Overview
William Pelham (1759–1827) was a bookseller and publisher in Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He kept a shop and circulating subscription library at no.59 Cornhill, 1796-1810.
Biography
Pelham was born in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1759, to Peter Pelham, Jr. and Ann Creese. William's grandfather was Peter Pelham, the Boston artist.
William Pelham was working in the book trade in Boston by the 1790s. "In the Independent Chronicle for July 7, 1796, Pelham offered for sale new books and 'an uncommonly fine proof of Mr. Copley's celebrated plate of the Death of Chatham.'"
In his bookshop Pelham also operated a circulating library. The 1801 catalog of Pelham's Circulating Library included several hundred titles, including, for example:
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