Audio tour 1. Breakfront

In addition to the artifacts contained in this collection:

This bookcase is filled with the books most commonly imported from England by colonial Americans. The collection of over 500 volumes was assembled by Edwin Wolf 2nd (Librarian, 1955-1984) in the process of writing "The Book Culture of a Colonial American City: Philadelphia Books, Bookmen, and Booksellers" (Oxford University Press, 1988) and given by him to the Library Company in 1989. To be included in the collection, a book had to be ubiquitous in the estate inventories, booksellers’ advertisements, and private library catalogs on which he based his research. All of these titles were already in the Library Company, but in other editions which had long ago been rebound, whereas all the books in Wolf’s collection are in original bindings.