A History of Advertising from the Earliest Times.

The author provides a chronological survey of advertising practices from ancient and medieval forms to nineteenth-century techniques, examining newspaper and street advertising, the rise of press-based notices, and the professionalization of promotional methods. The narrative assembles anecdotes, curious specimens, facsimiles, and biographical notes to illustrate diverse genres, including eccentric announcements, swindles and hoaxes, quackery, lotteries, matrimonial notices, handbills, and colonial and American examples. Emphasis falls on stylistic shifts, instances of fraud and regulation, and the changing relationship between advertisers and the public, supported by illustrative plates and a miscellany of noteworthy cases and archival material.