Neill's Bride Book

 I’ve posted in the past about The Bride Her Wedding Book (see here), a lovely little volume illustrated by John R. Neill in 1914, and published by the Reilly & Britton Co. I’ve picked up a few variations of the book since then, showing a couple different binding styles.

The most elaborate seems to be this, a book bound in a pictorial leatherette of some sort. The cover image of orange blossom is different from any of the other bindings I've seen, and the page edges are gilded. The blossom design is taken from a watercolor, presumably by Neill; the lettering is certainly his. This copy also includes the loose certificate that was originally inserted in the book, to be filled out by the wedding officiant.

Next up is this, sold as the “Board Edition”. This book has a padded vellum cover with a lovely drawing of roses, printed in color. This is definitely a Neill drawing - in fact they’re the same roses used on the wedding certificate - and the same lettering from the previous version is used, though in a different arrangement. This copy includes its original striped glassine dustwrapper and cardboard box. It’s interesting to note that the title on the box is The Bride Her Own Book, a slightly shortened version of the cover title. The certificate is present in this copy as well.

Here we have another version, this time the “Cloth Edition”. The book is bound in a fine grey cloth over beveled boards, and another new design is on the cover. This time it’s a single rose, stamped in gilt, with a re-designed title. This copy also retains its dustwrapper and box; the glassine wrapper has a moire pattern, and the box is considerably thinner due to the flat, rather than padded, covers of the book.

When the publisher changed their name to Reilly & Lee, the same basic design continued to be used. The cover is now a cream colored cloth, and the boards are no longer beveled. It’s still a lovely little book, but less luxurious, and by this time the printing of the finely detailed illustrations is a bit less sharp.

I believe there is at least one other variation of this cover. It appears to be bound in a glossy white textured cardboard, using the same imagery as above. The poor photo shown is from an old auction listing. With any luck I’ll run across one of these someday and learn more details!

The simple certificate that was included with the volume is shown on the right.

A Golden Road

The original edition of The Road to Oz is one of the handful of Oz books featuring a jacket with a different design than the cover of the book. On the 1909 Reilly & Britton first edition, the book itself has a stamped cover and the jacket is a lovely watercolor of Dorothy and friends, with a metallic gold background. The metallic ink was only used on the earliest copies, and the jacket soon changed to a yellow or blue background, finally settling on yellow after 1920. When Reilly & Britton became Reilly & Lee and dropped the stamped cover, the jacket design was put to use as a paper label. Metallic jackets are few and far between - I don’t own one, the photo shown below on the right is a later version of the jacket with a blue background.

A little while back, I was involved in some discussions concerning the Road to Oz dust jacket, spurred by a fragment of a metallic gold Road jacket. On closer examination, questions arose as to the authenticity of the piece; in the end, it appeared to be a much later jacket that had been altered with gold paint. I thought it would be interesting to see how difficult it might be to do this, and decided to create a copy of the book with a metallic label. I chose to do this to a book rather than a jacket, as it would be a sturdier base to work on, and jackets - even on later printings - are still uncommon enough that I didn’t want to destroy one! The original book was never published this way.

Different shades of yellow were used on the later printings of Road, varying from pale (which is rather attractive) to quite bright. I happened to have a late 1940’s/early 1950’s copy with the bright yellow background that I dislike. I masked the cover using frisket (an adhesive film), and cut out the background areas. With a couple passes of gold spray paint, I had created a non-existent variant of the book! The above photo shows the result. The book on the left is another copy of the standard cover, and on the right is my metallic version. It didn't take long, and the result is actually rather attractive!

 

Dust Jackets

Recently, I’ve been scanning a number of dust jackets for Mark Terry at Facsimile Dust Jackets. He offers a large line of dust jacket reproductions for numerous books, including the Oz titles. I was able, along with several other collectors, to help fill the gaps so that an entire run of first state Oz jackets are now available.

Although the metallic inks are missing from Emerald City, Road, and Dorothy and the Wizard, the jackets are beautifully restored and very presentable. There are some very rare jackets represented, which are fun to see, and there are other non-Oz Baum and Thompson titles available - on the left is an example of an original Sky Island together with the reproduction.

While a facsimile jacket doesn't add significant value to a book, the way an original jacket does, it does have decorative value. It's particularly nice in cases where the jacket has imagery seen nowhere else in the book. The jackets are clearly marked as facsimiles on the front flaps, and if you wish, it can be a fun way to spruce up a collection. I used a set of Baum firsts to dress up the set of Bradford Exchange facsimiles that I own.

Donahue & Company

In 1913 the Bobbs-Merrill Publishing Co. leased the printing plates of their line of L. Frank Baum books to M. A. Donohue & Co., a discount printer. This was quite a prize for Donahue, as it enabled them to print cheap editions of the popular Baum titles, particularly The Wizard of Oz. These editions also undercut the prices of the new Oz books offered by Reilly & Britton during the same time period. This continued until around 1920, when the arrangement ended.

Donahue was established in 1861 as Cox & Donahue Bookbinders. The name changed to Donahue & Henneberry around 1880, and at some point became Donahue Brothers before landing on M. A. Donahue in 1901. As an interesting side note, W. W. Denslow designed a generic book cover for Donahue & Henneberry, (shown on the left), that was in use for a number of years. The company was based in Chicago and continued into the 1960's.

Pictured at the top of the page are two of the Donahue books, a Wizard and a Dot and Tot, both in dust jackets. The quality of the printing in the books declined during this period. At first it was essentially the same as the Bobbs-Merrill editions, but later printings dropped much of the color used in the interior. Still, Donahue was not shy about promoting their books; an original 1913 ad from Publisher's Weekly is shown on the right.

The publishers are quick to call The Wizard the one "pre-eminently great Juvenile Book" written by L. Frank Baum. They go on to claim that their copies are "the regular $1.50 editions in paper, presswork and binding — Sold to the Trade so they can be sold at 60 cents or less and pay you a good profit." Difficult for a retailer to argue with that!

The Ever-Changing Wizard

 In 1956, the copyright on The Wizard of Oz expired. This gave Reilly & Lee, the publishers of the rest of the Oz series, their first opportunity to publish their own version of the book. But over the next ten years, their book would change repeatedly!

To start, a new edition of the book was set up with new illustrations by Dale Ulrey. This was a more elaborate Oz book than the publishers had produced in a while. Two-color illustrations, in rust and black, were printed throughout, and the front endpapers sported a full color map of Oz. This map had previously been featured in the 1954 Who’s Who in Oz, but in a slightly different form - and not in color! The book also had a dust jacket designed by Ulrey, featuring the Wizard himself. But by 1959, this jacket was replaced with a new design drawn by Roland Roycraft, who designed jackets for a handful of other Oz titles as well.

Perhaps the wizard wasn’t grabbing enough attention? The new design was quite bright with a hot pink curtain and cartoon-like images of Dorothy and her three friends. The endpaper map was gone, but the color work was still inside - my copy has the same rust and black color scheme of the earlier version. Then, in 1960 the jacket changed again, this time to a design by Dick Martin.

Martin’s Wizard jacket is a clever concept. Not quite as childlike as the Roycraft jacket, this time we have a wraparound design showing Dorothy and friends on the cover - with the same image, shown from behind, on the rear cover. The interior of the book still features Ulrey’s two-color illustrations, but they have now been given four different secondary colors - blue, green, yellow and red - to tie in with the story (more or less), in the same way that the illustrations did in the original 1900 book.

But this cover wasn’t destined to last either - in 1964 the entire book was given another overhaul, and most of the original illustrations by W. W. Denslow (printed in two colors) were restored. Dick Martin was responsible for the redesign, and this time the cover image was printed directly on the cloth of the book, in full color. The design chosen was based on a rare poster by Denslow, advertising the original edition, and a dust jacket was no longer part of the book. (Edit - according to Michael Hearn, the earliest copies of this book were issued with a glassine dust jacket.)

And then a year later the cover changed again! This time it was based on a Denslow drawing of Dorothy being carried from the deadly poppy field, with a white background and spine. The rest of the Baum titles were given new covers as well, creating what’s now known as the “white spine” edition. This final version was the last design used on the book by Reilly & Lee, and remained in use for the next ten years.

Library Bindings

 Library bindings are a specialty niche in the world of Oz collecting. The books were available from the 1940's to the 1960's in sturdy bindings intended to hold up to heavy use. The covers were usually brightly colored, simplified screenprints of the original cover labels. The spines generally featured the title, without the usual pictorial vignette. As expected, these books often show heavy wear from library use. However, the specialty binding was also available to general customers, so copies occasionally turn up that were never used in a library system.

I haven't expanded into this area, but I did recently pick up an example that came my way. This is a library binding of The Land of Oz, featuring the Roland Roycraft dust jacket design, printed in black and orange on turquoise cloth, from 1959. The Roycraft designs were only issued for a short period of time as dust jackets, not as paper labels mounted to the book covers - so it's fun to have a copy with the design imprinted on the actual book! This particular copy bears no evidence of library use, so it presumably was sold to a home user. It's also interesting to note that the cover has been completely redrawn for this use!

Julia Dyar Hardy

This copy of Jack Pumpkinhead, one of the Snuggle Tales, is a recent acquisition. This copy happens to be in its original dust jacket, which is always a bonus on a children's book!

When Reilly & Britton published their series of Baum's Snuggle Tales in 1916-17, they bypassed John R. Neill for new cover designs and instead used Julia Dyar Hardy. I haven't been able to find out much about Hardy, other than the fact that she did illustrate other books at that time.

Another example of her work in a Reilly & Britton title is Betty's Policeman; she also provided illustrations for the series of Snip and Snap books, for the Volland company, the publishers of Ruth Plumly Thompson's Perhappsy Chaps and Princess of Cozytown.

In Hardy's Snuggle Tale covers we do get to see a few Oz celebrities - Jack Pumpkinhead, Tip, and the Sawhorse are shown above, and a Scarecrow doll appears on the cover of Once Upon a Time. The Gingerbread Man shows John Dough, who does make a cameo appearance in The Road to Oz. But the Yellow Hen (featured on the book of the same title) isn't Billina - instead it's an earlier hen from a story in Mother Goose in Prose.

Oz Anniversary

This month marks the 75th anniversary of the classic MGM film The Wizard of Oz. When the movie was originally released in 1939, new editions of the original book were published by both the American publisher Bobbs Merrill, and the English publisher Hutchinson. Reilly and Lee, the publishers of the rest of the Oz series but not the first book, also produced new editions of three older titles - Land of Oz, Scarecrow of Oz and Tin Woodman of Oz - clearly hoping to ride the wave of publicity for the movie.

 

Of all these books, the English edition is the most interesting. The cover and dust jacket have a full color wraparound design featuring a scene from the film, plus there are 8 additional color plates of characters from the movie. These are publicity stills that have been colorized. On the downside, many of the Denslow illustrations have been dropped, and those that remain are printed in black and white.

The American version features a new dust jacket design, with artwork based on Denslow's illustrations. The endpapers are printed in sepia with stills of characters and scenes from the film. The interior is very much the same as the English version, but rather than the color plates of movie characters, there are still 8 two-color plates by Denslow. The English edition does seem to have tried harder!

Reilly and Lee come in a distant third with their efforts - the three titles produced are slightly over-sized with new cover designs by an anonymous artist. While the covers are colorful, I would prefer to have seen what John R. Neill might have come up with for new covers - after all, he had already re-designed several other Oz titles!

A Golden Variant

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz seems to have gone through more variations in appearance than most of the other Oz books.  I think the most interesting change occurred in the mid 1920's, when some copies of the book were once again bound with a golden label. The copy I'm showing has a Christmas inscription to Winston Powers, reading "Friday, December 25 1925 - from Daddy and Mother". I always enjoy seeing vintage gift inscriptions!

The book was originally published by Reilly & Britton in 1908, with a lavish metallic gold background on the cover label, and a silver vignette of the Tin Woodman on the spine. The silver was the first thing to go, and within a few years, the gold on the label was replaced with a plain yellow background. The stamping of the publisher's name on the spine varies throughout the printing history. Eventually, after the publisher's name changed to Reilly & Lee, the figure of Dorothy was replaced by the words "Popular Edition" which were later dropped from the label leaving the Wizard on his own. Different vignettes are found on the spine, a special slightly smaller format was published for Sears, and finally new cover designs were developed. Below, I show a few of the many variations - there are more!

By the mid 1920's, it wasn't likely that Reilly & Lee would suddenly revive printing the more costly and elaborate label. It seems likely to me that someone simply turned up a supply of the original labels at the bindery and decided to make use of them!

Always Looking...

A couple weeks ago was the 22nd annual Twin Cities Book Fair. I've managed to hit every one, as I'm a firm believer in getting out to look for interesting items in person, when the opportunity arises - over the years I've picked up a number of good pieces. This year just helped to confirm that it pays to keep your eyes open at book fairs and antique stores, as well as on the internet - the prize was a Reilly & Britton dust jacket for The Patchwork Girl of Oz, from 1913!

Book Fair!

Our local summer book fair was held this weekend, and this year there were quite a few Oz items in the booths. The highlight was a first edition copy of Mother Goose in Prose, with an inscription by L. Frank Baum - "2 the 2 VerBecks - (Pa and kid)".  This would be Frank VerBeck, who illustrated A New Wonderland for Baum. I'm afraid this one was not in my price range!

I did pick up a very nice jacketed first of John R. Neill's Lucky Bucky in Oz, which will be a good upgrade from my previous copy. A feature of the first state dustjacket is the letter from Bucky, printed on the rear flap, urging readers to buy victory bonds and stamps. After all, this was World War II, and as Bucky says, "The Nazis and Japs are harder to beat than the Nomes." !

My other acquisition was not Oz related, but a piece by another artist I collect. H. J. Ford illustrated the Fairy Book Series of colored fairy books and story books, compiled by Andrew Lang. This drawing is from The All Sorts of Stories Book, published in 1911. I have a couple other drawings by Ford, from The Yellow Fairy Book and The Arabian Nights. His style of dense line work is impressive, and it's always a thrill to run across another piece of his original art!

Bradford Exchange Books

Today I received my first book in the series of facsimile Oz books currently being offered by The Bradford Exchange. I wasn't among the first to sign up for this offer, as I did have to convince myself that yet another set of the books was a good idea....but curiosity finally overcame any other objections!
These books are being produced to be as close to the original printings as possible - and judging by The Wonderful Wizard, they're doing an excellent job! All the first state points of the book are present, including the earliest green version of the George M. Hill Co. stamp on the spine. The only non-original material is a numbered page signed by Robert Baum. In fact, I can easily imagine these books might cause some headaches down the road for inexperienced collectors!

The one drawback to this book is the unfortunately designed dustjacket. As this series is obviously aimed at collectors, and much care has been taken to produce a lovely book, it's difficult to understand the reasoning behind not creating reproduction jackets. I can't help thinking the publishers missed an excellent opportunity to provide a truly complete facsimile series. This will be even more evident with copies of Ozma, Road, and Patchwork Girl, all of which used completely different images on their jackets than on the book covers. As these books are being offered as a premium object, it seems like a foolish choice not to provide a complete piece.

Anyway, I look forward to receiving my next title. And perhaps some enterprising person will produce a set of proper jackets, to truly finish a lovely set of books!

Road Jackets

Here's a 1920 copy of The Road to Oz in dustjacket. What makes this special for me is the fact that the cover design features a blue background, rather than yellow.

The original Reilly & Britton version of this book only used this lovely cover image on the dustjacket, where it was originally printed with a metallic gold background. The book itself had a stamped cover with a different image. Later R&B printings used this blue background on the jacket.

When the publishers changed to Reilly & Lee, a cover label using the dustjacket art replaced the stamped cover. The earliest R&L copies used a yellow background, but this copy is from the very brief time period (1920) when Reilly & Lee used blue for the background on both the jacket and the cover label, before switching back to yellow for the remaining years.

I've wondered why they would switch back to blue for such a short time period - perhaps they were using up some leftover sheets? I've always preferred the blue to the yellow background.

The Baum family scrapbooks have an example of a printer's proof of this cover with a green background. There is also a blue wash over Dorothy's companions - apparently something that was not pursued in the final product. This rarity was featured on the rear cover of the Autumn 1990 Baum Bugle, and I've always been curious whether the green was a metallic ink, like that which was used in The Emerald City of Oz the following year. If anyone has seen this in person, I'd love to know!

Here's a lineup of the various colors tried and used on The Road to Oz dustjackets. I only have the blue one, and the green one doesn't seem to have been produced to be used, but wouldn't it be fun to have all four colors!

Recent Purchases

I've been working for a long time on collecting a set of Reilly & Britton Oz titles in dustjackets, and I'm slowly closing in in my goal. The past few months have been surprisingly fruitful in terms of turning up Oz items, and I've managed to add 2 first state dustjacket copies to my collection - not something that happens every day!

Reilly & Britton dustjackets can be pretty rough when they turn up, but let's face it, these things just don't turn up that often. I've been looking for a jacketed R&B Rinkitink for quite some time, and am very pleased to have found a copy that I could add to the collection. This turned up at a smaller book fair I attended when I was in New York. I found my copy of Tin Woodman on the internet. In both cases, the cover design is repeated on the rear panel, a blurb for the story is on the front flap and ads for other Reilly & Britton books are on the rear flap.

As I've said before, it does pay to get out and look at book dealers and antique shops rather than just limiting yourself to what turns up online. Some of the R&B jackets I have are later states, but I'm hopeful of eventually getting Reilly & Britton jackets on all the Reilly & Britton books - even if they aren't all first states!