£120
FIRST EDITION, 8vo, pp. xi, [i], 191, [1] + frontispiece. Numerous illustrations included within pagination. Original textured green cloth, boards bordered with a blind rule, spine and front board lettered in gilt. Somewhat shaken, stitching strained, boards a little marked.
The first appearance of this successful manual for wiring private telephone lines, produced by the electrician Frederick Charles Allsop in response to the liberalisation of telephone exchange licenses in the 1880s. Much of the contents had been serialised as articles in English Mechanic but demand evidently remained high: a second edition was needed the following year and a fifth by the end of the century.
