Advertisements for Myself: William Ellis and the Reinvention of the Puff

Abstract

In the mid-eighteenth century, William Ellis authored texts devoted to farming and household management. However, he used these texts as a new sort of advertising medium to promote his personal services and nursery business. Thus while turning to the texts for information, readers were encouraged to make purchases, much the way viewers of informercials would be encouraged today. Ellis bypassed conventional advertising media, and the jibes leveled against them, to create a medium over which he had full control and which showcased his own persona to the exclusion of anyone else's. He also included correspondence with purchasers, which demonstrated their faith in him and his assiduous service, producing a type of indirect endorsement like the conventional "puff" but without its obvious commerciality.