ABSTRACT
Music sellers in Georgian England produced catalogues to advertise music available for purchase. They were the most practical and efficient means of promoting simultaneously a large number of new or old publications and were more cost-effective than other existing channels of advertising. Before turning to the individual collections, a brief discussion of John Bland and his successors, and the disposition of his stock-in-trade, is essential. A comparison of Bland's periodical collections and catalogues he devoted to them with those published by the purchasers of these collections shows that, in most cases, the latter collections and catalogues were reprinted from Bland's plates, with only the imprint and sometimes part of the content altered. Bland's instrumental collections contained music for the harpsichord or piano forte, the primary instruments for domestic music-making at the time. The three vocal music collections are more diverse in nature. Italian vocal music was almost ubiquitous in Georgian music publishers' catalogues.
