Henry Altemus Company

Young People's Library

Ebay description:  Up for auction is this extremely collectible antique book, Flower Fables, by Louisa M. Alcott. I believe that this is a first edition as there is no indication that it would not be. Title page reads: Altemus' Young People's Library, FLOWER FABLES by LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, "Pondering shadows, colors, clouds, grass-buds, and caterpillar shrouds, boughs on which the wild bees settle, tints that spot the violet's petal" - Emerson's Wood Notes. With thirty-four illustrations, copyright 1898 by Henry Altemus

The Reality:  Really an inexcusable comment about a first edition. The simplest research would tell the seller that the first dated from the 1850s (George W. Briggs 1855). This book at its earliest was published in 1901-02 as part of the third format of the Young People's Library-Format 3.

Young People's Library

Ebay description:  THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS Lewis Carroll (1897) 1st Ed.
The title of this book is Through the Looking Glass And what Alice Found There. It was written in 1897 by Lewis Carroll, and published by the Henry Altemus company of Philadelphia.

The Reality:  There are two blunders in this description. First, based upon the spine this is a Young People's Library ( Series #202) 2nd format book which at its earliest was published in 1898. Much more significant is that the first edition was not printed by Henry Altemus. Rather it was published by Macmillan in 1872. Altemus only did reprints of Lewis Carroll's books.