Note Type
DescriptionNote
MILLER:
FISHER, George (A. 1740). The American Instructor, Ninth Edition
COLLATION: Demy 12° in sixes A8 B-2I6 2K8. Pp. i title, iii-v preface, vi blank, I 2-343 text, 344-371 text of "Every Man his Own Doctor," 372-375 printer's address, 375-377 "Advice to a Young Tradesman, written by an Old One," 377-378 explanation of J. B's twelve ciphers.
RUNNING-TITLES: iv-v The PREFACE. 2-378 The Young Man's Best Companion.
CATCHWORDS: 23 Ad- 64 28 [Punctuation missing after catchwords on pp. 77, I37, 178, 251, 275, 280-8I, 283, 292, 297, 318, 348; catchwords lacking on pp. 48, 66, 165, 170, 172, 178, 235, 240, 257, 3311.ORNAMENTS: iii, I No. 100; 378 No. I9, plus nine illustrations in the text.
TYPE: Caslon sm. pica.
PAPER: American, marked fleur de lis | IV; crown shield feur de lis BF CS.
LEAF: 6.5 x 3.8 in.
PLATES: (I) four writing hands: Italian, secretary, round, flourishing, imposed on 8° half-sheet and inserted after p. 30; (2) fold-in engraving of geometrical figures done by James Turner, inserted after p.
174; (3) fold-in engraving of J. B's twelve ciphers, inserted after p. 376 (DeWi, MWA, PP, PPL).
BINDING: Sheep, blind-tooled (I) with fillet E (PP),
(2) with fillet E, roll no. 8 on either side of fillet, and roll no. Il on board edge (PPL), (3) with fillet F (MB, PHi, PPAmP, PU) [bound by Stephen Potts, Phila.]; (4) with fillet Y on three sides, and run three times along the spine side (CtY) [bound by Geo. Christopher Rheinhold, Phila.]; (5) with fillet T (DLC, ICN) [bound in New York].
REF: Evans 6238, Hildeburn 1062, Campbell 38г.
NOTES: Advertised in Pa. Gaz., July 21, 1748, price,
55., in NY Gaz., Aug. 29, 1748, in Va. Gaz., Sept. I9,
1751. Franklin ordered two dozen of George Fisher's The Instructor: or, Young Man's Best Companion from Strahan in London, April 14, 1745 (Papers, III, 21) and sometime before Sept. 7, 1747, when James Parker asked about his progress on the re- vision (Papers, III, 173), BF undertook to modify Fisher's handbook to suit the needs of an American reading public. The changes were a mixture of good sense and shrewd journalism. BF altered the title to The American Instructor, but retained Fisher's Young Man's Best Companion in his running-titles.
BF omitted portions of little use to colonial readers, corrected errors in the arithmetical section, and added significant features: "Every Man his own Doctor," brief historical sketches of the colonies, his own essay entitled "Advice to a Young Tradesman, written by an Old One," and the twelve writing ciphers originated by his late friend, the scrivener Joseph Breintnal (see Papers, III, 304-308). The American Instructor went through another BF & DH printing in 1753, and was reprinted in 1770 by Hugh Gaine for his New York trade and for the customers of John Dunlap in Philadelphia. Meanwhile colonial printers continued to import London editions of Fisher or struck off American printings of the London text.
Some past misstatements about this volume need setting aright. George Fisher is the name of the British editor-compiler; it is not a pseudonym, as Evans insisted, for Mrs. Thomas Slack (nee Ann Fisher).
The plate for the "round hand" was not modeled on BF's own handwriting (see Papers, III, 305 ftn. and Ray Nash, American Writing Masters and Copybooks (Boston, 1964), pp. 345, 366). The BF version of Fisher has no engraved frontispiece as do the original Fishers; the first and last gatherings of the
ute of a duodecimo, not an octavo, half-sheet, and the J. B ciphers are not merely described, but illustrated by an engraved plate extant in copies of both the 1748 and the 1753 editions (see ibid, pp 379-380)