I have an octavo volume of Eliza Haywood's The Female Spectator which, acording to a printed label in it (above), was once "The Property of Harvard Library Company, constituted January 1793." The label has a section for a price; the annotation in this area has been erased, but other annotations (below) suggest that the book was disposed of by the Harvard Library Company by 1845, since the new owner ("W.D."?) has added "Bought at Auction Feb. 17/45" and "No.58" to the fixed endpaper.
I have been unable to find a trace of the Harvard Library Company, constituted (by coincidence?) in the same month as the execution of Louis XVI, by guillotine, at the Place de la Révolution. Which is a shame, it would be nice to know more about a library founded, it seems, in imitation of The Library Company of Philadelphia sixty years earlier. If you have any information on this Library Company of Harvard, I'd love to hear from you.
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