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.