Thursday, July 5, 2012

Black Beauty - 1910s or 1920s



This beautiful hardcover edition of Anna Sewell's classic book Black Beauty was published by M.A. Donohue & Co. in Chicago.  The clothbound hardcover has the design stamped into it, with the top of the pages having a gold edging that matches the title lettering on the cover and spine.

The book is not dated, but after some hefty internet searching I was able to track down the same book being sold through the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America.  Oddly enough, in my edition, on both the spine and the inside title page, author Anna Sewell's name is incorrectly spelled as Anna Sewall.

I did find a 1920 edition that was published by the same company that, for the most part, had the same black and white illustrations but a different style title page.  The author's name was spelled correctly on that 1920 edition, which leads me to think that my undated edition is an earlier one, and that the author's name was corrected in later printings.

I'm not posting any of the illustrations from the inside because I couldn't get a clean scan without forcing the spine of the book (which I always try to avoid doing), but the black and white illustrations are mostly the same ones that are seen in many other printings of the book from this era.

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