The Gustave Dore illustrated books of Series 78 are among the most desired and collected of all Altemus books. Certainly they are not the scarcest but the large Dore illustrations drive the desirability. The volumes were published between 1889 and 1903. It is not unusual for these books to sell in the hundreds of dollars.

There are six books in the series not including one German language edition. See http://henryaltemus.com/series/series78.htm

There are several different formats but the most commonly seen books have the beautiful gold gilt designs on the cover. This fact also drives the collectors’ willingness to pay the big dollars. As to the point that these books are fairly common, there are presently 10 books from this series on Ebay and 54 for sale on ABE.

Here are two examples:

The absolute rarest format of these books (Format 6) is the Presentation Edition which was published only in 1889. This style is only on four of the titles of this series. The Presentation Edition is bound with fine bullion silk. Satin ribbons are stamped in gold and bound into the covers.

Today I am adding another Presentation Edition to the database. This is only the second one I have seen over the years. It is distinctly rarer than the other Dore books.

For more information about this series see http://henryaltemus.com/series/series78.htm.

Today I am adding two new Dust Jacket pictures to the database. Both of these pictures are for Series 186. (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series186.htm). Both books are hard to find with or without jackets. This format’s Alice Through the Looking Glass is much harder to find than the common Young People’s Library version.

The Slovenly Betsy book is one of the rarest Wee Books and this is the only one I have seen in jacket and for that matter is one of only a few copies I have seen with or without a jacket over the years.

I purchased these books from Two Dog Books which still has a number of jacketed Wee Books for sale. (twodogbooks@columbus.rr.com)

Henry Altemus Company published several series of Wee Books. These series mostly consisted of small (5.5 x 4.5) books with a 2.5 x 3.5 paste-on (applique) on the front cover. The dust jackets almost always matched the front covers of the books. The exceptions are very rare.

Here is an exception from the Little Bunnie Bunniekin Series (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series124.htm). Book #2 is Little Mousie Mousiekin. Shown below is this title’s cover and the more common dust jacket and the rare variant dust jacket. The rare dust jacket’s cover is the same as the frontispiece.

Q: I came across your website when I was researching the worth of this book (Rip Van Winkle). The copyright date on the inside cover is 1896. Being that old, I would consider it to be in good shape. However it is signed from a teacher to her student on the inside cover and I am not sure what that does to the worth of a book. I am just curious to know what you think this book is worth.

A: Your book is part of the Love and Friendship Series. http://henryaltemus.com/series/series127.htm.
This cover design was seen in the Format 1 books which were first published in 1901.

These books had a stereotypical design on the left of the front cover. On the right was one of sixteen flowers. Your book has the daffodil on it.

Without the dust jacket it only has nominal value.

This publisher’s series of reprints changed its cover design on an almost yearly basis. In 1901-1902 there were two different cover patterns. The picture shown here is an example of one of them. See http://henryaltemus.com/series/series143.htm for other examples.

On the left side is a decorative floral pattern. It has been seen in beige and pink. The pink is very uncommonly seen. On the right side of the cover is one of sixteen flower pictures. The book shown here is the “Apple Blossom”.

This series of five books was published from 1906 into the 1930′s. It can be extremely hard to determine which are the earlier books and which are the later books especially if there is no dust jacket. Since I am adding some new pictures this series page today (http://henryaltemus.com/series/series199.htm), I thought this would be a good opportunity to review these books and their editions.

Each book was published in one of three editions.

First edition:
There is a full page cover paste-on (applique) which is surrounded by a green line. The frontispiece is on grey paper.

Second edition:
The cover illustration is drawn on the book cover cloth. There is no paste-on. Frontispiece is on white paper.

Third edition:
There is a full cover applique without a green line border. The frontispiece is on white paper. It says “Printed in the United States of America” at the base of the copyright page. This latter point indicates a post-1922 publication.

The Petit Trianon Series was a series of reprints that was published between 1895 and 1910. In 1897 the covers of the books all had a stereotypical left sided pattern of triangular groupings of dots. On the right side there were various floral and decorative patterns. Today I am adding a new floral design for this format to the database.

Now there are fourteen different covers known. To see them look here: http://henryaltemus.com/series/series141.htm. It is unknown how many were published in total.

Q: We just stumbled upon this book (Walden) and thought maybe it could be worth something. It appears to be complete and in pretty good condition with the exception of one loose page. Can you tell us more about it and maybe a possible value?

A: Your book is part of the Vademecum Series and was published between 1909 and 1912. Originally it came within a red labeled box.

For more on this series see http://henryaltemus.com/series/series180.htm

As with all the books of this series, it is a reprint and has only nominal value.

This series of reprints was first published in 1895. Each year or two until the series was discontinued in 1910 the front cover changed. The book shown below was published in 1895-1896. This format had the acorn pattern on the left of the cover and various floral designs on the right. Interestingly this is the only book that I have seen in this format that has actual pictures within the floral pattern. As you can see there are portraits and a stairway in the repeating pattern on the right.

This right sided pattern is the 12th different one shown in the database. See http://henryaltemus.com/series/series141.htm.
It is not known how many others designs there are.

This three book series is quite uncommon. It was published in 1918.

The titles are:
1. Peep of Day
2. Line Upon Line
3. Precept Upon Precept

For more information about the series see: http://henryaltemus.com/series/series140.htm

Today I am adding the dust jacket picture for book #2 in the series. All three books were jacketed with the jackets matching the front cover.