Reviewed by Robert Williams University of Wollongong
The eighteenth century witnessed an increasing interest in double-entry book-keeping or the ‘Italian Method’ as it was often referred to. This book illustrates that interest by reproducing articles from encyclopedias published during that period. The book also assists accounting historians by providing access to important historical data which can be difficult to obtain.
The work consists of seven chapters. In Chapter 1 Sheldahl presents a detailed biographical and bibliographic introduction for each of the articles presented in later chapters. The author carefully describes the origin of each article, its author and the encyclopedia in which it was published. The chapter provides valuable background material for the later chapters and concludes with a comprehensive reference list.
Chapters 2 to 7 reproduce, in facsimile form, the articles that are the subject of the book. Beginning with the earliest article Chapter 2 presents the entries on book-keeping from Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopaedia, published in London in 1728, and from the 1738 edition. The later edition also included an entry for ‘books’ and presents a more scholarly discussion of the topics, complete with examples of book-keeping procedures. As with a number of the articles published in Sheldahl’s book, these ones draw heavily on the earlier work of the Savary brothers in France.
Chapter 3 reproduces four entries from Malachy Postleth-wayt’s Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce, published in London in 1751 and 1755. This text, too, draws upon the commercial dictionary- compiled by Savary and Savary (1748). The author’s supplemental notes at the beginning of the chapter indicate the changes that were made between successive editions of Postlethwayt’s work. The entry from Richard Rolt’s A New Dictionary of Trade and Commerce reproduced in Chapter 4 also draws on the work of the Savarys and provides an interesting comparison to Postlethwayt’s articles.
The first edition of the Encyclopedia Britanica carried an extensive article on book-keeping, which Sheldahl reproduces in Chapter 5. The article, contributed by John Mair, was in line with the aim of the editors to provide “useful information” and provides a very practical description of the function of bookkeeping together with appropriate practical illustrations.
Chapters 6 and 7 provide two American examples. The first from Thomas Dobson’s Encyclopcedia, published in Philadelphia in 1791, containing an article contributed by Robert Hamilton, whose own work An Introduction Merchandise, provided a comprehensive discussion of double-entry book-keeping. Chapter 7 provides an extract from the Cyclopaedia by Abraham Rees, published in Philadelphia in 1807. The entry on book-keeping is again quite lengthy and practical in nature.
Sheldahl’s book is a very useful volume as it is another indication of the importance placed upon book-keeping at the time of the Industrial Revolution. While it is accepted that encyclopaedia entries necessarily follow practice this book is a useful tool for researchers investigating the accounting records of the period. The illustrations contained in the encyclopaedia articles provide some striking similarities to modern practice and indicate the practical nature of the articles by demonstrating the relationship of the various accounting records and the use of those records. Also, because the examples included in the book span some eighty years it is possible to make comparisons and observe the evolution of the practice of book-keeping over this period. Sheldahl has provided a valuable insight into the practice of accounting in the eighteenth century.
