John Bartlett (June 14, 1820 – December 3, 1905) was an American writer and publisher whose best known work, ''
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
''Bartlett's Familiar Quotations'', often simply called ''Bartlett's'', is an American reference work that is the longest-lived and most widely distributed collection of quotations. The book was first issued in 1855 and is currently in its ninet ...
'', has been continually revised and reissued for a century after his death.
Biography
Bartlett was born in
Plymouth, Massachusetts
Plymouth (; historically known as Plimouth and Plimoth) is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. Located in Greater Boston, the town holds a place of great prominence in American history, folklore, and culture, and is known as ...
, to William Bartlett and Susan Thacher.
[Morgan, pp. 841–846] His father was a descendant of ''
Mayflower
''Mayflower'' was an English ship that transported a group of English families, known today as the Pilgrims, from England to the New World in 1620. After a grueling 10 weeks at sea, ''Mayflower'', with 102 passengers and a crew of about 30, r ...
''
Pilgrims Love Brewster
Elder Love Brewster () was an early American settler, the son of Elder William Brewster and his wife, Mary Brewster. He traveled with his father, mother and brother, Wrestling, on the ''Mayflower'' reaching what became the Plymouth Colony in Mas ...
, a founder of the town of
Bridgewater, Massachusetts
Bridgewater is a town located in Plymouth County, in the state of Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the town's population was 28,633. Bridgewater is located approximately south of Boston and approximately 35 miles east ...
; Elder
William Brewster, the Pilgrim colonist leader and spiritual elder of the
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony (sometimes Plimouth) was, from 1620 to 1691, the British America, first permanent English colony in New England and the second permanent English colony in North America, after the Jamestown Colony. It was first settled by the pa ...
; and
John Alden
John Alden (c. 1598 - September 12, 1687) was a crew member on the historic 1620 voyage of the ''Mayflower'' which brought the English settlers commonly known as Pilgrims to Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts, US. He was hired in Sou ...
, who was hired as a cooper in
Southampton, England
Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Por ...
, just before the voyage to America and who along with the Brewsters were signers of the
Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact, originally titled Agreement Between the Settlers of New Plymouth, was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the men aboard the ''Mayflower,'' consisting of separatist Puritans, adventurers, an ...
. His mother was a direct descendant of Anthony and Elizabeth Thacher who were the sole survivors of a terrible shipwreck on August 14, 1635, in which twenty one passengers including their four children were drowned.
Thacher Island
Thacher Island is a small island off Cape Ann on the Massachusetts coast in the United States. It is a part of the Town of Rockport. It was a place where some naval confrontations, both minor and major, took place, which helped secure a victory fo ...
, a small island off
Cape Ann
Cape Ann is a rocky peninsula in northeastern Massachusetts, United States on the Atlantic Ocean. It is about northeast of Boston and marks the northern limit of Massachusetts Bay. Cape Ann includes the city of Gloucester and the towns of ...
on the
coast in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
is named after them.
A very bright boy, he was reading at age three and had read the entire
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
by nine. He finished school at age sixteen and went to
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...
, where he worked for the University Bookstore that served
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. By age twenty-nine he owned the store. Known for his memory for quotations and trivia, "Ask John Bartlett" became a byword in the community when someone was stumped.
He began keeping a
commonplace book
Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such books are simi ...
of quotations to answer queries and in 1855 privately printed the first edition of his ''Familiar Quotations''. That edition of 258 pages contained entries from 169 authors. One-third of the book was quotations from the Bible and from the works of
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
, most of the balance being lines from the great English poets.
Bartlett sold the bookstore in 1862 to become a
paymaster
A paymaster is someone appointed by a group of buyers, sellers, investors or lenders to receive, hold, and dispense funds, commissions, fees, salaries (remuneration) or other trade, loan, or sales proceeds within the private sector or public secto ...
in the
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
during the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
. He served on the South Atlantic station, returning to
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
in 1863 to join the firm
Little, Brown and Company
Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily ...
. That same year, Little, Brown issued the fourth edition of his quotation book. He rose to be the firm's senior partner in 1878 and retired from the firm in 1889. In addition to work on quotations (he oversaw nine editions of his book), he wrote on
fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...
, and
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...
, and compiled a massive
concordance
Concordance may refer to:
* Agreement (linguistics), a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase
* Bible concordance, an alphabetical listing of terms in the Bible
* Concordant coastline, in geology, where beds, or la ...
of Shakespeare, published in 1894, that is still the standard work of its kind.
The concordance, which Bartlett estimated consumed 16,000 hours of his time, was compiled with his wife Hannah, the daughter of
Sidney Willard
Sidney Willard (September 19, 1780 – December 6, 1856) was an American academic and politician who served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, on the Massachusetts Governor's Council and as the second Mayor of Cambridge, Massachuset ...
, a professor of
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
at Harvard, and the granddaughter of
Joseph Willard
Joseph Willard (December 29, 1738 – September 25, 1804) was an American Congregational clergyman and academic. He was president of Harvard from 1781 until 1804.
Biography
Joseph Willard was born December 29, 1738, in Biddeford, York County ...
, president of Harvard.
He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts aged 85 and is buried at
Mount Auburn Cemetery
Mount Auburn Cemetery is the first rural cemetery, rural, or garden, cemetery in the United States, located on the line between Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts, Watertown in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Middl ...
in Cambridge,
Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Middlesex County is located in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,632,002, making it the most populous county in both Massachusetts and New England and ...
.
John Bartlett
at Find A Grave
Find a Grave is a website that allows the public to search and add to an online database of cemetery records. It is owned by Ancestry.com. Its stated mission is "to help people from all over the world work together to find, record and present fin ...
Note
John Bartlett should not be confused with John Russell Bartlett.
Honors
Bartlett received an honorary degree from Harvard in 1871. In 1892, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
.
His ''Familiar Quotations'' is now in its seventeenth edition and is still published by Little, Brown.
Notes
References
*Morgan, M.H. ''Daedalus: proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Volume 41'' California: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1906.
Further reading
*Jones, Emma C. Brewster
''The Brewster Genealogy, 1566-1907: a Record of the Descendants of William Brewster of the "Mayflower," ruling elder of the Pilgrim church which founded Plymouth Colony in 1620.''
New York: Grafton Press, 1908.
*James Gleick
James Gleick (; born August 1, 1954) is an American author and historian of science whose work has chronicled the cultural impact of modern technology. Recognized for his writing about complex subjects through the techniques of narrative nonficti ...
.
Bartlett Updated
. ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
Book Review''. August 8, 1993. 3.
External links
Thacher Island Association
*
*
Online copy of the 10th edition (1914)
at Bartleby.com
Bartleby.com was an electronic text archive, headquartered in Los Angeles (USA) and named for Herman Melville's story "Bartleby, the Scrivener". It was initiated with the name "Project Bartleby" in January 1993 as a collection of classic literatu ...
(text pages, searchable)
Online copy of the 12th edition (1951)
at Archive.org
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
Online copy of the 14th edition (1968)
at Archive.org
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
(PDF, OCR text, TIFF)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bartlett, John (publisher)
1820 births
1905 deaths
American book editors
American book publishers (people)
Writers from Cambridge, Massachusetts
People from Plymouth, Massachusetts
American people of English descent
Chess writers
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery
Businesspeople from Cambridge, Massachusetts
19th-century American businesspeople