"The Publishers, having now completed a New and Improved Edition of this Miscellany, consisting of 160 Penny Numbers, respectfully solicit the assistance of those engaged in the education of the Young, to promote the circulation of cheap, interesting, and healthy literature. Many of the Numbers will be found very suitable for reading in school, and if taken home by the children and read in the family, will assist in counteracting the baneful influence of a kind of literature which has already produced most injurious effects on the minds of the young.
In alluding to the affects produced upon young persons by the sensational and exciting publications that have of late years appeared, the Ordinary of Newgate [Prison] says that he has conversed with all the boys brought into this jail, and particularly with those who seemed to have had a good education, and to have been brought up by respectable parents; and he found that all these boys, without exception, had been in the habit of purchasing the cheap periodicals generally published for the amusement of the youth of both sexes.
The Tracts, as in the original issue, are both instructive and entertaining, and many new ones have been added. They comprise Moral Tales, Popular Poetical Pieces of an elevating character, Favourite Ballads, Sketches of Remarkable Episodes and Crises in History, Interesting Biographies, Papers on Social Economy, Hints on Domestic Management and Sanitary Requirements, Lessons in Science, Anecdotes of Animals, Accounts of Geographical Discoveries, Descriptions of Phenomena of Nature, Notices of Works of Art, &c.
The articles form that kind of wholesome and attractive reading which is desirable for Mechanics', Parish, School, and Cottage Libraries; and also for the Libraries of Prisons, Hospitals, Asylums, Factories, and of the Army and the Navy.
Chambers's Miscellany may be had in 160 numbers at One Penny each; in Twenty Volumes at a Shilling each; or in Ten Volumes, cloth, at Two Shillings each.
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Chambers' Miscellany 1845 - Vols. 5 & 6