A Little Massachusetts Sabbath School Society History

The Massachusetts Sabbath School Society published Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog. It turns out that the Society was a very prolific publisher. A little research revealed scores of titles created under its imprint in the 1800s.

I also found a partial copy of an 1833 MSSS offering via Google. You can see the actual text here. The Sabbath School Visiter probably won't make our list here at Discover Them, but it is neat to see an original.

Some authors wrote multiple books for the Society. Here's an example, taken from a "Letter from Dr. Grosvenor..." which is quite interesting. Here's an excerpt (links added & not in original):

"My grandmother, the daughter of Thayer S. Sanborn (Mrs. Harriet Ward Sanborn Grosvenor), born in Hampton Falls in 1823, married Edwin Prescott Grosvenor, M.D., of Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1843, and four years later, when only 24, she wrote a little book, "My Sister Emily," published by the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society, and she continued to write books, published by this Society until her death in 1863, her husband meanwhile having died seven years previously.

"I have a list of about fifteen of her books that were published by the Massachusetts Sabbath School Society. On the chance that you may be interested, I enclosed a list of the copies of her books that I have. It may be she wrote others also. There is no mention in "The History of Hampton Falls" of this brilliant young authoress. From the day she was married she lived in Newburyport.