Publisher's Advertising flyers are one of my favorite collectibles. This type of ephemera is not only extremely scarce but when found, very helpful to a bibliophile's research.
Here is a great example from the Lee and Shepard publishing house. Although there is no mention of the publisher's name on the flyer, the books were all published by Lee and Shepard. In addition several books which were published by Lee and Shepard in 1902 have ads that say "Ready September ".
A number of first edition Stratemeyer's are noted in addition to a books from Everett Tomlinson's Series.
It is my guess that most of these flyers were initially placed into books as advertising that was to supplement the ads in the back of the book. I am not sure whether these flyers were also given to book stores to be given to customers at or near the checkout register.
Shown here is a book from this advertising piece.
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Some advertising circulars of this type were specifically commissioned by Stratemeyer, often in a cost-sharing partnership with the publisher. There are several examples which include only his personal and the Syndicate stories. Some of these were quite elaborate.
ReplyDeleteThere are numerous references to these advertising campaigns in the correspondence files at NYPL. Often they were smaller, designed to fit in an envelope. Similar catalogs from several publishers, all listing Stratemeyer's book properties, would be placed in an envelope and addressed by hand (often by Edward's sister Anna) and stamped to be sent out to lists of children who were likely to want to buy the books. The lists were culled from a variety of sources and even which sources to use is an interesting part of the correspondence.
In some years there would be longer or shorter catalogs sent out. There were also some large, almost newspaper-sized, samplers with the first chapter of several series.
Another example had reviews of Stratemeyer and Syndicate stories. Although the name John Tupper Brownell was used on the booklet, all of the content was supplied by Stratemeyer.
The Trudi Abel dissertation on Stratemeyer has a footnote that refers to why Tomlinson's books could be listed in his books. However, the details were not revealed and the letter cited is in the family's collection and not available to scholars.
I do know that Stratemeyer visited with Dr. Tomlinson on a few occasions. For example, after Edward got his first auto in 1910 he drove to Elizabeth, NJ, and visited with him according to a letter in the NYPL files.
James Keeline