Robert Bell

March 16

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Ledger (March 16, 1776).

“PLAIN TRUTH … containing Remarks on a late Pamphlet intituled COMMON SENSE.”

Robert Bell published the first edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense on January 9, 1776, and not long after that he published a response, “PLAIN TRUTH; addressed to the INHABITANTS of AMERICA, containing Remarks on a late Pamphlet intituled COMMON SENSE.”  As was often the case in eighteenth-century advertisements for books and pamphlets, Bell used the extensive subtitle as the copy for marketing the volume: “Wherein are shewn, that the Scheme of INDEPENDENCE is Ruinous, Delusive, and impracticable: That were the Author’s Asseverations, respecting the Power of AMERICA, as Real as Nugatory, Reconciliation, on liberal Principles with GREAT-BRITAIN would be exalted Policy: And that, circumstances as we are, permanent Liberty, and true Happiness can only be obtained by Reconciliation with that Kingdon.”

According to Thomas R. Adams, only two pamphlets answered Common Sense in the six months between its publication in January and the Continental Congress declaring independence in July.  Robert Bell first advertised Plain Truth in the Pennsylvania Gazette on March 13.  Near the end of May, James Humphreys, Jr., published The True Interest of America Impartially Stated in Certain Strictures on a Pamphlet Intitled Common Sense.[1]  Bell quickly placed advertisements in other newspapers printed in Philadelphia, including the Pennsylvania Evening Post on March 14 and the Pennsylvania Ledger on March 16.  In each advertisement, he set the price at three shillings for a single copy “with large allowance to those who buy per the hundred or dozen.”  In other words, Bell offered a significant discount for buying in volume, hoping to make the pamphlet more attractive to consumers who might buy a dozen to share with friends and retailers who might buy a hundred to sell in their own shops in Philadelphia and beyond.  He may not have anticipated that Plain Truth would achieve the same popularity as Common Sense, yet he was still a savvy entrepreneur who aimed to generate revenue from the debate over declaring independence.  “To this Pamphlet is subjoined,” a nota bene at the end of the advertisement informed readers, “a Defence of the Liberty of the Press.”  Adams asserts that Bell “pleaded for the right to present both sides of the question.  No doubt he hoped thereby to increase the sales of both pamphlets.”[2]  James Rivington had done the same in advertisements with headlines like “THE AMERICAN CONTEST” and “The American Controversy” that promoted pamphlets “on both sides, in the unhappy dispute with Great-Britain.”  Humphreys, who eventually published The True Interest of America Impartially Stated, also ran advertisements for “POLITICAL PAMPHLETS, ON Both Sides of the Question.”  Such pamphlets educated colonizers and helped them understand and formulate their own positions, yet they also presented opportunities for printers to generate revenue from current events.

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[1] Thomas R. Adams, “The Authorship and Printing of Plain Truth by ‘Candidus,’” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 49, no. 3 (1955): 230-231.

[2] Adams, “Authorship and Printing,” 235.

February 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (February 22, 1775).

“Self-defence against unjust attacks needs no apology.”

It was the final volley in the battle over competing editions of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense that took place in newspapers advertisements in Philadelphia over a course of a month in late January and most of February 1776.  The author and Robert Bell, the publisher of the first edition, had a parting of the ways over Bell’s bookkeeping for the first edition.  Paine claimed that he wished to donate his share of the proceeds to purchase mittens for American soldiers participating in the invasion of Canada, but Bell somehow had not turned a profit.  That prompted Paine to work with William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, the printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, on an expanded edition.  Bell published an unauthorized second edition.  Paine, who remained anonymous at that point, and Bell attacked each other in newspaper advertisements.  The author walked away, but Bell continued and the Bradfords joined the fray.  When Aitken learned that the Bradfords’ edition would feature new material, he published his own “ADDITIONS to Common Sense.”  The Bradfords warned that Bell’s new pamphlet “consists of Pieces taken out of News Papers, and not written by the Author of COMMON SENSE.”  Several newspapers carried some of these advertisements; the Pennsylvania Evening Post carried all of them.  Printed three times a week instead of just once (in contrast to the other newspapers published in Philadelphia at t the time), the Pennsylvania Evening Post allowed the feuding printers to publish speedy responses to the latest accusations leveled against them.

Bell inserted the last of those responses in the February 22 edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post and the February 26 edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet.  In Thomas Paine: A Bibliographical Check List of Common Sense with an Account of Its Publication, Richard Gimbel notes that Bell “thought so much of this address that he had it separately printed as a two-page leaflet and added it, as an integral part, to his ‘complete’ edition of Common Sense.”[1]  In this advertisement, Bell presented himself as a performing his civic dry as a “Bookseller, to the Public.”  He entitled this new address, “Self-defence against unjust attacks needs no apology.”  He then disparaged Paine, the “envious Mr. ANONYMOUS,” for wanting to have all the attention for writing Common Sense when other authors, “worthy and respectables citizens of Philadelphia,” also penned “excellent pieces.”  Furthermore, “in the opinion of some gentlemen, who are good judges of literary merit,” those essays were “worthy of preservation, in such manner as to bind with other pamphlets in an octavo volume.”  Why should readers limit themselves to Common Sense alone when they considered current events when they could instead consult an entire compendium of essays that supported the American cause?  Paine, his intermediaries who negotiated with Bell, and the printers who worked with him attempted to “insinuate,” according to Bell, that there is no WRITERS in America but the would-be-author of Common Sense.”  Yet Paine had been influenced by others, so any acclaim he received amounted to nothing more than “stolen applause.”  In addition, the publisher framed the production and, especially, the dissemination of Common Sense as his work.  After all, Paine did not attach his name to the pamphlet and most printers initially did not want to be associated with such a revolutionary tract, but Bell “printed his name on the title of the flaming production, to sound the depths of the multitude for a virtuous and glorious independency.”  “Mr. ANONYMOUS” wrote the pamphlet, but it was Bell who deserved credit for presenting it to the world.  He concluded by proclaiming that he “continueth to sell to all who are capable of making proper distinctions, the large edition of Common Sense with ALL the additions and improvements.”  That volume included “the appendix, and address to the Quakers COMPLETE,” pieces written by Bell for the Bradfords’ expanded edition and pirated by Bell.  Gimbel contends that this “acrimonious quarrel” in newspaper advertisements “doubtless helped to make Paine’s Common Sense the most discussed and most widely circulated pamphlet in America.”[2]  Then, as now, everyone loved a controversy.  The dispute gave readers all the more reason to check out the pamphlet.

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[1] Richard Gimbel, Thomas Paine: A Bibliographical Check List of Common Sense with an Account of Its Publication (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956), 47.

[2] Gimbel, Thomas Paine: A Bibliographical Check List of Common Sense, 49.

February 22

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update, Guest Contribution , , , , , , , ,

GUEST CURATOR:  Madison Sandusky

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (February 22, 1776).

“THE MILITARY GUIDE for YOUNG OFFICERS.  By THOMAS SIMES, Esq.”

Several printers in Philadelphia advertised “THE MILITARY GUIDE for YOUNG OFFICERS” by Thomas Simes in February 1776.  The manual was published in 1776 and contained a compilation of “works of several military authors, including Humphrey Bland and the comte de Saxe.”  When the American Revolution began in 1775, military manuals, such as the one Simes wrote, became popular among young men preparing to join the war and those who had already joined. According to the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati, “to meet the demand for military texts, a flood of printings began to appear from the American presses.”  Additionally, the advertisement above, published in the Pennsylvania Evening Post, which was a newspaper located in Philadelphia, displays how that flood of printing was “centered in Philadelphia, where more than thirty works on military subjects were published in the years 1775 and 1776 alone.”  The advertisement briefly summarizes the book, stating that it included “the experience of many brave heroes in critical situations, for the use of young warriors” to entice the target audience of young men who would serve as officers to purchase the book as a helpful guide. The advertisement even noted that the guide came with its own “explanatory DICTIONARY,” a bonus section. One signer of the Declaration of Independence, William Floyd, owned a copy of Simes’s guide, which can be taken as an indicator of both the quality and popularity of its contents.

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY:  Carl Robert Keyes

Robert Bell, the publisher of the first edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, continued his feud with William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, the printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, with a new advertisement in the February 22, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  Dissatisfied with Bell’s bookkeeping, Paine collaborated with the Bradfords on an expanded edition of his popular political pamphlet, yet Bell took an unauthorized second edition to press and simultaneously published diatribes about Paine and the Bradfords.  His latest advertisement would be the last in the series that attacked the author and his fellow printers.  It filled more than a column, starting on the third page of the February 22 issue of the Pennsylvania Evening Post and overflowing onto the fourth page.  The advertisement for Thomas Simes’s Military Guide for Young Officers, jointly published by Bell, Robert Aitken, and James Humphreys, Jr., immediately followed Bell’s advertisement.  In the column to the right, the Bradfords promoted their “NEW EDITION of COMMON SENSE, With ADDITIONS and IMPROVEMENTS,” and warned that the “Pamphlet advertised by Robert Bell intitled ADDITIONS to COMMON SENSE … consists of Pieces taken out of News Papers, and not written by the Author of COMMON SENSE.”

The advertisement for Simes’s Military Guide for Young Officers thus appeared in the middle of the controversy over the publication of new editions of Common Sense.  Unlike Bell’s questionable decision to produce a second edition of the political pamphlet and then attempt to capitalize off it by publishing another pamphlet of “ADDITIONS” drawn from newspapers rather than written by Paine, he collaborated with Aitken and Humphreys in producing the military manual “at the desire of several Members of the Honorable the Continental Congress, and some of the Military Officers of the Association.”  Bell (along with Aitken and Humphreys) had the right endorsements for an American edition of a manual previously published in London and the printers attempted to leverage that in marketing Simes’s Military Guide for Young Officers to prospective customers who, as Madison notes, could choose from among many similar works published in Philadelphia at the time.  In the Pennsylvania Evening Post, the advertisement appeared in the middle of the various notices in the February 22 edition, but two days later it had a privileged place in the Pennsylvania Ledger.  Humphreys, the printer of that newspaper, placed the advertisement on the first page, making it the first item in the first column.  The printers of the Pennsylvania Gazette gave the advertisement the same treatment in the February 28 edition of their newspaper.  The flamboyant Bell took a more measured approach to marketing the military manual compared to some of the other books and pamphlets he printed and, especially, his new editions of Common Sense.  Perhaps his partners in the endeavor took the lead in marketing Simes’s Military Guide for Young Officers.

February 21

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

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (February 21, 1776).

“THE NEW EDITION OF COMMON SENSE.”

“Large Additions to COMMON SENSE.”

Although Benjamin Towne most frequently published advertisements for Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in his Pennsylvania Evening Post, he was not the only printer in Philadelphia to generate revenue from advertisements for competing editions of the pamphlet.  Other newspapers also carried advertisements for Common Sense.  After Paine and Robert Bell, the publisher of the first edition, had a falling out, Bell went forward with an unauthorized second edition and Paine worked with William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, the printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, on an expanded edition that featured new material.  Not to be outdone, Bell advertised, published, and sold other supplementary material that he billed as “Large Additions to COMMON SENSE,” though Paine was not the author of those pieces that Bell instead reprinted from newspapers.  Bell and Paine and then Bell and the Bradfords engaged in bitter exchanges in their advertisements in the Pennsylvania Evening Post.

They also placed more subdued notices in other newspapers.  In the February 21, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, for instance, their advertisements ran one after the other.  In the first, the Bradfords announced that they “Just published … THE NEW EDITION OF COMMON SENSE: With Additions and Improvements in the Body of the Work.”  To entice readers to select their pamphlet, they added a nota bene that stated that the “Additions … amount to upwards of one Third of any former Editions.”  Customers could acquire this new edition from the Bradfords “at the London Coffee-house” and from associates in the book trades, including John Sparhawk, William Trickett, and William Woodhouse.  Immediately below that advertisement, Bell hawked his “Large Additions.”  He listed the contents, just as he had done in his first advertisements for the first edition of Common Sense.  He also declared that he added Paine’s “Address to the people called Quakers,” pirated from the Bradfords’ new edition.  Like Towne, the printers of the Pennsylvania Gazette, William Hall, David Hall, and William Sellers, did not need to sell a single copy of the pamphlet to generate revenue from it.  They made their money on Common Sense from the competing advertisements placed by Bell and the Bradfords!

February 20

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

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (February 20, 1776).

“Pieces taken out of News papers, and not written by the Author of COMMON SENSE.”

The final page of the Pennsylvania Evening Post was once again ground zero for the dispute between Robert Bell, the publisher of the first edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and subsequent unauthorized editions, and William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, the printers of the Pennsylvania Journal entrusted by Paine to publish a “NEW EDITION … With ADDITIONS and IMPROVEMENTS in the BODY of the WORK.”  Paine previously participated in the dispute, but he seemingly withdrew in favor of letting the printers duke it out in the public prints.

The Bradfords’ expanded edition had been in the press for a few weeks, but on February 14, 1776, they announced in their own newspaper that “THIS DAY WILL BE PUBLISHED AND SOLD … THE NEW EDITION OF COMMON SENSE.”  The following day, they ran a new advertisement in the Pennsylvania Evening Post and then updated it on February 20.  To make that edition more appealing than any of the editions published by Bell, the Bradfords proclaimed, “The Additions which are here given, amount to upwards of one Third of any former Edition.”  They also acknowledged that Bell had been advertising “ADDITION to COMMON SENSE,” but they alerted readers that Bell was trying to pull a fast one.  The “ADDITIONS” that Bell marketed “consist of Pieces taken out of News Papers, and not written by the Author of COMMON SENSE.”  Paine had worked exclusively with the Bradfords on the “ADDITIONS and IMPROVEMENTS.”  The Bradfords also listed several booksellers who stocked their new edition.  Benjamin Towne, the printer of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, was not among them, but he certainly generated revenue from publishing the advertisements that the Bradfords and Bell submitted to his printing office.

Right next to the Bradfords’ advertisement, as had been the case on other occasions, appeared Bell’s advertisement for “Large ADDITIONS to COMMON SENSE.”  Those “ADDITIONS” included “the following interesting subjects,” “American Independency defended by Candidus,” and “The Propriety of Independancy, by Demophilus,” and “Observations on Lord North’s Conciliatory Plan, by Sincerus.”  This version of the advertisement added “The American Patriot’s Prayer,” left out of Bell’s previous notice, to entice prospective customers.  Bell also pirated “AN APPENDIX TO COMMON SENSE, together with an ADDRESS to the people called QUAKERS, on their Testimony concerning Kings and Government.”  Like the Bradfords, he charged “one shilling ONLY” and made “allowance to those who buy quantities.”  In other words, the printers of Common Sense and related materials offered discounts to retailers who purchased in volume to sell the pamphlet in their own shops and others who bought multiple copies to distribute to friends, relatives, and associates.  The contents of Paine’s political pamphlet made it popular, yet the advertisements in the Pennsylvania Evening Post and other newspapers also helped raise awareness of Common Sense.

February 18

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

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

New-York Journal (February 15, 1776).

“A NEW and CORRECT EDITION … of that justly esteemed PAMPHLET, called COMMON SENSE.”

A month after Robert Bell published the first edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in Philadelphia on January 9, 1776, readers of the New-York Journal certainly knew about the pamphlet, even if they had not read it or heard much about its contents.  Just reading the newspaper would have been enough to get a sense of the pamphlet’s popularity.  After all, the February 15 edition of the New-York Journal carried four advertisements for Common Sense!

Some of them would have looked familiar to regular readers of that newspaper.  William Green, a bookbinder in Maiden Lane and Bell’s agent in New York, once again advertised the unauthorized “Second Edition of COMMON SENSE” that Bell published in Philadelphia.  It was the third consecutive week his notice ran in the New-York Journal.  Also appearing for the third time, another advertisement informed readers that William Bradford and Thomas Bradford would soon publish a “NEW EDITION, (with LARGE and INTERESTING ADDITIONS …) OF COMMON SENSE,” an edition undertaken “by appointment of the Author.”  After a falling out with Bell, Paine approached the printers of the Pennsylvania Journal to publish a new edition.  The Bradfords set about advertising that expanded edition in both Philadelphia and New York.

A variation of one of the other advertisements ran in the previous issue of the New-York Journal.  In it, John Anderson, the printer of the Constitutional Gazette, announced publication of a local edition of “that justly esteemed PAMPHLET, called COMMON SENSE.”  The previous version ended with the title of the pamphlet.  The new one included two elements often included in other advertisements for Common Sense: the section headings that outlined the contents and an epigraph from “Liberty,” a poem by James Thomson.  The addition material in Anderson’s advertisement may have helped draw attention to it …

… but the final advertisement dwarfed all the others.  For the first time, Bell advertised directly in the New-York Journal rather than indirectly through Green.  In doing so, he transferred to New York the feud that he and Paine had waged in advertisements in the Pennsylvania Evening Post and other newspapers published in Philadelphia.  Compared to the Bradfords’ new edition “In the PRESS, and will be published as soon as possible,” Bell’s unauthorized second edition was “Out of the Press” and on sale.  His notice included the section headers and epigraph by Thomson as well as an address “To the PUBLIC” that first appeared in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on January 27 and an even longer diatribe “To Mr. ANONYMOUS” that first appeared in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on February 1.  While the Bradfords’ advertisement hinted at discord between Bell and Paine, this advertisement put the argument on full display for readers in New York.  Perhaps that helped generate interest in the pamphlet.  For readers who had not yet perused Common Sense themselves, those four advertisements may have encouraged them to acquire a copy to find out more about all the hullabaloo.

February 1

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (February 1, 1776).

“A Number of ANXIOUS FRIENDS, and all the MILITARY MEN who wanted MITTENS.”

The screed extended an entire column and overflowed into another in the February 1, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  It continued the feud between Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense, and Robert Bell, the publisher of the first edition who embarked on an unauthorized second edition.  Two days earlier, advertisements for Bell’s second edition and a forthcoming edition that Paine collaborated with William Bradford and Thomas Bradford in publishing ran side by side in that newspaper.  One included an address “To the PUBLIC” by Bell and the other featured a “declaration” by the author.  Paine, who still remained anonymous given the radical contents of the pamphlet, concluded by stating, “This is all the notice that will ever be taken of [Bell] in future.”

For his part, Bell was not finished taking notice of Paine.  He quickly submitted a response, addressed “TO MR. ANONYMOUS,” for publication among the advertisements that ran in the next issue of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  He mocked Paine because the “Feeble author” “took the field” and engaged in battle that he supposedly could not win against the “Provedore to the Sentimentalists,” as Bell often referred to himself in the subscription proposals he circulated and in his newspaper advertisements for book auctions.  The publisher claimed that he had been “wantonly, and maliciously, dragged … into the unwished for field of public altercation,” yet he would defend his actions and his reputation.  Bell attacked Paine’s claim that he wished to remain anonymous: “You say you wanted to remain unknown … but, in practice, yourself telling it in every beer-house, gives the direct LIE to the assertor of such falsehood.”  Even though Paine’s name had not yet appeared in print, Bell alleged that the author had been bragging about writing Common Sense in taverns around town.

Bell also demeaned “boasted intentional generosity” of the “Would-be-Author” who had declared that he planned to use his share of the profits from the first edition, which he never received, to purchase mittens for the soldiers participating in the American invasion of Canada.  Bell insinuated that Paine mentioned drew the “MILITARY MEN who wanted MITTENS” into the dispute as a means of currying favor with the public as he threatened “malevolent LAW SUITS … against one industrious Bookseller, who never asked or received any thing from the public without giving an equivalent.”  In contrast to Paine’s manipulations of both his friends who acted as intermediaries and the public, Bell portrayed himself as an honest entrepreneur, “a poor individual who neither attempteth nor wisheth for more FRIENDS than the rectitude of his conduct in business, an in the affairs of society, shall both gain and retain.”

Taking another shot at Paine, Bell instructed him that “your taking the public field was bad, because there was no foundation for it, unless envy be allowed a good one.”  Furthermore, his “management of the fight and precipitate flight was worse – and final exit (as you say) worse and worse.”  The publisher scorned the way that author backed down, comparing his handling of the situation to a “rascally PUPPY, who, with open mouth, runs snarling at an honest manly DOG, whose notice is attracted by the yelpings of the ill-natured CUR.”  Paine, the “PUPPY,” ran away with his tail between his legs once he was on the receiving end of “words of stern contempt.”

Much of the dispute revolved around the revenues generated by Common Sense (or, as “the assignees of the nameless author” discovered, a surprising lack of profits on the first edition).  Yet the feud and the publication of multiple editions of Common Sense did produce revenues for Benjamin Towne, the printer of the Pennsylvania Evening Post. The competing advertisements comprised one-quarter of the content in the January 30 edition and Bell’s notice in response to Paine’s “declaration” occupied nearly as much space.  With those advertisements, Towne did not need to sell a single copy of the pamphlet to turn a profit on its publication by other printers.

January 30

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

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (January 30, 1776).

“The said gentlemen have not yet been able to settle with Robert Bell.”

The feud between the Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense, and Robert Bell, the publisher of the first edition of Common Sense, intensified in the January 30, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  Advertisements for Bell’s unauthorized “SECOND EDITION” and a “NEW EDITION” currently “In the press, and [to] be published as soon as possible” by William Bradford and Thomas Bradford dominated the final page of that newspaper.  Variations of both advertisements appeared in the Pennsylvania Evening Post three days earlier, each of them stirring the pot and inspiring Bell and Paine to submit new material to Benjamin Towne, the printer of that newspaper, to incorporate into their advertisements.

The advertisement for the Bradfords’ edition still included an address “To the PUBLIC,” but it doubled in length with a “declaration” made by the author “for the sake of relieving the anxiety of his friends.”  At this point, Paine remained anonymous, at least as far as associating his name with the political pamphlet in the public prints was concerned.  He explained that his original plan for Common Sense had been to have it “printed in a series of newspapers,” but others, including Benjamin Rush, convinced him that was impractical and that even printers who supported the American cause would shy away from such radical content.  Rush recommended Robert Bell, the noted bookseller as an alternative to the several printers who published newspapers in Philadelphia, acting as an intermediary between Paine and Bell.  In this new “declaration,” Paine explained that “he knew nothing of Robert Bell, who was engaged to print it by a gentleman of this city,” referring to Rush but not naming him.  Though Rush acted “from a well meaning motive,” his suggestion eventually embroiled Paine in “the unpleasant situation.”

Paine did not hesitate to name Bell, proclaiming that he “hath neither directly, nor indirectly, received, or is to receive, any profit or advantage from the edition printed by Robert Bell.”  In the agreement negotiated by Rush, Paine paid for the expense of printing the pamphlet whether it sold or not.  In addition, that “noisy man,” Bell, would receive “one half of the profits” if the pamphlet was a success.  Paine estimated that amount should have been “upwards of thirty pounds.”  Furthermore, the author did not intend to keep his half of the profits.  Instead, “when news of our repulse at Quebec arrived in this city,” he committed his share “for the purpose of purchasing mittens for the troops ordered on that cold campaign.”  An assault on Quebec City, part of the invasion of Canada undertaken by American forces, had failed on New Year’s Eve.  The patriotic Paine wanted to send supplies, especially mittens, to the American soldiers who continued the siege of that city, but Bell did not turn over any money “into the hands of two gentlemen” that Paine designated as his intermediaries.  Paine claimed that he had “Bell’s written promise” for that arrangement.  Anyone who wished to do so could verify that by consulting with them since their “names are left at the bar of the London Coffee-house” for that purpose.

“The said gentlemen,” Paine continued, “have not yet been able to settle with Robert Bell according to the conditions of his written engagement.”  In addition, when they examined his account of the expenses and sales, they did not consider it “equitable” according to that agreement.  Paine warned that Bell had a week to make good on their agreement or else “he will be sued for the same.”  He concluded by stating, “This is all the notice that will ever be taken of him in future.”  Given the ferocity of the advertisements already published, readers may have doubted that.

The advertisement for the Bradfords’ edition featured far more new material than Bell’s advertisement.  He added a few lines to the nota bene that ran in the previous edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, though he had been so anxious to publish his updated advertisement that he inserted it in the January 29 edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packetrather than waiting for it to appear in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on January 30.  In Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet, Bell’s expanded advertisement ran next to the shorter version of the advertisement for the Bradfords’ edition of Common Sense, the one that included an address “TO THE PUBLIC” but not the additional “declaration” by the author.

Bell took the opportunity to demean the “NEW EDITION” the Bradfords were printing.  He declared that “the public may be certain” that the “smallness of print and scantiness of paper” meant that it would be an inferior edition “when compared with Bell’s second edition.”  Why would readers wait for the Bradfords’ edition “yet in the press” when Bell’s second edition was “out of the press” and available for sale?  As a final insult, he trumpeted that comparing the Bradfords’ forthcoming edition to his own second edition was like the difference “in size and value” between a “British shilling” and a “British half-crown.”  His second edition, Bell claimed, was the better value in so many ways.  Even though Paine pledged that he had nothing more to say about Bell, that made it seem unlikely that the author and the publisher of the first edition would quietly discontinue their attacks in the public prints.  In three short weeks since the first advertisement for Common Sense appeared in the Pennsylvania Evening Post, the controversy between Bell and Paine became its own commotion!

January 27

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

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (January 27, 1776).

“An author, without a name, hath asserted absolute falsehoods.”

The dispute over publishing the second edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense continued in an advertisement in the January 27, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  Robert Bell, the publisher of the first edition, and William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, the printers designated by Paine to publish a new edition with additional materials, ran competing advertisements on January 25.  The Bradfords’ advertisement included a note that informed the public that the author had not authorized Bell to publish a second edition, yet the enterprising printer and bookseller moved forward with the project anyway.  That advertisement ran once again on January 27.

In response, Bell submitted a new advertisement to the printing office.  An even more prominent headline proclaimed, “The SECOND EDITION of COMMON SENSE,” followed by a list of the four sections that appeared in the first edition.  That overview had been part of most of Bell’s advertisements, as well as an epigraph from “Liberty,” a poem by James Thomson.  In response to the address “To the PUBLIC” in the Bradfords’ advertisement, Bell added his own address “To the PUBLIC.”  In it, he explained that in the previous edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, “an author, without a name, hath asserted absolute falsehoods.”  At the time, Paine remained anonymous (and, for the first time, this advertisement described his political pamphlet as “WRITTEN BY AN ENGLISHMAN”).  Bell objected to the claims that Paine made that “he gave directions and orders to the publisher of the first edition not to proceed.”  For his part, Bell declared that “[a]s soon as the printer and publisher discovered the capricious disposition of the ostensible author, he disclaimed all future connexion,” perfectly content to break ties with Paine.  Furthermore, “by the publication of a second edition which he advertised in a news paper, [Bell] immediately declared his desirable independence from the trammels of catch-penny author-craft, whose cunning was so exceeding great as to attempt to destroy the reputation of his own first edition, by advertising intended additions before his earliest and best customers had time to read what they had so very lately purchased.”  That certainly was not a flattering portrait of Paine.  The contents of Common Sense gave colonizers a lot to discuss.  The dispute in the newspaper advertisements gave them even more.

Undaunted, Bell testified that he “neither heard nor received any orders not to proceed, there [the author’s] assertions must be far from truth.”  In addition, Bell further dismissed Paine’s expectations for the publication of a second edition, stating that “if he had either heard or received any such directions or orders, he most certainly would have treated them immediately with that contempt which such unreasonable, illegal, and tyrannic usurpations over his freedom and liberty in business deserved.”  Bell launched one more tirade: “When Mr. ANONYMOUS condescendeth again to puff his pamphlet … and to reduce a price which himself had a share in making, his brother bookseller, who scorneth duplicity in business or sentiment, wisheth he may find out a more eligible mode of proving his attachment to principles than to lay the foundations of his generosity in the despicable ebullitions of dishonest malevolence.”  Bell was annoyed that Paine promoted the Bradfords’ edition as “one half of the price of the former edition,” a suggestion that Bell overcharged when, according to Bell, the author and the publisher set the price in consultation with each other.  A lower price for the Bradfords’ edition was not truly “generosity,” especially when inspired by “despicable ebullitions of dishonest malevolence” rather than a desire to make the pamphlet more accessible to the public.  Clearly, Paine’s address “To the PUBLIC” did not cause Bell to back down but instead to double down on printing and marketing his second edition of Common Sense.

January 25

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

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (January 25, 1776).

“A new edition of COMMON SENSE … with large and interesting additions by the author.”

A battle over publishing Thomas Paine’s Common Sense played out in advertisements became apparent to the public when they perused the advertisements in the January 25, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  Sixteen days earlier, that newspaper had been the first to carry an advertisement for the inflammatory political pamphlet.  Robert Bell, the publisher, promoted it, while Paine remained anonymous.  It sold so quickly that Bell began advertising “A NEW EDITION of COMMON SENSE” on January 20.  Five days later, he ran an updated version of the original advertisement, using type already set.  The compositor merely replaced the first line, removing the date (“Philadelphia, January 9, 1776”) and replacing it with a headline that proclaimed, “The second edition,” in a larger font.

Yet Paine and Bell had had a falling out.  Bell’s “second edition” was an unauthorized edition, as a new advertisement on the first page of the Pennsylvania Evening Post made clear.  William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, announced that they had a “new edition” of Common Sense “IN the press, and will be published as soon as possible.”  Unlike Bell’s second edition advertised elsewhere in that issue, their new edition featured “large and interesting additions by the author, as will be expressed at the time of publication.”  As a preview, the Bradfords indicated that the bonus materials included a “seasonable and friendly admonition to the people called QUAKERS.”  To entice prospective customers to reserve copies or purchase them as soon as they were available, the Bradfords noted that “Several hundred are already bespoke,” including “one thousand for Virginia.”  Advertisements for the pamphlet already appeared in newspapers in New York.  The Bradfords made plans to distribute the pamphlet south of Philadelphia.  In addition, they reported that a “German edition is likewise in the press” for the benefit of the many German settlers in Pennsylvania and the backcountry extending down to North Carolina.

This advertisement included an address “To the PUBLIC,” perhaps composed by Paine, that outlined the dispute between the author and the original publisher.  “The encouragement and reception which this pamphlet hath already met with, and the great demand for the same,” the address declared, “hath induced the publisher of the first edition to print a new edition unknown to the author.”  Paine had “expressly directed him not to proceed therein without orders, because that large additions would be made hereto.”  He also did not appreciate that Bell had not managed to turn a profit on the first edition, though that did not receive mention in the address in the advertisement.  Readers needed to be aware that Bell’s new edition, “lately advertised by the printer of the first [edition], is without the intended additions.”  That being the case, readers who exercised a little patience for the Bradfords’ edition “now in the press” and authorized by the author could acquire both the contents of the original pamphlet and the additions in a single volume … and at a bargain price!  Even with the new material, the cost “will … be reduced to one half of the price of the former edition.”  Bell advertisements consistently listed “two shillings” for the pamphlet.  The Bradfords charged one shilling.  They also gave “allowance to those who take quantities” or a discount for purchasing in volume, either to retail or distribute to friends, family, and associates.  That would “accommodate [the pamphlet] to the abilities of every man.”  In other words, the lower price made it possible to disseminate Common Sense even more widely.  When it came to airing grievances over the publication of Common Sense in newspaper advertisements, this address “To the PUBLIC” was only the opening salvo.  The dispute continued in subsequent editions of the Pennsylvania Evening Post and other newspapers.