author
Willis P. (Willis Pope) Hazard
1825–1913
A lifelong Philadelphia bookseller and publisher, he wrote practical guides, travel books, and local history while also issuing popular juvenile titles. His work ranges from cattle manuals and guidebooks to later editions of the classic Annals of Philadelphia, showing a writer deeply tied to 19th-century print culture.
1 Audiobook
How to Select Cows or, The Guenon system simplified, explained, and practically applied
by Willis P. (Willis Pope) Hazard
About the author
Willis P. Hazard entered the book trade in Philadelphia when he was still a teenager and later ran his own store and publishing business there. Sources on the city’s book trade describe him as a bookseller, publisher, and stationer, with addresses on South Fifth Street and Chestnut Street during the 1840s and 1850s.
His published work was wide-ranging. Catalog and library records link him to travel and guidebook writing, practical agricultural books such as How to Select Cows and The Jersey, Alderney, and Guernsey Cow, and juvenile or humorous works including Comic History of the United States, which he issued under the pseudonym Herod Otis.
Hazard is also remembered for helping preserve Philadelphia’s past. Later in life, he was associated with editions of John Fanning Watson’s Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, in the Olden Time, a major source on the city’s early history. The surviving record suggests a versatile 19th-century author-publisher whose career connected everyday commerce, popular reading, and local memory.