Reconstructed sheet from Six Months in a Convent, or the Narrative of Rebecca Theresa Reed. . . .

Reconstructed sheet from Six Months in a Convent, or the Narrative of Rebecca Theresa Reed. . . .

Boston:

Russell, Odiorne & Metcalf,

1835.

Rebecca Reed’s narrative Six Months in a Convent was an American bestseller in 1835. The publishers anticipated its popularity and had the text stereotyped to allow for additional copies to be printed with speed and ease. RBS faculty member Todd Pattison reconstructed a sheet of the book to teach students about format and gatherings in American 19th-century publishers’ bindings and specifically about the bindery of Benjamin Bradley, in which hundreds of women workers folded and bound the printed sheets of Reed’s memoir.

From the collection of Todd Pattison