1833 PHILADELPHIA PROSPECTUS BROADSIDE FOR ALEXANDER & GODEY’S “THE NOVELIST MAGAZINE”, OFFERING $500 FOR THE BEST AMERICA NOVEL

1833 PHILADELPHIA PROSPECTUS BROADSIDE FOR ALEXANDER & GODEY’S “THE NOVELIST MAGAZINE”, OFFERING $500 FOR THE BEST AMERICA NOVEL

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Item Code: 1323-71

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Printed broadside prospectus headed "THE CHEAPEST WORK EVER OFFERED TO THE PUBLIC," issued by Charles Alexander and Louis A. Godey, under the firm of C. Alexander & Co., announcing their intention to commence on the first of January, 1833, a semi-monthly publication to be called THE NOVELIST'S MAGAZINE. The sheet is headed by a large wood engraving of the Athenian Buildings, Franklin Place, Philadelphia, lettered "Book & General Printing Office" and "Athenian Buildings," with street-level signage for the Saturday Courier and the Lady's Book — the offices from which Alexander published the Philadelphia Saturday Courier and Godey his Lady's Book.

The prospectus proposes to place the best current fiction before the public in a neat, inexpensive form, drawing on the partners' direct connection with London publishers to reprint new British novels as soon as received, along with scarce works of an earlier day. To give "ENCOURAGEMENT TO AMERICAN WRITERS," the publishers offer a premium of $500 to the author of THE BEST NOVEL upon a National subject, submitted on or before October 1, 1833, to be judged by a committee chosen for the purpose. The winning work was to be printed in handsome book form corresponding to the best London editions, with the author receiving a further fifty dollars for every thousand copies sold; unsuccessful manuscripts were to be returned to their authors.

Terms are set out in the lower columns: semi-monthly numbers of forty-eight extra imperial octavo pages in double columns, arranged after the manner of the Lady's Book, making two volumes a year of more than six hundred pages each, at five dollars per annum payable in advance; orders to C. Alexander & Co., No. 3 Athenian Buildings, Franklin Place; a commission of twenty per cent to agents and postmasters; uncurrent notes of solvent banks received at par; and a free exchange for one year offered to newspaper editors inserting the notice. The foot carries a ruled subscription blank headed No. of Copies, Subscribers' Names, and Places of Residence.

The premium was an enlarged version of a contest the Saturday Courier had already run: its 1831 prize of $100 for the best tale drew submissions from the young Edgar Allan Poe, five of whose earliest tales the Courier printed in 1832.

MANUSCRIPT USE

This copy was not posted up but folded and sent through the mail as a letter sheet. The blank verso carries a manuscript account of Lady's Book subscribers in arrears at Harrisburg, each entry giving the term and amount owed at the magazine's rate of three dollars a year. Names as read include Dr. E. W. Roberts, Benj. Parke, Miss M. Wolfe, G. Montgomery, Saml. Berry, J. Heilman, J. W. Gross, Thos. Hampton, Anthony Mitchell and Mrs. Jacob Eyster, with terms running from July 1831 into 1833; several are marked "Stop," discontinuing the subscription, and the column totals $43.50. Below the account:

"Mr Geo Gallagher is responsible for the $3 of Mr [Horback]'s as he took the Nos from the office. Will you have the kindness to make collections & remit. You will perceive that there is a pretty good am't due us. With Respect, Godey & Co. / Phila Jany 31 1833."

Addressed on the outer panel to "Geo. P. Wiestling Esq., Harrisburg, Pa.," endorsed "Single" and "Godey & Co.," with a manuscript rate marking and a red circular Philadelphia datestamp. The addressee is very probably George P. Wiestling (1808-1883), of a long-established Harrisburg family, later a coal and wood merchant in that city.

Written one month after the Novelist's Magazine's announced launch, the letter shows Godey's country-agent system — the same system the prospectus solicits — at work in the Lady's Book's third year, and pairs a scarce piece of Philadelphia literary-publishing ephemera with an early business letter from one of the most important magazine publishers of the century.

CONDITION

Approx. 10 x 17 in. Original letter folds with separations and small losses at the fold intersections; two seal tears, one near the close of the letter; light dampstaining and foxing, most noticeable at the upper right of the printed face; edge chipping and fraying, particularly along the lower edge; overall toning. The engraving prints strongly and the printed text is complete and legible; the manuscript is clear.  [ss] [ph:L]

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