Burke In The New World

Professor Laurence Senelick of Tufts University writes: The information in your August, 1974, issue that an American version of Burke’s Peerage is forthcoming reminded me of an earlier British jibe at Yankee genealogy. In one of its many fulminations against the “Newgate novel” Fraser’s Magazine for April, 1836, set forth a tongue-in-cheek explanation of the American market for tales of crime: “Any one initiated into the secrets of the book-trade must be aware that copies of the Newgate Calendar are in constant and steady request through President Jackson’s dominions; most families being anxious to possess that work from motives connected with heraldry and genealogical science. It is the same pardonable weakness that secures among us the sale of Mr. Burke’s Peerage and Commoners ”