INFORMATION CIRCULAR 5
                                            (Revised 1957)
 
 
                       THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
 
                         CONSTITUENT SERVICES
                SERIAL & GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS DIVISION
 
 
 
 
                        The Boston News-Letter
          
                            April 24, 1704
             
 
This is the first issue of the first regularly published American
newspaper. John Campbell, postmaster of Boston, supplied written
news letters to the governors of the New England colonies for at
least a year before he made use of the printing press. His weekly
was "Published by Authority,""Printed by B[artholomew] Green," and 
"Sold by Nicholas Boone, at his Shop near the Old Meeting-House."
It was printed on both sides of a single sheet of foolscap size.  
 
    Of this "Numb.I" issue the only extant copies known are the
three in the files of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester,
Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, and
the New-York Historical Society, New York, and a fragment in the
Harvard College Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts.  With as small
an edition as this first News-Letter must have had it is surprising
to find evidence of two typesettings, but the Massachusetts
Historical Society copy varies from the others in many details
although the type font is the same.  Possibly the type was pied
before the desired number of copies had been printed, and thus
had to be reset.  Among many variances it is enough to note that
in the first printing the first paragraph of the "Advertisement"
at the end of page 2 in soliciting advertising states that " all
persons . . . may have the same Inserted at a Reasonable Rate;
from Twelve Pence to Five Shillings, and not to exceed: Who may
agree with Nicholas Boone for the same . . .," whereas the second
typesetting  directs them to "agree with John Campbel Post-master
of Boston."
    The reprints of this paper number over ten.  Those examined 
are easily distinguished from the original, as follows:
    1. The title in the original is of well-formed Roman
capitals and lower case letters.  The reprint title is a roughly
cut imitation with heavier uneven letters: e. g. the "s" in "News"
slants decidedly instead of standing upright.
    2. The period after the title is round in the original and
roughly diamond shaped in the reprints.
    3. The original has the catchword "of" below column two of the
first page against the right margin; this is not found in the     
reprints.
    4. The line of Gothic type, "Published by Authority," under
the title in the original has in its final word a 2-shaped letter
"r." This ancient form of the "r" does not appear in any reprint
examined.
    5. The colophon or imprint at the bottom of page 2 in the
original has a length equal to the width of the type page; in the 
reprints this line is shorter.
     The Library of Congress has photostatic copies of the three
known originals and the fragment mentioned above.  Several
reprints are broadsides with additional matter on margins and
back such as: " The First Steam Railroad Passenger Train in
America,""First Newspaper ever Printed in America," "Authorities or
Proof," "Antique Curiosities , "The First American Flag," etc. The
commercial value of the reprints is very small.
 
 
 
 
 
 
                            U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 1957
.