Softlback. Brown card binding with title and decoration.

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Published the Fourth Edition. London: Printed by Davidson Old Boswell Court; for Pinnock and Maunder Mentorian Press 267 St. Clement’s Church Yard Strand, 1820

 In original printed wraps, with four page catalogue of the publishers’ ‘Explanatory and Interrogative School-Books’ at rear. In good condition, on aged paper worn at edges, in worn and chipped wraps. The title announces that the volume is ‘Illustrated with numerous Engravings in Wood’, and these are in the body of the text. Uncommon: no copy of any edition at the British Library.

William Pinnock (3 February 1782 in Alton, Hampshire – 21 October 1843 in London) was a British publisher and educational writer.

He was at first a schoolmaster, then a bookseller. In 1817 he went to London and, in partnership with Samuel Maunder, began to publish cheap educational works. The firm’s first productions were a series of Catechisms, planned by Pinnock, consisting of short popular manuals, arranged in the form of question and answer, of the different departments of knowledge. This style was later copied by Fanny Umphelby. The dialogues were followed by abridged editions of Goldsmith’s histories of England, Greece and Rome, and a series of county histories which were no less profitable. Pinnock lost nearly all his money in outside speculation.

Pinnock is mentioned, as a depressing set of texts, in contrast to Washington Irving’s stories, in George Eliot’s novel The Mill on the Floss (1860): Maggie, speaking about her ‘gloomy fancy’ to her cousin Lucy says:

“Perhaps it comes from the school diet – watery rice-pudding spiced with Pinnock. Let us hope it will give way before my mother’s custards and this charming Geoffrey Crayon.”

Pinnock’s son, William Henry Pinnock (1813–1885), a clergyman, was the editor and author of several elementary textbooks and scriptural manuals, and of various works on ecclesiastical law and usage.

Samuel Maunder (1785 – 30 April 1849) was an English writer and composer of many works. He married a sister of William Pinnock, the author of numerous catechisms and educational works. Maunder was the author of several books, most notably The Biographical Treasury. He belonged to a Devon family settled near Barnstaple. His sister married William Pinnock, the well-known projector of the educational Catechisms, which were published in eighty-three parts between 1837 and 1849. Maunder took part in their preparation, although only Pinnock’s name appears on their title-page. The two were also partners in a publishing business in London, and published for two or three years the Literary Gazette.

Under his own name Maunder compiled and issued numerous dictionaries, chiefly for educational purposes. He died at his house in Gibson Square, Islington, on 30 April 1849.