The Shipwreck: A Poem

1811

de Beer Ec 1811 F

London: William Baynes

Publishers and booksellers during the late 18th and early 19th centuries experienced a marked improvement in book production, as well as a growing and eager reading public. Some of the books off the presses were bound, designed to show off two or three styles of binding at different prices to suit the purse of prospective clients. Others were kept in sheets, ready for the eager buyer to commission his own in-house library binding. And there were others, like this 1811 edition of Falconer’s poem The Shipwreck, which were given a more temporary binding. The printing on paper was relatively easy, with a near repeat of what was on the title-page; only the decorative rule has been added. Not wasting an opportunity, the back cover has printed advertisements of other books published by William Baynes.