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5 18. BABBAGE, Charles. On the economy of machinery and manufactures. Charles Knight. 1832.


8vo. Original bown cloth, sometime rebacked with original gilt spine laid down; pp. xxiv + 392 + [2, ads.], charts and tables in text; binding somewhat sunned, internally very good. Provenance: with stamps to free endapapers and ticket in pocket to front pastedown of the private library of John Diebold (1926 - 2005), the early pioneer of computing and automation. His great innovation was to see that automation could be applied not just to manufacturing but also to information, and he was instrumental in revolutionising the banking industry by converting paper records into electronic data. “Many of his most ambitious proposals seemed to lead nowhere, but they often planted ideas that came to fruition years or even decades later. In 1968, 10 years before interstate ATM networks, he advised several Chase Manhattan Bank executives of the costs and benefits of a national system for electronic funds transfer. His audience included Paul Volcker, the future Federal Reserve chairman. What is more, innovations that he presented to newspaper executives in 1963, including an ‘input keyboard’ and ‘editing consoles’ to replace typewriters and carbon paper, became widespread only in the 1980’s.” (obituary, New York Times, 27th December 2005).


Third edition. This book is important in many ways; Babbage uses it to to cast a careful eye over Britain’s economy and industry, advocating the decimalisation of he currency, foreseeing the use of tidal power and predicting the depletion of coal reserves. It is mainly noted for his exposition of what is now known as the Babbage principle. Babbage notes that highly skilled and well paid workers often spend their time performing tasks below their skill level. If labour was divided properly, these tasks would be reassigned to less skilled, lower paid workers freeing the higher paid workers to use their more expensive skills more intensively. Thus the labour force would be made more efficient and less costly. Marx heavily criticised the principle, arguing that it caused labour segregation and alienation, but it was highly influential upon the following gfenerations of industrialists. It continues to underpin labour processes today, and a paper by Werner Hölzl and Andreas Reinstaller raises questions about the Babbage principle that must have resonated with John Diebold in his push for automation: “Braverman (1974) stressed the importance of the Babbage principle in relation to the rise of a white-collar working class. His study underscored the role ‘divide and rule’ had in implementing the economic interests of capitalists and in deskilling and displacing clerical workers through the mechanisation of office work. Glenn and Feldberg (1979) came to a similar conclusion for the case of the introduction of early electronic computers in the modern office”. (“The Babbage principle after evolutionary economics”, MERIT-Infonomics Research Memorandum series, 2003.)


This was Babbage’s bestselling work and cemented his place in the history of economics: “[it] was a turning point in economic writing and firmly established Babbage as a leading authority of the industrial movement” (ODNB).


Kress C3013; Goldsmiths 27346. £2,000


A SEMINAL PUBLICATION CONTAINING SOME OF THE MOST ICONIC PORTRAITS OF THE SIXTIES 19. BAILEY, David. David Bailey’s box of pin-ups. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, [1965]. £9,750


Original white card clamshell box (380 x 330 mm), containing 36 loose card sheets, each a full page hand-fed gravure reproduction of a photographic portrait with biographical details of the sitter to the verso. Complete with the sheet of plain brown paper and the piece of corrugated cardboard inserted as packing, stamped ‘Packing piece to be thrown away’, occasional light rubbing and chipping to the surface of the box, the plates themselves exceptionally fresh and bright.


Provenance:The family of Susan Murray, former model and subject of two of the portraits. Purchased by Miss Murray’s parents from Foyle’s Booksellers with their ticket to the lower portion of the inside of the box lid. Miss Murray is now an artist and lives in America. A letter confirming the provenance accompanies the box.


Sole edition. Among the thirty-six portraits are some of the most compelling and memorable images of the Sixties, Jean Shrimpton, Mick Jagger, Terence Stamp, the Kray twins and Lennon and McCartney, and Susan Murray herself, the majority photographed with direct flash against a stark white background, and printed in high contrast. With notes on many of the sitters to the verso of the plates by Francis Wyndham.


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