Sunday, May 24, 2020

Stay-at-home shelfie #58


Toward the left there is a single volume from the My Book House series and a book about the history of the series: Olive Beaupré Miller and the Book House for Children, by Dorothy Loring Taylor.1 I've mentioned My Book House previously in the posts Pete and Jeff's lending library and Katherine Sturges Dodge illustration.

The reddish book in the middle is 1914's Better Rural Schools by George Herbert Betts and Otis E. Hall. I need to keep up my reputation for having obscure stuff on the shelves, right? This volume is filled with wonderful illustrations and old photographs of schoolhouses. And one day I should probably ... well, you know. I can add that this book, per inscriptions up front, previously belonged to Walter Kramer and Pearl Fogelsanger. (Probably this Pearl Fogelsanger.)

This is the 1960 seven-volume edition of Lands and Peoples from the Grolier Society. I'm surprised there isn't more written about these beautiful and informative books, which went through many revisions and design updates from the 1920s onward through at least the 1970s. The best memories I could find were via Amazon reviews of the 1957 edition:

  • "I devoured this series growing up, and found in it again my inspirations for dance."
  • "The world as it used to be! Lots of photos of places no longer there or so changed you wish you could have seen in the old days."
  • "I had this set as a child. I loved it then and I love it now."

Helen Hynson Merrick is listed as the Editor in Chief of the 1960 edition. When she died in October 1973 in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, at age 67, The New York Times noted in her obituary that she was also the author of two books for children: The First Book of Norway and Sweden.

Footnotes
1. It's also interesting to see what has and what has not changed compared to this January 2016 shelfie, which was in a whole nother house.

No comments:

Post a Comment