A SALESMAN'S PROSPECTUS FOR "THE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF METHODISM.

New York: Phillips & Hunt [and several other publishers elsewhere], 1879. 241 x 168 mm. (9 1/2 x 6 5/8"). 50 leaves, including 6 (blank) lined leaves with columns for subscriber name, address, and binding style preference.
Original burgundy cloth with gilt titling, two tondo portraits, and two medallions with vignettes on front cover, front pastedown with the spine design for the publisher's cloth binding, rear pastedown with the spine design for morocco binding. Many woodcut illustrations throughout. ◆Binding a bit battered and soiled (and with evidence of silverfish visitation), occasional smudging internally, but solid and generally well preserved for an ephemeral item of this sort.

Generally a prospectus like the present item was used by canvassers to sell subscriptions door-to-door for forthcoming publications; Mark Twain had most of the first printings of his books sold this way. But it appears as if the present work might (also?) have been marketed through congregations, with a publisher's dummy like this one being sent to pastors, who could earn some additional income (or at least free copies) by selling subscriptions to their flocks. These samples would contain excerpts from the book, and examples of the bindings available at various prices, with leather at the upper end and cloth the less expensive option (a typed note laid in at the front and dated 1980 says that the cloth binding cost $3 and the leather $4). Not surprisingly, there are no other copies of this prospectus currently on the market, and ABPC shows no records of any sale of one since at least 1975..