Book corner protectors from DeWolfe and Fiske

Book corner protectors have been previously discussed in a blog post on October 29, 2009. They are distinctly uncommon and at that time I showed two that I had found. Here is another one.

The book it protects is an 1895 reprint of Captain January by Laura E. Richards. Estes and Lauriat is the publisher . In a book writing career that included numerous popular children's books, this is perhaps Richards' most famous title. For a good biography see: http://readseries.com/auth-oz/richardsbio.html.

The corner protectors here were issued by DeWolfe and Fiske Company. In addition to being a publishing company of note, it also ran the Archway Bookstore.

It was there that this book was sold. This book however was not sold in 1895 despite the title page date.

In 1907 the Archway bookstore moved from 365 Washington Street to the Franklin Street address. Thus the corner protectors at their earliest are from 1907.

I believe that corner protectors from this era are much more difficult to find than dust jackets from the same years.

Book Corner Protectors

Book corner protectors are a rare find. Today I am showing two different ones.

The first I took off a Wanamaker published book. This book was published as part of the Wanamaker's Young People's Library and was published in the 1902-1910 era.

The second book corner protector is the more interesting. It is from an unknown Lee and Shepard book. Thus it was produced before 1905. It looks to me like it was hand stamped. What I mean is that Lee and Shepard probably bought blank protectors and then stamped them individually. On the Lee and Shepard item there is a line that says Pat Mar 26,1895 Worchester, Mass. Therefore the production of this item is narrowed down to the years between 1895-1905.

What intrigues me more about these items is when they were used. Clearly the corner protectors are too cumbersome to have been used with jacketed or boxed books. This must mean that some books that came from the publisher did not have jackets (or boxes). This is contrary to my conjecture that all books of this era originally were boxed or had dust jackets. Indeed there must have been a subset that came with the book corner protectors only.
Hopefully we can learn more about these items and see more examples as time goes on.