Henry Altemus Company

Book of Love Series

A new format has been found in this series. Format 3. Limp velvet. Title in gold gilt. Boxed. 6 x 4.5. Published beginning in 1915.

Life of Service Series

Numbers 21-28 were added to the series in 1926-1927 in format 4.

Series #121-addendum
Life of Service
21. Gold Dust
22. Daily Food for Christians
23. Morning Thoughts-Havergal
24. Evening Thoughts- Havergal
25. Of the Imitation of Christ- A. Kempis
26. Line Upon Line
27. The Peep of Day
28. The Shepherd Psalm- Meyer

Format 4. Volumes 1-16, 21-28. Plain blue non decorative Cover. Gold script title in upper left of the cover. Purple Dust jacket matches the cover. Spine of the book has title in block letters.

Conversational Dictionaries

The Altemus Conversational Dictionaries were 4 in number. It appears the first three books were published in 1896. French, Italian and German. The fourth- Spanish- was printed later-probably in 1903. The 1896 versions had end papers replete with praise for the first books. Later the end papers were plain.

Only one format: Cloth. Seen in burgundy, green, and light brown. Gold gilt title on the ribbed spine. 3 x 4.

Standard 12 Mos.

Format 1 - All 4 books have the stereotyped silver gilt decorative front cover pattern which is shown here. In addition at least three of the books (Alice, Tales and Lucile) also have the very attractive pictorial book appropriate designs in silver and inks. Examples are shown here.

Little Color Books - New Series discovered

Two books of the same format have been discovered. These books clearly are part of the same series but are not listed in any Altemus catalogue or advertisement. Both of these books were part of the Little Color Books Series published by Thomas Nelson in 1927. The Altemus books have neither copyright dates nor advertisements but both have inscriptions stating 1933. I would guess they were published in the early 1930s.

There were ten books listed by Nelson but it is not clear how many were published by Altemus.

The two discovered books are:
1. Adventures of Chippybobbie by Mildred Batchelder. Illustrated by Hawley Morgan.
2. Podgy Puppy and Naughty Neddy by Clara G. Dennis. Illustrated by Alan Wright and Anne Anderson

Format. Red cloth cover with yellow applique which has the title and author and a small line drawn picture of the title character. Numerous color illustrations on glossy paper. 6.25 x 4.75. I have not seen a dust jacket but undoubtedly they had one.

Riviere Series

A second format has been seen for the Riviere Series #158. The books seen are light green or blue. Gold gilt ribbon decoration on the top of the front cover which encloses a rectangular box which spells out the book title in gold gilt on a beige background. 7 x 4.5.

Christmas Gift Series

The Christmas Gift Series was never noted in any Altemus catalogues or advertisements. The books came boxed with a piece of holly attached to the front cover of the book. It is unclear how many books were in the series. At this point we know that there are at least 25 books because a boxed book with the paper label stating Altemus Christmas Gift Series- Stepping Heavenward has been seen and it was numbered #25. Since the box containing The Courtship of Miles Standish has the number 7, it is assumed that this series like so many other Altemus Series is numbered with the books in alphabetical order. Thus, the total number of books is probably somewhere inthe neighborhood of 30.

Wee Books for Wee Folks & Wee Folks Peter Rabbit Series

Early Peter Rabbit books were part of the Wee Books for Wee Folks Series. It is generally thought that as of 1917 [when three new Peter Rabbit books were introduced] that they joined with the first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, to make up the first 4 volumes of the Wee Folks Peter Rabbit Series. There is now evidence that this is not correct. In fact it appears that the second through fourth books (Went to Sea, At the Farm, and Christmas) initially were all part of the Wee Books for Wee Folks Series (#186).

These four books at first all had Wee Books for Wee Folk's on top of their title pages. It seems that they were only part of the Wee Folks Series in 1917. Books published in 1918 which were part of the Wee Books for Wee Folks Series list these four books as part of the Wee Folks Peter Rabbit Series.

Remember that the cover lettering on all the 1917-1921 Wee Books was yellow (Except Peter Rabbit's Christmas and the Night Before Christmas which were red).

Frank Schell Ballentine Books Series

Series 90 which includes two books was thought to always have purple covers. Today a book has been added to the picture section with the same cover pattern but in orange.

Petit Trianon Series

Many of Altemus' publisher's series had various types and styles of artwork on the front covers. (See section on Publisher's Series). In 1901-2 one of the formats of the Petit Trianon Series was half vellum. The other half had an art nouveau illustration of a young lady in various poses. At this time two different illustrations have been seen that were initially posters done by Alphonse Mucha.

Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) was a well known Czech artist who excelled in the art nouveau arena with works designed for magazine covers, books, posters etc. It is most likely that Altemus appropriated these works for some of their covers without paying royalties. Mucha was not given credit within the books where his work appeared on the covers.

Below are two examples of the original and the cover illustrations - Poetry and Lady with Rose. As can be seen, they are close copies but the Altemus artists have revised them slightly.