Minerva Press Publications
Although the Minerva Press is commonly remembered today as an early publisher of Gothic and sentimental romance, from 1790 to 1820 it was not only the largest publisher of popular fiction in Britain, it also published books in various genres from fiction to reference materials, covering a range of subjects from adventure stories to books of manners and systems of education. Founder William Lane was an astute businessman who promoted circulating libraries (at a time well before the rise of public libraries, borrowers paid subscription fees to borrow books from circulating libraries) in order to significantly expand the market for the books he published. Bruce Peel Special Collections has an extensive collection of Minerva Press editions. Many Minerva titles were published in multi-volume formats often called “triple-deckers” or “three-volume novels” despite the fact that many have two or four or more volumes. Jane Austen fans are often intrigued to discover that six of the seven “horrid novels” listed by Isabella Thorpe in Northanger Abbey (1818) were published by Minerva Press.
Collection Formats: 18th Century, 19th Century, Books -- click to see other collections with this format
Phantoms of the Cloister, or, The Mysterious Manuscript by an author identified only by the initials I.H. on the signed dedication page. London: William Lane, at the Minerva Press, 1795 (PR 3991 H3 P53 1795 v.1-3).
Two of the seven famous “horrid novels” from Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (1818): The Midnight Bell: A German Story Founded on Incidents in Real Life by Francis Lathom (PR 4878 L17 M6 1798 vol.1-3) and Clermont by Regina Maria Roche (PR 5233 R45 C6 1798 vol.1-4).
News broadsheet announcing that the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, was "massacred" on 16 October 1793. London: William Lane, at the Minerva Press, 1793 (DC 137.17 Q44 1793 folio).
Book label from the Minerva Library, a subscription-based circulating library (Z 232 M66 M664).
Minerva Press titles with markings showing they were once held in circulating libraries: Probable Incidents: Or, Scenes in Life by Henry Summersett (PR 5499 S265 P76 1797 vol.1-2) and The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey by Mrs Carver (PR 4452 C59 H67 1797).
Twiss, Richard. A Trip to Paris in July and August, 1792. London: Minerva Press, 1793 (DC 194 T974 1793). Handwritten marginalia in this copy, apparently penned by the author, offers manuscript corrections, notes, and interpolations.