the book collector
of authors that was to become a source of fruitful public relations. And fourth, recognising the growing demand for portable reading, particularly for rail journeys, they published these new novels in an unusual format – tall (7”), narrow (3 ½”), and slim - to fit handily in a lady’s bag or a gentleman’s pocket. The Pseudonym Library was an immediate and considerable success; launched in 1890 (three years before Lane’s Keynotes series), it covered over 150 titles in its five years life. It was discontinued in 1895 1 , not through lack of success but presumably because the anonymity gim- mick itself had run out of steam. Even before it ended, Unwin had launched its successor The Antonym Library which continued in the same way but now identified its authors. 2 The Antonym Library con- tinued the 7” x 3 ½” format, but was less successful than its prede- cessor so Unwin needed to find a new way forward. The question he needed to answer was whether the concept of new writing, issued in library series, could be applied to more conventional single volume novels. In 1895–6, he seems to have experimented with one particu- lar solution that he then abandoned, leaving collectors today with a series of seven books of indeterminate edition status. The series seems never to have been given a name, but all seven titles were published more conventionally in the same format (7 5/8”) and with the same pictorial binding design (although as was usual at the time, cloth colours vary and the colour printing also varied to match) involving a brick wall with poppies growing against it. The front cover design which I am calling here ‘Poppies’ – is illustrated on page 735. The back covers are blank. Inside before the main text block are the pub- lisher’s decorated imprint; half title; list of other titles ‘Uniform with this Volume’; title page; and copyright details. The designs are not signed but the poppies are drawn in an attractive Art Nouveau style which, emerging in Britain from the Arts and Crafts Movement of the 1880s, was inspired by the natu- ral, curving forms of plants and flowers. This was the period when 1 . Although briefly revived in 1903. 2 . For an excellent discussion of both ‘Libraries’, see ‘The Series as Commodity: Marketing Fisher Unwin’s Pseudonym and Autonym Library’ in The Culture of the Publisher’s Series: Authors, Publishers and the Shaping of Taste. Vol. 1, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
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