Dust Jacketed Mershon Mrs. L.T. Meade Book

Today I received nice Mershon copy of Daddy's Girl by Mrs. L.T. Meade (Mrs. Elizabeth Thomasina Smith). This book was part of the Mershon publishing house series of Mrs. L.T. Meade's Famous Books for Girls Series. (On June 8, 2009 I wrote a bit about The Mershon Company and its dust jackets.) The nice thing about this book is that it has a dust jacket. The jacket is a bit different from the other Mershon jackets I have seen. This one is made of a heavier paper not the flimsy paper usually seen in jackets of this era.

The title page which has the imprint Rahway, New Jersey and New York indicates a post 1902 book. Based on Mershon catalogues and listings it appears that this series of up to 30 books was published between 1903 and 1906. In 1905 the Meade book series (only 17 books though) were printed by Stitt.




About the author: L. T. Meade (1854-1914) wrote several hundred books many of which were juvenile girl's stories. She was born in Brandon, County Cork, Ireland and later lived in London. She spent six years as an editor of a girl's magazine called Atalanta. Her juvenile books can be found on most all of the cheap reprint publishers' lists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Interesting details of her work day are noted in The Literary World, January 11, 1901. She employed several secretaries that transcribed her spoken words. She was able to "compose an average of 6000 words a day" by this method. She noted that she was always working on two or three stories at the same time.

Henty First Edition by Blackie with Dust Jacket

George Henty wrote 122 books as described by his bibliographer Peter Newbolt in G.H. Henty 1832-1902, A Bibliographical Study, Scolar Press 1996. A number of British publishers did the first editions but Blackie did more firsts and reprints than any other. Most of the American first editions were published by Scribner's and Scribner and Welford.


Who was George Henty? A sickly child born in Trumpington, England, he later served with the British services in various sites including the Suez canal, Franco-German Campaign, Turko-Serbian War. After his service ended he wrote numerous boys' adventure books many of which were based on his own experiences.

Blackie first editions are of variable scarcity. Blackie first editions with dust jackets are quite rare. Here is an example. The Tiger of Mysore was published in late 1895. It was the custom of Blackie to put the next year' s date at the base of the title page. (See Newbolt). More on Henty 's books in future posts.