Nathaniel Stone Simpkins

Nathaniel Stone Simpkins (Jan. 8, 1796 – June 18, 1887) was a bookseller, publisher, and legislator in Massachusetts in the 19th century.^[1] He ran a bookshop and circulating library in Boston ca.1820-1830.^[2][3][4] "In 1835 he established the Barnstable Journal [of Barnstable, Massachusetts], and in 1856 he established the Yarmouth Register" of Yarmouth, Massachusetts.^[5] Simpkins served as a "Representative to the General Court of Mass. in 1836, 1850 and 1851."^[5][6]

He married Eliza Jane Thacher (1803–1836) in ca.1824; and Mary Sears (b. 1807) in 1852. His parents were John Simpkins and Olive Stone of Brewster, Massachusetts.^[5] Siblings included Caroline Simpkins, Olive Simpkins (Mrs. John Capen), Elizabeth Simpkins (Mrs. George P. Bangs), John Simpkins, and Boston bookseller Samuel Grant Simpkins.^[7][8][9]

Suffolk Circulating Library

Among the titles available to subscribers of Simpkins' Suffolk Circulating Library in the early 1820s:^[10]

• Stephen Burroughs' Memoirs^[11]
• D. Campbell's Overland Journaey to India
• Richard Cumberland's Jew of Mogadore, a comic opera
• Daniel Drake's Picture of Cincinnati
• Evans' Pedestrious Tour of 4,000 miles in America^[12]
• Catherine Hutton's Welsh Mountaineer
• M. De Genlis' Zuma
• Isabella Kelly's Ruthinglenne
• Miss Leslie's Young Ladies' Mentor
• Marvellous Chronicle, or Magazine of Wonders
• Masonick Melodies
• Theodore Melville's White Knight^[13]
• Mirror of the Graces, Advice on Female Accomplishments
• Hannah More's Strictures on Education
• Amelia Opie's Simple Tales
• Paris Spectator, or the Customs of Parisians
• Park's Travels in the Interior of Africa
• Isaac Pocock's Libertine, an opera
• Polyanthos
• President's Tour through the United States
• Thomas Skinner Surr's A Winter in London^[14]
• Symzonia, or a Voyage to the Internal World