1904. 8vo, pp. xiv, with frontispiece, then random sample pages to 542, [3] index, [8] printed testimonials, [1] advertisement in half broadside giving descriptions and price of the bindings available, [16] blank ruled order book for subscribers (first page partially completed in pencil in a contemporary hand); the present example containing 31 full page plates, and numerous steel engravings (some also full page); paper a little browned due to quality; sampler in contemporary brown cloth, upper cover elaborately lettered in gilt (though faded) with title in blind on rear cover, matching spine sample hinged to fore-edge, with variant cloth sample mounted to hinged spine’s verso, variant maroon cloth sample as front paste down, with alternative blue cloth sample lettered in gilt and mounted on rear paste-down, with two alternate endpapers provided; head of spine worn, with further light wear and rubbing at tail, slight rubbing and wear to some of the other cloth samples, with some minor staining to rear cover; a good example. An appealing and variant issue of a salesman’s sampler of this popular, if perhaps slightly eccentric, work for the young on technology and science. Such sampler’s or canvassing books, previously little studied, are now being recognised as useful and important sources for the study of book publication and history. The 1898 work in full eventually spanned 535 pages with 25 leaves of plates, including the portrait frontispiece, as well as copious woodcut illustrations, many of which are also full-page.
The work is written in the form of a series of questions and answers, and is fairly wide-ranging in scope, although in the face of the rapid growth of technology, McGovern struggles at times with his explanations, clearly not fully comprehending himself, the principles that he is endeavouring to explain to his students. For example when attempting to define in common language the units of ohms, amperes, volts, joules, or watts, he simply answers, that ‘no’ they cannot be simply defined. In the chapter on ‘Life’, he asks ‘What three cardinal things may be named in the Universe?’. His answer: ‘Motion (Light and Heat), Matter and Life... Wherein does Life differ from Motion? Life is a Motion that is eccentric, jerky or suspended. It has no regularity or period. If we see a speck of Life in a drop or water, it may go here or there, or it may stand still’ (p. 316).
Chapters are devoted to electricity, x-rays, compressed air, ‘bread, cake and pastry’, cheese, nuts, coffee, salt, the spectroscope, chemistry, the bicycle, soap, ice, our clothes, india rubber, paper, glass and concluding with astronomy. An eclectic mix indeed, and whilst perhaps not the most erudite of home companions, McGovern’s work, copiously illustrated with striking engravings, nevertheless went through a number of editions and proved extremely popular.