Williams, Belasco and Meyers
Illustrated Editions Company
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Title (chain border): CANDIDE | VOLTAIRE | ILLUSTRATIONS BY | MAHLON BLAINE | {vignette} | NEW YORK | Illustrated Editions Company | 220 FOURTH AVENUE || Title verso: (top) COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY WILLIAMS, BELASCO & MEYERS || (bottom) PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA | BY J. J. LITTLE & IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK || Pagination:[1-7] 8-144, headpiece, frontispiece and 5 plates after Blaine’s pen drawings, within the pagination; tailpieces by A. Zaidenberg. Binding: 21 x 14 cm; quarter beige buckram over blue cloth, stamped-gilt and red lettering and vignette to front board and spine. Binding in a way similar to Sterne's A sentimental journey published by Three Sirens Press in c. 1930 [LIB-2784.2021]. Not only that: tailpieces in this Illustrated Editions Company edition are the same as in Cameo Classic edition, with the only difference – here the name of the artist is stated, whether in the Cameo Classic it is not; see [LIB-2777.2021]. Bear in mind that Cameo Classic does not belong to Williams, Belasco and Meyers, it is a Grosset and Dunlap series; a cream dust-jacket lettered in red and blue, and with a citation from W. Somerset Maugham; all edges red. Compare with LIB-2791.2021. Illustrations in the current copy are exactly the same. Compare Williams, Belasco and Meyers Candide and Illustrated Editions Company Candide title pages:Arouet, François-Marie [Voltaire] (French, 1694 – 1778)– author. Woolf, Herman Irwell [Chambers, Dorset] (British, 1890 – 1958) – translator. Blaine, Mahlon [Hudson, G. Christopher] (American, 1894 – 1969) – illustrator. Zaidenberg, Arthur (American, 1902 – 1990) – illustrator. Williams, Belasco and Meyers (NY) – copyright holder. Illustrated Editions Company (1929-1942) – publisher. J. J. Little & Ives Company (NY) – printer. See the Cameo Classic reprint [LIB-2777.2021]. -
Title page: {vignette} | The | MANIAC | ILLUSTRATED BY G. CHRISTOPHER HUDSON | NEW YORK BOOKS FOR THE FEW MCMXLI || Pagination: [1-6] 7-245 [246], full-page plates and in-text vignettes after Mahlon Blaine drawings. Edition: Limited edition of 1050 copies, this one unnumbered. Text – a reprint of the 1909 edition by Rebman (London); 1st edition, thus. Binding: 24 x 16 cm, black moire cloth, green label with black lettering “THE | MANIAC” to spine. Ink stamp “Charles M. Collins, Jr” to front pastedown. Contributors: E. Thelmar (British, fl. c. 1909) – author; a British journalist, who had been committed to an asylum in 1905; nothing else is known. G. Christopher Hudson [Mahlon Blaine] (American, 1894 – 1969) – artist. Books for the Few (NY) – publisher. Ref: TAYLOR, NICK. “Mahlon Blaine, John Steinbeck, and ‘The Maniac’ (1941).” The Steinbeck Review 9, no. 1 (2012): 73–84. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41582924. -
Title (chain border): CANDIDE | VOLTAIRE | ILLUSTRATIONS BY | MAHLON BLAINE | {vignette} | NEW YORK | Illustrated Editions Company | 220 FOURTH AVENUE || Title verso: (top) COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY WILLIAMS, BELASCO & MEYERS || (bottom) PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA | BY J. J. LITTLE & IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK || Pagination:[1-10] 11-144, headpiece, frontispiece and 5 plates after Blaine’s pen drawings, within the pagination; tailpieces by A. Zaidenberg. Binding: 21 x 14 cm; quarter beige buckram over blue cloth, stamped-gilt and red lettering and vignette to front board and spine. Binding in a way similar to Sterne's A sentimental journey published by Three Sirens Press in c. 1930 [LIB-2784.2021]. Not only that: tailpieces in this Illustrated Editions Company edition are the same as in Cameo Classic edition, with the only difference – here the name of the artist is stated, whether in the Cameo Classic it is not; see [LIB-2777.2021]. Bear in mind that Cameo Classic does not belong to Williams, Belasco and Meyers, it is a Grosset and Dunlap series. Compare Williams, Belasco and Meyers Candide and Illustrated Editions Company Candide title pages:Williams, Belasco and Meyers
Arouet, François-Marie [Voltaire] (French, 1694 – 1778)– author. Woolf, Herman Irwell [Chambers, Dorset] (British, 1890 – 1958) – translator. Blaine, Mahlon [Hudson, G. Christopher] (American, 1894 – 1969) – illustrator. Zaidenberg, Arthur (American, 1902 – 1990) – illustrator. Williams, Belasco and Meyers (NY) – copyright holder. Illustrated Editions Company (1929-1942) – publisher. J. J. Little & Ives Company (NY) – printer. See the Cameo Classic reprint [LIB-2777.2021].Illustrated Editions Company
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Title (chain border): CANDIDE | VOLTAIRE | ILLUSTRATIONS BY | MAHLON BLAINE | {vignette} | NEW YORK | WILLIAMS, BELASCO | AND MEYERS || Title verso: (top) COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY WILLIAMS, BELASCO & MEYERS || (bottom) PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA | BY J. J. LITTLE & IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK || Pagination:[1-6] 7-144, headpiece, frontispiece and 5 plates after Blaine’s pen drawings, within the pagination. Binding: 25 x 16.5 cm; blue cloth, blind-stamped frame, stamped-gilt lettering to front board and spine, thick wove paper, upper edge blue, fore-edge untrimmed, yellow vergé endpapers. Arouet, François-Marie [Voltaire] (French, 1694 – 1778)– author. Woolf, Herman Irwell [Chambers, Dorset] (British, 1890 – 1958) – translator. Blaine, Mahlon [Hudson, G. Christopher] (American, 1894 – 1969) – illustrator. Williams, Belasco and Meyers (NY) – publisher. J. J. Little & Ives Company (NY) – printer. See the Cameo Classic reprint [LIB-2777.2021]. -
Title page: THE ART OF | MAHLON BLAINE | A Reminiscence | by G. Legman | with a Mahlon Blaine bibliography | compiled by Roland Trenary | {Blaine’s fac-simile} | Peregrine Books | 1982 || Pagination: [1-4] 5-26 + 84 pp. of illustrations, unpaginated. Collation: 13 leaves of text, 40 leaves of b/w plates, and 2 leaves of colour plates, 55 leaves total. Binding: 29 x 22.5 cm; publisher’s black cloth, silver lettering to spine, pictorial endpapers, pictorial dust jacket. Edition: Limited edition of 100 copies (this is №100), signed by Gelman, Trenary, and Arrington. Contributors: Blaine, Mahlon (American, 1894 – 1969) – illustrator. Legman, Gershon (American, 1917 – 1999) – author. Arrington, Robert L. (American, 1984 – 2015) – author, introduction. Trenary, Roland (American) – author, compiler. Peregrine Books (East Lansing, MI) – publisher. -
Title page (frame, three compartments: LAURENCE STERNE |—| A | SENTIMENTAL | JOURNEY | THROUGH | FRANCE AND ITALY | ILLUSTRATED BY | MAHLON BLAINE |—| THREE SIRENS PRESS | NEW YORK || Title verso: (top) COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY WILLIAMS, BELASCO & MEYERS | PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA | (bottom) BY J. J. LITTLE & IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK || Pagination: [1-6] 7-192, frontispiece, headpiece, and 4 plates within collation (pp. 45, 85, 141, and 185) after Blaine’s pen drawings in the woodcut manner. Binding: quarter lilac morocco with stamped brown lettering over blue cloth, design elements and lettering to spine, top edge gilt, fore-edge untrimmed. Size: 24.5 x 16 cm Edition: presumably 1st edition with plates after Blaine. Contributors: Sterne, Laurence (British-Irish, 1713 – 1768) – author of the text. Blaine, Mahlon (American, 1894 – 1969) – illustrator (pseudonym: G. Christopher Hudson). Three Sirens Press (NY); Williams, Belasco, and Meyers (NY) – publishers. J. J. Little & Ives Company (NY) – printer. Compare to the re-printed edition by Halcyon House, [c. 1950] in the collection [LIB-2783.2021].
As stated, the copyright is held by Williams, Belasco, and Meyers, who are: Joseph Meyers (c. 1898 – 1957), his sister Edna Williams, and David Belasco (1853 – 1931). "Joseph Meyers was described by Bennet Cerf (Modern Library, Random House) as a “notorious pirate” in Gertzman’s book Bookleggers and Smuthounds, and the trio of presses allegedly indulged in reprinting numerous books without holding the copyright to those titles. By not paying copyright fees, Meyers and Williams were able to print and sell good quality illustrated books at prices that were below typical smaller, unillustrated reprint series of the 1930s." [cit.]
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Title (historiated border, three-compartment): CAMEO CLASSICS | {rule} | CANDIDE | BY | Voltaire | WITH ILLUSTRATIONS | BY | Mahlon Blaine | {rule} | GROSSET AND DUNLAP | NEW YORK || Pagination: [1-6] 7-144, total 144 pages; frontispiece plus 4 plates within collation, head- and tailpieces – reproductions of Mahlon Blaine’s pen drawings. Binding: 21 x 14 cm, cream cloth with the cameo of Johann Gutenberg to front cover, gilt lettering to front cover and spine, in acetate dust jacket, in a pictorial slipcase. Arouet, François-Marie [Voltaire] (French, 1694 – 1778)– author. Woolf, Herman Irwell [Chambers, Dorset] (British, 1890 – 1958) – translator. Blaine, Mahlon [Hudson, G. Christopher] (American, 1894 – 1969) – illustrator. Grosset and Dunlap (NY) – publisher. J. J. Little & Ives Company (NY) – printer. Cameo Classics series was published by Grosset & Dunlap (New York) in 1935 – 1948 as a cheap reprint of illustrated classic editions, in this case – of Williams, Belasco and Meyers publication of Candide in 1930 (see LIB-2792.2021). The Cameo Classics books had a clear, acetate dust jacket and were boxed in a buckram alligator skin patterned slipcase with an illustrated cover. The price per volume started at 69 cents and was gradually lowered to 59 and 50 cents per volume by the late 1930s. Candide was translated into English quite a few times, starting from Tobias George Smollett (British-Scottish, 1721 – 1771) and up to today's translators. For some reason, the translator's name is almost never indicated. This translation, published by Williams, Belasco and Meyers in 1930 and reprinted by Grosset and Dunlap in c. 1935, was performed by Herman Irwell Woolf under the pseudonym of Dorset Chambers and first published in London by F.B. Neumayer in 1919. This edition was mentioned in the letter from Joseph Conrad to his son Borys in 1922, May 10. -
Title: A SENTIMENTAL | JOURNEY | THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY | BY | LAURENCE STERNE | ILLUSTRATED BY | MAHLON BLAINE | {vignette} | Illustrated library | HALCYON HOUSE | GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK || Pagination: [1-6] – first leaf blank, h.t., t.p., 7-192, total 192 pages; frontispiece plus 4 plates within collation, and a headpiece, all photomechanical reproductions of Mahlon Blaine’s pen drawings. Binding: 20.5 x 14 cm, off-white pictorial paper boards decorated with black ivy-clad pink lattice, black lettering in a pink frame to spine, pink pictorial dust jacket with spine sunned to beige. Contributors: Sterne, Laurence (British-Irish, 1713 – 1768) – author of the text. Blaine, Mahlon (American, 1894 – 1969) – illustrator (pseudonym: G. Christopher Hudson). The Illustrated library series was started by Halcyon House, a reprint division of Doubleday Publishers, in 1950. This edition of Sterne with Blaine’s illustrations is a reprint of the same, published by Three Sirens Press of New York in 1930. Blaine's illustrations of this kind are pen drawings, not wood engravings. -
Title (in a frame): THE TEMPTATION | OF ST. ANTHONY | BY | GUSTAVE FLAUBERT | TRANSLATED BY | LAFCADIO HEARN | ILLUSTRATED BY | MAHLON BLAINE | {vignette} | NEW YORK | WILLIAMS, BELASCO | AND MEYERS || Pagination: ffl, [1, 2 - ht, blank] [2 - blank, frontis.] [3, 4 - t.p., colophon] [5, 6 - plate, blank] [7, 8 - list of ill., blank] [9 'argument'] 10-189 [190] bfl; frontispiece and 4 plates reproduced from Blaine's pen drawings in "woodcut" manner. Binding:25.5 x 17 cm., original black cloth, front cover and spine stamped in gilt; printed on thick paper, margins trimmed unevenly; pink pictorial DJ. Contributors: Gustave Flaubert (French, 1821 – 1880) – author. Mahlon Blaine (American, 1894 – 1969) – artist. Patrick Lafcadio Hearn [Koizumi Yakumo; 小泉 八雲] ( Greek-Irish, 1850 – 1904) – translator. Williams, Belasco and Meyers – publisher. J. J. Little & Ives, Co., NY – printer.
