I remember Philippa Gregory researching this for her PhD at Edinburgh.
Details below - I am sure that microfilm copies are available from Edinburgh
UL or from the British Library at Boston Spa.
Database: Edinburgh University Library
Main Author: Gregory, Philippa.
Title: The popular fiction of the eighteenth-century commercial circulating
libraries / Philippa Gregory.
Published: 1984.
Notes: Thesis (Ph.D.)-- University of Edinburgh, 1985.
Subject(s): Popular literature--Great Britain--18th century--Theses.
English fiction--18th century--Theses.
Fiction in libraries--18th century--Theses.
I seem also to recall that other people have focused their research on the
Horrid Novels listed in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and on the novels
that Lydia Languish was discovered reading in Sheridan's The Rivals -
presumably searches of appropriate databases and printed bibliographies will
reveal all!
Hope this helps.
Peter
Peter B Freshwater MA MCLIP FSAScot
43 Corstorphine Road, Edinburgh EH12 5QQ, Scotland
Telephone 0044 (0)131 337 7049
Email [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Hoare" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2004 10:48 PM
Subject: Fw: best sellers
> Forwarded for interest of lis-libhistorians
>
> Peter Hoare
> ________________________________________________________
> Peter Hoare, 21 Oundle Drive, Wollaton Park, Nottingham NG8 1BN
> Tel/fax 0115 978 5297 E-mail [log in to unmask]
> ________________________________________________________
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ronald Tetreault"
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2004 7:51 PM
> Subject: best sellers
>
>
> > For a project I am pursuing on circulating libraries in the early 1800s,
I
> have
> > been perusing Richard Altick's appendix list of best sellers in _The
> English
> > Common Reader_ (1952). With the exception of Scott and Byron, Altick's
> list
> > focuses more on mid-Victorian writers. Can anyone direct me to more
> recent
> > research on best sellers, especially fiction from 1790 - 1840?
> >
> > Thank you all very much
> > --Ron Tetreault
> > Dalhousie University
> > Halifax NS Canada
> >
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