Henry Altemus Company - Wee Books for Wee Folks (first two formats) Series 185

Series Name:
Publish Dates:
Topic:

Wee Books for Wee Folks (first two formats)
1904 - 1917
Fairy Tales

Series Number:
Volumes:
Formats:

185
6
2

	Title:	Author:	Year:	Illustrator:
1	Nursery Tales (Mother Goose)	Anonymous	1904	Neill, John R.
2	Nursery Rhymes (Mother Goose)	Anonymous	1904	Neill, John R.
3	Tale of Peter Rabbit	Potter, Beatrix	1904	Unknown
4	Foolish Fox	Anonymous	1904	Neill, John R.
5	Three Little Pigs	Anonymous	1904	Neill, John R.
6	Robber Kitten	Anonymous	1904	Neill, John R.

Henry Altemus Company      Format: 1      Volumes: 1 - 6
Half Vellum. Right half of the front cover has an oval within which is a pictorial multicolored book appropriate picture. The left half has a line drawn decoration with gold gilt title and series name. Line drawn pictures on endpapers. These six books originally were boxed. Three combinations are noted. Nursery Tales with Nursery Rhymes, Three Little Pigs with The Robber Kitten and The Tale of Peter Rabbit with The Foolish Fox. These sets are clearly the rarest of any Altemus boxed sets. Some of the books of this format have been seen with the earliest Format 2 dust jackets. This jacket is the one that lists the Mother Goose Series. These books were probably mismatched with the later Format 2 jackets and probably were not part of the two book boxed sets. 5.5" x 4.25".

Henry Altemus Company      Format: 2a      Volumes: 1 - 6
Green cloth with multicolored line drawn book appropriate illustration. A variant cover color of bluish grey has been seen with the Nursery Tales and the Robber Kitten. The Three Little Pigs in this format is yellow (see picture below). A brown cloth cover has been seen with the Nursery Tales book. Endpapers identical to those seen in #1. Dust jacket matches the book. The jacket is uncoated brown. 5.5 x 4.25

Henry Altemus Company      Format: 2b      Volumes: 1 - 6
Beige cloth with an otherwise identical cover picture to #2a. Plain endpapers. Dust jacket matches the book. Early books in this format (around 1912) had the uncoated brown dust jackets. Later books (after 1914) had the coated white jackets.

There are some copies of this format that were published as late as 1918. These copies have eight Wee Books listed on the reverse of the title page. Of note is The Tale of Peter Rabbit which was spun off into its own series in 1918 is not in the listing of eight books.

Henry Altemus Company      Format: 2c      Volumes: 1 - 6
Blue-grey covers but otherwise identical to format 2b. Dust jackets matches the book.

Series Notes:
1. The true first edition American piracy of The Tale of Peter Rabbit is found here in format 1. For more information, see: http://henryaltemus.com/peter_rabbit/peterrabbit.htm
2. See Wee Books for Wee Folks written section for details regarding formats, dates, name changes, etc.
3. Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Tales changed names in 1916 to Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes and Mother Goose Nursery Tales.
4. For information about the Platt and Munk reprints of this series click here.
See Wee Books for Wee Folks Series section for complete format information.

Format 1 #1	Format 1 #2	Format 1 #3	Format 1 #4

Format 1 #5	Format 1 #6	Format 1 #6 Dust Jacket

Format 2a #1 Dust Jacket	Format 2a #1	Format 2a #1 - Variant	Format 2a #2

Format 2a #2 Variant	Format 2a #3 Dust Jacket		Format 2a #3

Format 2a #4 Dust Jacket		Format 2a #4	Format 2a #5

Format 2a #6 Dust Jacket	Format 2a #6	Format 2a #6 Variant	Format 2a DJ Reverse

Format 2b #1	Format 2b #1 Variant	Format 2b #1 Later DJ	Format 2b #1 Later

Format 2b #2	Format 2b #2 Later	Format 2b #3 Dust Jacket	Format 2b #3

Format 2b #4 Dust Jacket	Format 2b #4	Format 2b #5 Dust Jacket	Format 2b #5

Format 2b #6 Dust Jacket	Format 2b #6	Format 2b DJ Reverse	Format 2c #2

Format 2c #3	Format 2c #6

Salesman Samples

This piece includes the attached covers of three of the six books of the Format 1 Wee Books for Wee Folks Series (#185). No other information about this item exists.