MESSRS. MACMILLAN'S CATALOGUE.* Trim handsome volume—the first, we think, of

its kind ever brought out—contains the history of nearly half-a-century of publishing enterprise. In 1843, Daniel and Alexander Macmillan, who were then in business in Aldersgate Street, published their first book ; a second followed in the course of the same year, bearing on its title-page the names of Alders- gate Street, and Trinity Street, Cambridge, where the brothers had purchased, with the help of Archdeacon Hare, a book- selling business. The London shop was then given up. From 1811 to 1858, the firm remained in Cambridge, where their estab- lishment became what we may call the " literary exchange " of the place, its central figure being the remarkable and attractive personality of Daniel Macmillan. During the " fifties," as long, that is, as he was alive, no one who cared at all about books visited Cambridge without being taken to the Trinity Street shop. During the first decade, the publishing business was small. The total number of its publications was about one hundred and twenty, nearly one-half of which were either prize essays and poems, or single sermons and pamphlets. At the end of the second decade (1863), the firm removed its head-quarters to London. It is interesting to observe that in 1862 the total number of books published was fifty-four (omitting single sermons, pamphlets, &o.), and that in 1864, the first complete year of business in London, it was eighty- nine. The centralising tendency which is now so strong, was even then, it would seem, sufficiently marked. In 1889, the last year given, the larger number was nearly doubled. The total of the whole forty-seven years, including publications of every kind, may be roughly estimated at about four thousand.

These facts, to which others might be added by a careful analysis of the volume, are of no little interest ; nor, though they concern in the first place a private enterprise, do we need any excuse for noting them. But it is the literary im- portance of the Catalogue which makes it a really notable publication. It is interesting to see the first appearance of names which were then, or were afterwards to become,

' A Bibliographical Catalogue of Macmillan and Co.'s Publications, from 1843 to 1889. London : Macmillan and Co. famous. In 1845, the firm published Richard Chenevix Trench's Hulsean Lectures for the year; and in the fol- lowing year, a little tract, Cottage Prayers, by J. W. Colenso. In 1848, Archdeacon Hare's name appears for the first time. Six years afterwards, all his publications were transferred to the firm. In 1850, Charles Kingsley's name appears, or rather, his pseudonym of " Parson Lot ;" in 1851, those of Edward Thring and B. F. Westcott. In the year after, Archer Butler's sermons are transferred to Messrs. Macmillan's (these have been reprinted nine times). In this year also appeared Messrs. Davies and Vaughan's Translation of Plato's Republic, a book which may be said to have revived the dormant art of writing literary versions of the classics. It has had the success which it deserved. Six years, indeed, elapsed before a second edition was called for, and eight years more before a third. But this third has been reprinted ten times. (We may here note that the Catalogue distinguishes between a " new edition" and a "reprint," the latter being used for an impression from standing type or plates. We are also cautioned that an " edition " means a quite uncertain number, "varying from 250 to 100,000.") 1853 saw the publication of two famous books, Mr. Maurice's Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament, and Theological Essays. These number respectively five and four editions. It will probably be a surprise to many students of Mr. Maurice's works, to be told that, as far as the number of editions can be regarded as a test of success, both have been surpassed by the volume, Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament. This has been reprinted six times. 1855 was a notable year, being credited with Charles Kingsley's Glaucus, ten times reprinted, and his Westward Ho ! the re- prints and new editions of which mount up to thirty-three. As three of these were of the sixpenny issue, the total sale must have been very large, not far off half a million, we should guess. But even these figures have been sur- passed by Tom Brown's Schooldays (1858), which, under one form or another, counts fifty issues. Tom Brown at Oxford (1861) seems to have been not unsuccessful for a con- tinuation, as it has reached a sixteenth reissue. Of Charles Kingsley's other works may be mentioned Two Years Ago (twenty-two) ; Hypatia, originally published in 1853 by J. W. Parker and Son, transferred to Messrs. Macmillan in 1863, and reprinted by them twenty-two times ; and The Water-Babies (eighteen). It was, we must own, somewhat of a surprise to us to find that neither Geoffrey Handyn nor Ravenshoe, by Henry Kingsley, have gone beyond a third edition. We should not have thought the difference between the two novelists so great, though the work of Charles Kings- ley is undoubtedly the better of the two. Alice in Wonder- land comes high on the list, with thirty-five issues. Miss Charlotte M. Yonge cannot be fairly compared, as her most popular books were first "published elsewhere ;" still, Messrs. Macmillan have republished The Heir of Redclyffe twenty-two times, Heartsease sixteen times, and The Daisy Chain twenty. Among the tales first published by this house are The Chaplet of Pearls (sixteen) and The Dove in the Eagle's Nest (thirteen). Most critics, we fancy, would be inclined to reverse this order. John Inglesant numbers nineteen. Turning from fiction, we find Ecce Homo going through twenty editions between 1866 and 1888; while the sequel, Natural Religion, has been re- printed but once, and that in the year of its appearance. Other considerable numbers are B. F. Westcott's Bible in the Church (eleven), Bishop Lightfoot on The Epistle to the Galatians (nine), the same on The Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon (eight), and on The Philippians (nine). Matthew Arnold is a name to which we look with interest. The collected editions of his poems number five, not a large number when we remember the prodigious sale of Robert Montgomery's Omni- presence of the Deity, and Pollok's Course of Time. The first series of Essays in Criticism has been issued six times, the second twice, but then the latter was not published before 1888. Lord Tennyson's Poems were transferred to the firm in 1884, and were reprinted twelve times before the end of 1889. But this does not represent the total circulation, as various portions have been published and reprinted separately. Tiresias, for instance, was reprinted thrice in the month following its publication. School-books, though probably the most lucrative kind of literature, are not particularly in- teresting. Some of our readers, however, will be curious to know how far the great variety of classical text-books now offered for the choice of teachers has been welcomed. It is

difficult to make any comparisons, because the editors differ in acceptability, and some of the books, especially the less familiar, have not been long published. We gather, however, on the whole, that teachers are, as indeed we had supposed, a conservative race. In the series of "Elementary Classics," our old friend Eutropius, who is certainly tedious in the extreme, tops the list with six issues, a number in which he is equalled by a book of selections from Livy (the Hannibalian Campaigns) ; Ca3sar (the Invasion of Britain), and Horace (Odes i.), come next with five. Another Caesar (Books ii.

and and Virgil (Jneid v.), follow with four. The only Greek book that equals them is Thucydides iv. In " The Classical Series," text-books of a more advanced kind, we find the following results :-

Year of Publication. Edition&

Cicero's Second Philippic ...

... 1861 12 „ Orations against Catiline ... 1871 12 Thucydides, The Sicilian Expedition ... 1867 12 Tacitus, Agricola ... ... ... 1869 11 Sallust, Catiline ... ... ... 1858 9 „ Jugurtha ... ... ... 1858 9 Demosthenes, De Corona... ... 1851 8 Livy, xxi.-xxii. ... ... ... 1878 8 Tacitus, Germania ... 1869

Xenophon, Hellenics ... ... 1876

Of the remaining fifty-seven, thirty-nine have been re- printed ; but it must be remembered that some have been published so recently, that it is impossible to judge of their reception. The various series of " Primers" present some notable results :-

English Grammar, 17.

English Composition, 7.

Shake-no ,re, 6.

English Grammar Exercises, 4.

Philosophy, 4.

Homer, 3.

Greek Literature, 3.

Classical Geography, 3. Exercises on English Grammar, 3.

English Literature, 2.

SCIENCE.

Physical Geography, 19. Physiology, 13.

Physics, 19. Astronomy, 11, Chemistry, 17. Geology, 11 .

Botany, 15. Logic, 7.

Political Economy, 5.

The "Introductory" Science Primer, which, by-the-way, was published last, shows 6. How far these figures are modified by the numbers in each issue, we cannot say. We learn, from com- parison with an advertisement, that the third reprint of the Roman Antiquities made up a total of 25,000.

The series of "English Men of Letters" affords still more interesting results, as indicating the taste of more mature readers, if we are permitted to make the assumption, a very large one, we must confess, that the value of the authorship is a constant quantity, and that of the subject a varying one,- that is to say, that the public wants to read about X and Y, but does not care whether the account is written by A or B. We do not for a moment suppose that this is really the case; still, that the interest felt in the particular .` Man of Letters " treated of is an important factor in the general result, cannot be doubted. With this reservation we give the figures. (The whole series, we may say, has been reprinted in a cheaper form ; of this reprint no account is taken.) Burke, Johnson, and Scott head the list with seven editions ; Gold- smith, Shelley, and Spenser follow with five ; Gibbon, Milton, Hume, and Thackeray come next with four ; Bacon, Burns, Chaucer, Cowper, Defoe, Lamb, Macaulay, Southey, and Wordsworth have three ; Bunyan, De Quincey, Hawthorne, Locke, Landon Pope, and Swift are credited with two ; while the remaining eleven have not been reprinted, except, as has been said, in the cheaper edition. We have purposely abstained from giving the names of the authors, but we may remark that Johnson, Pope, and Swift are from the same pen, one of the most accomplished among English writers of the day, and that the first has been called for thrice as often, as far as reprints are concerned, as the other two. The names left in the last class are Addison, Bentley, Coleridge, Dickens, Dryden, Fielding, Gray, Keats (published very late in the series), Sheridan, Sidney, and Sterne.

With the commercial success of the enterprise of which this volume supplies the history, the public is not concerned. The mere appearance of this sumptuous record may be considered a sufficient proof that it has been satisfactory. We have gathered from it, however, one set of figures which may in- terest our readers. After premising that, generally speaking, books which do not reach a second edition are not profitable,

HISTORY.

Rome, 12.

Greece, 10.

Europe, 7.

Geography, 6 Old Greek Life, 4. Roman Antiquities, 3. France, 2.

LITERATURE.

Children's Treasury, 24.

or at least not so profitable as to contribute to a great success, we give the following as the result of the publications of the three years, 1859, 1869, and 1879. Under 1859, in 33 publications, single sermons, &c., being neglected, 19 of these did not get beyond a first edition ; the remaining 14 present an aggregate of 72 reissues (Mr. Todhunter's Plane Trigonometry supplying 12, and Dr. Vaughan's Notes for Lectures on Confirmation 15). For 1869 the figures are 103, 50 being one-edition books, and 53 showing an aggregate of 266. In 1879 there are 133, with 52 single editions, against 81 with an aggregate of 317.

The utility of the volume greatly depends upon the elaborate index. We have detected one error only,-an entry that concerns Horace, Odes i.-iii., being put under the head of " Homer " (p. 396).