Cadell and the Crash

It is as clear as the shining sun that all of us—I mean you, Ballantyne, and we—are wading,—that we have all too much existence by wind-capital,—that such a capital constantly floating is at all times to be deprecated, but in times like the present must be removed; if it is not, we will all of us be removed into the Bankrupt List.

—Robert Cadell to Joseph Ogle Robinson, 14 January 1826¹

On 21 January 1826, Robert Cadell prepared a mandate for sequestrating Archibald Constable and Co. It was a calamitous end to one of the most innovative and distinguished publishing houses of the early nineteenth century. It shocked both the book trade and the wider public, as it threatened to ruin not only the venerated Archibald Constable and the talented printer James Ballantyne, but the world's widest read living poet and novelist, Sir Walter Scott. The tragic effects of the sequestration, or bankruptcy, on Scott are well known, but the events leading up to it are far less evident because Cadell, the central player in the drama, has remained in the background.²

Cadell, pictured in figure 1, operated as Constable and Co.'s chief financial officer, making the day-to-day decisions about paying the bills, borrowing money, and negotiating with the trade as well as the firm's authors. Cadell joined the publishing house in 1807 as a nineteen-year-old clerk and became a partner four years later. He established a firm relationship with Scott and, as the firm's head of finance, became regularly frustrated with Constable's lavish spending. In her seminal work, Scott's Last Edition, Jane Millgate details how Cadell set out on his own as the publisher of Scott's novels, producing a collected edition of Waverley novels from 1829 to 1833, also known as the magnum opus edition.³ Its success led to other editions, which helped to expand Scott's already considerable readership and repay his creditors.

Fig 1.

Robert Cadell, from a portrait by Sir John Watson Gordon. The plate is extracted from James L. Caw, The Scott Gallery: A Series of One Hundred and Forty-Six Photogravures (Edinburgh: T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1903).

Cultural and economic theorists like Pierre Bourdieu and Martha Woodmansee have shown that authors must negotiate carefully the intersection of literary production and finance. This was certainly the case for Scott. Following the crash, Cadell operated as the unacknowledged facilitator of what Caroline McCracken-Flesher has described as "the intertwined relationship between Scott's finances, his status, and national reputation."⁴ The great profits that resulted from Cadell's privileged position and his unwillingness to invest in less remunerative authors severely diminished any symbolic capital that arose from his association with Scott. A good example of his marginal status is the famous 1849 painting by Thomas Faed of an imaginary gathering, entitled Sir Walter Scott and His Literary Friends at Abbotsford(figure 2).⁵ Most of the well-known figures in Scott's circle are present, including Ballantyne and Constable. Cadell was not "literary" enough to appear, even though a publisher and printer—enthusiastic capitalists both—were deemed fit to join the grouping. Scott's immense stature meant that Cadell, as Constable before him, could lay claim to both symbolic and financial capital, but he was far too interested in the latter to concern himself with the former. Comparing the two paintings brings this distinction into sharp relief: on the one hand an upright Cadell impatiently sits while holding correspondence (or possibly bills) while Scott's friends are more contemplatively reposed or earnestly engaged in discussion. The cultural politics that omitted Cadell from the painting have also marginalized his role in the crash, limiting our understanding of this pivotal event in British publishing history.⁶ Indeed, when Cadell has been mentioned, he is often portrayed as

Fig 2.

Sir Walter Scott and His Literary Friends at Abbotsford, by Thomas Faed (1849). Scottish National Portrait Gallery. The painting was produced from...