A Companion to the History of the Book (49 page)

Secondly, there was a new emphasis on political liberty. Isaac Collins concluded his prospectus of 1783 with the injunction: “But if to save a few Pence, or a little Time in reading publick Papers, we should neglect them, Ignorance may gradually overspread this new enlightened land, and Tyranny advance as Knowledge decays, until Darkness and Slavery wrap this glorious Land in all the Horrors of despotick Sway.” For most African Americans, slavery was not a rhetorical flourish but a reality. As one reads the revolutionary newspapers and their constant appeals to liberty (of persons and the press), one is struck by the numerous times that slavery is mentioned in the same breath, not to mention the numerous advertisements for runaway slaves. Yet the language of the press is often biblical in phrasing and image. As Sam Adams wrote in the
Boston Gazette: “Your
Press has spoken to us the words of truth: It has pointed to this people their dangers and their remedy: It has set before them Liberty and Slavery; and with the most perswasive and pungent language, conjur’d them, in the name of GOD, and the King, and for the sake of all posterity, to chuse Liberty and refuse Chains . . .” Noticeable here is the quasi-divine power of the press: it speaks “the words of truth,” it conjures. In “The Art of Printing, a Poem” one finds the same attribution of supernatural power to the press: “Hail mystick art! which men like angels taught, / To speak to eyes, and paint unbody’d thought!”
(The Lancaster Almanack,
1775).

Still, despite the limits and contradictions of the press during the Revolution (the treatment of James Rivington and other loyalist printers is a conspicuous illustration of how unwilling Americans often were to extend the freedom of the press to unpopular causes), a consensus did emerge that the free exercise of printing would invariably promote the public good. The question of human rights may have led to odd juxtapositions on the page, but it also led to Benjamin Rush’s
An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America, Upon Slave-Keeping
(1773) and other early abolitionist literature. The printed word gave women a broader audience as well and helped to focus attention on their altered roles in the newly established republican order. As expressed in
The Sentiments of an American Woman
(Philadelphia, 1788), women too were “Born for liberty, disdaining to bear the irons of a tyrannic government.” And as John Mycall of Newburyport, Massachusetts, put it in his prospectus for
The Temple
in 1782: “The interests of Liberty are inseparable from those of learning and of virtue.” This is one of the enduring legacies of the Revolution. While
The Temple
itself may have failed as a weekly newspaper – and while the Revolution may not always have lived up to its ideals – the “simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense” of Thomas Paine’s galvanizing revolutionary pamphlet, reprinted in twenty-seven editions in 1776, took on a life of their own.

In 1771, Benjamin Franklin observed that subscription libraries “have improved the general Conversation of Americans, made the common Tradesmen and Farmers as intelligent as most Gentlemen from other Countries, and perhaps have contributed in some Degree to the Stand so generally made throughout the Colonies in Defence of their Priviledges.” Franklin would know. With the support of his Junto, a group of young tradesmen interested in self-improvement, Franklin was instrumental in founding in 1731 the Library Company of Philadelphia (an institution still very much with us and in the vanguard of book history research).

Although more than one hundred book catalogues of various kinds (college, subscription, rental, private, booksellers’) were published in America before 1801, relatively few of them have been given the scrutiny they deserve. (For a comprehensive listing, see R. B. Winans,
A Descriptive Checklist of Book Catalogues Separately Printed in America, 1693–1800
[1981].) Yet library catalogues can help us situate authors, titles, and ideas in the broader world of colonial and revolutionary America.

Sir Isaac Newton’s presence in the Harvard College Library (founded 1638) is instructive. In the 1723 catalogue he was represented by only one work, his
Opticks
(London, 1704). In the supplementary list of 1735, Newton’s
Chronology
(London, 1728) and his
Observations on Daniel and the Apocalypse
(London, 1733) were included. The 1773 catalogue included a multivolume set of his
Works,
in Latin and English, of unspecified date. Between 1773 and 1790, however, Newton reached his zenith, as measured by his presence in the library, which by the later date held his
Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended
in both the London and Dublin editions of 1728; the
Arithmetica universalis,
second edition (London, 1722) and its English translation (London, 1748); the seventh edition of
Tables for Leases
(London, 1758);
Optics
(London, 1704, 1719, and 1721);
Lectiones opticae
(London, 1729);
Philosephiae naturalis principia mathematica
(London, 1726 and 1729; Geneva, 1729);
De mundi systemate
(London, 1731);
Opuscula
(Lausanne and Geneva, 1744);
Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and John
(London, 1733 and 1754); and
Two letters to M. LeClerc
(London, 1754).

What are we to make of this? Were Americans, at the far end of the Atlantic world, simply slow to catch the latest waves in science? Not necessarily. We know from John Adams’s diary and from Professor John Winthrop’s lecture notes that Newtonian science was taught at Harvard while Adams was an undergraduate in the 1750s. The Harvard book collection, then, is not a completely trustworthy measure of Newton’s influence in early America. When we also take into account the disastrous fire of 1764, which almost completely destroyed the Harvard collection, it becomes apparent that the space given to Isaac Newton in the catalogue of 1790 is less an indication of a new-found interest in Newtonian science and more a measure of the college’s attempt to re-establish an important figure in the curriculum. But in other areas the catalogue does offer us a window on the pressing questions of the day. This is perhaps most evident in the numerous political tracts in the 1790 catalogue: almost one hundred titles under the heading “America.”

Unlike imprint catalogues, such as the English Short Title Catalogue or NAIP, library catalogues are not limited by geography or nationality and thus provide a different lens on the past – a broader, richer contextual view. Cotton Mather (for example) looms inordinately large in the annals of American imprints and, even after the fire of 1764, he looms large in the Harvard catalogue of 1790 as well. But among the theological tracts listed therein, one finds Mather in the company of a wide assortment of bishops, dissenters, and even freethinkers (more than twenty-five works by Joseph Priestley). This bibliographical variety is evident not just in the theological works but in every topic covered by the Harvard collections, which broadly represent the interests of learned culture.

However, for popular genres (almanacs, school books, novels, Psalters) one must look elsewhere. From 1640 to 1800, the most frequently reprinted American work, based on surviving records in NAIP, was the
New England Primer,
with 154 records (62 editions appeared in the last decade of the eighteenth century). Noah Webster’s
Grammatical Institute
comes next, with 101 editions recorded from 1783 to 1800. In third place is another pedagogical mainstay, Thomas Dilworth’s
New Guide to the English Tongue
(68 editions between 1747 and 1800). The United States Constitution is next with 66 imprints between 1787 and 1800, followed by the Brady-Tate version of the Psalms, with 64 editions between 1713 and 1800. In fact, if all biblical texts (Psalters, Testaments, complete Bibles, adaptations, and abridgements, in German as well as in English) are considered as an aggregate, there are 407 American imprints in this category, from the Bay Psalm Book of 1640 to the Authorized Version of the Bible printed by Isaiah Thomas in Worcester in 1800. The NAIP database suggests that early Americans had one overriding concern: how does one get through this world? The answer is found in their surviving books, pamphlets, and broadsides, which cluster under three main headings: religion, the affairs of daily life, and politics.

In addition to the inspired oracles of God, Americans read Isaac Watts’s
Divine Songs
(reprinted 58 times between 1730 and 1800) and his
Hymns and Spiritual Songs
(45 editions between 1742 and 1800), the Westminster Assembly’s
Shorter Catechism
(40 editions between 1682 and 1800), Martin Luther’s
Kleine Katechismus
(37 editions from 1744 to 1800), and the
Heidelberger Katechismus
(30 editions from 1712 to 1800, not counting its frequent appearance as part of the Psalter). Robert Russel’s
Seven Sermons
was reprinted 29 times between 1701 and 1800 and
The History of the Holy Jesus,
a juvenile work by “A Lover of Their Precious Souls,” also survives in 29 editions, the earliest from 1746. More than forty other religious titles were reprinted from five to twenty times.

Textbooks, professional manuals, guides for hearth and home, personal narratives, and a few works of imaginative literature were frequently reprinted. In addition to the
New England Primer,
Webster’s
Grammatical Institute,
and Dilworth’s
A New Guide to the English Tongue,
one should also mention Ezekiel Cheever’s
A Short Introduction to the Latin Tongue
(printed first in 1709 and reprinted in every decade until 1785),
The Youth’s Instructor in the English Tongue
(11 editions), Daniel Fenning’s
Universal Spelling Book
(10 editions), Thomas Dilworth’s
The Schoolmaster’s Assistant
(24 editions), and William Perry’s
The Only Sure Guide to the English Tongue
(17 editions). Benjamin Franklin’s
Way to Wealth,
published 16 times between 1758 and 1800, encouraged the Protestant ethic to flourish in the counting house as well as the meeting house. For earning a living, Thomas Goodman’s
Experienced Secretary
was a durable guide (12 editions between 1703 and 1730), along with George Fisher’s
The American Instructor
(7 editions between 1748 and 1787) and Daniel Fenning’s
Ready Reckoner
(16 editions from 1774 to 1800). While printers were busy issuing the laws of colonies and states, lawyers and justices frequently relied on such works as the
Conductor Generalis,
printed in 11 editions from 1711 to 1800. William Buchan’s
Domestic Medicine
survives in 29 American editions from 1772 to 1800, along with William Cadogan’s
A Dissertation on the Gout
(7 editions from 1771 to 1785). In sickness and health, many Americans pondered John Johnson’s
The Advantages and Disadvantages of a Married Life
(15 editions from 1757 to 1800) and William Seeker’s
A Wedding Ring, Fit for the Finger
(6 editions from 1690 to 1773), which offered “directions to those men that want wives, how to choose them; and to those women that have husbands, how to use them.”

Personal experiences, such as Mary Rowlandson’s famous captivity narrative,
The Sovereignty and Goodness of God
(16 editions from 1682 to 1800), Eleazar Wheelock’s
Plain and Faithful Narrative
(8 editions, 1763 to 1775), and John Williams’s
The Redeemed Captive, Returning to Zion
(10 editions, 1707 to 1800) apparently always found an audience. Visionary and remarkable occurrences were retailed:
A Wonderful Dream
(16 editions, 1753 to 1800),
A Wonderful Discovery of a Hermit
(10 editions, 1786 to 1800),
The French Convert
(22 editions, 1725 to 1800), and
A Dialogue between Death and a Lady
(7 editions, 1732 to 1800).

After the United States Constitution and Thomas Paine’s
Common Sense,
the most popular political work was
The Manual Exercise
of Great Britain, reprinted 22 times between 1757 and 1780 and undoubtedly put to good use by combatants on both sides of the war. (The vigorous pamphlet literature of the Revolution is well surveyed by Bernard Bailyn [1967] and T. R. Adams [1980].) Not only was the reprinting of political pamphlets in such numbers a new phenomenon, but the pace and geographic spread of their publication were unprecedented as well. Twenty-seven editions of
Common Sense
were printed up and down the sea coast, all with the space of a year, 1776. Jonathan Shipley’s
A Speech Intended to Have Been Spoken on the Bill for Altering the Charter of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay
appeared in twelve editions in 1774, in Boston, Philadelphia, Lancaster, New York, Hartford, Salem (Massachusetts), Newport, and Williamsburg.

Perhaps it was no accident that the American popularity of Daniel Defoe’s
Robinson Crusoe
(as measured by reprinting and abridgements) reached its peak after the Revolution. Although one American edition appeared in 1757 and another in 1774, thirteen more
Crusoes
were printed from 1784 to 1790, with an additional 29 editions forthcoming in the last decade of the eighteenth century.
Robinson Crusoe
is the American book
par excellence.
After all, it is the story of a man who disobeys his English father, builds an empire in the New World, reads his Bible daily, and converts and conquers “savages.” In short, the novel distilled the religious, practical, and political lessons that had long figured among the staple products of the early American press.

References and Further Reading

Adams, Thomas (1980)
The American Controversy: A Bibliographical Study of the British Pamphlets about the American Disputes, 1764–1783.
Providence: Brown University.

Alden, John and Landis, Dennis C. (1980– )
European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed in Europe Relating to the Americas, 1493– 1776.
New York: Readex.