Moses and Charles establish their Boston firm
During the mid-1840s, Phillips joins with Charles Sampson, a Boston publisher. to begin the firm of Phillips and Sampson. Moses makes the trip to and from Boston each day on the Boston and Worcester Railroad.
Moses and Charles are determined to make their mark on the literary marketplace. The new firm serves as publishers, retail booksellers, and book jobbers. Phillips and Sampson authors during the first years include T. S. Arthur, John Bunyan, Robert Burns, and Lydia H. Sigourney,
*To learn about these authors, please click on their pictures. Several of their Phillips & Sampson imprints are available for viewing. If so, it is possible to examine the texts, and, in some cases, to analyze the books using Voyant, a digital humanities tool.
Early Phillips and Sampson genres include gift books, textbooks, song books, health books, Conduct of Life books, and reprints of foreign authors.
One of these gift books is The Rosary of Illustrations of the Bible, by Edward Everett Hale. Moses Dresser Phillips knows Hale well, as the young Worcester minister boards at Phillips's home. The Rosary of Illustrations of the Bible, is published in octavo format, with several binding options. Purchasers can select from cloth full gilt and gilt edges, at five dollars, imitation morocco at six dollars, or morocco at six dollars and fifty cents. (Orville Roorbach, Bibliotheca Americana, 470)
By September twenty second, when he has seen the finished product, Hale writes from Boston to Charlotte Foxcroft Phillips, Moses's wife, noting:“I am delighted with the Rosary. I had become very dumpy about it, feeling that it would seem a very scatter-brained affair."
Edward Everett Hale to Charlotte Foxcroft Phillips, September 22, 1848.
Edward Everett Hale, Jr. The Life and Letters of Edward Everett Hale. Volume One:188.
Hale is close to the family, and he is living with them when Moses and Charlotte welcome their daughter, Charlotte, to the family in 1848.
"I am the most morose & nervous of all men, not to be helped even by your compassion, having covenanted with myself and certain booksellers to furnish them some papers near the end of October; which papers, as the days grow by, do not draw near to completion."
Ralph Waldo Emerson to Rebecca L. Duncan, August 16, 1849
The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Vol. 8 1845-1859, 221.
Yet the “papers” are completed in a timely manner, and in November the firm publishes Representative Men in 12mo cloth, at the median price of one dollar per copy, a typical format and price for a Phillips, Sampson and Company imprint that year.
“Mr. Phillips used to tell with glee the story of their first orders from San Francisco in the ‘49 days. “‘So many hundred packs of ‘Highland’ cards, so many of the ‘True Thomas’ cards, and so on until the box was nearly full, and then ‘one dozen Bibles.’” This was seed-corn, he said.”
Another way of gaining notoriety is by carrying on a competition with the mighty Harper firm of New York City. Phillips, Sampson and Company’s Shakspeare series, issued in parts between 1849 and 1851, gains constant attention in the periodical press for its quality, its inexpensive price, and its rivalry with the Harpers.
*During Moses Dresser Phillips's life, this author's name is often spelled Shakspeare. For that reason, this exhibit uses that spelling.
Phillips, Sampson and Company also begins to issue a six volume series of David Hume’s History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Abdication of James the Second. After the second volume is published, the United States Democratic Review comments on Hume and other Phillips, Sampson and Company imprints:
The History of Hume will be comprised in six volumes; and the continuation, by Macaulay, of which two volumes are already published, will appear in uniform style as promptly as they are produced in London.
This enterprising house has also made an arrangement for the advance sheets of Lamartine’s History of the Revolution of 1848, which they have caused to be translated by competent hands, as fast as they are received. The book will make about two duodecimo volumes.
They also announce, in semi-monthly numbers, at 25 cents each, the complete dramatic works of William Shakspeare; with notes, original and selected.
Each number will contain a play complete, with a magnificent steel engraving of the heroine of the play, executed in the highest style of art, from drawings by eminent artists.
The letter-press will be printed on large pica type, and worked on the finest calendered paper.
Its form will be royal octavo; and each number will be handsomely done up in an engraved cover, from an original design by Billings.
In its typography and illustrations, it will equal the finest English editions; and in all respects in this country, it will be without a rival, as it will be altogether the most elegant edition of the great author’s work ever presented to the American public.
The first number will be published on the first of September, and will be followed in regular order, on the first and fifteenth of each succeeding month, until completed.[i]
"Notices of New Books." United States Democratic Review (September 1849): 287.
By paying attention to the interests and tastes of consumers, the Boston publishers are preparing items that can find a ready audience. Having realized the popularity of both history and the uniform style, Phillips, Sampson and Company continues the combination in the Hume series. Anticipating a need to gain further information about recent events in Europe, the Boston firm negotiates for the first American edition of Lamartine’s work. Understanding the attraction to Shakspeare’s drama, the quality work of local artist Hammatt Billings, and the country’s financial situation, the publishers offer the public an enticing product at a price that will not overtax people in one purchase
As they estblish their business, Moses and Charles expand their stable of authors and their imprints from several genres. Through a variety of offerings and extensive advertising, the firm strives to please a diverse audience base in the United States and Canada. From market offering and response, they know how to please different types of audiences. Although they publish some books with beautiful bindings for those who value the exterior of books, they also issue the same texts in inexpensive bindings.