The Rollo Series -Reprints of the 1860-1880's

Sheldon 1864


On June 24, 2009 I discussed the Rollo Travels Series' first editions. I mentioned that after the first group of early publishers that there were a myriad of others who published these books. I thought I would review this over a few posts.

What is a myriad. By my count there are 22 publishers who printed this series between Taggard and Thompson's last publication and about 1910. Many of these houses had multiple different formats of these books.

Here are the the next group of Rollo Travels printings which came in the 1860's , 1870's and 1880's. The publishers were:

Sheldon and Company
D. Lothrop and Company
John R. Anderson
John B. Alden
DeWolfe, Fiske and Company




Sheldon 1868

Sheldon 1869



Sheldon and Company was the most prolific of the group. It published editions in 1864, 1868, 1869, 1870 and 1880 that I am aware of (I suspect that there were more). The earliest of these editions is seen with blind stamped covers. Later editions have gold gilt decorative cover patterns. As with the general pattern of juvenile books of the 19th century. The plain covers gave way to the more colorful (pictorial or gilt laden ) covers as the 1870's passed. The first Sheldon book with gold gilt on the cover was published in 1870. As you can see, the 1869 book was blind stamped. By 1880 the gold gilt cover of the Sheldon book was more vertical than that of the 1870 book. By the time that Sheldon sold the plates in 1882 it had made over $60,000 in profit from the 10 book Rollo Series reprints




Sheldon 1870

Sheldon 1880








Interestingly enough the John R. Anderson book of 1881 uses the same gold gilt pattern on the cover as the 1880 Sheldon book. The decorative border pattern differs however.

After Anderson, Lothrop published this series in the 1880's. My Lothrop copy has Anderson ads in the back indicating that when Anderson went defunct, Lothrop got the plates from it.



John R. Anderson



DeWolfe, Fiske and Company published their Rollo Series between 1885 and about 1888. DeWolfe did buy many of the Anderson plates in 1885 and it appears that the these DeWolfe Rollo's were part of that buy.










DeWolfe, Fiske and Company


DeWolfe and Lothrop used the same covers for the series. Although I am not sure, I suspect that the Lothrop copies preceded the DeWolfe printings.

John Alden also published this series in the 1883. Its book was smaller (6.24 x 4.25) but as with all the others, it has the sailboat title page.


The last two books shown are the D. Lothrop and Co.
and the John B. Alden book.