The Closet. Vol. I, No. I [to Vol. II, nos. 11-12].
Le Roy, Genesee County, N.Y. [followed by] Rochester, N. Y. David Slie, October 15, 1845 to September & October, 1847. First edition. Contemporary sheep spine (scant evidence of a black leather label now lacking), marbled boards, 9 x 6.13 inches, 240 pages. (Includes two leaves of Index, but seemingly no general title page, as published.). Lower corner of the front free endpaper clipped. Binding somewhat rubbed; some staining throughout; a good copy. Item #19885
Per the ULS, all published. An interesting more-or-less monthly, from the reforming Rochester clergyman David Slie (ca. 1801-1883). The ostensible motive force behind this periodical is “to promote undissembled *Closet Piety*”—though the causes of anti-slavery, temperance, the sins of Rochester, N.Y., and the labors of the colporteur all creep into its columns. Indeed, the terms and advertisements for agents beat like a drum through the issues as Slie attempts to harness both technology and postal reform in concert with a network of agents to cast a broad net over a network of distribution offices in his effort to cover the entirety of Western New York; his first number explains, “As all previous attempts to give an extensive circulation to penny papers, through the post-office have failed, owing to the expense of postage, the liberal provisions of the new law, proffering a free transmission to all papers within thirty miles of the place of publication, seems to remove the difficulty, and invite those who would use the unlimited power of the press to the promotion of vital piety, and all its saving influences upon the community, to enter at once upon the work. By using a power press [emphasis added], copies can be multiplied with sufficient expedition to meet any demand; and the regular lines of expresses not in operation, afford facilities for sending large bundles to the several publishers, who will keep regular subscription books, and mail the papers as soon as received, to all the mail subscribers living within thirty miles of their office.” (Unhappily for Slie, by his fifth number of February, 1846 he was writing to his patrons, “We have done what in the eye of equal justice we thought we had a perfect individual right to do. We supposed that in the strict sense of lexicographers in the act of diffusing light and knowledge through community according to the design of the Post Office Department, would wave [sic] any technical quibble, as to the difference between *printing* and *publishing* a Newspaper.” Slie was evidently forced to scrabble to recoup unexpected postage costs; most of the numbers includes notes from Slie on having to adjust his print run, or asking for the extra shilling here or there, or pressing reminders into the pliant consciences of his readers.) By the combined July & August 1847 issue, Slie notes “It is now about five months since our confinement with a broken leg; during which time we have not ever been up into our printing office,” and he offers to subscribers disgruntled at the delay in publication an offer of fourteen rather than twelve numbers in the next volume—though by the final number of the second volume, it appears that that the Closet is to be laid down, and a prospectus is published in its columns for The Christian Reformer, which will agitate for (inter alia) Sunday School union, temperance, Jewish restoration, moral purity, anti-Catholicism and anti-slavery. (This new concern seems not to have been published.) In all, an interesting look at a reforming serial butting up against the stern realities of commerce.
Price: $350.00