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Tag Archives: Newburyport

A fine piece of early Americana and a very fine gift

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Donations

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almanac, American, American Antiquarian Society, American Revolution, Americana, battles, Benjamin Franklin, bibles, bindery, books, bookstores, Boston, broadsides, Caleb Alexander, Charles River, collector, Concord, dictionaries, Dr. Ronald Rubin, English, Greek, Greek New Testament, history, independence, Isaiah Thomas, John Mill, Lexington, literature, London, Maryland, Massachusetts, medicine, music, Newburyport, newspaper, Nova Scotia, Oxford, pamphlets, paper mill, printer, printing history, rare books, Ronald Rubin, sedition, Vermont, Virgil, war, Worcester, Yale University

title

HE KAINE DIATHEKE, NOVUM TESTAMENTUM
Wigorniae, Massachusettensi: excudebat Isaias Thomas, Jun, 1800
Editio Prima Americana

This is the first American printing of the Greek New Testament, considered a milestone in American printing history.

Isaiah Thomas’ printing shop was dubbed “the sedition factory,” during the American Revolution. Thomas moved his press from Boston across the Charles River to Worcester in order to avoid confiscation by British troupes. His press reassembled, Thomas remained in Worcester for the rest of his life, printing the first reports of the battles of Lexington and Concord (“Americans! – – – Liberty or Death! – – – Join or Die!”) and continuing to print until he sold his business in 1802.

Isaiah Thomas was born in Boston in 1749. Thomas was apprenticed to a printer, at the age of six, after the death of his father. He stayed for ten years, then broke his bond and headed to London, much as Benjamin Franklin had done earlier. Thomas got as far as Nova Scotia, where he stayed to print a newspaper. After six months, he was sent packing because of his anti-Stamp Act actions. After another foray, this time to the south, Thomas returned to Boston to set up his own newspaper, The Massachusetts Spy. At the same time, he began what would become a lucrative printing business, which included an almanac and the Royal American Magazine, in 1774.

After the war for independence was won, Thomas built his press into an enterprise that included a bindery, a paper mill and bookstores from Vermont to Maryland. In 1773, he established the first press in Newburyport, Massachusetts, at the request of some of its citizens. He printed books on medicine, music, history, and literature; and printed spellers, dictionaries, and bibles. Caleb Alexander (1755-1828), a graduate of Yale University, worked with Thomas as editor for his first American editions of Virgil and other works in Greek, including He kaine diatheke. Alexander based his edition on a 1707 Oxford edition by English scholar John Mill (1645-1707).

Thomas retired around 1802, about two years after his printing of He kaine diatheke. He spent the rest of his life collecting printed American works – books, pamphlets, broadsides, almanacs, and newspapers. He used these as primary sources for his History of Printing in America, published in 1810. He donated his collection to the American Antiquarian Society, an institution he organized in order to provide a home for print material from early American history.


This is the most recent of numerous gifts throughout the years from Dr. Ronald Rubin, a collector, like Isaiah Thomas, of early Americana and a very fine friend of Rare Books. Thank you, Dr. Rubin!

238-239spread

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Book of the week — Reports du Tres Erudite Edmund Saunders

13 Monday Jun 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week, Donations

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attorney, Blackstone, Catherine Weller, Charles II, Edmund Saunders (d. 1683), John Adams (1735-1826), John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), London, Lord Chief Justice, marginalia, Massachusetts, Newburyport, Thomas Roscoe, Tony Weller, University of Utah, Weller Book Works

titlespread
“…my small stock of professional knowledge…”

REPORTS DU TRES ERUDITE EDMUND SAUNDERS…
Edmund Saunders (d. 1683)
London: W. Rawlins, S. Roycroft, and M. Flesher, 1686
First edition

Edmund Saunders grew up in poverty. He taught himself to read and write and eventually became Lord Chief Justice during the reign of Charles II. Thomas Roscoe in Westminster Hall, (1825) wrote that Saunders, “…by books that were lent to him, became an exquisite entering clerk; and, by the same course of improvements of himself, an able counsel…” His classic Reports was read by John Quincy Adams (1767-1848).

In a letter to his father, John Adams (1735-1826), written from Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1789, the younger Adams lists this book, along with Blackstone, as one of those that “contributed to my small stock of professional knowledge” while he apprenticed as an attorney. University of Utah copy has minimal marginalia in contemporary hand throughout. University of Utah copy gift of Tony and Catherine Weller, Weller Book Works.

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Memorial Day 2014

26 Monday May 2014

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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1st South Carolina Volunteers, abolition, American Civil War, Arlington, Decoration Day, Harvard Divinity School, Kaleidograph Press, labor rights, Luise Putcamp jr, Massachusetts, Memorial Day, Newburyport, Reed Smoot, Republican, slavery, Sonnets for Survivors, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Union, Unitarian, Utah, Washington, women's suffrage

Memorial Day

If sudden statues rose for all who fell
They would not inundate the parks with stone
Where the forgotten heroes ride alone
To slow tongue of an abandoned bell.
Flaunting the remnants of their final hell
They would regain the streets their feet had known
Under the skies where their first words were sown
And stand as an alien citadel.

So rooted they would still with carven ear
The threadbare speech, the momentary tear,
With carven eye transfix the mocking flowers,
Wilt token flags above forgetful towers.
Who then would dare to go the usual way
Crowding the dead into a single day?

Luise Putcamp jr.
from Sonnets for the Survivors, Kaleidograph Press, 1952
“Memorial Day” published here with permission of the poet

 


Address on Decoration Day
Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911)
s.l.: s.n., 1904
E642 H53

“Without distinction of nationality, of color, of race, of religion, those men gave their lives to their country. Without distinction of religion, of color, of race, of nationality, their graves are being garlanded today….the war gave peace to the nation; it gave union, freedom, equal rights…”

Thomas Wentworth Higginson was graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1847. He accepted the appointment of ministry of a Unitarian church in Newburyport, Massachusetts. His support for women’s suffrage, labor rights, and the abolition of slavery was too radical for the conservative community. He was asked to resign two years after his appointment. As a Union colonel in the American Civil War, Higginson commanded the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, the first federally authorized regiment of African-American soldiers.


Memorial Day Address at Arlington, VA.
Reed Smoot (1862-1941)
Washington: Govt. Printing Office, 1914
E642 S66 1914

“In all we say about the soldier, let us not forget the part taken and willingly assumed by the American women in time of war. What shall we say of the wives and the mothers who gave their husbands and their sons for their country? No woman who has not passed through this terrible ordeal can describe or measure the sacrifice our women made, or the horrors and hardships and sorrows they endured. What say you of the loving sisters who gave their brothers, yes, and their lovers too?”

Reed Smoot was a Republican senator from Utah, serving from 1903 to 1933.

 

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Book of the Week – Common Sense

04 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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Common Sense, Continental Congress, George Washington, Newburyport, pamphlet, revolution, Thomas Paine

Common Sense, 1776 Cover
Common Sense, 1776 Title Page
Common Sense, 1776 First Page

Common Sense
Thomas Paine (1737 – 1809)
Philadelphia, 1776; reprinted Newburyport
probably a sixth printing
E211 P124

Thomas Paine called for the separation of the colonies from the mother country in his pamphlet, Common Sense.  Paine’s writings paved the way for the American colonists’ final break with Great Britain.

Common Sense, a persuasive argument for independence, was a best seller immediately upon publication. First printed in Philadelphia by Robert Bell on January 9, 1776, in an edition of one thousand copies, it was read by everyone in the Continental Congress and George Washington, who commented on the effect it had on his troops. It was read by nearly everyone in the colonies who was literate, and read aloud to nearly everyone who was not.

Paine had planned to give his share of the profits to the cause of independence, but when Bell told him there were no profits, Paine dismissed Bell and hired Bradford to publish a new, enlarged edition. Bell published an unauthorized second printing on January 27, and Bradford’s enlarged edition was published on or around February 14. The pamphlet quickly sold 150,000 copies.

Paine refused to copyright the work and gave permission to all to reprint it. The earliest printings outside of Philadelphia used the text of Bell’s first printing. Later printings used the text of Bradford’s February printing. Twenty-five editions were published in thirteen cities in the year 1776, reaching nearly half a million copies printed in that year alone. At that time, the colonial population was about three million, including slaves, women, and children. It was this pamphlet that moved mass public opinion toward the cause of the revolution.

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