I'll attempt here to summarize the eight chapters of this marvelous little book. I wish that I could scan the whole thing, and perhaps someday I shall, but it is very delicate and its pages are brittle. I'm just not sure how to go about the task without destroying it completely.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE--from Birmingham, July 1890, Bunce writes that the original version of the book was written at the request of Mason's family and heirs from Mason's notes and Bunce's notes from talks with Mason. It was distributed privately in small numbers as gifts on the anniversary of Mason's 87th birthday. The present volume was expanded considerably and circulated more widely.

CHAPTER ONE--"EARLY LIFE AT KIDDERMINSTER AND BIRMINGHAM"

          Born 23 February 1795 in Kidderminster, England, to Josiah and Elizabeth Griffiths Mason, our Josiah was schooled until age 8 when he started work. His mother encouraged his entrepreneurship-- --reselling cakes he had purchased from a bakery, rolling pennies into pound packages for vendors, selling fruits and vegetables door-to-door--until he was 15. He then taught himself the arts of shoemaking and writing, giving up the former when the latter became more useful in helping the poor and illiterate write their letters, valentines, etc. With his earnings he bought books and became quite well read in theology, history, and science, regularly attending the Unitarian and Wesleyan Sunday Schools on alternate Sundays. Still seeking to become established in a trade, he tried several, finally returning to his father's and grandfather's trade, that of carpetweaving (using a hand loom), mastering it and remaining in it for two years. 
          Eager to become established in a higher-paying manufacturing trade, he left Kidderminster for a Christmas visit with his uncle in Birmingham, then a still-unincorporated "town" of about 100,000, in December 1814, some two months before his 22nd birthday.  He never returnedto Kidderminster, living instead with his uncle for whom he worked as a gilt toy manufacturer, producing items such as common jewelry, buckles, chains, metal buttons, clasps, and other personal ornaments. 
          When his uncle's partner suddenly quit, Josiah was given the managership of the business. He made the business thrive, married his own cousin in August of 1817, and prospered for six or seven years, being promised a full partnership in the future. But his uncle reneged on the promise, selling the business instead to another for whom Mason worked briefly then left, not a little bitter at the turn of events, in 1822 at age 27.  He continued, however, teaching Sunday School in two Wesleyan fellowships, one in Birmingham, the other in Erdington some four miles away.

CHAPTER TWO--"STARTING IN BUSINESS"

          Through a Wesleyan contact, Mason was introduced to Mr. Samuel Harrison, "the split-ring maker", who hired him based on his good character and willingness to work and provided his family residence in his own home on the site of the factory, himself moving to another home.  In return, Mason took over as manager of the business, never having agreed upon a salary, taking for himself only what was necessary for his family to live and supplying Harrison with the remainder of the profits.  After a year, as the business was continuing to prosper, Harrison sold the business to Mason outright, taking the payment in installments that were completed in only six months! 
          Among Mr. Harrison's many inventions and achievements was the making, by hand, about 1780, of several steel pens for Dr. Priestley, a Unitarian leader with whom he had become good friends, by rolling sheet steel into tubes, then filing the end into the point, the joining of the metal becoming the slit.  They were, says Bunce, "the first, no doubt, that were produced in Birmingham."   Mason used these pens often himself, finding them to be "excellent".  Harrison died in 1833, Mason's mentor, advisor, good friend, and adopted second father, having practically given Mason his lucrative business. 
          Mason invented several machines himself which prospered the business further, and he continued to prosper for the remainder of his life, due, says Bunce, to hard work, inventive genius, keen business sense, and a commitment to helping the poor and educating children with his profits.  Mason, on the other hand, humbly gave credit for it all toGod's divine providence Who had led him into relationships with such people as his uncle, the Wesleyans, and Mr. Harrison. 

CHAPTER THREE--"HISTORY OF THE STEEL PEN TRADE"
           The Romans were the first to make metal pens, says Dr. Keller of Zurich: a hollow tube of thin metal--apparently bronze--with cleft point much as "the metallic pens of our own time."  Some metal pens, "preserved in the museum at Naples," were found in the excavations of Pompeii, dating them pre-79 a.d.
           The Middle Ages also give evidence of having pens of metal.  Bronze and silver pens (but none of steel) were known in France, Italy and England in the fourteenth century, no examples having survived except as referenced in written accounts of the day.  A bronze pen is mentioned in some court documents of 1329, and another reference  to a "brazen reed"  occurs in one of the first printed books published Dec. 17, 1465.
            A 1717 Dutch volume, Newly Invented Merchant's Office Almandck and Memorandum Book for the Year of Our Lord MDCCXVII, exactly dates a particular "newly invented" pen of either silver or polished steel described therein.  The slit of this barrel-shaped pen was extremely long.  This book was acquired by Mr. Samuel Timmins of Birmingham, a careful researcher of the history of steel pen making.
           In Roger North's Autobiography, the writer quotes his own letter dated March 8, 1700-1, to his sister, Mrs. Foley, in which he testifies that the letter is written with a steel pen of French origin.
           Another reference documents a pen of silver wire wound in a screw shape--this in Dr. Martin Lister's book A Journey to Paris in the Year 1695 published in 1699 by Jacob Tonson.
           Sainte Beuve's History of Port Royal, vol.iii. p. 513 (Paris, 1867), mentions two letters written by Fontaine to Sister Elizabeth Agnes de Feron, the first  on September 8, 1691, in which he requests the nun to make him some more copper pens, the second in which he thanks her for them.
           Bunce quotes Alexander Pope's "Epilogue to the Satires" (1738), the topic of which poem is a  steel pen Pope  received as a gift of Lady Frances Shirley which she had purchased for him"from Bertrands", a toy-shop at Bath, England. 
            It is speculated that Mr. Bertrand had acquired the pens in France or Germany.  Bunce tells of a Mr. Johann J. Janssen of Aix-la-Chapelle (the French name for the German city of Aachen) in a library manuscript of that city entitled, "Historical Chronicle of Aix-la-Chapelle, Second Book, year 1748".  Mr. Janssen, a writer to the Mayoralty ("Congress"), is quoted at length (some 208 words) therefrom as claiming to have invented steel pens.  
           Bunce states these quotes to be "his pretensions", however,  stating that the "authentic history of metallic penmaking in England" dates from some 32 years later when Sir Josiah Mason writes that his predecessor, the aforementioned Mr. (Samuel) Harrison of Birmingham, made some pens for Dr. Priestley in 1780, "made out of sheet steel, formed into a tube and filed into shape, the joining of the metal making the slit."  Mason had told Bunce that Harrison had given Mason some of the pens and that they were very "easy to write with,"  and that Bunce had even seen one of these pens that Mason had "preserved as a curiosity." 
.............
And here I quit to fall asleep 
or attend to another of life's 
mini-emergencies--tune in 
again later for more in the series!

CHAPTER FOUR--"HISTORY OF THE ELECTRO-PLATING TRADE"

CHAPTER FIVE--"HOW MASON USED HIS WEALTH: HIS ALMSHOUSES AND ORPHANAGE"

CHAPTER SIX--"FOUNDATION OFTHE MASON COLLEGE"

CHAPTER SEVEN--"BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES--MASON'S ILLNESS AND DEATH"

CHAPTER EIGHT--"PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS, ANECDOTES, CONCLUSION"