Bibliophemera

Is there a connection between Osgood and The Harvard Book ? Maybe. Not one of your more compelling bibliomysteries, but the correspondence below raises a few questions about the history of a particular book. The Dickensiana is no mystery. Read on... Here is a nice postal cover with letterhead combo from Boston publisher J.R. Osgood. The company's logo and return address graphic, along with the 1875 postmark, provide a bit of company genealogy. The oval image includes a book with J.R. Osgood & Co. printed on it. Beneath that we learn that Osgood either partnered with of succeeded Ticknor & Fields, as the previous name was Fields & Osgood, preceded by Ticknor & Fields. A descendant of the original Ticknor, whose book business started in 1832, took over J.R. Osgood & Co. and returned the Ticknor name to the business. I wrote about this in another post about a Ticknor & Company postal cover . Osgood is writing to a Mr. F.O. Vaille in Cambrid...

Here's a letter from an Indiana bookseller in 1907, more notable for its letterhead than anything else I can find about its author. In addition to books and Bibles, The Book Man sold magazines and stationery along with games, pictures, and miscellaneous items. O.L. Hall, who billed himself as "The Book Man," typed this out, perhaps from his book shop, one summer day more than a hundred years ago in Portland, Indiana . His Walt Whitmanesque pose (Whitman below) makes for an impressive centerpiece in his letterhead. Mr. Hall's tone in this letter to the Liss Mapping Co., in Lima, Ohio, shows his patience is wearing thin with the mapmakers a few counties over in the next state. He's not about to let unanswered letters and a little detail about Liss having gone out of business deter him from getting what he wants. He stubbornly makes another request in one long, rambling sentence: Gentlemen; I have written you twice, and received no answer and I have been informed th...