Books

First and only edition of the American radical political philosopher's first work, published in the same year as the emergence of the Working Men's Party, of which he was both the leader and co-founder. The Rights of Man to Property! is his seminal work, the first of only three books published before his premature death in 1832. He virulently discredits the ideas of both Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine in a treatise which prefigures the views of Marx. Alongside Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright, Skidmore advocated universal public education, the abolishment of debtors' prisons, and a reduction to working day hours, among other causes. The advertisement leaf at the rear of this edition promotes the new fashion for stamping titles to covers as opposed to decorative patterns: "the author has concluded to bind the present volume, in a plainer manner, as it regards the gilding, than the prospectus of his work stipulates; and to substitute, instead thereof, the novel, and as he trusts, in this instance, the useful innovation upon book-binding, of stamping on the two covers, in letters of gold, the title of the work." The work is very scarce: "Unlike the reform literature mass-produced by the comparatively well-funded abolitionist and temperance societies, most of these labor publications are today scarce because they were financed and produced by solitary crusaders. Skidmore's The Rights of Man to Property! [was] published by the author and [is] today known in only a handful of copies" (Gilreath). READ MORE Duodecimo (172 x 100 mm). Contemporary mottled sheep, front and rear boards lettered in gilt, black morocco label and gilt rules to spine. Printed table to page 106. Ownership stamp to front pastedown. Front joint restored, binding with some surface cracking and small puncture to rear board, professionally refurbished; upper outer corner of front free endpaper and title torn away with partial loss of first three lines and one or two words to title verso, contents a little wrinkled; still a good copy. Howes S530; Kress C.2364. Gilreath: "Labor History Sources in the Library of Congress", Labor History, vol. 25, no 2, 1984.