The Philanthropist, No. 1-43., Monday, March 16th, 1795. - Monday, January 25th, 1796. [Philantropist]

Leather spine with black morocco spine label, paper over boards, gilt titles and rules. Title of first issue misspelled 'The Philantropist.' The publisher was a bookseller and advocate of radical political reform who was prosecuted multiple times for selling radical literature. He was convicted in 1812 for selling Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason, which put forth very controversial statements about the Bible and God. Through his bookstore, he was also associated with Romantic poets Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Wordsworth, and was somewhat influential in the trajectory of their literary careers. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote A Letter to Lord Ellenborough (who directed the jury at the 1812 trial) to defend Eaton, who was ultimately found guilty of 'blasphemous libel,' a charge that largely arose from him being an atheist. Among Eaton's other controversial views at the time, and one which Shelley shared, was the belief that freedom of the press should be absolute, even extending to the publication of false opinions. Eaton argues in the second issue of this periodical that 'The Liberty of the subject, and the liberty of the press, are so intimately connected, and depend so mutually on each other's support, that it is impossible the one can survive the destruction of the other.' An immensely important foundational work to the concept of individual and journalistic freedom. We found only three complete runs of all 43 issues in institutional holdings.