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.

Christmas in July

Reilly & Britton published The Christmas Stocking Series in 1905, and it proved to be a popular item. The series of six small books continued in print into the 1920s, utilizing several different packaging formats. I recently picked up one of the early variations.

This particular version  pairs two of the books together in a titled box. The books were published with red, burgundy, green, or blue cloth spines and back covers - these copies have the blue cloth. 

The series is of interest to Oz fans because of the introduction, written by L. Frank Baum and used in each small book. This short essay tells the origin of the Christmas stocking, and was written specifically for this series. It was well promoted in publicity for the books, and provided a good selling point.

Another later variation, ca. 1913, was the steamer trunk box; I've shown this before but here it is again for comparison. All six titles were housed in a fanciful cardboard trunk, covered in whimsical travel labels. The bindings of the books had changed by this time, to red boards with a green holly design. This packaging remained in use into the 1920s.

Washee-Washee

Here’s a little Reilly & Britton oddity, something unlikely to be published today - the Washee-Washee book of laundry lists. This was published in 1905, and while it is not an Oz book, it has the honor of having been advertised in the Ozmapolitan, the little newspaper created to publicize the Oz books.

The booklet had its own mailing envelope, printed with the cover design and the address of the publisher, Reilly & Britton. This example is inscribed with "A very merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!"

The book itself is intended to be used when sending out laundry to the cleaner, with appropriate spaces for indicating quantities of clothing articles. At the bottom of each page is a quote from a variety of sources, or as the title page says, "wise saws and modern instances”.

As an institution, the Chinese laundry has disappeared; but during the time period when this book was published, Chinese laundries could be found in every town across America. This was due to restrictive laws that blocked Asian immigrants from pursuing better jobs. The Chinese Exclusion Act wasn’t repealed until 1943.

While the book is built around the kind of comic ethnic stereotype that is found offensive today, the advertising piece printed in The Publisher's Weekly adds insult to injury. This took the form of the front page of the Ozmapolitan, the newspaper of Oz, and refers to "The Yellow Peril" and "Oz endangered by Invasion of Heathen Chinee". It then goes on to explain that the Washee-Washee is simply a popular novelty book.

 

The same page advertises L. Frank Baum’s The Wogglebug Book, notorious for its use of humor based on ethnic stereotypes. In a rather bizarre reference, the Wogglebug is said to have been inspired in his exploits by the adventures of Johann Hoch; Hoch was the notorious Bluebeard murderer, who was captured in 1905 and executed in 1906. Other items on the page include The Christmas Stocking Series, (under the bold headline of 60,000 KILLED?) and Baum’s pseudonymous book The Fate of a Crown. 

 

The image of the Ozmapolitan shown above is taken from the Baum Bugle. I don’t know if this was simply created as an advertising page for The Publisher’s Weekly, or if an actual paper was produced. In any case, it's quite a page of questionable content!

Restoration

An adage for collecting is to buy the best you are able - in other words, it's better to pass by damaged and lesser items in favor of something better. But, there are times when a damaged book can be a bargain worth picking up and having restored.

This is a first edition, first state copy of The Marvelous Land of Oz. The key identification point for a first state of this title is the absence of the words "Published July 1904" on the copyright page. First states of this book are hard to come by, and are priced accordingly. 

In this case, I ran across an inexpensive damaged copy at auction - the text block was separated from the covers, there was a tear across the spine and the spine was torn from the rear cover. In spite of the condition issues, all the elements were present and it looked like a good candidate for restoration.

A feature of early printings of this book was the endpaper drawing which included a photo of Fred Stone and David Montgomery, in their respective roles as the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman in the stage version of The Wizard of Oz. This image came from a publicity photo of the two characters sitting on a wall; with some minor adjustments, the two were driving a pony cart in Oz!

The end result proved worth the cost. The work was done by Sophia Bogle of Save Your Books, in Portland, Oregon.

Jacket Advertising

The Oz books were one of the jewels of the Reilly & Britton publishing house, and the company was eager to promote the series. I occasionally run across other R & B titles showing ads for the works of their most famous author. Here are a couple examples of ads for Oz books, as well as other L. Frank Baum titles, featured on the jackets of other Reilly & Britton books. These jackets can be rather tattered, but I still find them interesting!

The back cover of Fairy Tales From Shakespeare features what was then the entire Oz series, as published by Reilly & Britton. The Sea Fairies, the start of Baum's new (and short-lived) Trot & Cap'n Bill series is given the front flap, while The Juvenile Speaker is shown on the rear flap, making this a very Baum-ful jacket!

What Happened at Olenberg also featured a pair of Baum books; The Sea Fairies again, and The Daring Twins. This was to be the start of a series of young adult novels written under Baum's own name, but it only lasted for two books. However, Aunt Jane's Nieces was shown on the rear of the jacket. This young adult series, written by Baum under the pseudonym of Edith Van Dyne, was quite successful!

An ad similar to those published within the Oz books was used on the rear of Betty's Policeman. The titles list up to Lost Princess, dating this jacket to 1917. The flaps contain no ads.

Azalea was another Reilly & Britton series, written by Elia Peattie, which ran to four titles. The Daring Twins is featured prominently on the rear cover, this time with both titles in the series, while Aunt Jane is on the rear flap. The front flap of the jacket contains a synopsis of the book. A later title from the series features all ten Aunt Jane books on the rear cover.

And finally, Captain Becky's Masquerade has prominent ads for two of Baum's series written under the Edith Van Dyne pseudonym - Aunt Jane's Nieces and The Flying Girl. The Captain Becky books were written by Margaret Love Sanderson, and only ran to two titles - as did the Flying Girl series!

Olive and Yellow

A week or so ago, I came across a copy of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz  that I added to my collection. The interesting aspect of this copy was the endpapers, an inventive design that was later adapted into the second cover design for The Emerald City of Oz.

This copy of the book is a first state in the primary binding, but with pale olive endpapers rather than the bright yellow usually seen in this book. The difference is shown in the photo, with the olive version above the standard yellow. I've run across this before, but associated the olive endpapers with copies bearing the secondary spine imprint - interesting to see them used in a primary binding!

A similar color change occurs in Snowbound, one of the poetry books illustrated by John R. Neill and also published by Reilly & Britton. The first state used yellow as a secondary color in the illustrations, while a later state has the same olive green seen here. Just another example of the many variants to be found!

Book Collecting

This copy of The Tin Woodman of Oz was the first Reilly & Britton Oz title I purchased for my collection. I started looking for Oz books in the early 1970's, at a time when the "white cover" editions could still be found, bearing the Reilly & Lee imprint. But at the age of 13 or so I decided I wanted to put together a collection of first editions and find the earlier Reilly & Britton versions of the books. I think it took close on 10 years before I finally began to find collectible copies of the titles - and the hunt hasn't ended! Finding this book was exciting as it was the first early copy of a Baum book that I had run across. Eventually this was replaced by a better copy, then a copy with a dust jacket.

Book collecting was quite different when I started, well before the introduction of internet book searches. It involved visiting any used book store you might run across in hopes of finding a treasure, mailing away for catalogs and book lists, getting to know dealers in hopes that you would be informed if something special turned up. Finding a title was an event, and something that might not happen again. All of that is still true today, but now a quick search with a keyboard will turn up dozens of titles without leaving your chair. Not that the challenge isn't still there - it's just a different kind of experience, and I'm glad I've had the chance to try both!

A Printing Plate

Here's a bit of an Oz novelty. This is an original printing plate, used by the publishers to print a full page illustration by John R. Neill in The Patchwork Girl of Oz. It's a classic image of Scraps, proclaiming "I hate dignity", while catching a stone she's kicked in the air. For a long time, the original printing plates from the Oz books were assumed to have been lost or destroyed, but in 2013 a series of them came to auction. They had been in the collection of rare book collector Richard Manney, and are the only plates known to have survived.

The plate is engraved in zinc, and the stamped number on the upper right refers to its placement in the book - page 131. In the original printing of the book, the illustration was in full color which would have required additional plates, one for each color. This is the black, or key line plate. When the color printing was dropped, in the 1930's, this would have been the only plate used. With the popularity of the Oz books, new printing plates had to be made as old ones wore out, and the publishers kept the original drawings by John R. Neill for this purpose.

Creating the printing plates appears to have involved quite a bit of hand work, in addition to photo-mechanical etching. In this detail, the circular marks of a grinder, used to clean up the background, can be plainly seen.

This has been very nicely presented in a custom box which provides a space for the plate, as well as a new proof pulled from the plate. There is also a pamphlet containing an essay concerning the Oz illustrations, written by Michael Patrick Hearn. It's fascinating as an integral part of the creation of the Oz books!

Babes in Birdland

While in New York a couple weeks ago, for the antiquarian book fair, I picked up an inexpensive copy of Babes in Birdland. This is the 1911 version of Policeman Bluejay, a book written in 1907 by L. Frank Baum under the pseudonym of  Laura Bancroft. As Bancroft, Baum wrote six small books called the Twinkle Tales, as well as this longer story.

The Twinkle Tales, featuring the characters Twinkle and Chubbins, are nature fairy tales. Most of the Twinkle stories take place in North Dakota and are set among the small animals of the region. Babes in Birdland is an extension of this series and the story takes place among the birds. The stories are cute, but for some reason I've never been as fond of them, and consequently have been slow to acquire them!

The book was reprinted again in 1917, with the same title but yet another cover design, this time crediting Baum as the author. One of these days, I really need to pick up a better copy of this version!

Road/Baum's Own Book

 In 1910, Reilly and Britton published Baum's Own Book for Children. This was a repackaging of an earlier title, L. Frank Baum's Juvenile Speaker, with a new title and cover design. This book is a compilation of bits from Baum's previously published books - the cover claim"With Many Hitherto Unpublished Selections" is certainly untrue!

Just as the book is repackaged, the cover design is a repackaging of sorts, made up of bits from the prior year's Oz title, The Road to Oz.

In The Road to Oz, John R. Neill created a pair of alternating chapter headings. One was a sort of ornamental shield, and the other was a ring of children's faces; both were used as frameworks with story-specific illustrations in the center. The ring of children became the main motif on the cover of Baum's Own Book.

This illustration has always struck me as odd within The Road to Oz, due to the manner in which it was printed. Each appearance seems soft and slightly blurred, with vertical white lines running throughout the image. It lacks the crispness of Neill's usual pen work, which is amply displayed throughout the book. Presumably, this was to create a half-tone image, but it comes across as a poorly made printing plate!

In 1910 the same ring of children was used for the cover of Baum's Own Book for Children, but there are definite differences between the two versions. While the illustration used in The Road to Oz is soft, the book cover is sharply printed. The circle has been opened out on both sides, requiring some adjustment to the curve - and suddenly we see fuller versions of two faces!

Within the ring are drawings of the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and Cowardly Lion. These are each taken from Road illustrations, but with adjustments. The Lion is from the copyright page, with a bit of straightening and a great reduction in the amount of cross-hatching.

The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman are taken from a full page drawing of the characters inside Ozma's palace. For the use on Baum's Own Book, the characters have been cropped and cleaned up, and the Tin Woodman has been reversed. He's also had an arm added!

This all seems like a lot of re-working to put into a cover, but I suppose it was cheaper than hiring Neill to create something new. Presumably the printer would have done this without Neill's assistance, working with existing art. The book itself (without any color plates) cost the same price as the other, more elaborate, Baum books that were available at the time - it hardly seems fair!

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.

Christmas Stocking Series

Here is one of Reilly & Britton's special publications - the Christmas Stocking Series, packed in a cardboard Christmas trunk! This is a rather delicate item that doesn't turn up very often - especially with its lid! The books in the trunk are traditional titles such as Fairy Tales from Grimm, Fairy Tales from Anderson, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and The Night Before Christmas. But in this package we also find the much more recent stories of Little Black Sambo and Peter Rabbit - a pair of American piracies of newer English tales.

These six books have a rather tenuous connection to Baum - he contributed a preface with the history of the Christmas Stocking, used in each volume. The series was first published in 1905, and they seem to have been popular little books as they went through several printing states and styles of packaging. They were still being published when Reilly & Britton became Reilly & Lee in 1919.

The cardboard trunk is a whimsical addition, with its various labels for the Jack Frost Transfer Co. and Hollywreath Inn, etc. This particular set is from ca. 1913 when the trunk first appeared. When first printed, the books were available in a special little bookcase. Personally, I prefer the trunk!

Jack

In 1904, John R. Neill was tapped to illustrate the second Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz. Apparently he was busy with other projects at the time, and hesitated to accept the job - but fortunately, he had second thoughts. He would continue as official Oz illustrator until his death in 1943.

In 1900 L. Frank Baum and W. W. Denslow had scored a hit as author and illustrator of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but sadly that relationship had soured, due in part to disagreements over profits from the hit Broadway production of the book. In illustrating this second title, Neill deliberately used a simpler, bolder style of drawing to help transition from the well known illustrations of Denslow. His images are far more poster-like than his work in later Oz titles.

This is the original drawing for a color plate in the book, showing the creation of Jack Pumpkinhead by the boy Tip. This piece has suffered obvious damage over the past 100+ years, but it's currently being restored to a more stable state. Sadly, this is not an uncommon occurrence among vintage illustration art!

The Land of Oz was the only Oz title other than the Wizard that I read when I was quite young, and it's always held a special place for me in the series. Part of that was due to the wonderful and plentiful illustrations in the book - they really gave me a sense of what Oz was, and looked like. Consequently, I'm thrilled to have a piece from the book!

Original Prices

Lately I've been looking at the original pricing of the Oz books - it's trivial but interesting!

1900: Wonderful Wizard - $1.50
This was an elaborate children's book, with 24 inserted color plates and color used throughout the book. The price was a little higher than the $1.25 average at the time, but it sounds like a bargain to me!

1904 - 1916: Marvelous Land through Rinkitink - $1.25
The earlier titles had 16 color plates or color throughout the book, while titles after 1913 were standardized with 12 color plates. So, while the price stayed the same, there was a definite cutback in printing costs.

1917:  Lost Princess - $1.35
This was a price increase as America entered World War I. This was also the period when sales of the Oz books began to climb, after a few slack years.

1918 - 1919: Tin Woodman and Magic - $1.50
Another increase along with the end of World War I.

1920 - 1924:  Glinda through Grampa - $2.00
This period was a height of Oz popularity, and the books achieved the highest prices charged prior to 1950. The jump to $2.00 in 1920 was a substantial increase, and this price can be seen on the dustjacket spines of other Oz books published that year. In fact, it's an easy way to date a jacketed book to 1920!

1925 - 1930: Lost King through Yellow Knight - $1.60
A considerable price drop from the previous titles, even before the start of the Great Depression in 1929. I have 2 non-Oz titles by Baum from 1930, both of which are priced at $1.00 - John Dough and Sea Fairies. Clearly the less familiar titles were fading as Oz continued.

1931 - 1932: Pirates and Purple Prince - $1.75
A price raise in the midst of the Great Depression - but not for long!

1933 - 1942: Ojo through Lucky Bucky $1.50
This is the longest period with one price, and the lowest price for the books since 1919!  Color plates were dropped after Wishing Horse in 1935, which would have affected printing costs.

1946: Magical Mimics - $1.75
1949: Shaggy Man - $2.00
1951: Hidden Valley - $2.50
1963: Merry Go Round - $3.95 - all older titles were priced @ $3.50
As the series continued, prices increased regularly. Still, over a 63 year span, prices stayed relatively level!