Book-Keeping by Double Entry – Rev. J. Hunter, M.A. (1866)

Description
A practical manual designed for Civil Service examinations, written by Reverend J. Hunter and published in London by Longmans, Green, and Co. in 1866. The volume presents the foundations of double-entry bookkeeping with exercises, questions, and answers meant to train clerks and exam candidates of the Victorian era. Bound in embossed cloth with decorative borders, it also carries a personal inscription dated 1868, linking it to its original student-owner.

Why It’s Interesting
This book reflects the institutionalization of accounting as both a profession and a governmental necessity. While many old volumes cover philosophy or literature, this one captures the machinery of empire — the skills needed to track trade, tax, and bureaucracy during Britain’s peak. A rare window into how knowledge was standardized for examinations.

Age
📜 159 years old (published 1866).

Obscure Lore
Double-entry bookkeeping was once considered a near-mystical art. Some early critics saw it as a "mirror of the soul," with its balance of debits and credits symbolizing moral order. Owning this book is like holding a manual of empire’s hidden arithmetic — the mathematics behind power.