The Thirty-Six Trades of the State

New York: Benj. R. Tucker, 1897. First Separate Edition. 12mo (17cm.); staplebound self-wrappers; 10pp. Shallow chips and tiny losses to wrapper extremities, the whole a bit toned and dust-soiled, else Very Good and sound. Publisher's advertisements printed on pp. [11] and [14] (rear wrapper). Satirical short essay by a founding editor of "Le Rire," describing the trades of "The State," from art collector to tapestry weaver, from transportation enterprise to colonialism. Though "The State" is everywhere, it is also nothing, and the essay opens with the description of a man being thrown out of the chamber of deputies, taken for a madman trying to make an appointment with "The State." First published in the original French in "Le Figaro" and translated for publication in Tucker's individualist anarchist magazine "Liberty." See Roger E. Stoddard, "Liberty's Library: Benj. R. Tucker's Imprint, 1875-1912," in "Essays in Honor of William B. Todd" (1991), p. 170. OCLC locates four physical copies in North America as of October, 2019, at Columbia, NYU, Harvard, and U. Michigan.