Overview of the Collection
Access
Administrative Information
Historical Note
Scope and Content
Related materials in the Huntington Library
Arrangement
Indexing Terms
Overview of the Collection
Title: Little Blue Book collection
Dates (inclusive): 1921-1943
Bulk dates: 1920s
Collection Number: 644677
Creator:
Haldeman-Julius, E. (Emanuel), 1888-1951, editor
Extent:
324 items in 6 boxes
Repository:
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Rare Books Department
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Phone: (626) 405-2191
Email: reference@huntington.org
URL: http://www.huntington.org
Abstract: This collection contains 324 booklets from the Little Blue Book and related series published by the Haldeman-Julius Company
of Girard, Kansas in the mid-20th century.
The titles in the collection range from reprints of literary classics by authors such as ancient Greek tragedians, William
Shakespeare, and Ralph Waldo Emerson to contemporary writings by geologist Carroll Lane Fenton,
historian Will Durant. More than 150 authors are represented and the booklets often focus on topics such as free thought,
philosophy, religion, evolution, natural history, biographies of scientists and historical figures,
and guides and essays about philosophers and authors.
Language: English.
Note:
Finding aid last updated on January 12, 2015.
Access
Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader
Services.
Administrative Information
Publication Rights
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material,
nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder,
if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item]. Little Blue Book Collection, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Provenance
Volumes in this collection were primarily received as part of the Sanford and Helen Berger Collection that was acquired by
the Huntington Library and Art Collections in 1999; some volumes
were also received from Martin Ridge.
Historical Note
Emanuel Haldeman-Julius (1889-1951) was an American social activist, journalist, and publisher. Haldeman-Julius was born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1889, and became a member
of the Socialist part in the early 1910s. In 1915, he moved to Girard, Kansas, to edit the socialist paper
The Appeal to Reason. Four years later, Haldeman-Julius,
his wife, and Louis Kopelin purchased the
Appeal's printing plant and formed the Appeal Publishing Company. That year, the company began producing a small,
inexpensive booklet series titled
The Appeal's Pocket Series. In 1922, the company became the Haldeman-Julius Company.
The booklets expanded into multiple series in the early 1920s, including the People's Pocket Series, Ten Cent Pocket Series,
Five Cent Pocket Series, and Pocket Series; the most
commonly issued pocket series, the "Little Blue Books," was begun in 1923. Little Blue Books were published from 1923 until
1978 in a uniform 3.5 x 5 inch format with color
paper wrappers and a 15,000-word limit. The booklets were aimed at providing inexpensive educational resources to the working
class and typically included reprints of classic literary
works, socialist writings, original essays, often by liberal and radical writers, and self-improvement manuals.
In 1925, the company also began publishing "Big Blue Books," which were 8.5 x 5.5 inches, typically with 30,000 words and
64 pages, and more expensive than the Little Blue Books. More than 300 million copies of the Big and
Little Blue Books were sold before their discontinuation in 1964.
Haldeman-Julius died in 1951. Under the management of Haldeman-Julius's son Henry J. Haldeman, the company continued to produce
pamphlets until the Girard plant was destroyed by fire in 1978.
Source:
Bushnell, Judith. "Haldeman-Julius Company," in
The Dictionary of Literary Biography: Volume 46: American Literary Publishing Houses, 1900-1980 (Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Company, 1986).
Scope and Content
This collection contains 324 booklets from the
Little Blue Book and related series published by the Haldeman-Julius Company of Girard, Kansas. The collection includes booklets dating from
1921
to 1943, with the bulk dating from the 1920s. The titles in the collection range from reprints of literary classics by authors
such as ancient Greek tragedians, William Shakespeare, and Ralph Waldo
Emerson to contemporary writings by geologist Carroll Lane Fenton, historian Will Durant. More than 150 authors are represented
and the booklets often focus on topics such as free thought, philosophy,
religion, evolution, natural history, biographies of scientists and historical figures, and guides and essays about philosophers
and authors.
The booklets are 3.5 x 5.5 inches, with colored paper wrappers. The booklets are primarily identified as part of the "Little
Blue Book" series on the front cover,
but there are some titles from the Five cent pocket series; the Ten Cent pocket series; the Appeal pocket series; and the
Pocket series.
Entries for each imprint
in the contents list contain the following information (when known): publisher's number; title; date; and author(s).
Related materials in the Huntington Library
Arrangement
The books are arranged numerically according to the number printed on the front cover. Generally, this number corresponds
to chronological order, though some same later
titles issued with the same number
are repeated.
Indexing Terms
Subjects
Little blue book
Evolution
Free thought
Humanities
Literature
Natural history
Philosophy
Religion
Added Entries
Andreyev, Leonid, 1871-1919
Aristophanes
Arnold, Matthew, 1822-1888
Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626
Balmforth, Ramsden
Barnes, Harry Elmer, 1889-1968
Beaujoint, Jules, 1830-1893, compiler
Bercovici, Konrad, 1882-1961
Bisaccioni, Maiolino, conte, 1582-1663
Brandes, Georg, 1842-1927
Butler, Samuel, 1835-1902
Carlyle, Thomas, 1795-1881
Carrington, Hereward, 1880-1959
Cook, Stanley Arthur, 1873-1949
Crawford, Nelson Antrim, 1888-
Darrow, Clarence, 1857-1938
Davidson, John, 1857-1909
De Ford, Miriam Allen, 1888-1975
Del Riccio, Luigi
Du Bois, Gaylord, 1899-
Dumas, Alexandre, 1802-1870
Durant, Will, 1885-1981
Ehrmann, Max, 1872-1945
Eliot, George, 1819-1880
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882
Epictetus
Euripides
Fenton, Carroll Lane, 1900-1969
Fenton, Mildred Adams, 1899-1995
Fielding, William J. (William John), 1886-
Finger, Charles Joseph, 1869-1941
Flaubert, Gustave, 1821-1880
France, Anatole, 1844-1924
Fulks, Clay
Gambs, John S. (John Saké), 1899-
Garnett, Edward, 1868-1937
Gautier, Théophile, 1811-1872
Gay, John, 1685-1732
Goddard, Gloria, 1897-
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832
Goldberg, Isaac, 1887-1938
Gorky, Maksim, 1868-1936
Gottschalk, Louis Reichenthal, 1899-1975
Gourmont, Remy de, 1858-1915
Gregory, Ralph.
Gunn, John W.
Haeckel, Ernst, 1834-1919
Haldeman-Julius, E. (Emanuel), 1888-1951
Hale, Edward Everett, Sr., 1822-1909.
Hamblen, Emily S., 1864-
Harding, T. Swann (Thomas Swann), 1890-
Harris, Frank, 1856-1931
Harvey, Alexander, 1868-1949
Hays, Arthur Garfield, 1881-1954
Heine, Heinrich, 1797-1856
Henry VIII, King of England, 1491-1547
Hibschman, Harry, 1879-
Horace
Howell, A. G. Ferrers (Alan George Ferrers), 1855-1928
Hudgings, William F. (William Franklyn), 1889-1937?
Hudson, William Henry, 1862-1918
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825-1895
Ibsen, Henrik, 1828-1906
Ingersoll, Robert Green, 1833-1899
Johnstone, Hilda, 1882-1961
Jones, William Tudor, 1865-1946.
Joubert, Joseph, 1754-1824
Kallen, Horace Meyer, 1882-1974
Keith, Arthur, Sir, 1866-1955
Lamb, Charles, 1775-1834
Landman, Isaac, 1880-1946
Levin, Ruben
Lowell, James Russell, 1819-1891
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron, 1800-1859
Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome, 121-180
Markun, Leo, 1901-
Masuccio, Salernitano, active 15th century
Maupassant, Guy de, 1850-1893
McCabe, Joseph, 1867-1955
McMichael, Charles B. (Charles Barnsley), 1850-, translator
Mérimée, Prosper, 1803-1870
Mill, John Stuart, 1806-1873
Molière, 1622-1673
Moritzen, Julius, 1863-1946
Morris, William, 1834-1896
Nash, J. V. (James Vincent), 1886-
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900
Nordau, Max Simon, 1849-1923
Ogburn, William F., 1886-1959
Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809
Paquin, Hélène.
Plato
Powys, John Cowper, 1872-1963
Quiller-Couch, Arthur, 1863-1944
Randolph, Vance, 1892-1980
Renan, Ernest, 1823-1892
Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon), 1856-1933
Robinson, Henry Crabb, 1775-1867
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 1828-1882
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712-1778
Russell, Bertrand, 1872-1970
Sanger, Margaret, 1879-1966
Schnittkind, Henry Thomas, 1888-1970
Scholl, Warren
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1788-1860.
Schwalbe, Gustav Albert, 1844-1916
Seibel, George, 1872-1958
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, approximately 4 B.C.-65 A.D.
Sévigné, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de, 1626-1696
Seymour, Flora Warren, 1888-1948
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616
Sheehan, Murray
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822.
Shipley, Maynard, 1872-1934
Shumway, Arthur
Smith, Langdon, 1858-1908
Smith, Lloyd E. (Lloyd Edwin), 1902-1971
Solly, J. Raymond (James Raymond), 1854-
Sophocles
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894.
Stock, St. George, 1850-
Stoughton Holborn, I. B. (Ian Bernard), 1872-1935
Terence
Thackeray, William Makepeace, 1811-1863.
Thomas, James Bishop, 1871-
Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862
Tichenor, Henry M. (Henry Mulford), 1858-1922, editor
Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910
Torrey, Volta, 1905-
Volney, C.-F. (Constantin-François), 1757-1820
Voltaire, 1694-1778
Wallis, Keene, translator
Whittier, John Greenleaf, 1807-1892.
Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900
Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924
Wood, Clement, 1888-1950
Browning, Robert, 1812-1889.
Conington, John, 1825-1869
Goldberg, Isaac, 1887-1938, translator
Gunn, John W., editor
Harvey, Alexander, 1868-1949, translator
Manning, Henry Edward, 1808-1892
Markun, Leo, 1901-, editor
Mason, John (John Harmon), 1867-
Morgan, Bayard Quincy, 1883-, translator
Quinn, Peter, artist
Russell, Winter
Seiler, Conrad, 1897-
Smith, Lloyd E. (Lloyd Edwin), 1902-1971, editor
Vedder, Henry C. (Henry Clay), 1853-1935, editor
Viereck, George Sylvester, 1884-1962, editor
Weisberg, Charles, compiler
Haldeman-Julius Company, publisher