Lilly, Wait, Colman & Holden Printers, Publishers, Booksellers & Stationers. Handbill with illustration by David Claypool Johnston. Boston: Pendleton, 1833.
This small handbill advertising a new shop for a Boston book publisher arrived as part of a generous gift of David Claypool Johnston material from AAS member David Tatham. After checking the Society’s Johnston family archive, available online, Tatham suspected the handbill might duplicate an item in the trade card collection, but in fact it proved to be an earlier issue. The trade card is actually an 1834 bill head for the firm of Lilly, Wait, Colman & Holden, but Johnston’s name (engraved in very small letters just below the central image) has been effaced. The handbill dates from 1833, based on the two new publications announced therein. D.C. Johnston did some other engraved work for Lilly, Wait, Colman & Holden in this period, including illustrations in an anti-slavery tract and a school geography text. We are very pleased to add this Johnston item, and the other material donated with it, to our holdings. Gift of David Tatham.
