There is evidence that Dr. Laing had a previous edition of a portion of Dunbar’s poems printed at Paul’s Work in 1827; but just as the volume was completed, with the exception of the Introduction, a disastrous fire occurred in the binder’s premises which destroyed the greater portion of the sheets, and only seventy-six copies (four on vellum) were actually published, not a few bearing evidence of the scorching they had sustained.[50]
“Constable’s Miscellany,” extending to seventy-six volumes, was first printed by Willison (Constable’s father-in-law), and after his death, for two years by Hutchinson for Willison’s heirs, and then at Paul’s Work by Ballantyne & Co., who had also given occasional aid in the production of the early volumes. This series comprised books in all branches of literature, such as Lockhart’s “Life of Burns,” Robert Chambers’s “History of the Rebellions in Scotland during the Seventeenth Century,” 2 vols.; the same author’s “History of the Rebellion of 1745,” 2 vols.; Basil Hall’s “Voyages,” &c., &c. The first volume appeared on January 6, 1826. The “Miscellany” was “undoubtedly the pioneer and suggester of all the various ‘Libraries’ which sprang up in its wake, and which, after the inspiration and management of its projector had been withdrawn, may be said to have run it down.... ‘Constable’s Miscellany’ also inaugurated the cloth bindings which are now universally adopted in our own and other countries.”[51] The printing of the same publisher’s Edinburgh Review, begun in October 1802, was done till 1806 by different printers—Mundell, Muirhead, Walker and Son, and Moir. In 1807 Willison’s name first appears and continues till his death, when Hutchinson comes in for two years; and from 1827 till its removal to London it was printed at the Ballantyne Press.
It is impossible to mention a tithe of the other books which have passed through the Ballantyne Press during the century and more that has elapsed since its origin, and all that can be attempted here is a reference to the outstanding publications which have been printed at Paul’s Work. These include several editions of the Waverley Novels, Shakespeare, Browning, Dickens, Thackeray, Bret Harte, Besant and Rice, Charles Reade, Mrs. Gaskell, Charlotte Brontë, Thomas Hardy, Mrs. Sewell, and others; various editions of Ruskin’s Works, including the great Library Edition of thirty-eight volumes—one of the finest works printed at the Press; Walpole’s “History of England”; Maunder’s “Dictionaries”; Chisholm’s “Gazetteer of the World”; “The Armorial Families”; “Chronicles of the Atholl and Tullibardine Families” for the Duke of Atholl; “Military History of Perthshire,” edited by the Marchioness of Tullibardine; Nuttall’s “Dictionary” and “Encyclopædia” and “Dictionary of Quotations”; volumes of the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” the Temple Classics, the Chandos Classics, and Lansdowne Poets; Trübner’s Oriental and Philosophical Libraries of about 200 octavo volumes; editions of Henry’s “Commentary” and of Hymn-books and Church Praise; Bagster’s Bibles and “Daily Light” and Prayer-books; Latin and Greek text-books, Art books, works of Travel and Biography, school-books of all kinds; The Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute; The Records of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, of the Champlain Society of Toronto, and of various other learned Societies.
APPENDIX
A pleasant and memorable chapter in the history of the Ballantyne Press is its connection with the Edinburgh International Exhibition of 1886, held in the West Meadows. The position occupied by Paul’s Work relative to the literary history of Edinburgh since the beginning of last century, as well as other considerations, induced the firm to make an exhibit of ancient printing materials and of Early Bibles and other books in the Old Edinburgh buildings of that Exhibition; and to show a working model, so to speak, of an early printing-house. This was considered to be a very attractive feature of the Exhibition, and the following account of it appeared in the Scotsman of September 15, 1886.
“THE BALLANTYNE PRESS IN ‘OLD EDINBURGH’