Constable's Miscellany

File:Constable's Miscellany vol XXXVI.jpg]]

Constable's Miscellany was a part publishing serial established by Archibald Constable. Three numbers made up a volume; many of the works were divided into several volumes. The price of a number was one shilling.{{cite book|author=William Goodhugh|author-link=William Goodhugh|title=The English gentleman's library manual: or, A guide to the formation of a library of select literature; accompanied with original notices, biographical and critical, of authors and books|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nww2AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA109|access-date=26 September 2013|year=1827|publisher=W. Goodhugh|pages=107–9}} The full series title was Constable's Miscellany of Original and Selected Publications, in the Various Departments of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

Archibald Constable died in 1827, and the Miscellany was taken over by a consortium of Aitken, Henry Constable, and a London publisher. When the publisher went bankrupt in 1831, the project became relatively dormant. The entire list was later advertised by the London firm of Whittaker & Co.{{cite book|author=Frances Milton Trollope|title=One Fault: A Novel|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B7M8AAAAYAAJ&pg=PP18|access-date=26 September 2013|year=1838|publisher=Richard Bentley|page=14}}{{cite book|title=The Athenaeum|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wWtIAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA816|access-date=27 September 2013|year=1832|publisher=J. Lection|page=816}} There were 80 volumes in all, the first appearing in 1826 and the last in 1835.{{cite book|author=Royal A. Gettmann|title=A Victorian Publisher: A Study of the Bentley Papers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=42SO3djLc0sC&pg=PA28|access-date=27 September 2013|date=10 June 2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-15320-1|pages=28–30}}

Background and influence

Projected before the Panic of 1825, the Miscellany was dedicated to George IV of the United Kingdom, a privilege gained for Constable by Walter Scott. The initial plans were more ambitious; Constable himself became bankrupt in 1827, and this final project proceeded under constraints.{{cite ODNB|id=6101|title=Constable, Archibald|first=David|last=Hewitt}}

The Miscellany's first editor was John Aitken.{{cite DNB|wstitle=Aitken, John|volume=1}} As a series of less expensive contemporary non-fiction books for a popular audience, by a commercial publisher, it was the precedent for Murray's Family Library, which it anticipated by two years.Scott Bennett, John Murray's Family Library and the Cheapening of Books in Early Nineteenth Century Britain, Studies in Bibliography Vol. 29, (1976), pp. 139-166, at p. 141. Published by: Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40371632 It was recognised in the new genre, of "libraries of useful knowledge".

Constable's project is recognised as initiating a publishing phenomenon of the later 1820s. Cheap editions marketed as small libraries were seen also in the Library of Useful Knowledge, Library of Entertaining Knowledge, Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia, and series by Henry Colburn and Abraham John Valpy.

List of ''Constable's Miscellany''

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!Volume

!Year

!Author

!Title

|1826 (3 vols.)

|Basil Hall

|Voyage to Loo-Choo and other places in the Eastern Seas in the Year 1816{{cite book|author=Basil Hall|title=Voyage to Loo-Choo, and other places in the eastern seas, in the year 1816: Including an account of Captain Maxwell's attack on the batteries at Canton; and notes of an interview with Buonaparte at St. Helena, in August 1817|url=https://archive.org/details/voyagetoloochoo00hallgoog|access-date=26 September 2013|year=1826|publisher=Printed for A. Constable & co.}}

|Hugh Murray

|Adventures of British Seamen{{cite book|author=James Augustus St. John|title=Journal of a Residence in Normandy|url=https://archive.org/details/journalaresiden00johngoog|access-date=26 September 2013|year=1831|publisher=Constable & Co.|pages=ii–iii}}

|Walter Scott, introduction

|Memoirs of the Marchioness of La Rochejaquelein

VI (2 vols.)

|1827

|Andrew Crichton

|Converts from Infidelity[https://archive.org/stream/convertsfrominfi00cric#page/n5/mode/2up archive.org.]

VIII (2 vols.)

|1827

|Michael Symes

|An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava in the Year 1795{{cite book|title=Constable's miscellany of original and selected publications in the various departments of literature, science, & the arts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0DkPAQAAMAAJ|access-date=26 September 2013|year=1827}}

|1827

|George Moir

|Table Talk, or Selections from the Ana (i.e. -ana)

|Perils and Captivity

XII

|Henry Glassford Bell (editor){{cite book|author=Archibald Constable|title=Constable's miscellany of original and selected publications in the various departments of literature, science, & the arts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LXZVAAAAYAAJ|access-date=26 September 2013|year=1827|publisher=Printed for Constable}}

|Selections of the Most Remarkable Phenomena of Nature

XIII (2 vols.)

|1827

|John Martin

|An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands

XV (2 vols.)

|Robert Chambers

|History of the Rebellions in Scotland in 1745, 1746

XVII

|Orlando W. Roberts

|Voyages and Excursions in Central America

XVIII (2 vols.)

|Friedrich Schiller
George Moir, translator

|Historical Works

XX (2 vols.)

|Richard Thomson

|An Historical View of the Manner, Customs, Literature, &c., of Great Britain

XXII

|1827

|General Register of Politics, Science and Literature

XXIII

|John Gibson Lockhart

|Life of Burns

XXIV (2 vols.)

|Henry Glassford Bell

|Life of Mary, Queen of Scots

XXVI

|Francis Wrangham

|Evidences of Christianity

XXVII (2 vols.)

|Adam Neale (two parts){{cite DNB|wstitle=Neale, Adam|volume=40}}

|Memorials of the Late War

XXIX (2 vols.)

|John Russell (brother of James Russell){{cite DNB|wstitle=Russell, James (1790-1861)|volume=49}}

|A Tour in Germany in 1820, 1821, 1822

XXXI (2 vols.)

|Robert Chambers

|History of the Rebellions in Scotland, under Montrose and Others, from in 1638 till 1660

XXXIII (3 vols.)

|Christophe Guillaume de Koch
Andrew Crichton (translator)

|History of the Revolutions in Europe

XXXVI (2 vols.)

|John Dundas Cochrane

|A Pedestrian Journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary

XXXVIII

|Derwent Conway

|Narrative of a Journey through Norway, Sweden and Denmark

XXXIX

|John Smythe Memes

|History of Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture

XL (2 vols.)

|Edward Upham

|History of the Ottoman Empire

XLII

|1829

|Robert Chambers

|History of the Rebellions in Scotland under the Viscount of Dundee and the Earl of Mar in 1689 and 1715[https://archive.org/stream/historyrebellio00ofgoog#page/n8/mode/2up archive.org.]

XLIII (2 vols.)

|John Parker Lawson

|History of the Most Remarkable Conspiracies Connected with European History

XLV

|Gilbert White

|The Natural History of Selborne

XLVI

|J. D. Sinclair

|An Autumn in Italy

XLVII (2 vols.)

|1829

|Michael Russell

|Life of Oliver Cromwell{{cite book|author=Michael Russell|title=Life of Oliver Cromwell|url=https://archive.org/details/lifeolivercromw00russgoog|access-date=26 September 2013|year=1829|publisher=Printed for Constable and co.}}

XLIX

|Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

|Life of Hernan Cortes

L (2 vols.)

|Henry Stebbing

|History of Chivalry and the Crusades

LII

|William Cooke Stafford

|History of Music

LIII (2 vols.)

|1830

|John Donald Carrick

|Life of Sir William Wallace of Elderslie{{cite book|author=Constable and co, ltd|title=Constable's miscellany of original and selected publications|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I9MDAAAAQAAJ|access-date=26 September 2013|year=1826}}

LV (2 vols.)

|Robert Chambers

|Life of James the First

LVII (3 vols.)

|1830

|Fauvelet de Bourrienne
John Styles Memes (translator)

|Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte{{cite book|author=Constable and co, ltd|title=Constable's miscellany of original and selected publications|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RNoDAAAAQAAJ|access-date=26 September 2013|year=1830}}

LX (2 vols.)

|Thomas Keightley

|History of the War of Independence in Greece

LXII

|Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

|History of the Conquest of Peru by the Spaniards

LXIII (2 vols.)

|Alexander Sutherland

|The Achievements of the Knights of Malta

LXV

|James Augustus St John

|A Journal of a Residence in Normandy{{cite book|title=Constable's miscellany of original and selected publications in the various departments of literature, science, & the arts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JzkPAQAAMAAJ|access-date=26 September 2013|year=1831}}

LXVI (2 vols.)

|1831

|Derwent Conway

|Switzerland, the South of France and the Pyrenees in MDCCC.XXX

LXVIII

|1831 (4 vols.)

|Alexander Wilson
Charles Lucian Bonaparte
Robert Jameson (editor)

|The American Ornithology{{cite book|author=Archibald Constable|title=Constable's miscellany of original and selected publications in the various departments of literature, science, & the arts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WGtVAAAAYAAJ|access-date=26 September 2013|year=1831|publisher=Printed for Constable}}

LXXII

|1831

|John Styles Memes

|Memoirs of the Empress Josephine{{cite book|author=Archibald Constable|title=Constable's miscellany of original and selected publications in the various departments of literature, science, & the arts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_mtVAAAAYAAJ|access-date=26 September 2013|year=1831|publisher=Printed for Constable}}

LXXIII (2 vols.)

|1831

|William Cooke Taylor{{cite DNB|wstitle=Taylor, William Cooke |volume=55}}

|History of the Civil Wars in Ireland

LXXV

|1832 (2 vols.)

|Thomas Brown

|The Book of Butterflies, Sphinxes and Moths{{cite book|author=Thomas Brown|title=The Book of Butterflies, Sphinxes, and Moths: Illustrated by Ninety-six Engravings Coloured After Nature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8VFJAAAAYAAJ|access-date=26 September 2013|year=1832|publisher=Whittaker, Treacher}}

LXXVII

|1832

|Robert Mudie{{cite DNB|wstitle=Mudie, Robert|volume=39}}

|A Popular Guide to the Observation of Nature

LXXVIII (2 vols.)

|1833

|Cyrus Redding

|A History of Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea{{cite book|author=Archibald Constable|title=Constable's miscellany of original and selected publications in the various departments of literature, science, & the arts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z2xVAAAAYAAJ|access-date=26 September 2013|year=1833|publisher=Printed for Constable}}

LXXX

|1834

|Thomas Brown

|The Book of Butterflies, Sphinxes and Moths, vol. 3[https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/27522#/summary Details - The book of butterflies, sphinxes and moths; illustrated by one hundred and forty-four engravings, coloured after nature; in three volumes - Biodiversity Heritage Library]. biodiversitylibrary.org. Retrieved 4 February 2017.

Revival of the series

"A version of the series was revived in the mid 1850s, the early 1880s, and, finally, in 1928..."[https://seriesofseries.com/constables-miscellany/ Constable's Miscellany], seriesofseries.com. Retrieved on 19 March 2017. The 1929 incarnation of the series was named "Constable's Miscellany of Original and Selected Publications in Literature" until about 1939.

Notes

Category:Lists of British books

Category:1820s in England

Category:1830s in England

Category:Book series

Category:19th-century British literature