From the INTRODUCTORY:

There appears to be, from year to year, a growing popular taste for quaint and curious reminiscences of "Ye Olden Time," and to meet this, Mr. Henry M. Brooks has prepared a series of interesting handbooks. The materials have been gleaned chiefly from old newspapers of Boston and Salem, sources not easily accessible, and while not professing to be history, the volumes contain much material for history, so combined and presented as to be both amusing and instructive. The titles of some of the volumes indicate their scope and their promise of entertainment:—

Curiosities of the Old Lottery.
Days of the Spinning-Wheel.
Some Strange and Curious Punishments.
Quaint and Curious Advertisements.
Literary Curiosities.
New-England Sunday, etc.