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.[1] 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.[2] [3] There were 80 volumes in all, the first appearing in 1826 and the last in 1835.[4]
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.[5]
The Miscellany's first editor was John Aitken.[6] 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.[7] It was recognised in the new genre, of "libraries of useful knowledge".[1]
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.[4]
| Volume | Year | Author | Title | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | 1826 (3 vols.) | Basil Hall | Voyage to Loo-Choo and other places in the Eastern Seas in the Year 1816[8] | |
| IV | Hugh Murray | Adventures of British Seamen[9] | ||
| V | Walter Scott, introduction | Memoirs of the Marchioness of La Rochejaquelein | ||
| VI (2 vols.) | 1827 | Andrew Crichton | Converts from Infidelity[10] | |
| VIII (2 vols.) | 1827 | Michael Symes | An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava in the Year 1795[11] | |
| X | 1827 | George Moir | Table Talk, or Selections from the Ana (i.e. -ana) | |
| XI | Perils and Captivity | |||
| XII | Henry Glassford Bell (editor)[12] | 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)[13] | Memorials of the Late War | ||
| XXIX (2 vols.) | John Russell (brother of James Russell)[14] | 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[15] | |
| 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[16] | |
| 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 | Life of Sir William Wallace of Elderslie[17] | ||
| 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[18] | |
| 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[19] | ||
| 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[20] | |
| LXXII | 1831 | John Styles Memes | Memoirs of the Empress Josephine[21] | |
| LXXIII (2 vols.) | 1831 | William Cooke Taylor[22] | History of the Civil Wars in Ireland | |
| LXXV | 1832 (2 vols.) | Thomas Brown | The Book of Butterflies, Sphinxes and Moths[23] | |
| LXXVII | 1832 | Robert Mudie[24] | A Popular Guide to the Observation of Nature | |
| LXXVIII (2 vols.) | 1833 | Cyrus Redding | A History of Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea[25] | |
| LXXX | 1834 | Thomas Brown | The Book of Butterflies, Sphinxes and Moths, vol. 3[26] |
"A version of the series was revived in the mid 1850s, the early 1880s, and, finally, in 1928..."[27] The 1929 incarnation of the series was named "Constable's Miscellany of Original and Selected Publications in Literature" until about 1939.