Datasheet for the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions in 1840
1. What periodicals did the Royal Society publish?
At this time, the Transactions contained lengthy and illustrated accounts of new discoveries and observations in the natural sciences and mathematics. The volume was usually issued in two parts, in spring and autumn. Separate copies of these papers were supplied to authors as soon as they were available; their abstracts appeared in the Society's Proceedings (approximately monthly), alongside some very short articles. All published papers had been previously presented to a meeting of the Royal Society.
Volume 130 of Philosophical Transactions covered the period 1840 - 1840; and contained 25 articles, running to 612 pages.
2. How was the Philosophical Transactions edited and managed?
Since 1752, the Philosophical Transactions had formally had no editor. It was officially edited by the Committee of Papers of the Royal Society (whose membership was identical to that of the Society's governing body, the Council). In reality, the bulk of the editorial work was done by the Society's two honorary secretaries; in 1840, they were Samuel Hunter Christie and Peter Mark Roget, though most of the work was done by Samuel Hunter Christie. From 1831, any paper being considered for the Transactions was sent to (usually) two Fellows of the Society, with a request for a written report on its suitability. These referees' reports were then passed to the Committee of Papers. The secretary usually shared the gist of these reports (and sometimes extracts) with the authors or communicators of papers, so that they could revise before publication. Papers could be submitted to the Society only by its Fellows, though Fellows could ‘communicate’ papers on behalf of others.
The surviving evidence for the details or timing of editorial practice at this time is scattered through the Council Minutes; it is difficult to form an overall picture, or to generate statistics.
3. What do we know about print run or circulation?
While the Royal Society's printing was carried out by Taylor & Francis, we have detailed information on print run and (see next section) production costs. Price information is more scattered. A large fraction of the print run was reserved for free distribution to the Fellows, but Fellows had to actively claim their copies from the Society's clerk within five years of publication; not all did so. The Society gave away some tens or hundreds of copies as gifts to individuals or institutions. The remainder were available for sale by the Society's printer, or on application at the Society's premises. The Society's archives rarely record price information; we have sometimes been able to acquire this from other sources.
We do not have price or print run information for every year; if we do not have it for your specified year, the table below will show data for the nearest years before and after your specified year; if no data is shown, we have nothing within ten years of your year.
| Cost of an issue/part of Philosophical Transactions | 1.3 (1837, missing data) |
| Cost of purchasing the entire year's Philosophical Transactions | 1.95 (1837) |
| Print run | 1000 (1840) |
| Number of Fellows of the Royal Society | 755 (1840) |
4. What do we know about the financial and commercial aspects of journal publishing?
From 1828 until 1877, the printer to the Royal Society was Taylor & Francis. This is the period for which we have the most detailed information about the costs of printing the Philosophical Transactions.
| Royal Society annual expenditure on publications for 1840 A breakdown of costs may be available | 981.975000 |
| Paper purchased for all RS publications | 150.000000 |
| All RS payments to engravers, lithographers or other suppliers of illustrations | 402.225000 |
| Charges for typesetting and printing of Philosophical Transactions | 406.125000 |
| Income received from sale of publications (if available for 1840) | missing data |
| Net cost of publishing to the Society (if calculable for 1840) | missing data |
| Total expenditure of the Royal Society that year | 450480 |
| Total income of the Royal Society that year | missing data |
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To cite this datasheet:
A. Fyfe et al. (2017), ‘Key facts datasheet for Philosophical Transactions in 1840’, Publishing the Philosophical Transactions, 1665-2015 https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/philosophicaltransactions/keyfacts/1840
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