the index to the rear.
A very good example of this interesting book.
