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GOUGH, J[ohn]. B[artholomew].
Platform Echoes or Leaves from my Note-Book of Forty Years. Illustrated by Anecdotes, Incidents, Personal experiences, Facts and Stories Drawn from the Humour and Pathos of Life.

Description:
pp. xvi, 422, (ii). Original decorated cloth, the front board having a vignette of the flags of Great Britain and the United States, spine faded, the edges of the book-block foxed, else a very good copy.

*John Bartholomew Gough [1817-1886] was born at Sandgate, Kent, England, and educated by his mother, a schoolmistress. At the age of twelve, after his father died, he was sent to the United States to seek his fortune, arriving in New York City in August 1829. He lived for two years with family friends on a farm in Oneida County, New York in the western part of the state and then entered a book-bindery in New York City to learn the trade. There in 1833 his mother and sister joined him, but after her death in 1835 he fell in with dissolute companions, and became a confirmed drunkard. For some years and until his marriage in 1839, he made his living as a ballad-singer and raconteur in the cheap taverns and theatres of the east coast. But alcohol brought about the end of his marriage and family life - in 1842, following a chance meeting in Worcester, Massachusetts at a Quaker lecture, he was induced to attend a temperance group and to sign a temperance pledge. After several lapses and a terrific struggle, he determined to devote his life to lecturing on behalf of temperance reform. From that time until his death he travelled throughout New England, advocating the life of abstention and gaining a considerable reputation as a convincing and entertaining speaker. He was invited to England in 1853, by the Temperance League, and stayed for two years, returning to the States in 1855. In 1857, he made a second visit to England, remaining for three years; in his temperance efforts, Gough always kept aloof from politics or any organized effort to accomplish results through legislation, relying entirely on moral influences and on the total abstinence pledge. His subsequent return to America led him to talk at both temperance and other social venues, and was highly regarded for his eloquence and good humour. He suffered a stroke on stage, died two days later and was buried in Hope Cemetery, Worcester, Mass.

Hodder and Stoughton. London.

Date Published: 1905. Seventh Edition Completing Twenty-Second Thousand.

Stock No. 65305

Price: £30.00

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