Author: Select Committee on Transportation of Convicts

Cited by

• Richard Flanagan (1)
  • IN: First Person (2017) Fiction, Australian
    EPIGRAPH: Question -- Are there many booksellers' shops? James Mudie, Esq. -- I should think there are about half-a-dozen in Sydney. Question -- What kind of books do you see sold in those shops; is the class of books different from what you see sold in booksellers' shops in London? James Mudie, Esq. -- Inferior certainly; there are many novels, for instance. I have attended what they call book sales myself, and I have always found that books really valueable have sold for much less than they could have cost in England, and I remember on one occasion there was a regular noise in the room when the Newgate Calendar was put up, and every person said, 'Ah, I shall have that!' I forget what it brought, but it brought something enormous... Then they are fond of the history of highwaymen or anything of that kind.
    FROM: British Parliamentary Papers, Minutes of Evidence, (1837), NULL, UK