Triangle Books

Reynal & Hitchcock (New York, NY)
Series dates: 1933-1939
Size: 5.25″ x 7.5″

Doubleday Co. (New York, US)
Series dates: (1939-1949)
Size: 5.25″ x 7.5″

triangle_logo

Like Blue Ribbon Books, Triangle Books were a series of popular reprint fiction first published in 1933 by Reynal & Hitchcock and sold to Doubleday in 1939. The series continued until 1949. Nearly 400 titles were issued, most rather forgettable fiction, mysteries, westerns with a few non-fiction titles.

Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel is an April 1944 edition published with permission by Putnam. The jacket art is unique to each title, in many cases borrowed from the original dust jacket art used on earlier editions (published by other publishers). The front jacket contains a summary of the book, and the series name is included on the jacket spine (missing here due to jacket damage) and the bottom of the front jacket flap.

triangle_djfront

The rear of the jacket and rear flap embody the quintessential cheap book series sell, in this case with a comic depicting a family who has been hooked on reading books by the low-cost high-quality titles in the Triangle Books. Nearly 50 titles in the series are listed. As with the Center Books, the particular title is indicated in the corner of the rear jacket flap, along with its series number (#360). It’s not clear why one might want to clip off this corner with the basic book information.

triangle_djback

Bindings are bossy-red cloth with contrasting black bars.

triangle_bind

The half title page showing the crappy coarse paper and mediocre binding of books in the series.

triangle_halftit

The title page:

triangle_tit

The copyright page includes the printing month and year as well as the copyright holder (Putnam).

triangle_actcr