page_title: Boston Library Society
section_title: 1792–1858
hierarchical_section_title: Boston Library Society / Brief history / 1792–1858
caption_attribution_description: English: Catalogue of books in the Boston Library. Nov. 1, 1807.
context_page_description: The Boston Library Society was an American subscription library established in New England's pre-eminent city, Boston, during 1792. Early subscribers included Revolutionary War figures Paul Revere and William Tudor. The society existed until 1939 when it merged into a larger historical library known as the Boston Athenæum.
context_section_description: The Boston Library "circulated polite general reading for ladies and gentlemen". It operated from rooms in the newly built Tontine Crescent, designed by Charles Bulfinch, who also served as one of the library's trustees.
  Early subscribers, in addition to Revere and Tudor, included: Hannah Barrell, James Bowdoin III, Dr. Thomas Bulfinch, Rev. John Clarke of First Church, Abigail Howard, Sally Hubbard, Deborah Jeffries, Mary Langdon, Jedidiah Morse, Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton, James Perkins and Thomas Handasyd Perkins. The library maintained detailed records of its holdings and circulation activities. For instance, in 1794, Paul Revere borrowed works by Chevalier de Jean Francois Bourgoanne, Elizabeth Inchbald, James Cook, William Coxe, Elizabeth Craven, Charles-Marguerite-Jean-Baptiste Mercier Dupaty, Edward Gibbon, Alexander Jardine, Johann Kaspar Lavater, William Shakespeare, Joshua Townshend, and Comte de Volney. 
  In the first years of the library, Nathan Webb served as secretary, 1794–1826. Henderson Inches, Allan Pollock, William Walter and Charles Hammatt were successive treasurers. Librarians included Caleb Bingham (1792–1797), Nathan Davies (1797–1803), Cyrus Perkins (1803–1806), James Day (1809–1811), Charles Callender (1813–1828), John Lee (1828–1840) and George S. Bulfinch (1840–ca.1845). Numerous trustees, in addition to Charles Bulfinch, supported the library through the years, including Reverend Joseph Eckley of Old South Meeting House, Reverend John Eliot, Reverend William Emerson, Samuel Hall, John Thornton Kirkland, George Richards Minot, Bishop Samuel Parker, William Scollay, Lemuel Shaw, William Spooner, Charles Vaughan and Redford Webster. In 1801, Abigail Howard donated some 500 books to the library.
  By 1848, the library owned "about 11,000 volumes, which have been obtained chiefly by purchase".
  Some of the titles in the library's collection in 1824 included:
  
  
   
  Marquis d'Argens' The Jewish Spy
  Asiatic Annual Register 1799–1810
  Jane Austen's Emma
  Babbler periodical essays
  Joanna Baillie's plays
  Henry Baker on Microscopes
  Mary Brunton's Emmeline
  Catherine Cuthbertson's Forest of Montalbano
   
  Dissenter's Magazine 1794–1799
  Dobson's Encyclopedia
  Fontenelle's Plurality of Worlds
  Mary Hays' Female Biography
  Benjamin Jenks' Meditations
  Soame Jenyns' Works
  Stephen Harriman Long's Expedition to the Rocky Mountains
  Lounger, a periodical work
   
  Lady Luxborough's Letters to Shenstone
  Catharine Macaulay's Letters on Education
  M'Call's History of Georgia
  William James MacNeven's Rambles in Switzerland
  Microcosm, a periodical work
  Philanthrope, a periodical paper
   
  Mrs. Ross' Physiognomist, a novel
  Rogers' Looker-On, a periodical paper
  Rowe's Lucan's Pharsalia
  Rowe's Present State of Europe, 1824
  Walter Scott's Peveril of the Peak
  Robert Southey's Metrical Tales
  Amos Stoddard's Sketches of Louisiana
  Mrs. West's Loyalists
caption: Catalogue of books in the Boston Library, 1807
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