the book collector
el. Blanchard’s bibliography for him 8 describes the Poppies design and regards that as the first edition. In fact, Blanchard records two variants of this, one with the full title on the cover and one with a short title. This reflects a problem with the Poppies design in gen- eral: that it leaves too little room for long titling. This may perhaps be one reason the design/series was discontinued. Wol V had a copy [No. 890]: ‘Black buckram, blocked in pink, red, yellow, and green on front, in all but pink on spine; lettered in yellow on both’. He regarded this as the first edition, and although it doesn’t mention the Poppies design, his description corresponds in other respects precise- ly with the British Library copy. AbeBooks lists nineteen copies – all Poppies in the two Blanchard variants and in di V erent colours. 5. Dreams , by Olive Schreiner (Pub. 1894). Schreiner was a South African liberal intellectual whose writings are remarkably free from the racist and religious cant of so many of her contemporaries. Honoured more in her homeland than elsewhere, she deserves more attention than she gets. The British Library has no copy of this edition and there are none on AbeBooks. It seems to have been the first title to be published in the series and was a reprint. It was first published also by Unwin in 1890 and went through five editions up to 1893. This was the ‘6th Edition’ and was explicitly identified as such in the list in Le Selve . Since none of the other titles listed there has any ‘edition’ qualification, I believe we can assume that after publishing this title, Unwin changed strategy for the series and all the other titles were to be first editions. 6. The Honour of the Flag and Other Stories , by W. Clark Russell (Pub. 1896). William Clark Russell (1844–1911) started life in the merchant navy and became a prolific writer of seafaring tales. This is a rare title: there are no copies for sale on AbeBooks. The British Library copy is Poppies. 7. Le Selve , by Ouida (Pub. 1896). Maria Louise Ramé 9 began as something of a ‘sensation’ novelist but ended up writing historical romance, of which genre this short 8 . The First Editions of John Buchan: a Collector’s Bibliography , Robert G. Blanchard (Hamden, CT.) 1982. 9 . Her pseudonym ‘Ouida’ was her childhood mispronunciation of ‘Louisa’.
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