Benjamin Guild

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]

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

Biography
Coat of Arms of Benjamin Guild

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]

See also

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 30, 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. 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), no. 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 (3): 473–483, doi:10.2307/1923813, JSTOR 1923813
  12. Independent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser, October 26, 1786
  13. Massachusetts Centinel, December 19, 1787
  14. Catalogue 1788.
  15. American Apollo, October 26, 1792
  16. Catalogue 1789.
  17. "Markoe, Peter 1752?-1792", WorldCat, Online Computer Library Center, retrieved February 28, 2011
  18. "Robin abbé 1750-1794", WorldCat, Online Computer Library Center, retrieved February 28, 2011
  19. "Wanley, Nathaniel 1634-1680", WorldCat, Online Computer Library Center, retrieved February 28, 2011
  20. "Wyld, Samuel", WorldCat, Online Computer Library Center, retrieved February 28, 2011
  21. "Wynne, John Huddlestone 1743-1788", WorldCat, Online Computer Library Center, retrieved February 28, 2011

Bibliography
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