Key Collecting Areas: Collecting Emerson
37. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Order to James Munroe & Co. for copies of Phi Beta Kappa (“American Scholar”) and Divinity School addresses, April 18, 1839.
Ink on paper. Joel Myerson Collection of Nineteenth-Century American Literature, University of South Carolina.
As a bibliographer and long-time practitioner of what is now called “book history,” Joel Myerson watches for items showing how authors were involved in the production and sale of their books. Emerson was one of the few nineteenth-century American authors (Cooper, Irving. and Longfellow are others) who maintained the copyrights to their own works and authorized publishers to print them, which assured an author of a much larger share of revenue than the normal royalty arrangement. James Munroe & Co. was Emerson’s publisher for the first decade of his career, and the firm would store copies of his works until they were needed for sale to booksellers or, in this case, to someone Emerson himself designated.
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