{"id":240,"date":"2024-11-29T21:31:28","date_gmt":"2024-11-29T21:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athaeneum\/?p=240"},"modified":"2024-11-30T00:18:02","modified_gmt":"2024-11-30T00:18:02","slug":"little-women-1923","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/little-women-1923\/","title":{"rendered":"Little Women (1923)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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  • \"\"<\/li>\n
  • \"\"<\/li>\n <\/ul>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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    • Title: Little Women \u201cComplete Authorized Edition”<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Author: Louisa M. Alcott<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Publisher: A.L. Burt Company<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Estimated year of printing: 1923 <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

      Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Inscription: \u201cTo cousin Charlotte From Barbara and John Enos.  Christmas 1923.  Merry Christmas. Let me know if you like this gift. John and Barbara.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Several copyright dates, latest is 1911.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Dust jacket references \u201cOf the many books for girls and boys that have come and gone in the fifty years since Little Women<\/em> was first published\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Little Women<\/em> was first published in two volumes, in 1868 and 1869.  Later printings combined the two volumes into one \u2014 as this copy does (separated as \u201cPart First\u201d and \u201cPart Second\u201d in the table of contents).  The copyright makes an earliest possible printing of 1911.  The 50-year reference on the dust jacket puts this at around 1918.  The handwritten inscription puts this being printed no later than 1923. Since dust jackets only became common after World War I, this is likely the 1911 edition, but a printing closer to the 1923 inscription.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      It\u2019s unusual for a dust jacket for a book this old to have survived.  It\u2019s not in great shape (the book presents better without it), but it is interesting to have it nonetheless.  The dust jacket advertises other reprinted books by this publisher \u2014 Pinnochio<\/em>, Heidi<\/em>, and other classics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      I love that this book has a handwritten inscription placing this as a Christmas gift in 1923.  Inscriptions add a lot of character and history to an old book, and this is one of the longest inscriptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      A.L. Burt was a publishing house from 1883 until 1937.  They focused on reprinting popular and classic fiction (such as this) and also expanded into children\u2019s series books.  In 1937, it was sold to Blue Ribbon Books, which two years later sold itself to Doubleday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Historical context:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      When this book was printed in 1923, Warren G. Harding was President of the United States.  The U.S. was in the midst of both Prohibition and the \u201cRoaring Twenties\u201d.  This year would see Louis Armstrong make his first recording and also the founding of the Walt Disney Company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Notes: Inscription: \u201cTo cousin Charlotte From Barbara and John Enos.  Christmas 1923.  Merry Christmas. Let me know if you like this gift. John and Barbara.\u201d Several copyright dates, latest is 1911. Dust jacket references \u201cOf the many books for girls and boys that have come and gone in the fifty years since Little Women was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":253,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":276,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions\/276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leedberg.com\/athenaeum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}