Windmill Library

William Heinemann Ltd. (London, UK)
Series dates: 1927-1933
Size: 7″ x 5″

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The Windmill Library consisted of 27 titles issued between 1927 and 1933, with reprints as late as 1940. A juvenile series called the New Windmill Series appeared in 1950.

Two title spines, with and without jackets, are shown to the left.

The first six titles in the series were announced in the Times Literary Supplement, Autumn Announcements of September 22, 1927. A list of the series titles is included below.

The 27 titles in Heinemann’s Windmill Library with the first year of publication in the series:

**1. Will Shakespeare, An Invention in Four Acts, by Clemence Dane (1927, 1940)
2. Gifts of Fortune with Some Hints for Those About to Travel, by H.M. Tomlinson (1927)
3. The White Riband, by F. Tennyson Jesse
4. Castles In Spain, by John Galsworthy
5. A Short History of the World, by H, G. Wells
6. The Pastoral Loves of Daphnis And Chloe, Translated from the Greek of Longus, by George Moore (1927)

7. A Lost Lady, by Willa S. Cather (1928)
*8. Legend, by Clemence Dane (1928)
9. Father And Son, by Sir Edmund Gosse, C.B. (1928)
10. Nash And Some Others, by C. S. Evans (1928)

11. Atonement, by Edward Thompson (1929)
*12. Open House: A Book of Essays, by J.B. Priestley (1929)
13. The Happy Foreigner, by Enid Bagnold (1929)

14. My Antonia, by Willa S. Cather (1930)
15. The Garden Of Kama, by Laurence Hope (1930)
16. Stars of the Desert, by Laurence Hope (1930)
17. Indian Love, by Laurence Hope (1930)
*18. Adam in Moonshine, by J.B. Priestley (1930)
*19. Benighted, by J.B. Priestley (1930)

20. Gallions Reach, by H.M. Tomlinson (1931)

21. Selections From Swinburne, by Gosse And Wise (1933)
22. Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa S. Cather (1933)
23. The Land, by V. Sackville-West (1933)
24. Serena Blandish, Or the Difficulty of Getting Married, by A Lady of Quality
25. Confessions of a Young Man, by George Moore (1933)
**26. A Diary Without Dates, by Enid Bagnold (1933, 1978)
27. The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran (1933)

*Not listed in the dust jacket catalog on books issued after 1933 (thus, out of print).
**Includes last year of reprints, pre-WW2 (1940) with one anomalous reprint in 1978


This is a 1933 (first in series) edition of Serena Blandish by “A Lady of Quality” (Enid Bagnold). Jackets are common to the series, printed on heavy mottled kraft paper. The jacket spine includes the price (here 4/6 on a sticker; the price under the sticker is 3s. 6d.), the series number (#24), and “Heinemann’s Windmill Library.” The front of the jacket also indicates the series name. The front jacket flap blurbs the book.

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The back of the jacket lists titles in the series (missing #8, #12, #18, and #19 which were likely out of print).

Brown cloth binding with gold typography and decorations:

The half-title page includes the series name:

Aan illustration “The Suicide” faces the title page. The printing date, 1933, is included under the publisher’s imprint.

Printing information about the book is on the verso of the title page: