William Hone

William Hone was one of the great radical publishers of Regency England — a self-taught bookseller, writer, and satirist whose political pamphlets, illustrated by George Cruikshank, were weapons of extraordinary effectiveness against the government of Lord Liverpool, and whose acquittals on charges of blasphemous libel in December 1817 were among the most dramatic courtroom victories in the history of English press freedom. He is also remembered, somewhat incongruously, as the compiler of massive antiquarian reference works that preserved the vanishing popular customs and festivals of pre-industrial England — books that are still consulted by folklorists, historians, and social historians nearly two centuries later.

The Radical Publisher

William Hone was born in Bath in 1780, the son of a devout clerk. He was largely self-educated, apprenticed to a solicitor, and eventually set up as a bookseller and publisher in London. He became involved in radical politics during the turbulent years after Waterloo, when mass unemployment, political repression, and the Corn Laws produced widespread popular anger against the Tory government.

In 1817, Hone published three political parodies — “The Late John Wilkes’s Catechism of a Ministerial Member,” “The Political Litany,” and “The Sinecurist’s Creed” — that used the forms of the catechism, the litany, and the Apostles’ Creed to satirise government corruption. He was prosecuted for blasphemous libel on three successive days in December 1817 and defended himself before three different juries with such wit, learning, and courage that all three acquitted him. The trials were a sensation: the verdicts established that parody of religious forms for political purposes was not blasphemy, a principle of enduring importance for the freedom of the press.

The Political Satires

Hone’s greatest satirical works were his collaboration with the illustrator George Cruikshank. The Political House that Jack Built (1819) was a political nursery rhyme attacking the government’s use of force against peaceful reformers (the Peterloo Massacre had occurred that August), illustrated with Cruikshank’s savage caricatures. It sold over 100,000 copies — an extraordinary number for the period — and was followed by The Man in the Moon (1820), The Queen’s Matrimonial Ladder (1820), and The Political Showman — At Home! (1821), all of which combined Hone’s verbal wit with Cruikshank’s visual genius.

These pamphlets were the most effective political satire published in England between Swift and Dickens. They were cheap, accessible, vividly illustrated, and devastating in their mockery of the establishment.

The Antiquarian Compilations

In the 1820s, Hone turned from political radicalism to antiquarianism and produced the works for which he is now best remembered by scholars. The Every-Day Book; or, A Guide to the Year (1826–1827, 2 volumes), The Table Book (1827–1828), and The Year Book of Daily Recreation and Information (1832) are massive compilations of English popular customs, festivals, sports, superstitions, natural history, and curiosities, arranged by date through the calendar year.

These books are a treasure trove of information about pre-industrial English popular culture — descriptions of country fairs, harvest customs, Mayday celebrations, Christmas traditions, and local festivals that were already disappearing when Hone recorded them. Charles Lamb contributed essays to The Every-Day Book and called it “the finest Gossip of the Year.” The works remain indispensable sources for historians of English popular culture.

Collecting Hone

The Political House that Jack Built (William Hone, London, 1819), with Cruikshank’s illustrations, is the key satirical title and is eagerly collected both for its political importance and as a Cruikshank item. The Every-Day Book (1826–1827, 2 volumes) and The Table Book (1827–1828) are collected as reference works. The trial pamphlets (The Three Trials of William Hone, 1818) are important documents of press freedom.