London: Whittaker & Co. / George Bell & Sons, 1889. Octavo, dark blue cloth stamped in gilt, cream endpapers. pp xvi, 498, (1, ads), (1, blank), 32, ads + folding and mounted actual sepia photograph as frontispiece (switchboard at the Manchester Telephone Exchange), with tissue guard. 290 figures in text. Inside front cover has a nice bookplate of the Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet, rubber stamped Withdrawn in the margin, Signet Library by hand in ink at top margin, bookseller's ticket (MacLachlan & Stewart, Edinburgh) at bottom; pencil owner name on front free endpaper; two damp spots on rear cover, one at upper margin of front cover; this is otherwise a near fine copy, clean and tight in the binding, cover gilt bright. Preece (1834-1913) was a Welsh civil and electrical engineer who studied under Michael Faraday and who (in 1892) became Engineer-in-Chief of the British General Post Office. In 1889 he succeeded in transmitting Morse code radio signals over a distance of about a mile. Having developed a wireless telegraphy and telephony suystem in 1892, he developed a telephone system and implemented it in England. A nice copy of a scarce early telephone book.