Benjamin Guild

Advertisement for Benjamin Guild's Boston Book-Store, Cornhill, Boston, Massachusetts, 1787

Benjamin Guild (1749-1792) was a bookseller in Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 18th century.[1] He ran the "Boston Book Store" and a circulating subscription library in the 1780s and 1790s at no.59 Cornhill, "first door south of the Old-Brick Meeting-House."[2][3]

Biography

Born in 1749 to Benjamin Guild and Abigail Graves, Benjamin attended Harvard College (class of 1769); classmates included Theophilus Parsons, Alexander Scammel, Peter Thacher, William Tudor, and Peleg Wadsworth.[4][5] He later tutored at Harvard, 1776-1780,[5] and travelled abroad.[6] In 1784 he married Betsey Quincy (1757-1825).[7][nb 1] He served as a charter member and an officer of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,[8][9][10] and on the editorial committee of the Boston Magazine.[11]

Guild sold books from his shop at no.8 State Street from around 1785 until 1786, when he moved to Cornhill (1786-1792).[12] In addition to the bookshop, he ran a circulating library, one of the first in post-war Boston. The library contained "several thousands" of volumes, which, according to its 1787 newspaper advertisement "will furnish such a fund of amusement and information as cannot fail to entertain every class of readers ... whether solitary or social -- political or professional -- serious or gay."[13] Subscribers paid eight dollars per year, or "two dollars per quarter -- to have the liberty of taking out two books at a time and no more -- to change them as often as the subscriber pleases -- and no book to be retained longer than one month."[14] Guild stipulated that "any book lost, abused, leaves folded down, writ upon or torn, must be paid for."[14] After his death in 1792, Guild's bookshop and library were taken over by William P. Blake.[15]

Among the titles in Guild's circulating library in 1789:[16]

Notes

  1. ↑ Elizabeth Quincy was the daughter of Josiah Quincy I.[5]

References

  1. ↑ "Guild, Benjamin 1749-1792", WorldCat (Online Computer Library Center), retrieved July 2010
  2. ↑ "Circulating Library", Massachusetts Centinel, January 6, 1787
  3. ↑ Boston Directory, 1789
  4. ↑ Boston News-Letter and New-England Chronicle, July 20, 1769
  5. 1 2 3 Burleigh 1887.
  6. ↑ "Mr. Benjamin Guild, late tutor of Harvard College, lately arrived from Holland, and who saw Mr. [John] Adams there in August last ..." cf. Salem Gazette, November 15, 1781
  7. ↑ Massachusetts Centinel, June 23, 1784
  8. ↑ Independent Chronicle, May 27, 1784
  9. ↑ American Recorder and the Charlestown Advertiser, June 6, 1786
  10. ↑ "Charter of Incorporation", Records of the Academy (American Academy of Arts and Sciences) (1964/1965), p. 38
  11. ↑ E. W. Pitcher (1980), "Fiction in the Boston Magazine (1783-1786): A Checklist with Notes on Sources", William and Mary Quarterly 37, pp. 473–483, JSTOR 1923813
  12. ↑ Independent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser, October 26, 1786
  13. ↑ Massachusetts Centinel, December 19, 1787
  14. 1 2 Catalogue 1788.
  15. ↑ American Apollo, October 26, 1792
  16. ↑ Catalogue 1789.
  17. ↑ "Markoe, Peter 1752?-1792", WorldCat (Online Computer Library Center), retrieved February 2011
  18. ↑ "Robin abbé 1750-1794", WorldCat (Online Computer Library Center), retrieved February 2011
  19. ↑ "Wanley, Nathaniel 1634-1680", WorldCat (Online Computer Library Center), retrieved February 2011
  20. ↑ "Wyld, Samuel", WorldCat (Online Computer Library Center), retrieved February 2011
  21. ↑ "Wynne, John Huddlestone 1743-1788", WorldCat (Online Computer Library Center), retrieved February 2011

Bibliography

External links

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