Cobbett's America

This selection gathers William Cobbett's writings about North America from his years as a soldier, farmer, and journalist on both sides of the Atlantic. The pieces follow his early service in Canada, his work as a pamphleteer in Philadelphia, his comments on the War of 1812, and a year's farming on Long Island after he left England under legal pressure. Cobbett records soil, crops, wages, food, and manners, setting the United States beside the England he had left. He attacks Federalist elites and defends ordinary settlers while remaining an English radical looking homeward. The book is a documentary portrait of the early republic as seen by a partisan observer, not a continuous autobiography.

Quarter bound in blue cloth, pale green paper boards decorated in dark blue. Map endleaves. Dark blue slipcase.