The Female Advocates: or, the Frantick Stock-Jobber.

London: Printed for J. Baker,, 1713. Turn Stock-Jobber and cheat all the world First edition of this early work on the London stock exchange and the unscrupulous traders ("stock-jobbers") it attracts, published in the years leading up to the South Sea Bubble. The play is set in London and centres on the theme of the marriage of young women with older, wealthy men. More broadly, the theme is of traditional genteel society clashing with the new money of the stock traders and merchants. The antagonists are "merchants whose avarice and hypocrisy occasion righteous denunciation, at length, by the young gentlemen of the play. Reinforcing the merchant-gentry antagonism, in this play which was produced the year of the Treaty of Utrecht, there is also a note of antagonism between soldier and civilian, between the officer, Captain Stanworth, who at high personal cost contributed to the victory, and the merchant, Sir Charles Transfer, who, having profited from the war, despises the soldiers who suffered for the nation" (Loftis, p. 91). There are numerous negative references to stock traders as exploitative and disreputable, reducing others to penury: "I have known a pert coxcomb of a thousand pound per annum, use a certain alley near the Exchange not above six months, before his estate has been distributed into five hundred hands - not a stock jobber but has had his share - and by a dexterity unknown to any but themselves; had he been worth a million, they'd soon have reduc'd him to the part of a foot soldier" (p. 7). One character declaims "Rot your money... I'll beg first, rob on the high-way, or turn stock-jobber and cheat all the world" (p. 19) Little is known of the life of William Taverner (1677-1731), who wrote several comedies, none of the others regarding the stock market, but rather exploring mismatched relationships and false identities. Though unmarked as such, the book originated from a collection of Restoration-era plays acquired by Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid (1778-1859), a financier and leading campaigner for Jewish emancipation in the United Kingdom. Quarto (212 x 155 mm). Nineteenth-century half roan, spine ruled and lettered in gilt, marbled boards. Bookseller's ticket (T. Connolly of Dublin) to front pastedown, 19th-century armorial stamp on title page verso, note of author on title page. Front joint splitting at foot, light wear at extremities, small wormholes at head of gutter patched at an early date to the first 30 pages, occasionally partly obscuring a letter or two, pale splash marks to a couple of blank margins, paper lightly toned but strong. A very good copy. ESTC T35472. John Clyde Loftis, Comedy and Society from Congreve to Fielding, 1959.