Book Catalogs

September 8

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Pennsylvania Journal (September 8, 1773).

“Given away GRATIS … ROBERT BELL’S SALE CATALOGUE of a COLLECTION of NEW AND OLD BOOKS.”

Robert Bell became one of the most prominent and influential American booksellers and publishers of the late eighteenth century, in part due to his flamboyant personality and flair for marketing.  He disseminated advertising in the same formats as other booksellers and publishers – newspaper notices, book catalogs, handbills, broadsides – yet introduced innovations intended to engage and entice consumers.

Such was the case in an advertisement that Bell placed in the September 8, 1773, edition of the Pennsylvania Journal.  If they included a headline at all (other than their names), most advertisers used a stark description of their wares, such as “BOOKS” or “PORT WINE.”  Bell, on the other hand, devised a headline that both described and addressed prospective customers: “The CURIOUS IN BOOKS.”  In other advertisements, his headlines addressed “THE SONS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA” and “THE AMERICAN WORLD” and “those who possess a PUBLIC SPIRIT.”  In other advertisements, his headlines made dramatic pronouncements, such as “HISTORY” and “LITERATURE” and “XENOPHONTICK BANQUET.”  Bell often crafted a headline intended to distinguish his advertisements from others.

He invited “The CURIOUS” to note that “This Day is Published and given away GRATIS, to all who are pleased to call or send for it, ROBERT BELL’S SALE CATALOGUE Of a COLLECTION of NEW AND OLD BOOKS.”  Those who desired a copy had the option of visiting the shop or, for their convenience, Bell had catalogs delivered to those who requested them.  He emphasized the many choices available, declaring that the catalog listed “above FIFTEEN HUNDRED VOLUMES” and then further elaborating the selection included “a number of elegant and uncommon BOOKS, very scare and rarely to be met with.”  That was because many of them were secondhand books from “the LIBRARY of a Gentleman who lately left this Country.”  That meant customers had access to rare volumes not widely available in the colonial marketplace.  It also implied scarcity, just one copy of many of the books in the catalog, so prospective customers needed to purchase books that interested them quickly.

To encourage “The CURIOUS” to take action, Bell listed more than just the authors and titles of the books in his catalog.  Every entry included “the lowest Price fixed to each Book” so consumers could make their own assessments about whether they could afford the books and how much they valued them.  Presenting prospective customers with prices also helped them imagine completing transactions and adding books to their own libraries.  Although they had to pay for any purchases, Bell distributed the catalogs to “The CURIOUS” for free as a means of getting them started on those imaginative journeys that the bookseller hoped would culminate in sales.  Bell combined a lively advertisement and free catalog into an innovative marketing campaign that set him apart from most other booksellers of the period.

July 15

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Maryland Gazette (July 15, 1773).

“Catalogues both of the library and the books he has for sale to be had at his shop.”

On July 15, 1773, William Aikman once again took to the pages of the Maryland Gazette to promote the circulating library that the bookseller and stationer recently opened in Annapolis.  He inserted the same advertisement that appeared in the previous issue, seeking subscribers for the library and hawking books, stationery, and writing supplies.  In addition to deploying the newspaper notice, Aikman used other forms of advertising.

For instance, he concluded his notice with a nota bene that advised, “Catalogues both of the library and the books he has for sale to be had at his shop.”  According to Robert Winans in A Descriptive Checklist of Book Catalogues Separately Printed in America, 1639-1800, the Maryland Historical Society has the only known copy of a book catalog that may have been the one that Aikman mentioned in his newspaper advertisement.  It contains “854 consecutively numbered medium and full author and title entries, arranged alphabetically,” falling short of the “1200 volumes” that Aikman tallied in his newspaper advertisement.  However, that sole copy lacks a title page and other evidence suggests that additional pages may have been lost as well.

Trade Card for William Aikman’s Circulating Library (Annapolis, 1773). Courtesy American Antiquarian Society.

In addition to publishing at least one book catalog, Aikman also distributed an item that may have served as a trade card, a bookplate, or membership card.  The copperplate engraving features an ornate border that encloses the words “W. AIKMAN’S Circulating Library” in the upper portion of the cartouche and an advertisement for his book and stationery shop in the lower portion: “All kinds of Books, Letter Cases, Message Cards, Gilt &Plain Paper, Wax, &c. Sold at his Shop, Annapolis, at the British Prices, for Cash Only.  Paper rul’d, Books bound in the neatest manner.”  The final portion of that advertisement echoed the services that Aikman listed in his newspaper advertisement.  Images of a globe and a pen and inkpot resting on two books outside the border testified to both the world of knowledge and the products available at Aikman’s circulating library and bookshop.  The upper portion of the cartouche also included “No” with space to write in a number.  The number “474” appears in manuscript on the copy in the collections of the American Antiquarian Society.  That number may have been associated with a book in the numbered catalog or a subscriber to the circulating library, depending on whether Aikman used the engraved card as a bookplate or a membership card.

Aikman’s marketing efforts extended beyond newspaper advertisements.  He also distributed book catalogs and engraved cards to draw attention to his bookshop and circulating library, joining other entrepreneurs who diversified the kinds of advertisements that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.

June 10

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (June 10, 1773).

“A CATALOGUE of BOOKS, STATIONARY, &c.”

Alexander Purdie and John Dixon, the printers of the Virginia Gazette, placed a full-page advertisement in the June 10, 1773, edition of their newspaper.  Their “CATALOGUE of BOOKS, STATIONARY, &c. To be SOLD at the PRINTING OFFICE, WILLIAMSBURG,” occupied the entire third page.  While rare, full-page advertisements were not unknown in eighteenth-century newspapers.  Printers and booksellers, especially newspaper printers who also sold books, most frequently adopted this format, but merchants and shopkeepers sometimes utilized it as well.

Purdie and Dixon’s catalog consisted of four columns with one title per line throughout most of it.  They organized the entries first by size, with headings for “FOLIOS,” “QUARTOS,” “OCTAVOS,” and “DUODECIMOS.”  Within each category, the printers arranged the entries roughly in alphabetical order according to the author’s name or the title of the book.  They also had auxiliary categories for “FRENCH SCHOOL BOOKS,” “GREEK SCHOOL BOOKS,” and “LATIN SCHOOL BOOKS,” in the fourth column.  To conserve space, titles of school books, many of them familiar to prospective customers, appeared in paragraphs rather than each receiving its own line.  Rather than a header for “STATIONERY” (or “STATIONARY” as it was most commonly spelled in the eighteenth century), a line indicated where the list of writing supplies and other items began.  There, once again, Purdie and Dixon listed only one item per line to help prospective customers navigate their catalog.

In addition to inserting their catalog in their newspaper, Purdie and Dixon may have published it separately and distributed it via other means, as they seemingly had done on at least one previous occasion.  They could have passed it out to customers who visited their printing office.  Treating it as a broadside, the printers could have posted it around town or made arrangements for associates in other towns to hang it in their stores and shops.  They may even have folded it over, sealed and addressed it, and had it delivered to prospective customers, though printers and others experimented with circular letters less often than they distributed broadsides, handbills, and catalogs in the eighteenth century.  The catalog might have appeared solely in the Virginia Gazette, but given the printers’ access to the press and their other efforts to distribute book catalogs it seems more likely that they published and disseminated this catalog separately as well.

Happy Birthday, Benjamin Franklin!

Carl Robert Keyes Special Features , , , ,

Today is an important day for specialists in early American print culture, for Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706 (January 6, 1705, Old Style), in Boston. Among his many other accomplishments, Franklin is known as the “Father of American Advertising.” Although I have argued elsewhere that this title should more accurately be bestowed upon Mathew Carey (in my view more prolific and innovative in the realm of advertising as a printer, publisher, and advocate of marketing), I recognize that Franklin deserves credit as well. Franklin is often known as “The First American,” so it not surprising that others should rank him first among the founders of advertising in America.

benjamin-franklin
Benjamin Franklin (Joseph Siffred Duplessis, ca. 1785).  National Portrait Gallery.

Franklin purchased the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1729. In the wake of becoming printer, he experimented with the visual layout of advertisements that appeared in the weekly newspaper, incorporating significantly more white space and varying font sizes in order to better attract readers’ and potential customers’ attention. Advertising flourished in the Pennsylvania Gazette, which expanded from two to four pages in part to accommodate the greater number of commercial notices.

jan-17-pennsylvania-gazette-19-161736
Advertisements with white space, varying sizes of font, capitals and italics, and a woodcut from Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette (December 9-16, 1736).

Many historians of the press and print culture in early America have noted that Franklin became wealthy and retired as a printer in favor of a multitude of other pursuits in part because of the revenue he collected from advertising. Others, especially David Waldstreicher, have underscored that this wealth was amassed through participation in the colonial slave trade. The advertisements for goods and services featured in the Pennsylvania Gazette included announcements about buying and selling enslaved men, women, and children as well as notices offering rewards for those who escaped from bondage.

jan-17-pennsylvania-gazette-slave-19-161736
Advertisement for an enslaved woman and an enslaved child from Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette (December 9-16, 1736).

In 1741 Franklin published one of colonial America’s first magazines, The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle, for all the British Plantations in America (which barely missed out on being the first American magazine, a distinction earned by Franklin’s competitor, Andrew Bradford, with The American Magazine or Monthly View of the Political State of the British Colonies). The magazine lasted only a handful of issues, but that was sufficient for Franklin to become the first American printer to include an advertisement in a magazine (though advertising did not become a standard part of magazine publication until special advertising wrappers were developed later in the century — and Mathew Carey was unarguably the master of that medium).

general-magazine
General Magazine and Historical Chronicle, For all the British Plantations in America (January 1741).  Library of Congress.

In 1744 Franklin published an octavo-sized Catalogue of Choice and Valuable Books, including 445 entries. This is the first known American book catalogue aimed at consumers (though the Library Company of Philadelphia previously published catalogs listing their holdings in 1733, 1735, and 1741). Later that same year, Franklin printed a Catalogue of Books to Be Sold at Auction.

Franklin pursued advertising through many media in eighteenth-century America, earning recognition as one of the founders of American advertising. Happy 317th birthday, Benjamin Franklin!

October 28

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 year ago today?

Pennsylvania Gazette (October 28, 1772).

“A catalogue of new and old books … is given away gratis.”

William Woodhouse, a bookseller, stationer, and bookbinder in Philadelphia, regularly advertised in the public prints in the early 1770s.  For instance, he ran an advertisement in the October 28, 1772, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, advising consumers that he had recently received a shipment of new inventory from London.  Woodhouse provided some examples to entice prospective customer, starting with stationery items.  He stocked everything from “a large assortment of the best writing paper in all sizes” to “round pewter ink stands” to “sealing-wax, wafers, quills, [and] black and red pencils.”  Woodhouse also listed some of the “variety of new books” at his shop, including “Baskerville’s grand family folio bible, with cuts,” “Pope’s Young’s Swift’s Tillotson’s, Shakespear’s, Bunyan’s. and Flavel’s works,” and “Blackstone’s commentaries, 4 vols. 4to.”  The abbreviation “4to” referred to quarto, the size of the pages, allowing readers to imagine how they might consult or display the books.  Woodhouse even had “Newberry’s small books for children, with pictures” for his youngest customers.

The bookseller concluded his newspaper advertisement with a nota bene that invited consumers to engage with other marketing materials.  “A catalogue of new and old books, with the prices printed to each book,” the nota bene declared, “is given away gratis, by said Woodhouse.”  That very well may have been the “CATALOGUE OF A COLLECTION OF NEW AND OLD BOOKS, In all the Arts and Sciences, and in various Languages” that Woodhouse first promoted six weeks earlier in another newspaper, the Pennsylvania Packet.  That catalog also included “a large quantity of entertaining Novels, with the lowest price printed to each book.”  Most book catalogs, like newspaper advertisements, did not indicate prices.  Woodhouse apparently believed that stating his prices would help in convincing customers to purchase their books from him rather than from any of his many competitors in Philadelphia.  To draw attention to both the prices and his selection, he gave away the catalog for free.

This catalog may have been part of a larger advertising campaign that Woodhouse launched in the fall of 1772.  He might have also distributed handbills or posted broadsides.  In 1771, he circulated a one-page subscription proposal for “A Pennsylvania Sailor’s Letters; alias the Farmer’s Fall.”  A quarter of a century later, Woodhouse distributed a card promoting copies of “Constitutions of the United States, According to the Latest Amendments: To Which Are Annexed, the Declaration of Independence, and the Federal Constitution, with Amendments Thereto.”  It stands to reasons that Woodhouse used advertising media other than newspapers on other occasions, though such ephemeral items have not survived in the same numbers as newspaper advertisements.  I suspect that far more advertising circulated in early America than has been preserved and identified in historical societies, research libraries, and private collections.

September 14

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What as advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Pennsylvania Packet (September 14, 1772).

“The curious in books … are requested to call for the Catalogue.”

An advertisement in the September 14, 1772, edition of the Pennsylvania Packet invited readers to visit “the Book-Store of WILLIAM WOODHOUSE” to receive a free copy of “A CATALOGUE OF A COLLECTION OF NEW AND OLD BOOKS, In all the Arts and Sciences, and in various Languages.”  The advertisement indicates that the lengthy title of the catalog included “Also, as large quantity of entertaining Novels, with the lowest price printed to each book.”  At a glance, it appears that Woodhouse was responsible for compiling and promoting this catalog, but closer inspection reveals that Woodhouse almost certainly collaborated with another bookseller, Robert Bell.

Ten months later, Bell distributed a catalog that replicated the title of the catalog advertised in September 1772, with the exception of adding his name: “ROBERT BELL’s SALE CATALOGUE Of a COLLECTION of NEW AND OLD BOOK, In all the Arts and Sciences, and in various Languages, Also, a large Quantity of entertaining NOVELS; with the lowest Price printed to each BOOK; NOW SELLING, At the BOOK-STORE of WILLIAM WOODHOUSE, Bookseller, Stationer, and Bookbinder, in Front-street, near Chestnut-street, Philadelphia.”  Woodhouse apparently provided retail space for Bell in both 1772 and 1773.

Yet more than merely identical titles testify to Bell’s role in producing and marketing the catalog.  The newspaper advertisement concluded with a nota bene that declared, “In this Collection are many uncommon BOOKS, seldom to be found;—therefore, the curious in books—the Directors of Libraries—and all others, that delight in the food of the mind, are requested to call for the Catalogue at said WOODHOUSE’S, as above.”  Those flourishes, especially “the curious in books” and “food of the mind,” echoed the language that the flamboyant Bell deployed in other advertisements.  For instance, he previously marketed “ROBERTSON’S celebrated History of CHARLES the Fifth” to “ALL Gentlemen that possess a sentimental TASTE.”

Bell was one of the most innovative and influential American booksellers and publishers of the eighteenth century.  Inserting the “lowest price” in the entry for each book in the catalog distinguished it from other catalogs that merely listed authors, titles, and, sometimes, sizes ranging from folio to quarto to octavo to duodecimo.  In addition, Bell supplemented newspaper advertisements and catalogs with broadsides and subscription notices, creating savvy marketing campaigns that incorporated multiple media to entice colonizers to become consumers of the books that he hawked.

July 16

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (July 16, 1772).

“Printed Catalogues may be had at the Auction-Room.”

In the summer of 1772, Joseph Russell, the proprietor of the “Auction-Room in Queen street” in Boston,” advertised a sale of a “very Large and Valuable Collection of BOOKS, in almost every Branch of polite Literature” scheduled for July 17.  In anticipation of the auction, he offered “Printed Catalogues” for customers to peruse and mark.  Some historians of the book have suggested that many catalogs mentioned in newspaper advertisements never existed.  Some booksellers and auctioneers may have promised catalogs as a means of increasing foot traffic, achieving their goal whether or not they passed out any catalogs to anyone who visited their shops or auction halls.  Others may have had the best intentions of supplying catalogs, but lack of time or lack of resources worked against them.

Revisions to Russell’s advertisement as the day of the auction approached suggest that he did indeed distribute catalogs.  In an advertisement in the July 6 edition of the Boston-Evening Post July 9 edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, Russell informed the public that “Printed Catalogues may be had at the Auction-Room in Queen-street, the Monday preceding the Time of Sale.”  On Monday, July 13, the Boston Evening-Post ran the same advertisement again, but a new advertisement in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy stated that “Printed Catalogues may be had at the Auction-Room in Queen-street.”  A few days later, the advertisement in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter featured some new copy.  Instead of opening with “On Friday 17th July,” the new headline proclaimed “TO-MORROW.”  Russell also removed reference to “the Monday preceding the Time of Sale,” asserting that “Printed Catalogues may be had at the Auction-Room in Queen-street.”  That brought his advertisement in line with the one recently placed in the Massachusetts Gazette and Post-Boy.  Even though Russell neglected to update the advertisement in the Boston Evening-Post, he altered the notice in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, suggesting that he sought to bring it into conformity with new developments.

February 3

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Boston Evening-Post (February 3, 1772).

“Collection of BOOKS … A Catalogue of which may be seen at said Store.”

Henry Knox is most often remembered as the general who oversaw artillery for the Continental Army during the American Revolution and the new nation’s first Secretary of War in George Washington’s cabinet.  Before the Revolution, however, Knox earned his livelihood as a bookseller in Boston.  He frequently advertised books and stationery available at his “LONDON BOOK-STORE” in the Boston Evening-Post and other newspapers.  In an advertisement that ran in February 1772, for instance, he promoted a “Large and valuable Collection of BOOKS” as well as “Writing Paper of all Sorts and Sizes … and almost every other kind of Stationary.”

Knox did not name any of the titles he had on hand, but he did list several genres, including “Divinity, History, Law, Physick, and Surgery” and “A Variety of New Novels, Sea Books, All Kinds of School Books, and Classical Authors.”  To entice prospective customers to visit, he confided that “A Catalogue … may be seen at said Store.”  Many booksellers supplemented their newspaper advertisements with other marketing materials, including trade cards, broadsides, and catalogs.  Some historians of early American print culture have cast doubt on how many book catalogs booksellers actually produced and disseminated, suggesting that many catalogs mentioned in newspaper advertisements never materialized.  In this case, however, Knox likely referred to a thirty-two page “Catalogue of books, imported and to be sold by Henry Knox, at the London Book-Store, a Little Southward of the Town-House, in Cornhill, Boston, MDCCLXXII.”  At least two copies survive, one held by the Grolier Club in New York and the other in the collections of the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University.

Knox distributed at least one other catalog before the American Revolution.  The Library Company of Philadelphia and the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine Library in London each have an undated catalog that highlighted titles by “Much Esteemed Authors in Physic and Surgery.”  That four-page catalog has tentatively been dated to 1772 because the copy in the collections of the Library Company has been bound with and precedes A New Lecture on Heads by George Alexander Stevens, originally printed in London and reprinted for Henry Knox in 1772.  Just as books published in the twenty-first century often include advertisements for other books, printers and booksellers in early American sometimes inserted advertising in the books they produced and sold.

**********

The catalogers at the American Antiquarian Society provided invaluable assistance in telling the story of Henry Knox and his book catalogs.

Happy Birthday, Benjamin Franklin!

Carl Robert Keyes Bonus Advertisements, Special Features , , , ,

Today is an important day for specialists in early American print culture, for Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706 (January 6, 1705, Old Style), in Boston. Among his many other accomplishments, Franklin is known as the “Father of American Advertising.” Although I have argued elsewhere that this title should more accurately be bestowed upon Mathew Carey (in my view more prolific and innovative in the realm of advertising as a printer, publisher, and advocate of marketing), I recognize that Franklin deserves credit as well. Franklin is often known as “The First American,” so it not surprising that others should rank him first among the founders of advertising in America.

benjamin-franklin
Benjamin Franklin (Joseph Siffred Duplessis, ca. 1785).  National Portrait Gallery.

Franklin purchased the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1729. In the wake of becoming printer, he experimented with the visual layout of advertisements that appeared in the weekly newspaper, incorporating significantly more white space and varying font sizes in order to better attract readers’ and potential customers’ attention. Advertising flourished in the Pennsylvania Gazette, which expanded from two to four pages in part to accommodate the greater number of commercial notices.

jan-17-pennsylvania-gazette-19-161736
Advertisements with white space, varying sizes of font, capitals and italics, and a woodcut from Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette (December 9-16, 1736).

Many historians of the press and print culture in early America have noted that Franklin became wealthy and retired as a printer in favor of a multitude of other pursuits in part because of the revenue he collected from advertising. Others, especially David Waldstreicher, have underscored that this wealth was amassed through participation in the colonial slave trade. The advertisements for goods and services featured in the Pennsylvania Gazette included announcements about buying and selling enslaved men, women, and children as well as notices offering rewards for those who escaped from bondage.

jan-17-pennsylvania-gazette-slave-19-161736
Advertisement for an enslaved woman and an enslaved child from Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette (December 9-16, 1736).

In 1741 Franklin published one of colonial America’s first magazines, The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle, for all the British Plantations in America (which barely missed out on being the first American magazine, a distinction earned by Franklin’s competitor, Andrew Bradford, with The American Magazine or Monthly View of the Political State of the British Colonies). The magazine lasted only a handful of issues, but that was sufficient for Franklin to become the first American printer to include an advertisement in a magazine (though advertising did not become a standard part of magazine publication until special advertising wrappers were developed later in the century — and Mathew Carey was unarguably the master of that medium).

general-magazine
General Magazine and Historical Chronicle, For all the British Plantations in America (January 1741).  Library of Congress.

In 1744 Franklin published an octavo-sized Catalogue of Choice and Valuable Books, including 445 entries. This is the first known American book catalogue aimed at consumers (though the Library Company of Philadelphia previously published catalogs listing their holdings in 1733, 1735, and 1741). Later that same year, Franklin printed a Catalogue of Books to Be Sold at Auction.

Franklin pursued advertising through many media in eighteenth-century America, earning recognition as one of the founders of American advertising. Happy 316th birthday, Benjamin Franklin!

August 18

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

Supplement to the Pennsylvania Journal (August 15, 1771).

“The following BOOKS, many of them late publications.”

During the week of August 15, 1771, William Bradford and Thomas Bradford had more content than would fit in the four pages of a standard issue of the Pennsylvania Journal.  To solve that dilemma, they distributed a two-page supplement composed entirely of advertising.  One side consisted primarily of twenty-two paid notices submitted by residents of Philadelphia and nearby towns, though the Bradfords interspersed five advertisements for books published and available at their printing office among them.  The other side, however, promoted books sold by the Bradfords exclusively.  In effect, they published a full-page advertisement, one that resembled a broadside catalog and could have been produced and distributed separately if they wished.

Although the list of books filled an entire page, the advertisement featured only fifty-five titles.  In most instances, the Bradfords provided more than the names of the authors and short titles of the books.  Instead, they offered blurbs that previewed the contents for prospective customers.  For instance, one entry described “Salmon’s New Geographical and Historical Grammar, or the present state of the several kingdoms of the world, containing their situation and extent, cities, chief towns, history, present state, form of government, forces, revenues, taxes, revolutions, and memorable events; together with an account of the air, soil, produce, traffic, arms, curiosities, religion, languages, &c. &c. illustrated with a new set of maps and other copper-plates.”  In crafting the blurbs, the Bradfords drew heavily from the extensive subtitles of the books and the tables of contents, but they also noted any ancillary items that added value, such as the maps and images that accompanied Thomas Salmon’s Geographical and Historical Grammar.  For works divided into multiple volumes, they also listed how many were included in a complete set.

Publishing this book catalog as part of an advertising supplement for their newspaper presented an opportunity for the Bradfords to market “A New Publication,” an imported History of France during the Reigns of Francis II and Charles IXby Walter Anderson, as well as hawk other titles among their inventory.  The fees they collected from other advertisers whose notices appeared on the other side of the supplement reduced or eliminated the expense of publishing and distributing a full-page advertisement.

Supplement to the Pennsylvania Journal (August 15, 1771).