BERENS Lewis H. The Digger Movement In The Days Of The Commonwealth, as revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton Kent & Co Ltd. 1906.
8vo. Original cloth, lettered in gilt; pp. [iv], 259, [4, advertisements]; cloth a little marked, occasional browning, offsetting from endpapers.
First edition, presentation copy, cordially inscribed and signed by the author on half-title. Based on Gerrard Winstanley's activism and writings this is a history of the 'True Levellers' as the proto-communist diggers called themselves. Winstanley was instrumental in setting up the first digger colony on St. George's Hill in Surrey and involved in the Quaker movement. Birmingham-born Berens settled in South Australia to join his father's jewellery business and together with Ignatius Singer founded the Adelaide Democratic Club in 1887. In the 1890s he moved back to Britain, wrote a number of books and campaigned for single taxation and land nationalization.
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