Confusion with an 1881 Lippincott Order

This billhead offers insight into how issues were dealt with between buyer and seller in the late 19th century. 

J.B. Lippincott & Co., the Philadelphia publisher and bookseller, received an order from J. King McLanahan of Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania and shipped what they had along with this billhead containing confusing notation to the customer.

Mr. McLanahan evidently sent it back with a question written on the billhead about what they meant regarding the missing book in his order, likely a recent book about Pope and his poetry in the Lansdowne Poetry Series of the 1870s.

Lippincott responded that they were out of the book in Morocco binding, but it was presently being bound as ordered.

Each communication moved with a pace at the mercy of local post offices in the US Postal System. This back-and-forth about a book that wasn't available for shipping must have taken days if not weeks to clear up. Something that today could be handled with a couple of quick emails in minutes.

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