Cope Brothers & Co. Fraser, John (ed.).

Cope’s Tobacco Plant A Monthly Periodical Interesting to the Manufacturer, the Dealer, and the Smoker. [12 consecutive issues for 1877, Nos. 82-93].

1877. Liverpool: John Fraser, January - December 1877.

12 numbers bound together, includes the supplement to No. 83. Folio, [148] pp., engraved headpieces and some illustrations in text. Full pebbled blue cloth, title stamped in gilt to backstrip. Occasional creasing and minor edgewear, endpapers foxed; very good.

§ A complete run of Cope’s Tobacco Plant for the year 1877, from No.82 - Vol.1, January 1887 to No. 93 Vol. II, December 1877. The periodical was published by Cope Brother's and Company, manufacturers of tobacco products in Liverpool, whose great success and reputation was founded on progressive employment practices and innovative and extensive advertising. The Tobacco Plant, which ran for eleven years from 1870 to 1881, "was devoted to the cause of encouraging class feeling among smokers by reminding them not only of the mellow delights of the habit they shared but also of the way in which tobacco permeated history” (Altick). It was also a sincerely literary effort, reprinting choices passages from any author with even the most tentative connection to tobacco, living or dead, commissioning new writing, and for many years running an entirely serious column reviewing antiquarian reprints, all alongside tobacco trade news, classified ads, jocular attacks on the Anti-Tobacco Society, and many silly jokes. "In sum, the publishing activities of the firm of Cope form an honorable little chapter in the history of Victorian journalism. At a time when, in the view of many observers, England was "shooting Niagara" culturally as well as politically, with the proliferation of cheap newspapers and magazines frankly designed to strike the lowest common denominator of popular taste, the Tobacco Plant did its substantial bit to maintain a lively interest in literary topics among ordinary middle-class readers. Seldom, before or since, could an Englishman get as much good reading matter for his twopence." (Altick, Richard, "Cope's Tobacco Plant," The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, Vol. 45, No. 4, 1951, a very enjoyable article.). Item #108300

Price: $750.00