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[FIELDING, Henry]. A Plan of the Universal Register-Office, Opposite Cecil-Street in the Strand. London, 1751.
8° (199 x 121 mm). Disbound; green cloth folding case.
FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF FIELDING’S RAREST WORKS. Only six other copies have been located: British Library; Manchester University; King’s College, Cambridge; Huntington; Yale and Harvard.
This was Fielding’s most ambitious project for social reform, and was indeed “Universal.” There are ten articles, including a real estate office, an employment bureau, and a primitive travel agency-like entity. The office would arrange for private tutors, the buying and selling of porcelain, pictures, books, etc., the copying of manuscripts, the lending of money on security, and the hiring of wet nurses and midwives. Management of the registry was in the hands of Fielding’s blind half-brother John (he is sometimes credited with writing the second, more technical, half of the pamphlet). To register an enquiry cost sixpence, and threepence was charged for a successful match. It appears to have been successful for at least several years. Samuel Johnson provides a complimentary reference to “the new attempts of an ‘universal register’” in Rambler no. 105 (March 19, 1751). Fielding himself references it in Amelia. John Fielding gave up the Universal Register-Office in 1761 when rivals had formed, and by this time these organizations were largely involved in more unseemly practices. All four printings are very rare, but none more so than this first edition. At the bottom of the half-title is written “Price 3d” in a contemporary hand. No other surviving copy bears such an inscription. Cross III, p.321
8° (199 x 121 mm). Disbound; green cloth folding case.
FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF FIELDING’S RAREST WORKS. Only six other copies have been located: British Library; Manchester University; King’s College, Cambridge; Huntington; Yale and Harvard.
This was Fielding’s most ambitious project for social reform, and was indeed “Universal.” There are ten articles, including a real estate office, an employment bureau, and a primitive travel agency-like entity. The office would arrange for private tutors, the buying and selling of porcelain, pictures, books, etc., the copying of manuscripts, the lending of money on security, and the hiring of wet nurses and midwives. Management of the registry was in the hands of Fielding’s blind half-brother John (he is sometimes credited with writing the second, more technical, half of the pamphlet). To register an enquiry cost sixpence, and threepence was charged for a successful match. It appears to have been successful for at least several years. Samuel Johnson provides a complimentary reference to “the new attempts of an ‘universal register’” in Rambler no. 105 (March 19, 1751). Fielding himself references it in Amelia. John Fielding gave up the Universal Register-Office in 1761 when rivals had formed, and by this time these organizations were largely involved in more unseemly practices. All four printings are very rare, but none more so than this first edition. At the bottom of the half-title is written “Price 3d” in a contemporary hand. No other surviving copy bears such an inscription. Cross III, p.321