Q: Hello. I’m 13 years old. When working at an estate sale this summer, I bought a book. This book was titled “Bryant’s Poems” The cover of this book looks like the 1909 book “crown of wild olive” with a different paste-on picture. When I brought the book home, I saw that on the inside cover, there were two names, one in pencil and one in pen. The first one was in pencil, and it read “Mary E. Beck. 1892” the other read “A. Marie (something in tight cursive that I couldn’t read), 1965. I researched this book on the Henry Altemus Company webpage because it read “Philadelphia, Henry Altemus Publishing Company” on the second page, but found that they didn’t have any information on any of William Cullen Bryant’s books from 1892 that I could find. The inside cover or any pages after offer any help in identifying anything about this book. If you have any information on this series and could tell me when it was written and possibly how much it’s worth, (though I have no intention of selling it.) I would be very grateful. Thank you for your help!

A: This book is part of the Vademecum Series and was published between 1909-1912. It originally came in a labeled red box.
The 1892 date does not signify when the book was published but has some other meaning. Perhaps someone’s birthday.

Your book was quite popular in these years and was reprinted by many companies, including Altemus.

Because it is not a widely collectible title and because it is not in great shape, it has nominal value only.

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

A picture of a red box is shown.