The success which attended the appearance of the familiar _Tour_ was altogether beyond the expectations of either publisher, artist, or author. The etchings on the plates to _The Poetical Magazine_ were worked fairly away and renewed. In 1812, _The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque_, with thirty-one illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson, was published in a separate form in royal octavo, a fresh set of the much-admired plates, with but the slightest variations, being prepared expressly, and these in turn proved insufficient to supply the number of copies demanded by the delighted public. The _Tour_ had a still larger success in its independent form, and several editions appeared in one season; the request continued for years, and was sufficiently encouraging to induce the projectors to follow it up with a new series, _The Second Tour of Doctor Syntax, in Search of Consolation_, with twenty-four illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson, which also appeared in monthly parts, and was issued in a collected form in one volume, royal octavo, in 1820. A third tour, in _Search of a Wife_, was ventured in 1822, but this was evidently intended to be the final sequel, as the hero, 'Doctor Syntax,' is removed from life's scene at the close.
Returning to Rowlandson's successive contributions of book-illustrations, we find a satirical work, _Munchausen at Walcheren_ issued in 1811; and a _Tale of the Castle_ (Dublin), published by Stockdale in 1812, as _Petticoat Loose, a Fragmentary Poem_, illustrated with four plates by Thomas Rowlandson, quarto.
The artist also issued a series of _Views of Cornwall_ in the form of an independent volume the same year.
Mr. Ackermann had introduced, some years before, an illustrated Miscellany to his subscribers, which ran a long and highly successful career, under the title, borrowed from the circumstances of its publication, of _Ackermann's Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashion, and Manufactures_.
In the pages of this admirable magazine were given many continuous contributions of a valuable and interesting character, the contents being as diversified as the description of the undertaking. Among the serials were numerous essays of merit, which, in the projector's opinion, were entitled to the distinction of separate publication, and, at intervals, the discriminating proprietor of the _Repository_ selected various series of articles by his best qualified and most respected colleagues in the work, and re-issued their contributions, with the enhanced attraction of fresh pictorial embellishments, as separate publications. In this manner a succession of _Letters from Italy_, which had appeared in the _Repository_, between 1809 and 1813, furnished by Lewis Engelbach (who supplied reviews of music; it has been said his criticisms may be usefully studied by the most successful living contributors to the press), were republished in 1815 in one volume, royal octavo, as _Letters from Naples and the Campana Felice_, with seventeen illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson.