Robert Bell

Background

Robert Bell was born in 1732 in Glasgow, Scotland.

Education

Robert served his apprenticeship in Glasgow as a bookbinder.

Career

Robert went to work at trade for Samuel Taylor at Berwick-upon-Tweed, and from there moved to Dublin where he set up a bookselling and bookbinding business for himself. This venture did not prove successful, and he came to America in 1766. His employer and other acquaintances in Berwick had come to Philadelphia, so it was natural for him to locate in that city. In the spring of 1768 his advertisements as "Bookseller and Auctioneer" begin to appear in the Philadelphia newspapers. As an auctioneer this "stout, chunky man" appears to have been very successful. "It was as good as a play, " one writersays, "to attend his sales at auction. There were few authors of whom he could not tell some anecdote which would get the audience in a roar. He sometimes had a can of beer aside him and would drink comical healths. "

Not only in Philadelphia but in other large towns and cities along the Atlantic seaboard Bell plied his vocation, sending a supply of books ahead of him; he thus became well known for diffusing of literature. He liked to call himself "Provedore to the Sentimentalists in America. " When the British were occupying Philadelphia in the Revolutionary War Bell kept a circulating library and was patronized extensively by the officers; his rule was a deposit of a guinea for each book, the money to be returned with a sum deducted for the loan when the book was returned.

After the Revolution when the State of Pennsylvania was contemplating legislation that would provide for the office of book-auctioneer for the city of Philadelphia, Bell issued a pamphlet entitled Memorial on the Free Sale of Books, arguing that no one should be "restricted and fettered in a Free-State in the Propagation of Literature. " He would object to being appointed to the "Office of Book Auctioneer" himself, he says, and he aims to strengthen his cause by reprinting John Dickinson's Sentiments on What is Freedom, and What is Slavery, Raynal's Sentiments on Liberty, and Rousseau's Sentiments on Government, Law, Arbitrary Power, Liberty, and Social Institutions.

Nevertheless the Pennsylvania Assembly passed what Bell called "a tyrannical embargo" on his selling books "By Auction, " which impelled him to issue Bell's Address to Every Free-Man, in the course of which the Commonwealth is portrayed saying to him, "Pray stop, Master Bell, with your selling of Books, Your smart witty Sayings, and cunning arch Looks: By Auction, I mean – this is a shocking Offence To sell Wit or Humor, or even common Sense, Unsanctioned by Law, on any Pretence. " The expression "common Sense" which he brought into his versification had more than the ordinary meaning to his readers because it was Bell who, in 1776, had brought out the first edition of Paine's Common Sense. Previously Bell had published in three volumes the first American edition of Robertson's The History of the Reign of Charles the Fifth, Emperor of Germany, and this was followed by an American edition of Blackstone's Commentaries.

Publishing appeared to increase rather than diminish Bell's zeal as a seller of books, and he was on the way to Charleston, South Carolina, for one of his auction sales when he was taken ill and died in Richmond, Virginia, where also he was interred.

Achievements

• During his career in the United States Robert Bell established himself as a successful book auctioneer and reprinter of English books. In times when the State of Pennsylvania passed an embargo on free sale of books, Bell issued a pamphlet entitled Memorial on the Free Sale of Books and later Address to Every Free-Man.

Connections

Robert married in Dublin and left his wife and two children (son and daughter) there when he came to America. The son joined his father later in Philadelphia but went back after his death.