First issue of 'John Nichols's Metropolitan Advertiser'.

4to, 4 pp. Text clear and complete. Fair, on aged and grubby paper. Engraving of beehive, with motto, beneath title. Given away 'GRATIS'. Begins with a prospectus for what is described as 'a new medium of communicating with the public', concluding, 'for the inconsiderable sum of 5s. an Advertiser may give publicity to his business in FIVE THOUSAND respectable channels inaccessible to every other advertising medium hitherto established'. The rest of the first page carries 'ADVICE TO A YOUNG TRADESMAN' by 'AN OLD TRADESMAN'. The middle two pages carry advertisements, in double column, for businesses ranging from 'Mc. Lean's Restorative, for Restoring and Improving the Growth of Hair' to the 'Lord John Russell Coffee and Chop House' and 'Hume's Chemical Marking Ink'. The final page has an advertisement for Nichols's business, with quotations from the London Journal, the Herald, and The Times ('For elegance, punctuality, cheapness, and dispatch, the Milton Press Establishment takes precedence.') Final section of 'LITERARY INTELLIGENCE', featuring article on 'Artesian Wells' (lifted from the Literary Gazette', and six line poem titled 'Plain Rues for observation in practical life'. BBTI has Nichols trading between 1836 and 1867. Discussed in the Hindleys' 'Advertising in Victorian England' (1972), where it is described as 'really nothing more than glorified trade card and price list'. The British Library does not appear to have any copies of this particular 'Metropolitan Advertiser'. (The name was also used by a Scottish publication.)