This supplementary catalogue is appended to the annual report of the South African Public Library for 1844. It was printed in 1844 by Cape Town printer Saul Solomon. The catalogue is organised by author and title, and grouped loosely according to the 12 classes listed below. The report notes that between April 30 1843 and April 30 1844 the library acquired 577 volumes. It gives the classificatory breakdown of the new acquisitions as follows: miscellaneous divinity and church history (29); politics, economy, jurisprudence (29); medicine and chemistry (12); natural history (32); belles lettres, education and criticism (84); science and arts (19); biography (58); history in general (51); voyages and travels (60); books of amusement (135); poetry and drama (12); miscellaneous (40). The report also notes that in 1843-4 a large amount of money was spent on scientific works and ‘those classes of the library which relate to the general improvement of the colony and its progress in agriculture and natural history.’
Of these scientific works, the most significant seem to be 4 volumes of the prestigious publishers’ series Dr. Lardner’s Naturalist’s Library and two more volumes of Dr. Andrew Smith’s Zoology of South Africa . Notable acquisitions in the genre of history include Thomas Carlyle’s Past and Present . As usual, the library has acquired a broad array of popular novels including Dickens’s Christmas Carol and Martin Chuzzlewit and novels by Frances Elenor Trollope, GPR James, James Fennimore Cooper and didactic tales by Barbara Hofland. The library also lists under its acquisitions French translations of Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield and Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s Pompeii .
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