Tom Brown Series - Hurst & Company

Hurst & Company (1883-)

New York. Hurst was founded by Thomas Hurst in 1871. Throughout its publishing life it mostly published books in series form. Titles in cloth as well as in wraps are noted. In the early 1900's until its demise in 1919 it also published numerous first issue juvenile series. The Tom Brown books for the most part were issued in the various series.

In 1883, the first Hurst series to include Tom Brown were the Arlington Edition of Standard Classics and Hurst's Popular Classics. This latter series only included School Days. It was an 18 mo book. The former series ran into the early 1900's.

The Arundel Series was published semi-weekly in 1889. Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby is #9 in the series.

Hurst & Company published School Days in wraps in July, 1892 in its Universal Library. I have seen two different covers for this book with the exact same date.

Both Tom Brown books were published in the New Argyle Series in 1898 and for several years into the early 1900's. This series followed the Argyle Series which was published first in 1896. Initially the Argyle Series included both titles. The covers of the Argyle Series changed every year or so. Several are shown below.

Both titles were published in the Young America Library. This series ran for a number of years in the early 1900's.

Between 1904 and 1906 Hurst's Fairy Tale Series included Tom Brown's School Days.

Hurst's Books for Boys was a publisher's series that included the reprints of books written by Optic, Verne, Mayne Reid, Castlemon and many other. This series included both Tom Brown books. These books had numerous different covers and dust jackets in the familiar juvenile series format. A couple of examples are shown below. This series was published between 1901 and 1915.

Between 1902 and 1919 Tom Brown’s School Days was part of Hurst's Presentation Series.
(The book published between 1902 and 1909 has not been seen.)

Other Hurst series from the first decade of the 20th century which included the Tom Brown books were Laurelhurst Series (School Days only in 1910), Best Value Books (School Days only- 1912-1915), the Popular Two Volume Sets in 1915, and the Every Boys Library (Both books between 1908 and 1910)

In 1918-1919 Hurst published the Companion Books. School days was included in this large publisher's series of reprints. The covers of these books was made of a soft leather.