Q: I have a question about this book that I found in my mother’s collection: it’s an “Illustrated Vademecum Series” reprint of Tennyson’s In Memoriam. I read from other pages on your site that in this series, books were published essentially every year, and that the covers varied yearly. Upon examining your tables, the closest I could come to an accurate date for my book was the 1899-1926 range. I saw another user’s book, however, that was not “In Memoriam,” but that had a very similar cover design to mine; his was from 1901-2. So my question is this: is my book, too, from this same year? If not, when is it from? From your information about how the publisher was cited, my book’s “Henry Altemus Company” tells me that it is from after 1900, I believe.

A: Actually your book is part of the Petit Trianon Series and was published in 1903-1904. It is a reprint and originally came with a labeled box.

The 1903 books had a stereotyped pedestal picture on the left side of the cover. This left cover design has been seen in blue, pink and beige. Some 1903 books were published with the same pedestal on the left but they were in ooze calf.

The cloth books have one of sixteen different flowers on the right of the cover.

A lot of Altemus books which are not Vademecum books have the Vademecum Series listed in the ads in the back of the book.

This particular book in this format is not that common but scarcity and value do not necessarily go hand in hand. Because it is not a very collectible book, it has very limited value.