Printed Assembly Minutes and Laws of New Jersey, 1703-1732: A Bibl
2016.
Item #14841
FELCONE, JOSEPH J. The Printed Assembly Minutes and Laws of New Jersey, 1703-1732: A Bibliographical Study. Princeton: The author, 2016. 45 p. Wrappers. New. The printed record of New Jersey's government during its first three decades has long been bibliographical terra incognita. The printed assembly minutes range from no known copies of some sessions to three copies of others. The laws have survived in slightly greater numbers, but the total universe is not large and is spread among a relatively small number of repositories. Much of the official printing was done by New York printer William Bradford, who was New Jersey's exclusive government printer for the royal colony's first twenty-five years as well as clerk of the New Jersey assembly beginning in 1711. The printing was done piecemeal, as it was ordered by the assembly. Pagination and signing are inconsistent and often hopelessly erratic. In an effort to keep the market supplied with laws in force, Bradford reprinted numerous laws, as well as some individual sheets, as his stock was exhausted. Pagination and signing were often changed in the reprints. Further confusion was introduced by early lawyers as well as later collectors and librarians, all of whom disassembled and mixed and matched and reassembled pieces in efforts to build as complete runs as possible. No less a bibliographer than Douglas McMurtrie, when writing in 1932 and again in 1935 on the first New Jersey imprint--the 1723 Perth Amboy laws--failed to recognize the relationship between original and reprinted sheets. This essay at last unravels the printing history of the earliest New Jersey assembly minutes and laws, and locates and describes in detail all known copies of each. Designed by Jerry Kelly, and handsomely printed in an edition of 100 copies.
Price: $15.00