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new titles
Population and Disease: Transforming English Society, 1550-1850 order
Author: Peter Razzell
337 pages, casebound, price £45.00
ISBN: 978-1-85066-47-7
This book challenges a number of leading ideas in demography, epidemiology, economic history and historical sociology. The topics discussed include life table models, demographic transition theory, cohort patterns of mortality, and the relationship between height, status stress, poverty and mortality. The data presented indicates that demography is a key discipline for understanding English society in the period 1550-1850, with population growth playing a central role in the development of capitalism and the transformation of economic and social life.
One of the book's central aims is to explore the exogenous role of population change, mainly shaped by shifts in mortality. Detailed evidence is presented to suggest that adult mortality was stable in England throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but nearly halved during the eighteenth century, with most of the mortality reduction occurring between 1700 and 1750. By contrast, infant and child mortality approximately doubled between 1550 and 1750, before reducing sharply at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century.
A parallel is drawn between England's historical development and that occurring currently in the developing world, with large exogenous increases in population resulting in widespread poverty and social inequality.
The book is an edited version of ten essays written during the last decade, six of which have been published previously in leading journals. The four unpublished essays include new material on England's demographic, economic and social history, as well as a previously unpublished essay on international demographic and economic development. Dr Razzell is a leading authority on historical demography.
The Morning Chronicle Survey of Labour and the Poor: The Metropolitan Districts order
Author: Henry Mayhew
A reprint of the 1982 edition in a set of six paperback volumes
Price £150.00
ISBN 1-85066-048-4
In the years 1849 and 1850, Henry Mayhew was the metropolitan correspondent of the Morning Chronicle in its national survey of labour and the poor. In all, Mayhew wrote nearly a million words, and then went on to publish a further study of the London poor, in the London Labour and the London Poor series. Only about a third of his Morning Chronicle material was included in this publication, and although other further selections of the original survey have been published, these constitute less than one-fifth of the total. Nearly half of Mayhew’s survey had never been published before the publication of the present work.
Mayhew has become famous for pioneering the method of recording the history of ordinary people through their own words, and can be justly regarded as the originator of oral history. The present series of six volumes constitutes his complete Morning Chronicle survey, published in the sequence that it was originally written. It starts with a letter on cholera in the Jacob’s Island area, and ends with the food markets of London. A large proportion of the previously unpublished material is in the form of interviews for which Mayhew is famous, and the publication of the complete survey makes available for the first time the whole of Mayhew’s pioneering work. Each volume is indexed by subject, and it is intended that the series will represent the definitive scholarly publication of Mayhew’s classical study.
recent titles
The Conquest Of Smallpox: The Impact Of Inoculation On Smallpox Mortality In Eighteenth Century Britain order
Author: Peter Razzell
288 pages, casebound, price £40.00.
ISBN 185066045X
This is a revised second edition of a classic study of smallpox and inoculation in eighteenth century Britain. Dr Razzell has written a new twenty-seven page introduction, as well as re-written the text of the original edition. The new introduction summarises a range of fresh demographic evidence, including statistical data on infant, child and adult mortality for a range of different disease environments. Additionally, new evidence is quoted on smallpox mortality for a number of parishes.
In the first edition it was argued that inoculation was the prime factor in the reduction of mortality, whereas now it is seen as one of a number of factors responsible for decreasing mortality, including the rebuilding of houses, improved personal and public hygiene, the drainage of marshland, and better breastfeeding practices. Inoculation was first practised by the aristocracy and members of the professional and mercantile middle class, and evidence is presented in this new edition to show that this was a part of a general process of improvement in health which occurred initially amongst wealthy families and spread gradually to the general population.
Dr Razzell quotes a range of sources to show that whereas smallpox was an endemic disease of childhood in Scotland and the North of England, it was a disease of both children and adults in villages and small towns in the South of England. The age incidence of smallpox had an impact not only on the fatality of smallpox, but a significant effect on the popularity of inoculation. Where the disease was endemic, such as in large towns and in areas outside the South of England, it tended to engender a fatalistic attitude and a reluctance to inoculate, whereas in communities where the disease affected both children and adults, it produced a panic response leading to a mass inoculation of the majority of the population.
Although arguing for a more limited role for inoculation, Dr Razzell demonstrates that inoculation made a significant contribution to the reduction of mortality that transformed the demographic, economic and social history of the eighteenth century. He concludes that inoculation and vaccination protected the population from a disease that as a result of increasing virulence, killed about 45 per cent of all unprotected people by the end of the nineteenth century.
Dr Peter Razzell is currently a research fellow in the History Department at the University of Essex.
Life In The Victorian Village: The Daily News Survey Of 1891, Volumes 1 and 2order
Editors: Liz Bellamy and Tom Williamson
Volume 1: 220 pages, casebound, price: £35.00.
ISBN 1850660387
Volume 2: 268 pages, casebound, price: £40.00
ISBN 1850660395
In the autumn of 1891, at the height of the agricultural depression, the Liberal newspaper, the Daily News, published a series of articles on rural life by their ‘Special Commissioner’, George Millan. The reports covered the agricultural economy in great detail, but the main focus of the series was the state of the rural poor. Millan travelled through southern England, recording the living conditions and the opinions of the agricultural labourers, seeking solutions to the associated problems of rural poverty and migration from the countryside. His reports generated immense interest and a large volume of correspondence, as readers of the Daily News contributed their ideas to the debate. Farmers, landowners, labourers, artisans, trade unionists and clerics all wrote in response to the survey, recounting their experiences and suggesting ways in which rural life could be improved.
This material has been brought together for the first time into two volumes and provides a fascinating insight into the circumstances of life in the late Victorian village, with accounts of wages, working hours and practices, housing, sanitation, the cost of living, social life and class relations. Millan attempts to convey the experiences of the working people he meets, as well as their ideas, attitudes and fundamental beliefs. From his reports and from the letters of his correspondents, we get a vivid picture of what life was like for the farm worker and artisan, representing a key source for economic and social historians.
The editors Liz Bellamy and Tom Williamson are leading historians specialising in the history of agriculture.
The American Civil War Through British Eyes: Dispatches From British Diplomats. Volume 1, November 1860 - April 1862order
Editors: James J. Barnes and Patience P. Barnes
Volume 1. 352 pages, casebound, price £50.00.
ISBN 1850660425
Volume 2. 360 pages, casebound, price £50.00.
ISBN 1850660433
Volume 3. 352 pages. casebound, price £50.00.
ISBN 1850660441
Volumes 2 and 3 to be published summer 2004
This is the first of a three volume series of original diplomatic correspondence between Britain’s representative in the United States and the British Government in London during the American Civil War. This first volume covers the period from November 1860 to April 1862. More than 800 official letters from each year have been culled for this and subsequent volumes.
During much of the conflict, Great Britain’s chief diplomat in Washington was Richard Bickerton Pemell Lyons, Second Baron and First Earl (1817-1887). Volume I of this documentary collection begins with Lyons’ report on the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 and goes on to chronicle how relations between the Federal Government and the Southern states steadily deteriorated, culminating in the outbreak of war in April 1861.
Lyons was first and foremost concerned with how an internal American struggle would affect relations between the United States and Great Britain. Much attention is paid to the North’s determination to blockade Southern ports. There was also the question of whether British subject could be compelled to serve in either the Union or Confederate armies.
Of paramount interest to Britain were its diplomatic relations with the South. The United States Secretary of State, William Seward, made it abundantly clear that the North would not tolerate recognition, and if Britain insisted, war with the United States was likely. In the end, the British, along with the French, agreed to acknowledge a condition of belligerency, thus allowing the Union to maintain the fiction that Southerners were rebels, and not citizens of a sovereign entity known as the Confederacy.
Meanwhile, the Americans boarded a British steamer and removed two Confederate agents bound for Europe. This inflamed public opinion, and became known as “The Trent Affair”. It almost forced Britain to withdraw Lord Lyon from Washington, and nearly caused a permanent rupture in diplomatic relations.
These dispatches, from a seasoned diplomat, describe the people and events surrounding this momentous struggle from a contemporary perspective, and illuminate many aspects of the conflict that are not common knowledge even to experts.
The Editors: James J. Barnes is Professor of History at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Patience P. Barnes is a Research Associate at Wabash College.
The English Revolution: A Contemporary Study Of The English Civil War By The Venetian Ambassadors order
Edited by Peter Razzell, and introduced by Christopher Hill.
320 pages, casebound, Price £50.00.
ISBN 1850660379
This volume represents a summary account of the English civil war previously published in five volumes. The book is based on the most important letters written by the Venetian ambassadors during 1625-1675, focusing on the causes and consequences of the political revolution that took place in England at this time. All aspects of the revolution are covered, including economic, religious, legal and political grievances that formed the basis of the conflict between king and parliament. The book includes the analytical summary accounts made by the ambassadors, as well as the detailed descriptions of personalities and events which took place in this most important period of English history.
Contemporary Histories Of The English Civil Warorder
Edited by Brian Manning.
224 pages, casebound, Price £35.00.
ISBN 1850660409
This book includes a number of contemporary histories of the English civil war, written by Richard Baxter, John Corbet, Sir William Dugdale, Thomas Hobbes, John Hodgson, the Earl of Clarendon, Thomas May, and Sir Philip Warwick. The texts have been selected by Professor Brian Manning, who has written commentaries on both the historians and the selections from their writings.
The debate on the nature of the civil war began with those who had first attempted to write its history, or reflected on its nature soon after it ended. As contemporaries of the civil war, and participants in or close observers of the struggle, they provide an important class of record for the study of these events. An examination of their assumptions and preconceptions provides the means for critical examination of such sources. The event which shattered their lives and led them to put pen to paper was the outbreak of civil war in England. The starting point of this study is the slide into civil war, and the end point its immediate ideological and social consequences.
new titles | social historical biography | travel & exploration | political history | psychology
social history
Animals in Focusmore information | order
Paul S. Crowson
The story of Oxford Scientific Films, with a full account of the buisness and economic history of this successful maker of natural history films. 8 pages of four-colour illustrations.
The Costume of Yorkshiremore information | order
George Walker
A third edition of the classic study of the dress and way of life of the people of Yorkshire at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Fourty-four colour plates.
Change in the Villagemore information | order
George Sturt
An account of the changes of rural life which took place at the end of the nineteenth century in England.
Essays in English Population Historymore information | order
Peter Razzell
A series of essays on the history of English population by one of the country's leading historical demographers.
Edward Jenner's Cowpox Vaccine
The History of a Medical Mythmore information | order
Peter Razzell
Argues that Jenner's vaccine was not derived from cowpox, but was an attenuated form of smallpox virus.
Francis Kilvert & His Worldmore information | order
Frederick Grice
A study of Kilvert's life and writing, including previously unpublished extracts from his diary.
The History of Myddlemore information | order
Richard Gough
An evocative contemporary account of life in a Shropshire village during the seventeenth century.
Progress in Pudseymore information | order
Joseph Lawson
A vivid account of life in a Yorkshire township during the 1820s.
new titles | social history | travel & exploration | political history | psychology
social historical biography
Brother to The Oxmore information | order
Fred Kitchen
The autobiography of an agricultural labourer living in Yorkshire at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Children of the Dead Endmore information | order
Patrick MacGill
An autobiographical novel about a young Irishman moving from Donegal to work as a labourer and a navvy in Scotland at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The Confessions of Victor Xmore information | order
Edited by Donald Rayfield
Written anonymously for Haverlock Ellis's study on sexuality, this book describes sexual, cultural, social and political life in pre-Revolutionary Russia.
A Farmer's Lifemore information | order
George Sturt
A biographical study of Sturt's uncle, describing a farmer's life during the nineteenth century.
The Foolish Virginmore information | order
Margaret Penn
The second autobiographical novel and sequel to Margaret Penn's Manchester Fourteen Miles.
Glenmornanmore information | order
Patrick MacGill
Sequel to MacGill's Children of the Dead End.
Knocking Down Gingermore information | order
John Gorman
This autobiography gives a vivid picture of working class life, along with Gorman's passionate commitment to socialism and the trade union movement.
Lucy Bettesworthmore information | order
George Sturt
The last of a series of biographical studies of Frederick Grove and his wife Lucy, including a number of essays by Sturt on changing country life during the late nineteenth century.
Lanty Hanlonmore information | order
Patrick MacGill
The author's first comedy-novel of Irish life.
Memoirs of A Surrey Labourermore information | order
George Sturt
The biography of a Surrey agricultural labourer, by the author of The Wheelwright Shop.
Memories of A Labour Leadermore information | order
John Wilson. Introduction by Prof. John Burnett.
The autobiography of a Durham coal miner, who became one of the first Labour Party Members of Parliament.
Moleskin Joemore information | order
Patrick MacGill
A novel based on one of the central characters in Children of the Dead End.
The Navvy Poetmore information | order
Patrick MacGill
The collected poetry of Patrick MacGill, covering his working life as a navvy through to his experiences in the First World War and beyond.
On The Roadmore information | order
Joseph W. Rounsfell
The autobiography of a tramping printer during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
The Rat-Pitmore information | order
Patrick MacGill
The sequel to Children of the Dead End.
The Red Horizonmore information | order
Patrick MacGill
The first of two autobiographical novels about the First World War.
A Small Boy in the Sixtiesmore information | order
George Sturt
George Sturt's account of his childhood in Farnham in the 1860s.
Shake Hands With a Bummore information | order
Phil McGrath
The story of a professional boxer, describing a harsh childhood in working class Halifax and adult life as an alchoholic
When I Was a Childmore information | order
Charles Shaw
The autobiography of a Staffordshire potter, mainly covering extreme poverty of childhood in the 1830s and 1840s.
William Smith: Potter and Farmermore information | order
George Sturt
Sturt's account of his uncle William Smith, giving full details of the life of a Hampshire farmer and potter in the first half of the nineteenth century.
William Shakespeare:
The Anatomy of an Enigmamore information | order
Peter Razzell
A biographical study of Shakespeare using sociological and other new historical evidence.
Young Mrs Burtonmore information | order
Margaret Penn
The final part of Margaret Penn's autobiographical fictional trilogy.
new titles | social history | social historical biography | political history | psychology
Captain Cook's Second Voyagemore information | order
John Elliot & Richard Pickersgill
The journals of Lieutenants Elliot and Pickerskill who accompanied Captain Cook on his second voyage.
Edward Eyre's Autobiographical Narrativemore information | order
Edward Eyre
The autobiography of Edward Eyre, covering his period as a sheep farmer and explorer in Australia in the 1830s
A Foreign View of England in 1725-29more information | order
C. De Saussure
An account of England by a young French Swiss Protestant living in London during 1725-1729.
A Frenchman in England in 1784more information | order
F. La Rochefoucald
An autobiographical account of a young French nobleman's tour or England in the year 1784.
The Journals of Two Travellers
in Elizabethan and Early
Stuart Englandmore information | order
Thomas Platter and Horatio Busino
The journals of two foreignerss who lived in England during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
Journal of the Central Australian Expeditionmore information | order
Charles Sturt
The author's jounal of expedition into central Australia in search of an inland sea.
Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas
in the HMS Endeavourmore information | order
Sydney Parkinson
The journal of Sydney Parkinson, the artist who accompanied Captain Cook on his first voyage to the Pacific. Includes 27 reproductions of Parkinson's engravings.
The Life and Adventures of William Buckleymore information | order
John Morgan
An account of the experiences of William Buckley, an escaped convict who lived for 32 years with aborigines in the Melborne area before European settlement of Australia.
Notes on Englandmore information | order
H. Taine
An account of the author's visits to England in 1859, 1862 and 1871.
Travels into the Poor Man's Countrymore information | order
Anne Humphreys
The first full-length biography of Henry Mayhew, by a leading social historian of the period.
new titles | social history | social historical biography | travel & exploration | psychology
political history
Autobiography of William Farishmore information | order
William Farish
The autobiography of a hand-loom weaver who became a leading activist in the Chartist movement from the late 1830s onwards.
A Hitler Youthmore information | order
Henry Metelmann
The autobiography of a boy who grew up in Germany in the 1930s, caught in a conflict between his family's socialism and membership of the Hitler Youth movement.
The English Civil War:
A Contemporary Account
(5 Volumes)more information | order
Edited by Edward and Peter Razzell. Introduction by Christopher Hill.
The history of the English Civil War, told through the letters of the Venetian ambassadors resident in London.
A Village Politicianmore information | order
John Buckmaster. Introduction by Prof. John Burnett.
The autobiography of a man who worked as an agricultural labourer, carpenter, teacher and agent for the Anti-Corn Law League, and who lived through the 1840s when England came near to a revolutionary upheaval.
new titles | social history | social historical biography | travel & exploration | political history
psychology
Ernest Jones: Freud's Alter Egomore information | order
Vincent Brome
The authoratative biography of Ernest Jones, Freud's own biographer.
Freud and His Disciplesmore information | order
Vincent Brome
A study of Freud and his circle by one of the foremost writers on the history of the psychoanalysis.
Writers Talkingmore information | order
Nigel Gray
Interviews about their lives and writings with Brian Aldiss, Paul Bailey, John Berger, Malcolm Bradbury, Dick Davis, John Fowles, Barry Hines, Donall MacAmhlaigh, Roger McGough and Peter Vansittart.
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