Visions of a Certain Thomas Say

June 19

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

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

New-York Journal (June 9, 1774).

“A PARTICULAR account of Mr. THOMAS SAY … who had fallen into a trance.”

When William Mentz published The Visions of a Certain Thomas Say, of the City of Philadelphia, Which He Saw in a Trance without permission, Say placed an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette to voice his objection.  He described the text as an “incorrect and imperfect” rendition of what he wished to reveal to the public, further asserting that “publishing any Thing in any Man’s Name without his Knowledge or Consent is, in my Opinion, very unjustifiable.”  He concluded with an appeal to “all Printers … not to aid or assist the said Mentz, or anyone else, in such wrong Proceedings.”

Unfortunately for Say, printers and booksellers in New York either did not see that advertisement or, if they did, chose to disregard it in favor of generating revenue by selling the pamphlet.  An advertisement in the June 16, 1774, edition of the New-York Journal described the contents of the work and noted that readers could purchase copies from printers Robert Hodge and Frederick Shober, bookseller Samuel Loudon, and John Holt, printer of the newspaper that carried the advertisement.  Mentz apparently shipped copies of The Visions of a Certain Thomas Say to New York, perhaps exchanging them for titles printed there.  Local agents felt the pamphlet merited a separate advertisement.  Loudon, for instance, simultaneously ran an advertisement for “BOOKS … TO BE SOLD ON THE LOWEST TERMS” that listed dozens of titles but did not mention The Visions of a Certain Thomas Say.  That advertisement also did not promote any books by providing summaries, unlike the advertisement about the pamphlet that Say wished to withdraw from circulation.

In his own advertisement, Say stated that he “never intended what I have wrote … should be published during my Life.”  More than two decades later, Benjamin Say, his son, published A Short Compilation of the Extraordinary Life and Writings of Thomas Say: In Which Is Faithfully Copied, from the Original Manuscript, the Uncommon Vision, Which He Had When a Young Man.  That work, released following Say’s death in 1796, presumably abided by his wishes for disseminating what he recorded of his vision.  During his lifetime, however, a public notice in the Pennsylvania Gazettehad not been enough to prevent the marketing of an unauthorized account.

March 2

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

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (March 2, 1774).

“It is hoped the Public will discourage such unwarrantable Practices by not purchasing the said Pamphlet.”

In the winter of 1774, William Mentz published The Visions of a Certain Tho. Say, of the City of Philadelphia, Which He Saw in a Trance.  That pamphlet did not receive attention in the public prints because Mentz advertised it but instead because Thomas Say ran notices repudiating the work.  On March 2, Say inserted advertisements in the Pennsylvania Gazette and the Pennsylvania Journal.  Five days later, he ran the same notice in Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet.  He was so intent on disseminating his message as widely as possible that he invested in advertisements in all three of the English-language newspapers published in Philadelphia at the time.

Mentz did not advertise the pamphlet, so Say’s notices may have generated more attention than anything else.  Did they have the intended effect?  Did colonizers refrain from purchasing the pamphlet because Say reacted so strongly to its publication?  Or did the controversy whet their appetites to see what was contained within its pages?  Say denounced “a certain Mentz [who] has printed and published for Sale, without my Knowledge or Consent, a Pamphlet … which is but an incorrect and imperfect Part of what I propose to make public.”  Furthermore, Say did not know “how or where he got the Copy.”  He excoriated Mentz: “publishing any Thing in any Man’s Name without his Knowledge or Consent is, in my Opinion, very unjustifiable, and often attended with ill Consequences.”  Addressing the public, Say made a plea that they “will discourage such unwarrantable Practices by not purchasing said Pamphlet.”  He also requested that printers neither aid nor assist Mentz “in such wrong Proceedings.”

Did that incite instead of quell demand for the pamphlet?  Mentz issued a second version, The Visions of a Certain Thomas Say, of the City of Philadelphia, Which He Saw in a Trance: To Which Is Added, Another Vision. By the Late Reverend Isaac Watts, D.D.  Perhaps he did so because Say’s unintended marketing of the pamphlet yielded interest in it.  On the other hand, Say may have managed to inhibit sales, prompting Mentz to package the pamphlet with a similar item by a popular author in hopes of rescuing the endeavor from financial failure.  Either way, the visibility that the pamphlet received in Philadelphia’s newspapers came solely from Say’s efforts to constrain sales rather than marketing undertaken by the publisher.