Reprint Publishers by Craig Stark #7, 1 December 2003

For booksellers or collectors, the word "reprint" carries the same negative connotations that "book club edition" does because, as a rule, reprints have little or no value. However, it's important to acquire both a knowledge of reprint publishers and experience in identifying reprint editions because reprints, perhaps more so than BCE's, are sometimes misidentified as first editions.

Reasons for this vary, but first let's take a look at the following list, which illustrates the more common forms a reprint can appear as:

1. Identical to the original publication with the exception of the binding. Overprints (actual sheets printed by the original publisher) purchased and rebound by the reprint publisher.

2. Identical to the original publication with the exception of the binding and one or more preliminary pages or endpapers, such as a new title page or copyright page or both. Overprints purchased for republication, this time with only minor changes.

3. Identical to the original publication with the exception of the binding and paper. Publisher's plates purchased and used to reprint the book on different paper and bound in a different material.

4. Close to identical to the original publication but distorted by varying degrees. Photographic or facsimile process used to reproduce the book.

5. Identical to the original publication in content only. New plates used to reprint the book.

6. Mostly but not entirely identical to the original publication. To reduce the cost of republication, plates were sometimes altered (for example, from color to black-and-white), printed on lower quality paper, or removed altogether, though in some cases new plates were added to a book which originally didn't possess them or substituted for existing illustrations. Also, but less often, the text itself was altered or, in the obvious case of Reader's Digest Condensed Books, abridged.

7. Identical to the original publication in every respect. Publishers' overstock sold to another publishing house for purposes of resale are, technically speaking, reprints, but of course no designations will be present to determine this (with the uncommon exception of a laid-in slip, applied marking, etc.). In this case only a documented provenance would supply evidence, one way or another. In most cases, however, collectors won't insist on proof that a book was or was not marketed by the original publisher.

The following list is an expanded version of the short list of reprint publishers appearing in the first article.

A.L. Burt Altermus Avenel Blakiston Blue Ribbon Books Blue Star Bracken Books Cassel Collier Cupples & Leon Dial Dover Greenwich House

Fiction Library Goldsmith Grosset & Dunlap Hurst Little Blue Books Modern Library Reader's Digest Saalfield Sears Street and Smith Sun Dial Tower Triangle

A final note: exceptions exist. Some reprint publishers also publish/published first editions.

Just as the term "book club edition" often brings to mind the Book-of-the-Month Club, so does "reprint" frequently suggest the Prince of Pulp, legendary publisher Grosset & Dunlap, perhaps the preeminent reprint publisher of the first half of the 20th century. In 1898 George T. Dunlap and Alexander Grosset formed a partnership that was to help transform the publishing industry from one focused largely on expensive books for the few into one much more active in furnishing cheap books for the masses.

Somewhat ignominiously, Grosset & Dunlap began operations with bold acts of piracy - reprinting books already in print, thereby sidestepping royalties and other fees. From these profits they were able to finance the bulk purchase of paperbound books for the purposes of rebinding them in cloth and selling at a profit. Later, this activity was abandoned in favor of purchasing reprint rights from publishers before publication. Publishers, in turn, would then deliberately overprint books for eventual sale to Grosset & Dunlap. Eventually, so as not to limit the number of books it could sell, G&D began to buy original plates as well and publish their own editions from them.

Perhaps the most significant development in their history was the decision to purchase reprint rights from Chatterton & Peck, publishers of Edward Stratemeyer's Hardy Boys, Tom Swift and Rover Boys series. So popular were these books that G&D soon emerged as the leading player in the reprint field.