An Anglican mission organization established in England in 1698 and still in operation today, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) began work in Australia in the late eighteenth century, establishing the first library by sending 4,000 books out with the First Fleet in 1788.
This 1828 collection of approximately 178 titles is primarily made up of bibles, testaments, prayer books, homilies, sermons, catechisms, devotions, and religious tracts. The price of the books in pounds, shillings, and pence is recorded on the right-hand side of the catalogue. Books marked with a cross (+) are on order. Of note are D’Oyly and Mant’s Bible (an annotated bible commissioned by the SPCK costing the substantial sum of £3 9s 6d), a collection of ten titles by Sarah Trimmer, Edward Beren’s Village Sermons (1596), William Gilpin’s Dialogues (1796, 1807), and William Cobbett’s Reflections on Religion (1820).
Extending the 1826 catalogue, this catalogue adds a number of voyages such as Basil Hall’s Voyage to Korea and the Island of Loo Choo (1820); biographies and lives such as The Life of Captain Cook, (unattributed) and an undated edition of Izaak Walton’s Lives; works on the so-called ‘useful arts’; works of philosophy, natural history, and science such as Jane Marcet’s Conversations on Chemistry, Intended More Especially for the Female Sex (1805)); books for children; and a number of ‘earnest exhortations’ against various social ills such as drunkenness, stealing, swearing, and enthusiasm. The only work of fiction is Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year (1722); not Robinson Crusoe (1719) as indicated in the 1826 catalogue. The only works of poetry are an edition of John Gay’s Fables or Fifty-One Fables in Verse (1727-38) and a collection of Thomas Bowlder’s poems, probably Poems Divine and Moral (1821). Bowdler is, of course, well known for his expurgated editions of Shakespeare and Gibbon, censoring elements deemed inappropriate for women and children.
PF
