Published in 1839 by Sydney bookseller James Tegg, this was the most elaborate and elegantly-printed catalogue of the Australian Subscription Library, and the most detailed account of its holdings to that point. The best means of classifying the works in the library had been the subject of considerable debate for the library committee, and the 20 generic categories used here—ranging from ‘Agriculture, Horticulture, etc’ to ‘Works of Fiction’—had been chosen by a sub-committee headed by Thomas Mitchell, in 1834. The compilation of the catalogue itself was undertaken by the librarian, John Fairfax. The preliminaries to the catalogue consisted of lists of office holders, proprietors and subscribers to the library, a financial statement (for the year 1838), a list of donations to the library, and lists of the library’s rules and regulations, and orders of the library committee.
The catalogue lists some 2002 titles, and 5316 volumes, in the library’s collection in 1839. By title, the largest generic categories were Works of Fiction (making up 22% of the collection), Biography and History (19%), Geography, Voyages and Travels (13%) and Miscellaneous (12%)—which collectively accounted for two-thirds of the library’s collection. The remaining categories were Poetry and the Drama (133 titles), Theology (115 titles), Political Economy and Commerce (60 titles), Jurisprudence (58 titles), Periodicals (51 titles), Natural History (51 titles), Agriculture, Horticulture (45 titles), Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, etc (37 titles), Moral Philosophy (28 titles), Mathematics, Astronomy, etc (27 titles), Philology (25 titles), Medicine, Anatomy and Surgery (14 titles), Mechanical Arts, etc (13 titles), Antiquities (6 titles), Classics (6 titles), and Architecture (5 titles).
