LA Bantam - Jokes and Wisecracks

The 6th book published by Bantam Publications is Everybody's Book of Jokes and Wisecracks compiled by Jerome Gregory. This appears to be an original collection.

In common with all but one of LA Bantam's books Jokes and Wisecracks is 100 pages long and is 110 mm (4 5/16") wide by 152 mm (6") tall. Cover and pages are made from high acid pulp paper. The page collation is:

[1] title page,
2-100 Jokes and Wisecracks.

The copyright date, 1940, is on the title page.

The strong blue/light green cover shown below is the only one of which I'm aware.

Bantam 6 - 1940

Dust Jackets Part III

In 1942 Penguin began publishing in the USA. By 1948 the Penguin US effort had stalled and the New American Library of World Literature (NAL) took over. Six of the original Penguin USA titles were later released with dust jackets, some by NAL under the new Signet imprint. Here is one plus a DJ British Penguin.

Penguin 545 - second printing - October 1946

Penguin 545 back

Signet 545 DJ - c.1948

Signet 545 DJ back

Penguin A70 - 1940

Penguin A70 back

Penguin A70 DJ

Penguin A70 DJ back

Animal Farm Part I

In my first Orwell post I highlighted his most famous book. Here's the next most famous. Three editions from Penguin - the first, the latest and one in between. The last two have supplementary material.

Penguin 838 - 1951

Penguin 838 back

Animal Farm - 1989

Animal Farm 1989 back

Animal Farm - 2013

Animal Farm 2013 back

Dust Jackets Part II

Among the 27 dust jacketed Bantams from the late 1940s is No Place to Hide, a straightforward diary of a young doctor's involvement with the fourth nuclear explosion at Bikini on July 1, 1946. The original front cover is a tad misleading, as is the DJ version. In 1983 a third edition was published by the University Press of New England.

Bantam 421 - March 1949

Bantam 421 back

Bantam 421 DJ front

Bantam 421 DJ back

Dust Jackets Part I

One of my collecting interests is vintage paperbacks with dust jackets. Britain leads the way with Penguin alone publishing some 400 books with jackets between 1935 and 1940. There were also a few dozen in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

In the US there are scattered examples from half-a-dozen publishers. Here are three examples - two from Penguin and one from Bantam who published 27 in the late 1940s.

Penguin 260 DJ - 1940

Penguin 260 DJ back

Penguin 67 DJ - 1936

Penguin 67 DJ back

Bantam 26 DJ - March 1946

Bantam 26 DJ back

Bantam 26

Bantam 26 back