Knowlton Chapter 20

Twenty: Book Tour

I started off myself with a one-horse load of them for the city of New York, strangely expecting to bring back lots of money!  I left my horse and wagon in Troy, and went down the river with my books in a boat.  I remained in New York about two weeks, making every effort in my power to raise some money on my “Elements of Modern Materialism.”  But the bare title was enough to satisfy every bookseller.  They would not look further; they wanted nothing to do with it.

By May, 1829, Charles was “in a fine pickle.”  He had bet everything on the success of Modern Materialism, and his creditors were impatient.  So although he’d never been much of a businessman, Charles set out to sell his book.  Charles went first to New York, where he knew at least a few freethought booksellers would be interested.  Charles traded copies of the book with Vale, Wright, and Owen for other freethought books and pamphlets they carried in the bookshops at the Beacon and Free Enquirer offices.  If he had a wider assortment of titles, Charles thought, he might be able to sell them to bookshops in other places.   

Charles had planned to sell Modern Materialism for two dollars fifty cents a copy.  It was a 448-page, leather-bound edition that Charles was confident made an important contribution to science and philosophy.  His book would be a welcome addition to the libraries of freethinkers, physicians, and other advanced thinkers—even if they disagreed with his theory.  Charles had promised his subscribers, in his prospectus, that they would get the book for two dollars while everyone else would pay full price.  Charles wanted very badly to make good on that promise, especially since he was deeply in debt.  But his determination only lasted until it was time to travel home.  On the way back up the Hudson River, the few dollars Charles had collected in New York ran out.  Riding across the Berkshires from Troy, Charles traded a copy of Modern Materialism to an innkeeper for a night’s lodging.  It would be interesting to know what the man thought of the trade, if he ever opened the pages of the handsomely leather-bound book.

Charles returned from New York with his unsold books, some books and pamphlets he’d taken in trade, and not a dollar in his pockets.  Before leaving, Charles had promised to pay the Pittsfield bookbinder with the proceeds of his New York sales.  He was a thousand dollars in debt over the book, and owed still more money on the little house where Tabitha and their three children waited for him.  Charles had been doing just enough doctoring in North Adams to make ends meet.  Modern Materialism ruined his reputation.  “I was regarded as a deist, infidel, ‘bad man,’ &c., and religious people—instigated, some of them, by the clergy—gave me no countenance,” Charles said.  In reality, nearly everyone who shunned Charles had been influenced by the clergy, since only a few people in North Adams had ever seen a copy of his book.     

Charles lost the few “respectable and religious families” that had given him some patronage, and was left with only “the poor operatives in the factories, who have never paid me.”  “I had more cause for being disheartened,” Charles said, “than many have, who cut their throats or blow out their brains; and, in truth, I was disheartened.”  Then Charles heard from a friendly lawyer that he would be visited by the sheriff the next day, on behalf of the impatient bookbinder. 

Charles was desperate.  He talked through their options with Tabitha, and they decided he should flee to Canada.  There were several Knowlton relatives living in Canadian cities, and some of them were rumored to be well off.  Charles could start a medical practice and then send for the family.  His life might have gone in a completely different direction if Charles had gone north, but the sheriff arrived just as he was saying goodbye to his children the following morning. 

Charles managed to stay out of jail by signing his house back to the man he had bought it from, and by giving his gold watch and a promissory note to the bookbinder.  The family went to stay with the Stuarts in Winchendon, and all the Knowltons’ personal property went to their creditors.  “My Modern Materialisms, however,” Charles said, “were not thought worth anything by any of them so I still retained possession of all of them, some of which were bound, and some not.”  Charles spent the summer and fall on the road, trying to sell his book.

Charles traveled from town to town in upstate New York, driving a borrowed wagon full of Modern Materialism and a few other freethought titles.  He had some good luck in Saratoga Springs, where he met a freethinker named Ransom Cook.  Cook was a self-taught inventor like Richard Stuart, and had a circle of friends he convinced to buy Charles’s books.  His hopes buoyed, Charles went west to Utica, but “with all my efforts I could not sell a dollar’s amount of books while travelling one hundred miles.”  He thought briefly of continuing west to Rochester and Buffalo, but the weather turned bad and Charles headed home.