An Exact and Industrious Tradesman

The eponymous hero of this book is an old man, who lived in a small provincial town, remote from fashionable centres of polite society. Yet the letters of Joseph Symson provide a rare glimpse into the public and private life of an inland merchant who was also a member of England's urban elite. The volume reveals how Symson organized his trade and attempted to organize his family. It details his responses to the political, economic, and religious uncertainties of the early years of the eighteenth century.