PVF read Francis Brooke in the south Jersey countrysideWhen I was writing The Way of Improvement Leads Home: Philip Vickers Fithian and the Rural Enlightenment in Early America I spent a lot of time reading scholarship on the book trade in early America. I was trying to trace the print infrastructure that brought ideas into the southern New Jersey hinterland at the time of the American Revolution.
Elaina Frulla‘s piece at the Pedagogy & American Literary Studies blog reminded me of my work on the book that eventually gave birth to this blog. Drawing on some of the best scholarship in the field, Frulla identifies “four major methods for distribution and sale of books in early America. They are:
Bookstores
Libraries
Academic libraries
Book agents and “hawkers.”
This is a great piece for graduate students or those new to the field. Read it all here.
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