Evergreen Series

Houghton Mifflin Co. (Boston, US)
Series dates: 1923
Size: 4.25″ x 6.75″

evergreenseries_logoThe Evergreen Series consists of brief (60 pages or so) gift books issued in a series of 12 for Christmas of 1923.

The jackets are illustrated with artwork relevant to each title. The price is .50 cents a copy. Other Houghton Mifflin titles are advertised on the jacket flaps; in this case, the Riverside Bookshelf, a series issued as both adult and juvenile titles.

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The series seems to be some kind of “loss leader” – a cheap item, in this case, intended to advertise and (maybe) sell additional Houghton Mifflin books. Thus the copy of Thoreau’s Wild Apples (1923, as all other titles) advertises the publisher’s pocket Writings of Henry David Thoreau.

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Bindings are decorative, with a pine (Christmas) tree. They were designed by W.A. Dwiggins. The material is a heavy cardboard. The series name is included on the front cover of the book.

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Each book has an illustrated frontispiece (same as on jacket) and title page with series name and date of publication.

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A pair of Evergreen Series titles. The Bret Harte title advertises the publisher’s pocket edition of the Writings of Bret Harte.

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The Evergreen Series name was used again in 1933-34 by Longman, Green, and Company for a series of non-fiction, primarily political titles.