Henry Altemus Company

Ever New Books for Young People

Change size of the book to 7.75 x 5.5

Aubrey Beardsley and Altemus

In 1896 Henry Altemus co-published a 5 volume series, The Pierrot Library (Series #204) with John Lane, a London publisher. These 5 books are quite scarce.

The front and back covers as well as the end papers and title pages for all 5 books have great illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898). He was a well known English artist of the art nouveau era. Although famous for erotic pictures, he also did numerous black ink drawings. The pictures here are representative of those.

Interestingly enough, Beardsley is frequently mentioned with Alphonse Mucha, another art nouveau Victorian era artist. Mucha’s illustrations are on some of the Petit Trianon Series’ covers.

Young People's Library

Poor Boys' Chances was published in 1900 as part of this series. The bibliography lists no date. It was book #32 and was only published in 1900-1901. Thereafter it was replaced by Tales from Shakespeare.

The cover is identical to the Poor Boys Chances published as a non series book and as part of the Little Men and Women Series, Cherrycroft Series and Boys and Girl's Booklovers Series.

The difference is noted by the spine. The Young People's Library book has the characteristic format 2 spine. See below. The title page also states Young People's Library.

Altemus Library

Format 2- A light blue cover has been seen. Each page of text is surrounded by a green decorative pattern.

Vademecum Series (later numbering)

Beginning in 1917 the Vademecum Series listed the included books in the series by category rather than in alphabetical order. Also starting at that time the books of this series were jacketed rather than boxed. Here is a 1917 book. This style was used until the 1920s. Included are pictures of the jacket. The interior of the jacket lists boys and girls series books up to 1917.

Young People's Library

Book #13 Lives of the Presidents of the United States lists anonymous as the author. This is true for format 1 books. Format 2 and 3 books note Prescott Holmes as the author.

Young People's Library

Format 2. Volume #31 which is listed as Great Sea Fights of the World appears also to be titled Sea Kings and Naval Heroes. It is unclear if the former title was ever more than a subtitle for the book. This book was only published in 1900 and perhaps early in 1901. Thereafter until 1907, #31 was Vic, the Autobiography of a Fox-Terrier.

Crestmont Series

The picture in the bibliography for this series is incorrect. The correct picture is shown here.

Young People's Library

Except for the book noted here, all of the books in this format that I have seen have had pictorial book appropriate line drawn pictures on the cover of the book. The book noted here is of a 1913-1914 vintage of format 3 and has the entire front cover encompassed by a book appropriate line drawn applique. The picture is identical (except for colors) to the Gulliver's Travels seen in format 2. The appliques of format 4 do not fill the entire cover. Although it is possible that are are other format 3 books that are similar to this one, those books would also be distinctly rare.

Mother Goose Series

In the bibliography 2 formats are listed for this 12 book series. It now appears that there are actually three formats for each of the twelve books.

Originally the first format was described as having half vellum (on the left) and illuminated boards with a picture within an oval on the right. The first two formats have this cover but the earlier half vellum is colored. Blue, red, green and gold have been seen. The first format was published only in 1905. The second format began in 1906.

The third format books were copyrighted in 1905 or 1911. The are cloth with multicolored book specific line drawn pictures.

Remember that the stories within the books are not always the same from format to format.