Special Collections has recently acquired an 1880 salesman's dummy of Mark Twain's classic travel narrative, A Tramp Abroad. Dummies were used by traveling sales agents, who worked for publishers to sell a book available by subscription only. Often featuring tantalizing selling points like illustrations, compelling extracts of text, and favorable reviews, dummies gave samples of the various options for binding and paper available to the purchaser. The salesman would note these preferences in blank forms at the back of the dummy, and deliver the final product upon publication. Marketing the book in this way allowed publishers to gauge interest and adjust production accordingly, thus eliminating unnecessary expenses.Salesman's dummies provide a fascinating window into late nineteenth-century print culture, and provide important evidence of book ownership, marketing, production, and distribution, as well as significant bibliographical evidence. This dummy includes a catalog of books offered by the American Publishing Company, with an intriguing note "To the Public" dispelling rumors about price-fixing and unauthorized distribution to bookstores by traveling agents: "We employ only those Agents who enter into agreements with us, pledging themselves not to put any books into stores; and it is only through unreliable Agents that they are seen there...Our Agents are instructed by us to introduce our books, but never to press them upon those who do not desire them. We publish none but valuable and popular work, and we bespeak for our Agents a kind reception."
Special Collections copy can be found in the PAC at PS1321 .A3 1880 and consulted in the Reading Room.
