This 1829 catalogue of the journalist, bookseller, and pastoralist William McGarvie (1810-1841) pertains to a circulating library operating out of his bookshop, the Australian Stationary Warehouse, on Lower George Street, Sydney. The library’s fees and regulations are set out in the front of the catalogue.
Of the 469 titles held in the library’s collection, the primary genres are novels, romances, and tales; short stories; histories, voyages, and travels; biographies, correspondence, and memoirs; and poetry. Of these genres, novels (especially romances) and travels are by far the most prevalent, with Walter Scott the best represented author by number of titles. The only poets stocked are Ossian (James Macpherson), Burns, Byron, and George Coleman. Works of so-called ‘general literature’ (philosophy, political economy, geography etc.) are relatively few, and there no periodicals, treatises, natural histories or other scientific works in the collection. Notable in this regard, therefore, are Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776), William Paley’s Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity (1802), and James Cleland’s Rise and Progress of the City of Glasgow (1820). Only two books suggest a local appetite for works on the British colonies: Peter Miller Cunningham’s Two Years in New South Wales (1827) and Mrs Monkland’s Life in India: Or, the English in Calcutta (1828).
PF
