Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v4.djvu/124

 536 Book Publishers and Publishing Onderricht, had appeared in New York. Yet while thirty- Dutch publications were issued between 1730 and 1764, the influence of that language as a publishing medium was practi- cally dead by 1800, although it was revived much later at Grand Rapids, Michigan. With the German language, however, the case was far different. Andrew Bradford printed Conrad Beissel's Das Biichlein vom Sabbath in 1728, ushering in German printing in this country. In 1738 Christopher Saur or Sower estab- lished at Germantown what is the oldest extant publishing firm in the United States. Sower won his place in publishing annals by his three editions of the Bible, in 1743, 1762, and 1776. Not until 1782 was our first Bible in English published, by Robert Aitken at Philadelphia. But even more remarkable than Sower's editions of the Bible was the issue of Van Bragt's Martyr Book by the Ephrata brethren in 1748 and 1749, which, in an edition of about 1300 copies of a massive folio of 15 12 pages on thick paper, was the largest book until after the Revolution. Up to 1830 German printing was carried on in some 47 places, and of these at least 31 were in Pennsylvania, while in actual output and in intellectual stirring the balance was even greater in favour of that colony than these figures would indicate. Moreover, Germantown was the first place to gain wide recognition for itself as a paper manufacturing centre. Of book publication in other languages during this period, little account need be taken, though there were a few French issues. When one turns, however, to the more subtle and pervasive influence of cultural infiltration, something more must be said for French. The intensely interesting catalogue of Moreau de St. Mery & Company's Store, Philadelphia, 1795, with some 920 entries of French books, together with other evidence, shows that book dealers must have reckoned directly and publishers indirectly with French infiuence. Moreover, this catalogue, with its list of Latin, Italian, Spanish, German, and Dutch works gives eloquent testimony to the cultivation of our cosmopolitan capital. In no wise acci- dentally, as in large measure is to be said of Boston at a later period, was Philadelphia our chief centre of publication as the Republic began its political career. In the meanwhile in this germinal eighteenth century