West Point Series- Book Autographed by Author Malone

In the previous post the West Point Series was discussed. Here is a book from that series autographed by the author. The signature is in A West Point Cadet with a title page date of 1908. Malone signed it Captain 27th Infantry. Of note is that based on his biography he was with the 27th Infantry in Cuba in 1906. Between 1906 and 1908 Malone was Provost Marshal and judge Advocate of the Army of Cuban Pacification.

He signed the book to another officer in the Army of Cuban pacification,
Millard Waltz


Millard Fillmore Waltz served for 43 years in the army retiring in 1918 at the age of 61. In Cuba he worked with Paul Malone. Waltz reached the rank of Colonel.

The West Point Series by Paul Malone -Penn Publishing

The West Point Series written by Paul B. Malone and published by Penn Publishing Company is a 5 book series that chronicles the adventures of Douglas Atwell at West Point. This series was initially published between 1904 and 1911 and then was reprinted numerous times. In fact the books are still listed in a 1939 Penn catalogue. I suspect that they still were being published up until Penn went out of business in 1941.

(A quick aside: I was at West Point two months ago at the outdoor Patriot League track championships. It is an unbelievably spectacular campus. The track is right on the Hudson River and is very impressive. I include a picture. By the way, my daughter, who is a freshman and runs for Lehigh, finished third in the 1500 meter race.)


About the author. Malone was born in 1872 in Middletown, New York and graduated from West Point in 1894. He became a captain a 1901 and was promoted to Major in 1916. He was appointed Brigadier General in 1918.
His career highlights include being in command of the fifth division during the offensive at St. Mihiel in 1918. He also served in the Philippines during the Santiago Campaign between 1899-1901. He taught chemistry at West Point between 1901-1905. He received the Distinguished Service Medal for his service during World War I. ( The Fifth U.S. Division in the World War 1917-1919, The Society of the Fifth Division, 1919).



Basically the evolution of the editions of the five books is typical of most early Penn Publishing Company Series. The earliest editions have very attractive cloth covers with gold gilt supplementing the line drawn design as well as line drawn end paper illustrations. The earliest covers are all different with dust jackets that match the book covers. It appears that the designs were done by the "Decorative Designers". Later the book covers were the same for each book as were the jackets. The spine logo of the company changed in 1906 from a script TPPCo. to interlocking P's. Thus the earliest editions of books #1 and #2 have the script logo. Each book has multiple glossy illustrations done by F.A. Carter.




Later editions eliminated the gold gilt on the cover and the spine writing was black not white. The cover picture in later editions was the same for all the books.

Note that Malone's name changed during this series run.. The early books have him listed as a Captain whereas the later books list him as a Major-General.



This is a later Dust jacket. Note that the author's name is preceded by his later rank of Major General which he received in 1918.

The West Point Series by Paul Malone
1.Winning His Way to West Point 1904
2. A Plebe at West Point 1905
3. A West Point Yearling 1907
4. A West Point Cadet 1908
5. A West Point Lieutenant 1911

Penn Publishing Company-Part 1

Above is the original Penn Publishing Building at 1020 Arch Street in Philadelphia.


Here is a picture of Charles Shoemaker, the founder of Penn.



The Penn Publishing Company which was based in Philadelphia was responsible for 23 boys' juvenile series listed in Mattson's guide. Probably half that number of girls' series were published . Undoubtedly because of modest print runs the books of these series are somewhat hard find-especially in dust jackets.




First a bit about the company. It began its business at 1020 Arch Street in Philadelphia in 1889. (Incidentally I was in Philadelphia two weeks ago and this address is now a parking lot.) It was founded by Charles C. Shoemaker. Early on Penn published books on elocution and recitation. After the great success of those books, plays for amateurs were printed. Popular handbooks for entertainment and education soon followed. In the early to mid 1890's books by Edward Ellis and Horatio Alger among others supplemented their list. Finally success really came to Penn in the early 1900's when they began to publish boys' and girls' series books.



The Dancing book with the dust jacket is one of the Popular Handbooks which were early best sellers for Penn.



As time moved on, juvenile books seemed to be a larger percentage of the Penn book list. In fact by 1927 75% of the catalogue listed juvenile books. By 1927 the series of previous years were being combined into large publisher's series called the Vacation Series, Historical Series, and the Outdoor Series.








Here is an ad from the penn Publishing catalogue in 1895. It shows some early juvenile fiction published by Penn.

In order to boost circulation Penn utilized giveaways as well as contests. Posters were offered to readers who sent in the answers to several questions. Dealers were offered incentives to sell Penn Publishing books. Shown here is a notice of winners of a Betty Wales dress to those who sold the most Betty Wales books in 1922. (Publishers Weekly- P. 267, Feb 4 1922)




The first of the boys juvenile series was the West Point Series. Winning His Way to West Point by Capt. Paul Malone published in 1904 was the first book. By the 1920's Penn was subtly pointing out to buyers of books that their titles helped the moral tone of youngsters. On the back of a catalogue Penn spoke about the key to choosing books for boys and girls.

The early Penn series books were well bound sturdy books with wonderfully decorated end papers and cover designs in gold gilt. As time went on the books had plain cover designs without end paper illustrations . Although I cannot prove it, I believe all Penn hardcover books originally had dust jackets.

More about Penn and its series in later blogs.