Jump to content

Please Help Me Date this Book (Idylls of the King by Lord Alfred Tennyson, published by M A Donohue & Co)


Recommended Posts

Hello! Within the last month or two, I found this book at my local flea market. It has no publication date or introduction; absolutely nothing beyond the meager publication page and the dedications and the story itself. I have not been able to find this version of the book anywhere online, so I was hoping someone would be able to at least give me some more leads to go on from these pictures... (Note that there is no single bit of text following the end of the story in the last picture.)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vZ9W3vzjK9lNCkoeDljK0SgBnLgoxvcT

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi, what a pretty book! I don't have a definite answer for you but it's definitely after 1861, because that's when the publishers was established. There's a Wikipedia page about them that says they changed their name around 1880 but I think that must be wrong because there are quite a few examples of different books for sale, published by 'M. A. Donohue & Co', that are from the early 1900s.

The next part is a bit of a guess because I'm no expert but I have a few books from the mid 1800s and none of them look at all like yours in style. But I do have one book that has definite similarities, also published in Chicago but by a different company and that was published in 1914. So I could be wrong but I would assume it's early 1900s.     

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/03/2018 at 10:23 PM, Alixandre F. D. B. said:

Hello! Within the last month or two, I found this book at my local flea market. It has no publication date or introduction; absolutely nothing beyond the meager publication page and the dedications and the story itself. I have not been able to find this version of the book anywhere online, so I was hoping someone would be able to at least give me some more leads to go on from these pictures... (Note that there is no single bit of text following the end of the story in the last picture.)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vZ9W3vzjK9lNCkoeDljK0SgBnLgoxvcT

 

Wanted to help, but the link doesn't work.  Says I need to ask you to restore it.

I've checked out the Wikipedia entry you refer to @Hayley, and I think you might have misread it slightly.  The company was founded as Cox and Donohue in 1861, and changed its name (as you state) in around 1880 to Donohue, Henneberry & Co (although another source suggests this was earlier, in the 1870s).  It then changed its name again to MA Donohue & Co. around 1899-1901.  What this does do is confirm Hayley's deduction, that it is a post-Victorian publication.  There have been quite a few copies of Idylls of the King published by Donohue, Henneberry & Co sold through ebay and elsewhere online.

 

Edited by willoyd
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...