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Crowell occupied 744 Broadway in 1876; moved in 1881 to Clinton Hall (13 Astor Place?); to 46 East 14th in 1893; and when the Boston bindery and 46 East 14th leases expired together in 1900, moved to 426-428 Broadway. The Boston bindery was located first at 57 Washington, then 93 Federal, then 65 Kingston, and "finally" at 100 Purchase Street. (Tebbel). Red Line Poets had 45 titles in 1882 (DLB 49). T.Y. Crowell of New York was not primarily a publisher of cheap books, but did issue a number of books at low prices. Concerning the Crowell series of British poets at a dollar a volume, the Publishers' Weekly noted that, "The 'dollar stores' themselves can scacrely get below these prices, even by the assistance of frequent compromises.'" [12:119, 1877] (Shove). The name is pronounced "Crow-ell".
[The following information comes, with permision, from the publisher's pages of The Hyde Park Book Store, http://paperbarn.www1.50megs.com/):
"THOMAS Y. CROWELL CO. A well-respected Boston bookbinder, Thomas Y. Crowell founded his own binder in 1834. In 1876 he began publishing books. His son, T. Irving Crowell, joined the business in 1882. Another son, Jeremiah Osborne Crowell, was sales manager. The family issued a profitable line of reference works: Roget's International Thesaurus; Dictionary of Business and Finance; Social Science Series. They also published a variety of fiction titles: Frank Heller detective/mystery series; children's books; gift volumes.
"Thomas Y. Crowell died in 1909 and was succeeded by T. Irving Crowell. In 1919, Crowell purchased Collier (see 1873). Irving Crowell retired in 1937, replaced by third generation Robert L. Crowell, who moved the firm more toward trade books and biographies. In 1938, Elizabeth Riley joined the firm to develop a children's book division. She became one of the first women in the field. 1939 the name was changed to CROWELL-COLLIER PUBLISHING CO. After WWII, the company went into decline, espcially their big three magazines. By 1956, the magazines were shut down. Firm found itself with nothing but the Harvard Classics and Collier's Encyclopedia. The company decided to expand into radio and textbooks. 1960, suffered hostile take-over by MacMillan. 1961, purchased Free Press of Glencoe, Inc., publishers of Graduate Texts since 1947. ??? company sold to Dun-Donnelly Publishing Co. 1978, sold to Harper & Row, who also purchased Lippincott and combined the two as a subsidiary, CROWELL & LIPPINCOTT."
Between 1876 and 1931, the Crowell company issued Lucile and Meredith's Works (containing Lucile) in a great variety of printings and bindings -- on the order of 200 identifiably different issues. After 1884, most of the series bindings in which Lucile and/or the Works appeared were illustrated in the catalogs that Crowell submitted annually to Publishers' Trade List Annual. Those illustrations are inserted here next to the PTLA series descriptions. For a summary of the PTLA descriptions of Luciles, see Crowell editions and a summary of editions of the Poetical Works.
"Crowell's Poets" were larger formats -- 4to, 8vo, 12mo (about 5x7" or larger) -- and typically (but not always) offered both Lucile and Meredith's Works in similar bindings. Occasionally only the Works were offered; more typically, if only one title was offered, it was Lucile. Sometimes Lucile would be brought out in a series with the Works added to the series a year or two later.
In 1892, Crowell introduced several series in a smaller format -- pocket-size 16mo or 18mo (about 4x6") -- the Handy Volume Classics. Many of these series included Lucile -- the Works were never offered in Handy Volume size. New series, with new binding designs, were added every year, and older series retired; the number of variations is quite large.
To reduce file size, PTLA descriptions and scanned illustrations have been organized in two files, each in turn organized alphabetically by series title. Each contains nearly a hundred black and white scans. The first file includes the larger "Crowell's Poets" editions, the second the smaller Handy Volume Classics. Scans from and other information about recorded copies are in turn linked from the PTLA description -- click on high-lighted series names to move to these more detailed reports.