As this advertisement may reach some who are not acquainted with the plan and object of the "Library," a statement and explanation are appended. The Library" was commenced more than two years ago, and was the first established on the plan of giving periodically entire reprints of books, and sending them by mail. It met early with very decided success, which has been daily increasing. It has been long placed on the firmest basis, and therefore, on subscribing, no risk is incurred from a non-fulfilment of promises. As the best evidence of the capability of the work, a list of the books published for 1833 and 1834, is subjoined, which will explain better than any assertion at what reduction of price books may be had. CONTENTS FOR 1833. Lafayette and Louis Philippe. By B. Sarrans. Rise and Fall of Masaniello at Naples. Memoirs of Casanova. My Sister Kate. The Way to be Happy. Kruitzner, the German's Tale, from the Canterbury Editorial Notices, Poetry, &c. &c. Tales of Sophia and Harriet Lee. by himself. Portraits." Good Sir Walter, a Tale, by the author of " Rome in the Nineteenth Century. In a series of Let- The Black Watch, an historical novel. By Andrew The The Gentle Recruit, a tale. By the author of the Narrative of a Tour in Mexico, and of an Excursion to "Subaltern." Saratoga. By the same. A Family Tour in South Holland. By Col. Batty. The Italian Exile in England. By Count Pecchio. Memoirs of Dr. Burney. By Madame D'Arblay, author The Black Velvet Bag, and Mademoiselle Therese. By Elliott's Letters from the North of Europe. Madame Dard's Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Medusa. Life and Adventures of the Chevalier Charles Stuart, and History of the Rebellion in Scotland in 1745, 1746. By Robert Chambers. Great Britain in 1833. By Baron D'Haussez, Exminister of King Charles X. The Story of Captain X "Traits of Travels." By the author of Cuba. In a Series of Letters written in the year The Miseries of a New Member of the Yacht Club. A Visit to the Great St. Bernard in the Autumn of Journal of a West India Proprietor, kept during a resi Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Antelope, in 1783. CONTENTS FOR 1834. Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau. By an old man. The Three Westminster Boys. From "Nights of the Narrative of the Capture of Diamond Rock, effected by Memoirs of Henry Masers de Latude, who was confined The Bridal Day. From the London Metropolitan. Norah Clary's Wise Thought. Jack the Shrimp. Rural Pleasures. From the London New Month- A Day at Fonthill Abbey. From the same. Italy; with Sketches of Spain and Portugal. By the author of Vathek. The Two Scotch Williams. From " Nights of the two acts. Deinhardstein. I Think of Thee. From the German of Goethe,, Chapters 7, 8. Excerpts from Sharp's Letters. Henri Quatre; or, The Days of the League. An bistorical novel. Excerpts. The Black Death in the Fourteenth Century. From the German of Professor J. F. C. Hecker, M. D. Translated by B. G. Babington, M. D. The Spanish Lady, a Tale. By the author of " Family Portraits." Two Years at Sea; being the Narrative of a Voyage to Why don't the Men Propose. From the London New The Charmed Sea, a Tale, by Harriet Martineau; be- Traditions of the American War of Independence. From the United Service Journal. Besides this amount of books, there is a weekly cover, called The Journal of Belles Lettres, containing four pages as large as the Library, filled with critical notices of new books, list of new publications, foreign and domestic, with other generally interesting literary information, furnished gratuitously. The following is from a late prospectus. In the "Library" are reprinted the choicest productions of the British press, in the various departments of TRAVELS, VOYAGES, MEMOIRS, BIOGRAPHY, NOVELS, TALES, &c. &c. The adaptation of the periodical form to the publication of books entire, first adopted, by the subscriber, in the present work, met, on its announcement, with a spontaneous and very general expression of approbation. The peculiar advantages of the plan were at once recognised, and its practicability soon became evident. The effects of this mode of publication on literary pursuits may not be inaptly compared to those of canals and railroads in commercial operations-in equalising situation; placing the farmer, the country merchant, or the mechanic, however secluded and isolated their respective locations, on a footing with the inhabitants of a city. A resident in the most retired hamlet can now have a book sooner than the publisher's next door neighbour could in former times; and his convenience and taste for reading can thus both be consulted at an expense too inconsiderable to be seriously mentioned, when put in competition with the gratification. At the former prices of books in this country, on inferior paper, those given each year would cost about 50 dollars. Were the comparison of prices extended to the cost of London books, it would be found that we have supplied an amount of printing which cost in London $166 for the small sum of five dollars. When the advantages of circulation by mail are considered, and also that, in clubs of five individuals, each gets the work for $4.00, which difference pays the postage, under 100 miles, it must be admitted, on all hands, that it is the greatest reduction on the usual selling prices of any article ever attempted, much less executed. But the subscriber does not found his claims to public patronage alone on the cheapness of his periodical. The works published have been of a highly literary and very attractive character, as is proved by second book editions having followed those of the Library" with rapidity, and every one of which, even at the advanced price charged in that form, has had a most rapid sale. 66 The time and attention of the editor are al most entirely devoted to making selections for His situation and engagements afford him pecuthe work, and in seeking, from the mass of liar advantages and facilities for the selection of books in the public institutions of Philadelphia, books. These, with the additional channels as well as from the new books imported from created by agencies at London, Liverpool, and Great Britain, the most interesting and valua- Edinburgh, warrant the proprietor in guaranteeble matter; and he has had the pleasure of ing a faithful execution of the literary departbringing before the American public several ment. works which otherwise would probably not have been reprinted here. His situation as Librarian to the Philadelphia Library, the largest collection of books in the United States, gives him facilities possessed by few. By printing the "Library" on a single sheet, the postage is reduced to the lowest rate. There is growing up in the United States a numerous population, with literary tastes, who are scattered over a large space, and who, distant from the localities whence books and literary information emanate, feel themselves at a great loss for that mental food which education has fitted them to enjoy. Books are cheap in our principal cities, but in the interior they cannot be procured as soon as published, nor without considerable expense. To supply this desideratum is the design of the present undertaking, the chief object of which emphatically is, to make good reading cheaper, and to put it in a form that will bring it to every man's door. Books cannot be sent by mail, while the "Select Circulating Library" may be received at the most distant post office in the Union in from fifteen to twenty-five days after it is published, at a little more expense than newspaper postage; or in other words, before a book could be bound in Philadelphia, our subscribers in the most distant states may be perusing it in their parlours. It would be supererogatory to dilate further on the general advantages and conveniences which such a publication presents to people of literary pursuits wherever located, but more particularly to those who reside in retired situations they are so obvious that the first glance cannot fail to flash conviction of its eligibility. TERMS. "The Select Circulating Library" is printed weekly on a double medium sheet of fine paper of sixteen pages with three columns on each, and mailed with great care so as to carry with perfect safety to the most distant post office. It is printed and finished with the same care and accuracy as book work. The whole fifty-two numbers form two volumes well worth preservation, of 416 pages each, equal in quantity to 1200 pages, or three volumes, of Rees's Cyclopædia. Each volume is accompanied with a Title-page and Index. The price is Five Dollars for fifty-two numbers of sixteen pages each,-a price at which it cannot be af forded unless extensively patronised. Payment at all times in advance. Agents who procure five subscribers, shall have a receipt in full by remitting the publisher $20, and a proportionate compensation for a larger number. This arrangement is made to increase the circulation to an extent which will make it an object to pay agents libcrally. Clubs of five individuals may thus procure the work for $4.00, by uniting in their remittances. Remittances may be made to the publisher, at his expense, if paid in money current in Philadelphia. ADAM WALDIE, No. 207, Chesnut street, basement story of Philadelphia, December, 1834. the country, we subjoin a few notices out of many hundreds. The proprietor is in regular receipt of new books printed either in London or Edinburgh, together with the periodical literature of Great Britain. From the former we shall select the Novels, Memoirs, Tales, Travels, Sketches, BioAs an exemplification of the public approbagraphy, &c. and publish them with as much ra- tion expressed by different editors throughout pidity and accuracy as an extensive printingoffice will admit. From the latter, such literary intelligence will regularly be culled, as will prove interesting and entertaining to the lover of knowledge, literature, and novelty. Good standard novels, and other works, now out of print, may also occasionally be reproduced in our columns. The publisher confidently assures the heads of families, that they need have no dread of introducing the "Select Circulating Library" into their domestic circle, as the gentleman who has undertaken the Editorial duties, to literary tastes and habits adds a due sense of the responsibility he assumes in catering for an extended and moral community, and of the consequences, detrimental or otherwise, that will follow the dissemination of noxious or wholesome mental aliment. Waldie's Circulating Library. The plan of Adam Waldie, for the dissemination of literature, will produce an important revolution in the reading world. Hitherto, shut out from a participation of the benefits resulting men remote from cities and of limited property, were from books. The discoveries of science-the Journals of travellers and the splendid corruscations of wit and genius, were to them scaled volumes, but Waldie, by the establishment of the LIBRARY, has shed a new light upon the human mind-he has unsealed the volumes of genius-he has thrown wide open the vestibule of the temple of learning, and all who will may enter, and the key which he has placed in their hands will enable them to traverse its intricacies. It was stated by Godwin, that, " labour was the slaugh observation was true in more than one sense. ter house of genius and of mind." In Godwin's days, the Then, even if a mechanic or labouring man had a desire to relax a little in his labour and luxuriate upon the intellectual productions of his fellow man; the price of books was such, that it entirely precluded him from the enjoyment of his wishes-books were forbidden fruit which his poverty prevented him from tasting. The world to him was a "peopled desert," he had to plod on, adding by his skill to the comforts and enjoyments of his more favoured fellow creatures, or cultivated fields for other's use, while his own mind was a barren waste, without any spots of intellectual verdure. But now, particularly in the United States, the scene has entirely changed. By the perfection of the press, periodicals have within a few years multiplied with a rapidity unlooked for; and unexampled in the annals of the world. The industrious poor can now have works of sterling worth placed on their tables for a few cents, that once cost guineas. By the system of periodicals, a few dollars will purchase libraries, for which, thirty years ago, a mechanic's savings for years would have been inadequate. "Tis to such men as Adam Waldie that we are indebted for this great, this wonderful revolution.-Western Palladium, New Lisbon, Ohio. Mr. Adam Waldie, the talented and indefatigable publisher of the Circulating Library," has issued proposals for the 5th vol. of that cheap and valuable periodical, to commence early in January, with new and improved type. We shall give it an early insertion, in order that the public may see what Mr. Waldie promises; and the utmost reliance may be placed in what he says, as he is remarkable for the faithfulness with which he redeems his pledges. We have so often expressed our approbation of the "Circulating Library," that we deem it unnecessary to say more than to recommend it to public patronage. The "Port Folio," or Companion of the Library, will also appear soon, and judging from the specimen No. which has been issued and the reputation of the editor, we can without hesitation recommend that also to public notice, as an entertaining and valuable work. Examiner, Oxford, N. C. Waldie's Select Library, which has now been published nearly two years, continues to be one of the most interesting as well as the cheapest periodical of the day. For $5 a subscriber here gets what he would ordinarily have to pay $50 for in the shape of books. The Library is of the quarto form, and printed on fine paper, new type, and in the neatest manner. Every individual that can afford $5 for the current literature of the day, cannot expend it more judiciously than by subscribing for this work.-Working Man's Advocate, Belfast, Maine. The following is a just tribute of praise to a valuable work.-Ed. Md. Journal. desideratum at sea, from its compact and portable form. Passengers in merchant ships, who find complete sets on board, may deem themselves fortunate. The libraries of United States' vessels should never be without them." These are just observations, and, we trust, will be acted on by those interested. Each year of " Waldie" contains twenty or thirty entire books, in addition to a great variety of short, entertaining, and instructive articles, at a price about equal to twenty-five cents, for what costs in London five dollars. The work, we are rejoiced to find, is still most eminently successful. The novel of "Henri Quatre," now publishing in the Library, is one of the best of the historical romances since Waverly.— Penn. Inquirer. From the Shenandoah Advertiser. WALDIE'S SELECT CIRCULATING LIBRARY.-The reader is referred to the prospectus of this valuable publication, in another column in this paper. When we say that, in our opinion, it comes up to all that is promised in the prospectus, we think we have accorded to it sufficent praise. It is in fact a "Circulating Library,” each number containing as much matter as one volume of Scott's novels; to be published weekly, 52 numbers completing a volume, at five dollars per volume, payable in advance. From the Washington Republican. Among the many literary enterprises of the present day, none offer greater facilities, or a cheaper method of conveying expeditiously from one extremity of the country to the other, that truly popular species of literature-novels, journals, &c. &c., than the "Select Circulating Library," the prospectus of which we publish this week, and to which we respectfully refer our readers. It is a new experiment; and we trust its enterprising undertaker will meet with proper encouragement. All amateurs of novels, and that large class of publications with which the press, both in England and this country, abounds, usually classed as the lighter part of general literature, yet truly valuable in its place, will, we have no doubt, patronise the undertaking, and hail its introduction as a valuable accession to their means of entertainment and instruction. To the distant and interior sections of our country, it should be peculiarly acceptable, as many of the most popular publications are nearly out of date and their places occupied by more favoured rivals, ere they reach the frontier inhabitants of our widely extended empire. After reading the foregoing, the publisher trusts that the eligibility of his plan will be apparent to all. He has incurred a very heavy Waldie's Library. We were particularly struck with expense in getting out this periodical, and has the truth of some remarks on the subject of literature put it at a price to which none can possibly raise in South America, while reading the very interesting a reasonable objection. A new and more disbook, entitled "Three Years in the Pacific, by an Officer tinct type has been cast expressly for the Librain the United States Navy," just issued in a handsome octavo, by Messrs. Carey, Lea & Blanchard. He says, ry, on which it will hereafter be published. By "The general taste for reading, in any country, may be diversifying the contents of the Library, so as estimated by the number and kind of various periodicals not to confine the reader entirely either to Nopublished in it. A valuable publication, like Waldie's vels, Travels, Tales, or Biography, he hopes to Library,' a work which is doing so much in the United States to diffuse a taste for reading, and, consequently, meet the approbation of all persons of literary for the diffusion of knowledge, (the demand for which taste. speaks well for the good taste of our countrymen,) would not be patronised in any state of South America; simply for the reason that a taste for literature is not general. When you have perused this, please cir A volume of Waldie,' always delightful on land, is a culate it among your neighbours. |