Cal Poly

Abstract

The Little Leather Library Collection consists of 101 books, 3-1/4" x 4," published by the Little Leather Library Corporation of New York. The miniature books are brownish green in color, of imitation leather, and characteristic of the Redcroft edition published between 1920-1924. There were over 100 miniature book titles published in the various editions of the Little Leather Library, but it isn't known if all of these titles were included in the Redcroft edition. The collection was donated in 2008.

Finding Aid

• OAC — Search the electronic finding aid for this collection at the Online Archive of California.
• PDF — Download the complete finding aid

Descriptive Summary

• Title: Little Leather Library Collection, 1920-1924
• Collection Number: MS 160
• Creators: Little Leather Library Corporation of New York
• Extent: 101 books, 3-1/4" x 4," and is housed in two flat boxes.
• Language: English

Corporate Note

The Little Leather Library Corporation of New York was the first company to mass-market inexpensive books in the United States. The corporation, founded in 1916 by Albert Boni, Harry Scherman and Maxwell Sackheim, made available a wide variety of classics by authors including Rudyard Kipling, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Morris, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Henry James, Leo Tolstoy, Oscar Wilde and William Butler Yeats in miniature editions. The 101 books in this collection are brownish green in color, bound in imitation leather, and characteristic of the Redcroft edition published between 1920-1924. Only the first two editions were bound in real leather.

When first published, the little books were sold at the Woolworth's chain. By the early 1920s, the books were advertised in popular magazines, selling in National Geographic from 1922 to 1924. Sometimes a miniature classic might appear in a cereal box as a promotion. Robert K. Hass, Inc., Publishers took control of the Little Leather Library Corporation in 1924. Boni later established Modern Library Publishing Company, of which Random House Publishers would become a subsidiary company. Scherman and Sackheim as well as Hass were later involved in the establishment of the Book of the Month Club.

Sources

• "Arts and Crafts Movement." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
• Hamilton, Charles F. As Bees in Honey Drown: Elbert Hubbard and the Roycrofters. New York: A.S. Barnes and Co., 1973.
• Helps, John. Personal interview. 26 Jun 2008.
• Hubbard, Elbert. The Tale of Two Tailors: Which the Same Has the Quality of Being TRUE. East Aurora, N.Y.: Roycrofters, 1909.
• Little Leather Library.
• "Roycroft." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia..
• Wolfe, Richard J., and Paul McKenna. Louis Herman Kinder and Fine Bookbinding in America: A Chapter in the History of the Roycroft Shop. Newtown, PA.: Bird & Bull Press, 1985.

Scope and Content Note

The Little Leather Library Collection consists of 101 books, 3-1/4" x 4," published by the Little Leather Library Corporation of New York. The miniature books are brownish green in color, of imitation leather, and characteristic of the Redcroft edition published between 1920-1924.

There were over 100 miniature book titles published in the various editions of the Little Leather Library, but it is not known if all of these titles were included in the Redcroft edition. Only the first two editions were bound in real leather.

The production of the Little Leather Library enabled the masses to read inexpensive classics. The cheap imitation leather Redcroft edition, published between 1920-1924, appears to have been a take-off on the well-crafted books published by Elbert Hubbard's Roycroft Press.

Elbert Hubbard, who was inspired by William Morris' Arts and Crafts movement in England, became an important Reformist in the United States, beginning the Roycroft movement and community in East Aurora, New York in 1895.

Hubbard's Roycroft Press was modeled after Morris' Kelmscott Press. Books made from handmade paper were printed on the Roycrofter's Golding Pearl letterpress. There is a marked difference between the finely bound, hand-crafted Roycroft volumes of Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson and Coleridge and their Redcroft edition counterparts.

Although the Arts and Crafts Movement was a reaction to the mechanization of the Industrial Revolution, there were those in the movement who felt that objects should be affordable.

Roycrofters supported those who did fine personal work in all endeavors, to include the design work in factories, but it is doubtful that the Roycroft seal would be applied to the volumes of the Little Leather Library.

The volumes of the Little Leather Library are stored in two boxes. The provenance, or original organization, of the books has been preserved for the most part and the collection is in one series.