Anne of the Island and Other Mid-Winter Fantasies

Just the thing to combat the seasonal blues, this new edition of Anne of the Island provides ample evidence of Tutis Classics' lingering influence. Fans of the defunct Indian print on demand house will remember the sunny Canada that graced so many of its covers.

They will also remember the wonderful imagination on display in its editions of Catharine Parr Traill, Ralph Connor, Gilbert Parker, Grant Allen, Agnes C. Laut and other giants of Canadian literature. Egerton Ryerson Young's By Canoe and Dog-Train is a personal favourite.

This post isn't about Tutis but ebook publisher HMDS Printing Press. Not yet three months old, and already they have a certain place in my heart. Their covers – if ebooks can be said to have covers – may not be quite so sophisticated as Tutus, but they demonstrate just as much creativity.

Remember the time Anne tried to dye her hair black? HMDS's Anne of Green Gables imagines a much happier result.

In Anne of Avonlea,  the series' second book, our raven-haired heroine gets a dog.

I was reminded of nothing so much as the dog that features on the cover – but not in the text – of Tutis Classics' Kilmeny of the Orchard.

With HMDS's Anne of Ingleside, our heroine returns to her original hair colour and introduces the mini-skirt to 19th-century Prince Edward Island.

Sadly, the covers deceive. Paragraph structure aside, HMDS's editions stick to Montgomery's text; Anne's hair still turns green, there is no dog, and skirts remain long and heavy. Happily, the publisher's claim that each is "COLOR ILLUSTRATED" is accurate. HMDS credits the interior art to Leonardo, but I spotted works by Sargent, Bougereau, Rossetti, Thomas Girtin, Margaret Sarah Carpenter and Herbert James Draper.

Selection and placement are intriguing.

Sure to keep Montgomery scholars busy.

I wish HMDS Printing Press well, and look forward to the day in which they actually print something. 

A Bonus:

As is so often the case, I thank JRSM for bringing HMDS to my attention. His own thoughts on the mess can be found at Caustic Cover Critic.

Related posts:

Much Ado About Anne

K is for Kindle
A POD Publisher's Alternate Universe

It's Tutis Time!

K is for Kindle

An African Millionaire
Grant Allen
London: Grant Richards, 1897

A thing of beauty is a joy forever, but is it really fair to burden one's descendants? Consider the advantages offered by ebooks: they weigh nothing, can be moved easily, and free up the wall you were eyeing for that 70" Sharp Aquos flat screen. What's more, you never actually own an ebook – that "Buy now with just 1-click" button being just another of Amazon's lies. After death, your ebooks will go away with time.

Ebooks being evanescent, it's entirely understandable that little effort is put into their design. The eBooksLib offering above was thrown together so quickly that no one noticed the title was wrong. To be fair, the author's name is correct; which is something that can't be said of everything coming from eBooksLib.

I first encountered this particular ebooks "publisher" while looking for a copy of Recalled to Life, Grant Allen's novel about a young woman who loses her memory through the shock of her father's murder. Henry Holt published the first and only American edition in 1891:

The eBooksLib edition is, I think, more memorable.

Those interested in design will be disappointed to learn that eBooksLib has since dropped images, adopting a uniform format that consists of nothing more than muted colour and text. Their place in my heart has been usurped by the Library of Alexandria (of Los Angeles, California). While the designs aren't terribly flashy, image selection intrigues.

That tigers are not native to Africa may explain why the mammal doesn't feature in Allen's book. Comparing author and designer, it would seem that the latter has the greater imagination.

Here we have the Comte de Frontenac (1622-1698)  in 18th-century drag, anticipating the Chevalier d'Eon.

The Library of Alexandria's Pioneers of France in the New World prompts a question:

What did Marguerite de Navarre have to do with the settlement of New France?

The answer, of course, is nothing – though she was alive in 1534 when Jacques Cartier claimed the Gaspé Penisula for her brother, Francis I.

The Library of Alexandria tries to play it safe with Charles William Crolby's story of Samuel de Champlain, using the distorted image of a flag for a country that came into existence twenty-three decades after his death. Lest anyone become confused, Library of Alexandria (again, of Los Angeles, California) would like you to note that this title is Made in the United States of America.

Library of Alexandria's Canada might not be the tropical paradise presented by Tutis Classics, but it still looks like a good place to winter.

What better place to spend those months than in the Duck Lake district of Northern Ontario. Couples who think that the kids might best be left behind are reminded that Reverend Young's little volume was first published by the Religious Tract Society as part of their "Every Boy's Bookshelf" series.

Bookshelves. Who needs them.

Note: The Grant Richards edition of An African Millionaire pictured at the beginning of this post is valued at US$650. And Henry Holt's Recalled to Life? Not a single copy is listed for sale online.

from An African Millionaire