‘A Bread and Cheese Bookseller’
The Book
This book provides an edition of a previously unpublished manuscript autobiography of a bookseller who lived and worked in Manchester in the first half of the nineteenth century. James Weatherley sold second-hand books and his recollections provide a vivid portrait of the hand-to-mouth existence of street sellers and small shopkeepers who in Manchester as elsewhere played a critical role in the book trade, contributing to the dissemination of cheap literature. Alongside the material on his fellow booksellers and book hunters, Weatherley also writes about other events - some parochial, some like Peterloo which had a national significance - in a town that was one of the first to cross the threshold of industrialisation. Awkwardly written and erratically punctuated, it achieves a directness and vividness of language which is rarely communicated by those professional writers who visited and wrote about Manchester in these years.
The Author
Michael Powell, Librarian of Chetham’s Library, published on the local history, book trade and bibliography of the Manchester region. He was an active member and supporter of many local societies, including the Chetham Society and the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society. He died in 2019.
Terry Wyke taught social and economic history at Manchester Metropolitan University, retiring in 2016. His publications focus on the Manchester region including its bibliography, cotton industry and public monuments. He was a founder editor of the Manchester Region History Review.
Reviews
‘James Weatherley’s memoir is a Mancunian delight.’ Manchester Memoirs (Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society 158 (2019-20))
'[A]lthough some extracts and some accounts of Weatherley have previously appeared in print, these fascinating memoirs have not been published in full until now'
The Local Historian (January 2022), pp. 78-79
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