Armed Services Editions Part III

Part I of this series introduced the Armed Services Editions published as a cooperative effort by American publishers under the auspices of the Council on Books In Wartime. There was another Armed Services Editions series associated with Pocket Books Inc.

At least 57 books were published by a company called Readers' League of America Inc, a New York publisher. I haven't been able to find any information about Readers' League.

An example is The "Canary" Murder Case by S.S. van Dine. The pictures below show the differences in the covers. Other differences are:

1) on the title page the publisher is changed from "POCKET BOOKS INC. [logo - Gertrude] NEW YORK, 20. N.Y." to "ARMED SERVICES EDITION | READERS' LEAGUE OF AMERICA | NEW YORK, N. Y."

2) on the copyright page of the ASE the printing history has been removed.

Pocket 248 - November 1943

Pocket 248 back

Pocket [248] ASE - no date

Pocket [248] ASE back