Robert Bell (publisher)
[3][4] After Bell's death, his printing press and other items were sold at a Philadelphia auction house to another prominent printer at an unusually high price.
Bell emigrated to the British colonies in 1767, and established himself as an auctioneer of books, where he soon became a full time bookseller in Philadelphia.
[7][a] In 1769, or early in 1770, Bell established a printing press and shop in Philadelphia in a building which previously housed the Union Library, located next door to Saint Paul's Church, on Third street.
[9] Bell was the first to present a number of popular English works from a wide selection in every class of literature current in England in simple affordable printing and binding.
[4][3] As a book seller one of Bell's earliest advertisements appeared in the 14 April 1768, issue of Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette.
In July he advertised his first publications in the Pennsylvania Chronicle "which introduced to the people of this continent the first American edition of two works of those duo immortals and staunch friends": The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, written by Doctor Samuel Johnson in 1763, and The Traveller, written by Oliver Goldsmith in 1764:[3][7] In 1772, Bell published Blackstone's Commentaries in four volumes, which saw a good subscription rate in Philadelphia.
[12][13] In the years leading up to and through the American Revolution, Bell printed many pamphlets and books which ardently expressed his patriotic ideas and sentiments.
A second edition of "Plain Truth" was partly printed on coarse blue paper, which, as Bell stated, "constituted the law of necessity," and he added, further, "The Patriot surmounteth every difficulty," etc.
[3] Bell was commissioned by Thomas Paine to print his work, Common Sense, which has been widely considered the most inciteful and influential work of the revolutionary era,[15][16][17][c] as it advocated American independence, now ripe in the minds of colonists, and openly criticized the British Crown and Parliamentary rule over the colonies.
The other half Paine intended to purchase wool mittens for the troops going to Quebec, giving a written order on Bell to two officers of the Continental Army.
As an auctioneer he sold most of his books, which he referred to as his "jewels and diamonds", in New York, Boston, Baltimore, Norfolk, among other towns.
[1] While on a book-selling trip to Richmond, Virginia, Bell became ill and died there on 16 or 23 September 1784; the accounts vary on the exact date.
[3] Shortly after Bell's death, the contents of his shop, which included a printing press, office furniture, tools and books, were put up for auction.
