Augustan Society Omnibus
The Augustan Society Omnibus was a publication of The Augustan Society, Inc., serving as the Society's official journal from 1973 to 1974 (Books 1-6), and from 1986 to 1993 (Books 7-14). It should not be confused with The Augustan Omnibus, which is the Society's current publication, and from which differs in significant ways.
Physically, each issue was about 164 pp., American letter size, and Perfect Bound. The Contents at first was organized as a collection of the independent publications it was assembled from, often each with their own editor, and which were not published independently as a result. Toward the end of publication, this distinction faded somewhat, partly as a result of including reports from a variety of committees and Study Groups.
The motivation was to reduce the cost and work hours required to publish all of the constituent magazines separately, and to generate a more substantial object that might be left on coffee tables to promote the Society. It was successful in the former aim; less demonstrably so in the latter. The appeal (and economy) of this approach — not to mention the paucity of qualified editors — lead to this format being used twice under this title, and today in a similar form under The Augustan Omnibus.
All but one are still in-print, and a program is under way to make the individual issues contained in the earlier issues available separately (and for consequently lower cost). The motivation for this was the very scarce sales of the full volumes.
