If one wants, systematically, to investigate the reception and impact of Hume's thought in eighteenth-century America, then it makes sense first to think about the availability and dissemination of Hume's works there. Were Hume's works available in eighteenth-century America? If so, which ones? Where? When? And to whom? Surprisingly, modern scholarship lacks satisfactory answers to those basic empirical questions — a deficiency the present study will attempt to remedy. Having determined parameters for the dissemination of Hume's works, one may then better consider how his thought was received and what impact it had in eighteenth-century America. Existing scholarship on American book history says little of direct relevance about Hume's works, but that growing historiography does offer a context in which the availability and dissemination of Hume's works might be situated.

BOOKS IN COLONIAL AMERICA

A common complaint of prominent book buyers in colonial America was that they could not get books readily. The colonial statesman and scholar, James Logan, for instance, regularly lamented, in his book collecting days during the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth century, that he was unable to procure the books he desired to fill the shelves of his renowned Philadelphia library. Similar complaints were made by hopeful book owners later in the eighteenth century as well. Hugh Simm, a Scot who had emigrated to America with John Witherspoon in 1768, wrote home to his brother: “Be careful to give my service to all those who have sent Books this is a very grateful present in this part of the world where books are so very scarce.”