The Colonial Book Circular and Bibliographical Record
Start Date(s)
End Date(s)
Editor(s)
Printer/Publisher(s)
City
Type of Content
- Departments: address, notes, select lists of recent publications, recent colonial/English publications and books, special colonial libraries, announcements of forthcoming publications, English and American publications/magazine reviews, bibliography notes, publishers' short lists (Waterloo)
- “Contains classified lists of new publications -- English, American and Colonial -- in all Departments of literature, science and art” (vol. 1, no. 1, Sept. 1887, p. 1)
Notes
- Motto: “Knowledge of books is like that sort of lantern which hides him who carries it, and serves only to pass through secret and gloomy paths of his own: but in the possession of a man of business, it is as a torch in the hand of one who is willing and able to show those who are bewildered the way which leads to their prosperity and welfare” (quote by Richard Steele used as epigraph on title page, vol. 1, no. 1, Sept. 1887, p. 1)
- Petherick (editor) was a member of the Library Association of the United Kingdom. The Agency he mentions (see below) is the Colonial Booksellers' Agency (vol. 1, no. 1, Sept. 1887, p. 1)
- “THE COLONIAL BOOK CIRCULAR is issued in [connexion] with an Agency which I am opening in London for Booksellers in the Colonies and for Collectors of Colonial Literature in Great Britain and America on the Continent. A lover of books, and I hope 'a man of business' -- having served twenty-five years with the largest of Colonial Booksellers, Messrs. George Robertson & Company; and therefore possessing knowledge and experience of the Trade at Home and Abroad -- it will be my earnest endeavour so to hold my little candle that any who come within reach of its rays may find it a useful and helpful guide” (vol. 1, no. 1, Sept. 1887, p. 1)--this intro is written by Petherick
- “This new journal is likely to be useful to all interested in the Colonies. The first part contains a select list of recent publications in all departments, which no doubt many colonists will be glad to have, Then follows a classified list of recent Colonial publications and books relating to the Colonies” (Keltie 721)
- “Quoting Sir Richard Steele on how the ‘[k]nowledge of books is like . . . [a] lantern’, Edward Petherick described in the inaugural issue of The Colonial Book Circular and Bibliographical Record his desire to produce a journal that would provide a catalogue of primarily English-language fiction and non-fiction for readers at ‘Home and Abroad’ who wanted to purchase books but who had no idea what to buy. Once readers knew what to acquire and ordered the books, Petherick could then ship the books with his distribution company. Fittingly, the symbol of the Colonial Booksellers’ Agency and journal was a winged Mercury, as Petherick offered to procure and deliver books ‘to any part of the world’” (Rukavina 113)
- Opening page of vol. 1, no. 2, Dec. 1887, p. 37 explains the renaming of this journal
Subject Categories
Issues
Sources that Discuss this Journal
- Keltie p. 721
- NSTC
- Rukavina pp. 113-34
- Stewart vol. 1, p. 602
- The Waterloo Directory (online)
Works Cited
- Keltie, J. Scott. “New Geographical Publications.” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, vol. 9, 1887, pp. 709-22. Google Books.
- NSTC (Nineteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue), in C19: The Nineteenth-Century Index, Chadwyck-Heaney, 2020. ProQuest.
- Rukavina, Alison. “The Colonial Booksellers’ Agency.” The Development of the International Book Trade, 1870–1895, edited by Rukavina. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pp. 113-34.
- Stewart, James D., editor. British Union-Catalogue of Periodicals. 4 vols. Butterworths, 1968.
- The Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals: 1800-1900, edited by John S. North. North Waterloo Academic Press, 2009.
