OWEN, Robert

A New View of Society: or, Essays on the Formation of the Human Character, Preparatory to the Development of a Plan for Gradually Ameliorating the Condition of Mankind to which are Prefixed Rules and Regulations of a Community [bound with] An Address to the Inhabitants of New Lanark, The First of January, 1816, at the Opening of the Institution established for the Formation of Character

"First American edition from the Fourth London edition" of the first title (one of two 1825 issues, the other published in New York), and first American edition of the second title "From the Fourth London Edition." Original or contemporary wrappers. 84pp., 56pp. Wrappers are encased in a homemade dustwrapper (and the fragility of the dustwrapper is such that we have not removed it), constructed from the April 27, 1827 issue of the Boston Record and Telegraph (predating by five years the first known publisher's dustwrapper). Wrappers beneath appear to be green, and we assume unprinted. Slight foxing to the text, else near fine, the dustwrapper is a little worn at the folds, but still very good or better. Ownership signature of the Rev. William Andrus Alcott with his library number ("Wm. A. Alcott, No. 372") on the titlepage of the first work. Alcott, (1798-1859) was a pioneer educational reformer (as was Owen) and author, an early promulgator of the vegetarian movement (he founded and was the first president of the American Vegetarian Society), a bestselling self-help author, and the close friend and cousin of Bronson Alcott.The most important work by the founder of the utopian socialist movement, in a rare western edition, issued the same year that Owen founded his utopian community in New Harmony, Indiana. Owen, a successful, Welsh-born mill owner in New Lanark, Scotland, reformed the living conditions in which his workers lived, and founded the cooperative movement, in which workers would benefit from the savings of bulk purchases that Owen made of food and other commodities. He also founded "infant schools" and greatly reformed education for the children of the poor and working class. When his partners in the mill became concerned that he wasn't maximizing profits, he re-organized the company with more sympathetic partners that included Jeremy Bentham, and embarked fulltime upon philanthropy and in espousing the philosophical and practical underpinnings used in creating utopian communities.This is by far the rarer of the two American printings published in 1825. OCLC locates six confirmed copies of this edition (compared to nearly thirty of the New York printing). Printing and the Mind of Man 271. Rare and important, and intriguing in this near-contemporary custom jacket.

[BTC #99183]