University of Virginia Library

Vol. 9, Chicago, 1925.

The two states are most readily distinguished by their thickness (Ordinary paper 2 cm; thick paper 2.5 cm) and by the spellings "Missisipi" and "Erié" in the first three sheets (B-D) of the ordinary paper, as opposed to "Mississippi" (generally, though the word occurs twice on p. 1, once "Mississipi") and "Erie" in the thick-paper.

The printer has not been identified. He printed in the same year, for William Hall, Tench Coxe's View of the United States. Mathew Carey in this period was employing several printers, whose modified Caslons are all easily enough distinguished by the J's and Q's. The swash Italic J of this printer has not been found in the font of any other Philadelphia printer of the day.

This article is based on an examination of 16 copies: DLC 4, ViU 2, ViW 2, DGS, NcD, ICN, OCI, NjP, MHS, MiU, and a personally owned one marked CV. All headlines were compared, and where variations showed, the forme was minutely collated.

A complete copy should collate 8°, A2 B-Uu4, with map in front and a half-sheet inserted table of Indian Tribes after S3.

Much of the thin paper is also watermarked with this same mark, but some is also unwatermarked.

See, for example, the Murray Printing Company's trade journal, On the Surface, for April, 1949, p. 1, "We Deserved It". The practice of running cheap play quartos on job lots of paper of different qualities (see A. H. Stevenson, "New Uses of Watermarks as Bibliographical Evidence," Papers of the Bibliographical Society, University of Virginia, I (1948-49), 151-182) can never have been customary in the better class of book.

Of the 16 copies examined, only 3 show paper mixtures. Of these, DLC-4 and CV have a thick-paper Z in an otherwise thin-paper copy, indicating a short run Z. CV is furthermore completely lacking signature L, indicating a probably late-gathered copy. DLC-1 is badly mixed (Prelims thin, B-E thick, F-M thin, N-Uu thick) and clearly late gathered. It has a 1796 state of the map, for example. In spite of an apparently high proportion of mixtures, it is clear that normal copies should be all of one kind of paper.

E.g., ViU copies.

E.g., ViU-2, N1r (p. 89); NjP, P2r (p. 107); NcD, OCl, and ViU-1, Kk1r (p. 249).

E.g., Pp3r (p. 293) has "Lake Erie", without the first-state compositor's accent.

See footnote 13.

In the first state of B1v, lines 1 and 5, the degree marks are superior figures, whereas in the second state they are made from broken eights. This was probably due to ignorance on the part of compositor 2 of the fact that a small font "o" could be made into a superior figure. On Q2v the compositor of B-D 2nd state may have learned the use of the superior "o" at line 12 or 19. The difficulty, however, of distinguishing between carefully broken 8's and a superior "o", combined with the possibility of a mid-page change in compositors, has ruled this evidence out either as a timetable factor for the resetting of B-D, or as evidence for two compositors.

One additional habit can be associated with him: the 2nd state signature letters were centered not on the page margins as in the first state, but on the distance between the left-hand page margin and the left-hand margin of the catchword, a phenomenon that recurs at irregular intervals elsewhere in the book. The specific variations of 2nd state from 1st state, besides Mississippi, Erie, and the degree mark, include additional commas by 2 at several points, and a tendency to hyphenate certain place-names.

Thus certain misprints survive. In D1v line 19 "propable" for "probable" is in all copies of state one, though it was corrected in the second setting, as was "Gulp" for "Gulph" in C3r line 12. D3r "Waetrs" is uncorrected in the first state. Z1r has "discription"; Kk1r "Sympton".

Other observed forme unlockings involve only the position of the headline: Inner D first state ViU-1 and DLC4 differ from all others on D1v (p. 18) and D4r (p. 23); Inner P ViU-2 differs from DLC 1-3 on P4r (p. III); Inner and Outer Z thin-paper copies ViU-1, LC2-3, DGS, NcD, ICN, OCL, and thick-paper signatures ViU-2, LCl & 4, CV, and MiU on both Zzr-v (p. 171-2).

The map is: The State of Virginia from the best authorities, By Samuel Lewis. 1794 American miles 69 1/2 to a Degree (scale) Smither Sculpt. [Bottom:] Engraved for Carey's American Edition of Guthries Geography improved. (E. G. Swem, Maps Relating to Virginia, Richmond, 1914, No. 354). This plate was first used in Carey's American Edition of Guthries Geography Improved, Philadelphia, 1788 (Evans 21176).

ViU-2, NjP, and MiU. To this can be added the thick-paper copy at NN referred to by Evans. For thick-paper signatures in thin-paper copies, see note 8.

DGS, a copy privately owned by Mr. Delf Norona, and a copy advertised by an English bookseller, George Harding, Catalog New Series No. 73, 1949, item 12.