Beadle's Dime Handbooks

THE FIRST dime booklet published by either of the Beadles was a songbook, which was filed for copyright by Irwin P. Beadle April 19, 1859. ⁽¹⁾ This was quickly followed by "The Dime Cook Book" and "The Dime Recipe Book." The exact date of publication of the former is unknown, but the latter was deposited for copyright July 14, 1859. Both books were out in August, 1859, for in the September number of The Home, which was issued ⁽²⁾ some time in August, Mrs. Victor announced in an editorial that Irwin's series of handbooks "thus far comprises: The Dime Cook Book, the Dime Recipe Book, the Dime Dialogues, the Dime Speaker, and the Dime Melodist." Since the Cook Book is always listed in advertisements before the Recipe Book, it was probably published before it.

The first of the Handbooks was thus definitely published early in 1859; the last appeared in 1880, but most of the series came out before 1870. They were printed and reprinted in many editions in later years, with no change except in the wrappers and the publishers' imprint of some editions, until the plates were so worn that the type was illegible in places, and it became necessary to reset and restereotype them. How many of the books were sold it is impossible to say, but some of the more popular titles must have run to tens of thousands. In general, in the list below, only the early printings are described.

In the order of publication, the various Handbooks appeared as shown in Table III.

The wrappers of the Handbooks are of seven different types, with some minor variations. Perhaps it would be better to say that they are of six types, for No. I-Handbooks is like II-Handbooks except that the the former is of smaller size. In both of these, the title of the series occupies about half the available space on the front wrapper. At the top is the word "Beadle's" in small capital letters, and below it the word "Dime" in large outline letters curved above the cut of the reverse of a dime. Below that comes the title of the book itself, e.g., Recipe Book, etc. The remainder of the front cover contains the explanatory title and the name of the bookseller in the small size (I-Handbooks, Fig. 105), and the name of the publisher in the later larger size (II-Handbooks, Fig. 106). The title page of I-Handbooks is like the wrapper, but in place of the bookseller's name, it has the name of the publisher, Irwin P. Beadle (or Irwin P. Beadle & Co.) and the address, 137 William Street, New York.

In Types III-Handbooks and IV-Handbooks (Fig. 107 - Fig. 108), the heading is condensed, so that it occupies only about one-fourth of the front cover. The cut of the dime now overlaps the word "Dime" and the word "Beadle's" at the top is curved. In Type III-Handbooks there is no illustration on the cover; in Type IV-Handbooks, which is the most common, there is a black line cut which differs in each Handbook. It is possible that reprints of all of the earlier Handbooks also occur with this wrapper.

Type V-Handbooks (Fig. 109) has a simple type-set title. The name of Beadle does not occur on this wrapper except as publisher, nor is there a cut of a dime. Like Type IV-Handbooks, there is an illustration on the cover. I have seen this type only on No. 22, the "Book of 100 Games."

Types VI-Handbooks and VII-Handbooks (Fig. 110 - Fig. 111) were specially engraved for Nos. 24 and 25, and occur on no other numbers.

Differing from Beadle's later publications in not being in numbered series, the books were generally grouped in the advertisements as "Family Hand-Books," "Young People's Hand-Books," and "Hand-Books of Games and Pastimes." But the individual books were not always placed in the same group, for the Handbooks of Games, of Croquet, and of Chess were sometimes placed among the "Young People's Hand-Books," and sometimes among "Games and Pastimes." In some advertisements the books of the "Young People's Hand-Books" and "Popular Hand-Books" were numbered, but the sequence was not that of the dates of issue and the lists included some of the game books. In the lists below they are classified according to the usual advertisements, but the sequence in each group is according to the dates of appearance. The number preceding each booklet is the number in the list above, which is given simply for convenience in identifying its position in the complete list of handbooks. These numbers were not given by the publishers.

* Numbers marked with an asterisk are definitely, and some of the others may be, reprints. Presumably they occur also in earlier type wrappers.

Numbers 1 to 12 originally came out in buff wrappers and in the small size, and later in buff and standard size. The covers of Nos. 13 to 25 were orange. Early numbers in orange are reprints.

Notes

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