The Acquisitions Table: A Sermon on the Trinity

Phillips, John. A sermon on the Trinity. [New York]: Sold by Mr. Mitchel, book-binder, Maiden Lane, New-York; Mr. Pike, store-keeper, John Street; and Mrs. Mary Davis, store-keeper, New-Brunswick, [1794]

Third known copy of an unusual American imprint, as yet unreported to the North American Imprints Project (NAIP) or the English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC). John Phillips led a boys’ school at the Chocolate House Academy in Blackheath, London, from 1790 to 1792. This sermon was possibly first printed in England—some aspects of the typography suggest that this edition is a reprint—though no copy of an English edition has survived. What distinguishes this American edition is the imprint shared among three publishers at the outermost reaches of the American book trade: Edward Mitchell, a bookbinder and stationer who published a few other tracts in the mid-1790s; a Mr. Pike, a “store-keeper” of whom little else is known; and Mary Davis of New Brunswick, NJ, who published nothing else but who did place an advertisement for this work in Arnett’s New-Jersey Federalist for October 9, 1794, enabling us to date this edition.

Purchased from E. M. Lawson & Co. Henry F. DePuy Fund.

Published by

David Whitesell

Curator of Books, American Antiquarian Society

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