[3] The fifty books in the set included volumes on American, Egyptian and Chinese history, biographies of George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte, the principles of physiology and health, and the novel The Swiss Family Robinson.
The Society, which had spent more than $10,000 and only raised $3,000, was looking forward to the New York purchases to cover its debts.
"For this purpose," the Connecticut Common School Journal printed, "the Society proposed, from the outset, the publication of a series of popular works, upon all those branches of knowledge, most interesting and useful to the great body of the people;— including History, Voyages and Travels, Biography, Natural History, the Physical, Intellectual, Moral and Political Sciences, Agriculture, Manufactures, Arts, Commerce, Belles Lettres, the History and Philosophy of Education, and the Evidences of Christianity.
It aims thus to bring before the minds of the entire population of the country, the richest means of social, intellectual, and moral improvement; and in the view of the Committee, there are few ways in which more extensive, substantial and lasting good can be conferred upon our country.
"[9] Contributors to the Library included John Abercrombie, Sir John Barrow, Andrew Combe, Andrew Crichton, John Francis Davis, Thomas Dick, William Dunlap, Leonhard Euler, Francis L. Hawks (as "Uncle Philip"), William Mullinger Higgins, Barbara Hofland, Mary Hughs, George Payne Rainsford James, Anna Jameson, Robert Jameson, John Gibson Lockhart, Hugh Murray, James Montgomery, James Kirke Paulding, Eliza Robbins, Michael Russell, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Benjamin Bussey Thatcher, John Williams, James Wilson and Johann David Wyss.