Correspondence
To the Editor of The Library
Sir,
In his stimulating essay on 'Tauchnitz and Albatross: A 'Community of Interests' in English Language Paperback Publishing, 1934–51' (The Library, vii, 7 (2006), 297–316) Alistair McCleery notes that the upper wrapper of Albatross books contained the wording 'The Albatross Modern Continental Library: Paris: Hamburg: Milano'. These locations were not invariably used. Osbert Sitwell's Miracle on Sinai (AMCL 208) and Edith Sitwell's Victoria of England (AMCL 312) carry the locations 'Hamburg: Paris: Bologna' while Edith Sitwell's I Live under a Black Sun (AMCL 368) has 'Leipzig: Paris: Bologna'.
In addition to the colour codes cited by McCleery, Albatross introduced grey for plays, poetry, and collected works, as did Tauchnitz. A key to these codes is printed in English, German, French, and Italian on the lower flap of the dust jacket of I Live under a Black Sun, while the upper flap contains a description of the work in English, German, and French, a practice that Tauchnitz introduced for the upper wrapper of their books in the course of harmonization of the two series.
Given that Allen Lane copied many of the features of Albatross when he introduced Penguins in 1935, it would be interesting to learn whether it was from them that he also adopted the idea of a jacketed paperback.
Sir,
Mr Ritchie is correct. A desire to keep the essay concise resulted in my quoting the cover locations only on the first batch of Albatross titles, in order to emphasize the originality of Mardersteig's design and the publisher's promotion of its continental provenance; all of these first twenty titles were printed by Mondadori. The variations of locations between 1932 and 1949 included Hamburg, Paris, Milano; Hamburg, Paris, Bologna; Leipzig, Paris, Bologna; London, Paris; and Bologna, Paris —as well as just Rome. The dustwrappers — and all these paperbacks were issued with dustwrappers, now sometimes removed by booksellers to present a more pristine copy for sale — were also on occasion customized with the name of key booksellers and distributors. I do not think the wrappers were original to Albatross but were a European convention. The grey cover was first used in 1933 for Eugene O'Neill, Strange Interlude (AMCL 68), and then again in 1939 for Charles Morgan, The Flashing Stream (AMCL 510). A Golden Classics series was also planned but never came to fruition. The Crime Club series (nos 101–200) were red / black, while the Mystery Club series (nos 401–500) were grey / green.
