The Riot; or, Half a Loaf is Better Than no Nread. In a Dialogue Between Jack Anvil and Tom Hod. To the Tune of “a Cobler there was,” &c.
Perth: printed by R. Morison, [circa 1800]. A ballad with apparent miraculous results, “at Bath in 1796, the year of scarcity, the singing of her ballad The Riot . . . effectively checked a very formidable riot.” Jones, Hannah More, Cambridge, pg. 147 (1952); Taylor, Memoir of Mrs. Hannah More, pg. 155 (1838). Professors Dalley and Rappoport cite to this ballad, and perhaps coincidentally to this particular printing thereof, as a noteworthy example of women’s involvement in economic and political debates, stating “awareness of these issues could be a compelling reason for women to participate in public affairs” and that More actively “sought to convince the working classes that food riots were futile and misjudged, arguing that the government could not be held responsible for poor harvests.” Economic Women, Essays on Desire and Dispossession in Nineteenth-Century British Culture (OSU Press, Columbus, 2013, at pg. 29).
This copy printed in Perth, a few years after the Cheap Repository edition, by Robert Morison in “what may be considered as the golden age of Perth [which] was coincident with the rise, growth, and decay” of Morison’s publishing firm. Minto, A Notable Publishing House: The Morisons of Perth (Library, n.s. I., 1900).
ESTC T225503 (scarce showing four physical holdings); Spinney 34 (for the Cheap Repository printing of 1795); Not in Carnie, Publishing in Perth Before 1807. Very good with minor foxing and page toning and a word overprinted in the fifth line of the first stanza (as also found in the NLS copy). Item #188
Price: $300.00