| Vademecum Series (#179-180) ..... and European Artists
The Vademecum Series is a multivolumed, multiauthored series of books that was published between 1894 and 1926. The covers of the books as well as the titles changed from year to year. This series is one of a number of publisher’s series that printed the same titles but in different formats.
In the Vademecum Series there were more than 24 different covers over the years. These covers appeared in numerous different colors and/or with numerous paste-on (applique) pictures.
Between 1894 and 1898 there were as many as 109 titles. Starting in 1899 there were varying numbers of titles up to the maximum of 187 titles. Some years the Vademecum Series included all the books on the list. Other years, without rhyme or reason, some titles would be dropped only to reappear another year.
Reprints of Poe, Carroll, Hawthorne in addition to the writings of Emerson, Kipling, Longfellow and many, many others made up the Vademecum list.
The same book list was used by many of the Publisher’s series. The later list (from 1899 on) was in alphabetical order. The earlier one was a random book list.
Perhaps the most interesting of the Vademecum books are the ones published between 1901-1907. During this period of time there were 6 different covers which had paintings by European artists as appliques on the front covers of the books. Because of the width of the original paintings, two books may have parts of the same painting but may look totally different because they have different sections of the painting on their covers.
To further explain, note the pictures. Each of these 1903 covers look quite different even though the pictures on the front of the covers are really from the same painting. Because of this it is somewhat difficult to absolutely quantitate the number of different book covers there are. Nonetheless, as is shown below, I have designated at this point in time 38 different pictures (although the number of paintings is lower).
Thus a specific title will have at least 38 different covers times the number of different colors the cover has been seen in. So if a Vademecum book format has 7 different color covers (like the 1903 books), then a certain title could be seen with 266 different covers.
1903 |
1907 |
1907a |
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1902 |
1901a |
1901 |
The 1901 books are the only ones that have been seen with the Alphonse Mucha paintings in addition to the Euro-pean artists’ paintings. A discussion of these works can be seen in the update section of this website -the September 22, 2007 comments.
I am including the 38 European paintings below as well as the three Mucha covers seen so far. I suspect it is an in-complete list. New pictures and new composites which include more than one cover will be added as they are obtained.
I have arbitrarily numbered these pictures for ease in identification.
As noted above some of the covers are comprised of parts of a larger painting. This has been seen with #5 and #18, #25 and #26, #14 and #20, #4 and #27, #13 and #33, #3 and #16, #15 and #22, #10 and #17, and #9 and #21.
1. Large windowed house |
2. Mountain over water |
3. Giant tree/sidewalk |
4. Light house |
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5. Red roof/people sitting |
6. 2 rowboats |
7. Large sailboat |
8. Distant sailboat |
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9. Buildings on the water |
10. Pine tree behind winter tree |
10. right |
11. Man walking in the woods/winter |
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12. Big waves/rocks |
13. Big circle on pic |
13-left |
13-right |
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14. House behind pond |
15. Three trees |
16. Wooden house with red chimney/man by fence |
16-left |
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17. House behind trees/rock |
18. Hay in field |
19. Large trees/stump in front |
20. Red trees |
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21. People on sidewalk |
22. Rock wall with house behind |
23. Waves front/angle mntn in back |
24. Giant mntn behind still water |
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25. Giant oak tree next to water |
26. One clapboard with chimney |
27. Sailboat with red rag flag |
28. 2 clapboards with chimney |
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29. Grass water grass sky (nondescript) |
30. People under a tree |
31. Sailboat with distant lighthouse |
32. Big rock, waves, distant sailboats |
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33. Distant white house in the trees |
34. Boat tied in water/calm waves |
35. Multiple rocks on hillside |
36. |
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37. |
38. |
1901 Mucha - Winter |
1901 Mucha - Spring |
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1901 Mucha - Summer |
Colors:
Not every color has been seen with each of these 6 covers.
Here is a key for which color covers have been seen in which years.
1. Blue 1901, 1902, 1903, 1907a
2. Light blue 1901, 1902, 1903, 1907
3. Red 1901a, 1902, 1903
4. Maroon 1903
5. Green 1901a, 1902, 1903, 1907, 1907a
6. Brown 1901, 1901a, 1903, 1907
7. Deep Blue 1902, 1903
8. Pink 1902
9. White/tan 1907, 1907a
10. Beige 1901a, 1907
11. Olive green 1901, 1902, 1907a
#5 and #18 |
#25 and #26 |
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#14 and #20 |
#4 and #27 |
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#13 and #33 |
#3 and #16 |
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#15 and #22 |
#10 and #17 |
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#9 and #21 |
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