This is the earliest known printed catalogue of the library of the parliament of New South Wales. Styled an ‘index’ to the library of the then Legislative Council, the catalogue was printed by the government printer, W. W. Davis, and issued (according to the title page) on 30 September 1851.
The ‘index’ is arranged as an alphabetical list, variously, by author, title, or subject. As the note on the title page informs the reader, with certain exceptions, ‘the several Works in the Library have been distributed, in the following pages, to every probable head of reference.’ In practice this meant that the same works appear multiple times throughout the catalogue, listed by title, subject, author, or other keyword. Bibliographical information is limited: the number of volumes is given for each title, but no other publication details. As one might expect, the parliamentary library was strong in works on jurisprudence and law, and parliamentary history, but there were also substantial holdings of works in general history, and geography and travels. Within the latter there was an emphasis on works relating to political and social life in other parts of the Anglophone world, and it is notable that the library contained a complete set of the Irish National School Books from the late 1840s. There are also numerous ‘standard works’ or general scholarly works. Within this category, large publishers’ series are notable—including the 32 volumes of Bohn’s Library, 38 volumes of Vicesimus Knox’s British Essayists and the 181 volumes of A. J. Valpy’s Delphin Classics (1819-1830).
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