THE AMERICAN MUSEUM, OR, UNIVERSAL MAGAZINE, FOR MAY, 1792

Philadelphia: Mathew Carey, 1792. [4],[181]-248pp. 20th-century three-quarter morocco and cloth, gilt. Titlepage and later typed sheet tipped in at front of text. Text lightly tanned. Very good. May issue for the last year of the AMERICAN MUSEUM..., containing an account of "Western Discoveries" in the "interior regions of America." The brief article tells of British Mr. Stuart who trekked from the Great Lakes to the headwaters of the Missouri and then "within about five hundred miles of the shores of the Pacific ocean." The only thing that kept him from reaching the coast was a savage Indian war. This issue also contains some articles on the South Sea Bubble and John Law.

The AMERICAN MUSEUM was America's first literary magazine, and a pioneering effort on the part of its publisher, Mathew Carey, to bring news to a national audience, and to develop and promote an indigenous literary culture. Its success helped establish Mathew Carey as the leading printer of his generation. Through the publication of the periodical he was able to develop a distribution network which greatly aided him in coming years as he became a leading book publisher. A congressional change in postal rates for magazines in 1792 forced Carey to end THE AMERICAN MUSEUM..., in order "to have recourse to some other object that might afford a better reward to industry." EVANS 24045. REESE, FEDERAL HUNDRED 12 (ref)