Tom Swift -Earliest Dust jackets

Clearly the Tom Swift Series was one of the most popular juvenile series ever published. Along with the Rover Boys, Grosset and Dunlap had two giant sellers in the early days of the twentieth century.

The first 5 books in the Tom Swift Series were published in 1910 as a "breeder set". Another five came in 1911 and yet another five in 1912. Thereafter one new book was published per year until in 1935 when volume #38 Tom Swift and His Planet Stone was published.



The familiar quadrant cover was used until it was replaced with a blind stamped orange cloth cover in 1932/1933 during the early print run of "the Giant Magnet". There were three basic dust jacket formats. Quadrant, duotoneand full color. Today I am going to address the quadrant dust jackets.

As with most all series books the earliest formats had dust jackets which matched the cover of the book. The Tom Swift Series was no exception to this rule.


In the first year of production books #1-5 had the earliest dust jacket. red line drawn on a brownish background without any other colors. The dust jacket reverse only listed the first five titles-indicating its 1910 publication. This jacket was used for one year

The second dust jacket lists 10 titles on the reverse (indicating a 1911 date). It has dark green coloration in addition to the red on a brown paper dust jacket.



The third and final quadrant dust jacket is the same as the second only on a white paper dust jacket. This one lists anywhere from 15 titles (1912 book) to 20 titles (1917 book). After this quadrant dust jacket ran its course, the duotones were put into production.

The rarest Tom Swift dust jacketed book can be argued about. Some say it is the First format quadrant cloth Giant Magnet. Other say it is not a jacketed book at all but the Keds paperback reprints (see a future blog entry), in my mind it is a 1910 dust jacketed book.

The Mershon Company- History and Dust Jackets

The Mershon Company was an active publishing house between 1897 and 1906. Mainly known as a reprint house of classics and juvenile literature, it also published a number of original
works such as the Bobbsey Twins and Rover Boys.

In 1893 the Cassell Publishing House was reorganized. Apparently its previous manager Oscar Dunham had absconded with $180,000 and financially Cassell was in a desperate situation. A new Cassell Publishing Company was organized in New York with William Mershon as president and manager. Prior to this Mershon had been in charge of his own bookbinding, electrotyping, and printing establishment. in Rahway , NJ.

In 1897 Mershon left Cassell to start his own publishing company. In 1905 the name of the firm was changed to Stitt. Apparently the new company run by William Stitt was not successful and the company returned to the Mershon imprint in 1906.


Apparently He was in business until October,1906 at which time his publishing business were sold to Chatterton- Peck. Charles Peck had been a long time employee of The Mershon Company.

For more details see John Dizer: Tom Swift. the Bobbsey Twins and Other Heroes of American Juvenile Literature. The Edward Mellen Press. 1997Frequently ads from dealers and booksellers describe books as without dust jacket-as issued. The reality with most all books from the 1890's and later is that generally all of them had jackets and/or were boxed. Of course, no amount of explanation is enough. My thought is that if you do not know something about a book, then make no claim.

Here are two sample ads from a book sales service:

Captain Bailey Heir
Henty, G. A.
Mershon, 1900. Hard cover. Book Condition: Good. Good. No dust jacket as issued.

By England's Aid Or The Freeing Of The Netherlands 1585-1604
Henty, G.A.
Mershon Company. Hardback. No Dustjacket, probably as issued.

It amazes me that without knowledge and without doing the research that some dealers assume jacketless books are the norm- when quite the opposite is the case. This entry shows a couple of jacketed Mershon books from the first decade of the 20th century.