This auction catalogue from C.W. Adams, a merchant and bookseller. It consists of 317 titles, ordered alphabetically by title. The catalogue is dominated by works of imagination (122), overwhelmingly by British writers but this catalogue is also notable for the presence of early North American fiction writers. John Richardson’s Ecarté , widely acknowledged to be the earliest Canadian novel, is listed along with works by U.S. writers Charles Brockden Brown, Peter Irving, James Fennimore Cooper and Harriet Vaughan Foster. The most prominently represented British fiction writers are Walter Scott (10 titles), Hannah More (14 volumes of her complete works plus her novel Coelebs in search of a wife) and Horace Smith (4 titles). The novels and tales listed were overwhelmingly published in London in the period 1800-1830 but a few eighteenth century novels such as Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, Susanna Harvey Keir’s History of Miss Greville and Regina Maria Roche’s Children of the abbey are listed. There are also two French novels listed: Lesange’s Gil Blas and Stendhal’s Rouge et noir, as well as several French and Italian romances in English translation.
Other genres of literature included in the catalogue are biographies (29 titles), histories (25 titles), voyages and travels (25 titles), poetry (22 titles), philosophical and political essays (32 titles) and periodicals (12 titles). Poets listed include Walter Scott, Letitia Landon, Robert Southey and Macpherson’s Ossian. Three works of specific interest to Anglophone South African settlers are listed, Thomas Pringle’s Some account of the present state of the settlers of Albany (1824) and Thomas Phillip’s Scenes and occurrences in Albany and Cafferland (1827), two works which present somewhat contrasting views of early British settler life in the Eastern Cape.
LA
