American Politics by Thomas V. Cooper Fireside Publishing Company 1883

In the 1880’s and 1890’s even though Altemus was ramping up its own publishing business, it was still doing some binding for other publishing houses. Here is an example of one of those efforts. This oversized book (9.5 x 6) was published by the Fireside Publishing Company. It is not surprising that Altemus did the binding for this company since Howard Altemus was the manager of the Fireside Publishing Company until he joined his father at Altemus and Company.

Biographies of Cleveland and Hendricks by Gen’l Benjamin La Fevre Baird & Dillon 1884

Here is an example of a Henry Altemus bound book published in 1884 by Baird & Dillon, a Chicago publisher. This is the second Campaign of ’84 Altemus bound book seen so far. Interestingly this is the second of a matching pair of presidential biographies.

Biographies of Blaine and Logan by Thos. V. Copper published by Baird and Dillon, Chicago and New York

Thos. V. Cooper wrote several political books in the 1880’s and early 1990’s. A number of different firms published his books. This book was published by Baird and Dillon in 1884. It is 9.5 x 6.5.

Interestingly the binder was noted on the copyright page as Henry Altemus not Altemus and Company. By the early 1890’s Altemus was concentrating more on publishing its own books.

Several other Campaign of ’84 books which have been published by other firms were bound by Altemus. These will be shown in the future.

Q: I found this book (Cranford) in an attic. Could you please give me any information you have? Thank you.

A: Your book is part of the Stories We Love Series and was published between 1912 and 1916. The books of this series were published in red, green and brown. Originally the book was sold with a labeled box.

For more information see http://henryaltemus.com/series/series171.htm.

The seven books of this series are among the most desirable of Altemus published books. This is mainly because of the numerous Gustave Dore prints in the volumes. There are six formats. The book shown below is part of Format 5. These oversized books have half white vellum covers. The right half of the cover has the title and illustrator lettered in gold gilt.

These books were originally published with plain red canvas dust jackets. These heavy dust jackets were used by a number of publishers in the last decade of the nineteenth century. (Porter and Coates, Estes and Lauriat, and Dana Estes to name a few)

As has been stated before every Altemus hard cover book came with a dust jacket or in a box when originally published.

For more information about the Dore books see http://henryaltemus.com/series/series78.htm.

This 1893-1894 series of 11 books was published until 1896. The books all have a stereotyped white vellum left side of the cover whereas the right side is book specific. The books all originally had dust jackets but the jacketed books are incredibly scarce.

Today I am adding #8 Of The Imitation of Christ to the data base. See http://henryaltemus.com/series/series85.htm for more information.

Altemus published non series editions of Addresses between 1891 and 1893. Four different color covers were printed in 1891-Green, blue, red and silver.

Interestingly, the books of 1891 had either four, five or seven stories. The number of stories is shown on the lower left of the front cover.

The red books have been seen with either four or five stories. Shown here are two red books.

For more information see http://www.henryaltemus.com/images/NS_2.htm

Q: I am hoping for some help identifying the year this was printed. There is a signature dated on the inside cover with 1896 and the introduction is dated 1878. The title is Tales from Shakespeare.

Thanks for your help!

A: Your book was published in 1896 and is part of the Petit Trianon Series. This series of reprints originally was published with a labeled box. In 1896 the left side of the front cover is common to all of the books but the right side has been seen with a number of different decorative patterns.

For more information see http://henryaltemus.com/series/series141.htm.

It only has nominal value.

More than 99% of Altemus’s books were published in series formats. There were 152 non series books published by Altemus.

Here is a new non-series book that was published in 1895.

Q: This book (Tales from Shakespeare) belonged to my mother. What can you tell me about it? It has an Introduction dated October 1878.

A: Your book is part of the World’s Classics Series and was published between 1912 and 1916. The books have been seen in red, green or brown. All of the books originally came within labeled boxes. The titles in this series are reprints.

For more information see http://henryaltemus.com/series/series196.htm