Nana's Mother

One of the pleasures of mid-century mass market paperbacks is comparing them with current editions. Title renaming, abridgements and cover art are all points of change. Here's a good example. 

Nana's Mother was published by Avon Books in 1950. The title is, unusually, not an Avon creation. It is seen on the title page of the first American edition (Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson, 1879). But the cover is most definitely an Avon - a 1940s Hollywood version of mid nineteenth century France.

L'Assommoir is the seventh in Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle of twenty novels, published in 1877. The Oxford edition is approximately 2 1/4 times longer than the Avon. 

Oxford - 2009

Oxford back

Avon 271 - 1950

Avon 271 back

Armed Services Editions Part IV

In my last post in this series I talked about the Armed Services Editions published by Reader's League of America, a New York publisher. There are actually three different versions of these editions. 

The first I describe in the last post. The second isn't called an Armed Services Edition but has the Reader's League as publisher. The third is described as "Special edition for free distribution to members of the armed services by the American Red Cross" and looks like the regular ASE edition.

Here is an example of each of the first and second types.

Reader's League "The Pocket Book of Boners",  nn, nd

Reader's League "The Pocket Book of Boners", back

Reader's Legue "Red Harvest", nn, nd

Reader's League "Red Harvest", back

Mrs Robinson

"I feel funny coming into a dark house," she said.

"But its light in there now."

The Graduate

One of my favourite movies, and books. Added bonus is the first Penguin printing has a special feature - a dust jacket added when the movie came out.

The first six or seven years of Penguins had dust jackets. Then a few dozen in the late forties and early fifties. This is the only one I know of from the sixties.

 

Penguin 2693 - 1967

 

Penguin 2693 back

 

Penguin 2693 dust jacket

 

Penguin 39th - no date

 

Penguin 39th back

Frankenstein Editions Part I

Next in a series of classic text editions.

Frankenstein is almost 200 years old and has seen English language versions too many to numerate. Here are two recent editions plus one from New York's Lion Books. It is the 1831 version as are London publisher's Vintage and the Pulp! The Classics from Harpenden's (UK) Oldcastle Books.

 

Lion 146 - 1953

 

Lion 146 back

 

PTC009 - 2014

 

PTC009 back

 

Vintage - 2015

 

Vintage back

Hyde Editions Part I

One of my collecting interests is the many editions of titles that continue to be published. An example is Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. First published in 1886 every year brings new editions. Here are two from 2014 plus an edition from Boston's Bailey & Co. published in 1887. This is number 20 in their New England Series and includes four other Stevenson stories.

London publisher's Vintage edition has five other stories while the Pulp! The Classics edition from Harpenden's (UK) Oldcastle Books has none.

 

Bailey - 1887

 

Bailey back

 

PTC-115 - 2014

 

 

PTC-115 back

 

Vintage - 2014

 

Vintage back

The Unnatural Son - A Lost Mark Twain?

Complete, unexpurgated. A Royal Books Giant Edition from New York publisher Universal Publishing and Distributing Corporation. Matched with A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. The Unnatural Son - a lost Mark Twain?

No. Pudd'nhead Wilson disguised, sort of.

 

Royal Giant 28 - 1953

 

Royal Giant 28 back 

 

The John Harvard Library - 2015

 

The John Harvard Library back

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