Constable Archibald

Constable, Archibald, was born at Carnbee, Fifeshire, in 1774. and was apprenticed early to a bookseller in Edinburgh. He took great interest in the business, being an assiduous collector of rare works bearing on Scottish history or literature. In 1796 he started on his own account as a publisher, and his liberality soon made him popular with authors, the Farmers' Magazine, The Scots' Magazine, The Edinburgh Review, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Annual Register, and Constable's Miscellany were brought out by him, together with important works by Dugald Stewart, Playfair, Brown, and Leslie. But his greatest title to fame rests on his connection with Sir Walter Scott, which dated from 1802, when the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border was produced, and extended until 1827, the date of his death. During the greater portion of this long period the relations between the author, the publisher, and Ballantyne, the printer, were quite amicable and straightforward. Scott, however, having inextricably involved himself with Constable, appears to have desired to free himself from his obligations, and to start a new business with John Ballantyne, the printer's brother, as its nominal head. The scheme ended in failure, and Constable generously rescued the partners from immediate disaster, but the commercial depression of 1825 overtook them all, and bankruptcy ensued, the liabilities amounting to a quarter of a million. Constable's health broke under the shock, and he died in 1827.