Founded by the publisher of the Standard Novels series, Richard Bentley, his Miscellany was a literary magazine, publishing novels in installment form. The first editor was Charles Dickens, whose second novel, Oliver Twist, first appeared in the magazine, starting in the first issue.
This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of
-ize suffix verbs and their spelling (
-ize or
-ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the
-ize / -ise page. For more on the spelling of
-ize verbs in periodicals, see the
Periodicals start page.
For the first twelve years, s spellings are more numerous, but becoming increasingly less dominant, somewhat against the trend ocurring in other contemporary magazines. Around 1848/9 there's a swing to z spellings, followed around 1854 by a counterswing to s. This swing to z before a final change to s seems fairly typical of nineteenth century publications. This suggests to me that publishers / printers were mainly concerned with consistency.
Publishers and printers
In 1852, according to Wikipedia, ex-editor William Harrison Ainsworth bought the magazine from Bentley, which could explain the move to a new printer, Woodall and Kinder. On the title page of the magazine itself, however, the publisher continues to be listed as Richerd Bentley. A further change of printer around 1855 does seem to coincide with a more consisistent use of s spellings. In 1868, it was sold back to Bentley, who incorporated it into the Temple Bar magazine, published by Ward and Lock, and which had started in 1860.
- Samuel Bentley, Dorset Street, Fleet Street (Vols 1-6)
- S. and J. Bentley, Wilson and Fley, Bangor House, Shoe Lane (to Vol 23)
- S. and J. Bentley and Henry Fley (Vol 25 - 27)
- Samuel Bentley and Co. (Vol 28 - 32)
- Woodall and Kinder, Angel Court, Skinner Street (Vol 33 - 36)
- C. Whiting, Beaufort House, Strand (Vol 37 - at least Vol 62)
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