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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2007

Harper Brothers in 1855, A Treasure Trove of ImagesDESTRUCTIVE FIRE.

THE ESTABLISHMENT

OF HARPER &BROTHERS IN RUINS.

OVER

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sent notices to the newspapers that Harper & Brothers would remain in business.

The Harper Establishment; or,

How the Story Booksare Made , by Jacob Abbott (1855)

On completion of the new

cast-iron building housing HarperBrothers, children's author Jacob Abbott turned his talent forthorough description to explainingthe mechanics of how books wereproduced. This heavily illustrated

work explores everything fromhow type is made to the mechanics behind the building's wrought ironstructure.

Many of the detailed engravings of the building and the machinery are linked to high-resolution

versions. The first image is of the Cliff Street front. The second is a wonderfully detailedcutaway of the same building.

Of course, there are some wonderful engravings of printingand bookbinding, but also detailsof paper marbling, typecasting,sewing, gilding, etc. I had neverheard of this book until an original1855 printing came across ebay. Ilost the auction; I had no idea what the book was worth.

I ventured over to my favorite book search engine, bookfinder.com , and discoveredth h b l i t

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by Oak Knoll . The Oak Knolledition has a very niceintroduction by Joel Myerson andChris L. Nesmith which helpsplace the book in context. Oak Knoll also produced theirs as afacsimile edition, which appeals tome for some reason. Long after Ihad made an Oak Knoll copy my own, I found the websiteNineteenth Century AmericanChildren and What They Read by

Pat Pflieger. At this very well done website you will find exactly that,including magazines. Many magazines and some books arereproduced at the website as text

with high quality scans of any

images. Harper Establishment isone such book, because of the prolific children's writer Jacob Abbott.

Of course all of the pertinent images were gathered and loaded at the American Book TradeIndex for those searching out further information on publishing, book selling, and book making, etc. in America before 1900.

A big thank you to Pat Pflieger formaking this wonderful book andimages available to everyone.