The Booklovers Reading Club Hand-book to accompany the Reading Course Entitled, Ramblings Among Art Centres

1323 Walnut Street, Philadelphia: The Booklovers Library, 1901. First Edition. Wraps. Near Fine. First Edition. 125, [1] pages. 8vo. Publisher's light blue flexible wrappers with embossed emblem of Booklovers Reading Club and other titles. Minor wear to the extremities, a very nice example. Wraps. Course III of the "Booklovers Reading Club Hand-Book" "Ramblings among art centres." Internally (p 9) notes "Books selected for this reading course by Mr. F. Hopkinison Smith and Dr. John C. Van Dyke." The work is an odd arrangement, with various additional articles, summaries of the books to be read, and guidance to readers. Several articles by Sturgis, Cox, La Farge and others about the books under consideration. Apparently part of an ongoing effort by a very large scale subscription library in Philadelphia to engage readers. The rear includes a variety of other recommended works as well as a list of 21 general reading club suggestions.

"The Tabard Inn Library of Philadelphia was one segment of a series of entrepreneurial businesses that were the creation of the Canadian-born teacher Seymour Eaton (1859-1919). In Boston, his first American home, he began the Home Study Circle Library, the forerunner of numerous correspondence schools in the United States, and in 1892 he moved to Philadelphia to take charge of Drexel Institute's commercial and financial department. During his five years at Drexel Eaton wrote a column of newspaper articles syndicated in the United States and eventually developed his home study course into a business concern known as the Library Publishing Company, which was located at 1323 Walnut Street, a few blocks south of City Hall in the heart of Philadelphia. This company also established the Booklovers Library and published its companion enterprise, the Booklovers Magazine, from 1902 to until at least 1905. The best description of that subscription library (called "the largest circulating library in the world") is this advertisement: "THE BOOKLOVERS LIBRARY is patronized largely by well-to-do cultured people; people who appreciate clean, attractive books, and who can afford to pay reasonable membership fees."

What began as the Booklovers Library had expanded by March 1902 to become the Tabard Inn Library, with addresses for its company headquarters at 1030 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia (east of City Hall), and 1611 Chestnut Street (west of City Hall)." (Edith Anderson Rights, Libraries & Culture, University of Texas Press, Volume 41, Number 2, Spring 2006).