Isaiah Thomas was a leading 18th-cent. patriot, printer, publisher, and bookseller in the tradition of Benjamin Franklin. Founder of the Amer. Antiquarian Soc., he donated his library and newspaper files to the Society's archive. Here, Lacey offers a representative sampling of the illustrated publications of the Massachusetts printer to show the great variety of 18th-cent. American imprints that used images to enhance or modify the meaning of the text. She bridges the gap between several scholarly fields, including art history, literary criticism, the study of visual culture, and the history of the book.

Illustrations are not judged exclusively on their artistic merit; they are analyzed for what they say about early American values, ideas, attitudes, and assumptions. Illus.