LITERARY PERIODICAL. THE HOME CIRCLE. Volume I [- X]. [Vols. I, VI, VII, VIII, IX, & X:] Plain, 4s.; Gilt Edges and Back, 4s. 6d. [Vols. II, V: Price, 4s. Plain; 4s. 6d. Gilt; Vol.IV: Price 4s. 6d. Gilt; 4s. Plain] [Vols. I, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X:] London: W.S. Johnson, 60, St. Martin's Lane, Charing Cross; And all Booksellers. [Vol.II: London: Printed and Published by W.S. Johnson, 60, St. Martin's Lane, Charing Cross; and to be had of all Booksellers.] [Vol.III: London: W.S. Johnson, 60, St. Martin's Lane, Charing Cross. Price Four Shillings. To be had of all booksellers.] [Vol. IV: London: W.S. Johnson, 60, St. Martin's Lane; Simpkin, Marshall and Co. Edinburgh: Messrs. Oliver and Boyd; J. Menzies. - Glasgow: Love; Murray. - Dublin; [sic] Curry and Co.; and of all Booksellers.] [Vol. V: London: W.S. Johnson, 60, St. Martin's Lane; Simpkin, Marshall and Co. Edinburgh: Messrs. Oliver and Boyd; J. Menzies. - Dublin; [sic] Mc‘Glashan [sic]; Curry and Co. - Liverpool; [sic] Philip and Son; and of all Booksellers.] N.D. [1849-1854]. Super roy 8vo; half-titles not called for; each volume with elaborate wood-engraved pictorial general title-page, and fine steel-engraved frontispiece on plate paper, most with tissue guards; numerous wood-engraved illustrations in text; each volume pp.viii+424; jade green straight grain morocco cloth, elaborately ruled and blocked blind on sides, lettered and blocked gilt on front cover, ruled, lettered, and elaborately blocked gilt on spine; a.e.g.; end-papers coated pale yellow. 10 Vols., complete. A nice set.

A complete run of the semi-annual volumes (comprising Nos.1-260) in the more expensive of the two binding styles. Cases were also available separately at 1/- each, and ‘Portfolios for preserving Nos.' at 2/- each. Well printed on good paper at Johnson's ‘Nassau Steam Press', the magazine was issued in weekly penny numbers each containing 16pp., the last number of each volume being a double number, including the prelims. and frontispiece to that volume, and costing twopence. It was also available in stamped weekly numbers at 2d. (or 3d. for double numbers), and in monthly parts at 6d. Johnson also issued novels in penny weekly numbers in a similar format (including reprints of Pierce Egan the younger, etc.) and that literary bias carries through into this periodical, which is aimed at the same readership - the newly literate working class - being avowedly an attempt to provide them with reading matter of a higher quality than that which was then generally available. According to the ‘List of Professional Contributors' at the start of each volume, the literary contributors included Agnes Strickland, Frederika Bremer, Lady Bulwer Lytton, G.P.R. James, Nathaniel Hawthorne, ‘Phiz', Samuel Lover, Mr. [John] Oxenford, Bayle St. John, W. Cullen Bryant, Alexandre Dumas, Pierce Egan, H.W. Longfellow, M. de Balzac, etc., and amongst the work included are a number of serials: ‘Candava; or, The Last Suttee' by Agnes Strickland; ‘Louis the Fourteenth And His Times' by Alexandre Dumas (no English translation noted by Munro); ‘A Story Without a Name. An historical novel. Written expressly for this Family Magazine, By G.P.R. James'; ‘The Cabin and Parlour; Or, Slaves and masters. The only real answer to Uncle Tom's Cabin. By J. Thornton Randolph.' - apparently the first English printing; ‘Eugénie Grandet. By M. de Balzac. Translated expressly for the "Home Circle"' - its first appearance in English; etc. etc. Some contributions, such as the serialisations of Pierce Egan's ‘Quintin Matsys', or of Lover's ‘Handy Andy', are certainly reprinted, if sometimes revised. We have been unable to check the contributions of Hawthorne, William Cullen Bryant, and Longfellow in this respect: for though there is a list of contributors in each volume, it does not give page numbers, whilst the Index of contents to each volume does not give author's names, and is moreover unreliable as to page numbers! Most of the contributions have by-lines attached, but it would require more effort than we are capable of to track down all the shorter contributions in this way. We have been unable to find any mention of this magazine in Blanck, however, the nearest scent of one being under Bryant (Volume I, p.373): an entry for 1851 listing a contribution to what appears to be an American re-issue of one of the volumes: ‘The Family Circle and Parlour Annual' - "a periodical, . . . bound up as an annual", and published in New York - the contribution in that instance being a reprint. A scarce magazine, not listed in CBEL, despite the fact that its literary content would warrant it.

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