There is an unexpected side-benefit of the google Books search engine --
http://books.google.com/bkshp?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wp&q=
... when it comes to out-of-copyright texts. These are often downloadable
complete in pdf format.
I discovered this when I managed to obtain the Newgate Calendar, published
in 1826, containing an account of the life (pages 304-328) of the saintly
David Haggard, martyred in Edinburgh in 1821, the third edition of whose
autobiography I am in the process of preparing for print.
It's a bit hit and miss, but the thing to look out for is the notation "Full
view" in the last line of an entry.
Connoisseurs of the science of phrenology may be interested in the results
of a search in this form:
"blackwood's edinburgh magazine" coombe
... in which the mercenary hirelings of Christopher North make mock of the
interview between George Coombe and David Haggart (published as an appendix
to the first two editions of Haggart's Life but, for some strange reason,
removed from the third edition) in a cell in the Edinburgh Tolbooth shortly
before Sinfu' Davey was judicially murdered.
Quite unfairly, the contributors to Noctes Ambrosiana (including, one is
sorry to have to admit, even the admirable Dr. William Maginn, who nearly
did the world a favour by killing the execrable Grantley Berkeley in a duel,
failing only due to his unfamiliarity with muzzle-loading pistols, one of
which he had to borrow from his antagonist for the purposes of their
encounter) see the Noble Science as simply an excuse to allow middle aged
men to fondle young ladies' heads.
As if!!!
Rodentus pedanticus
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