Home >> Blampied >> Books >> T. Fisher Unwin >>
Harding's Luck
E[dith] Nesbit
This is one of 11 dust-jackets designed by Blampied for new editions published in 1923 of novels and stories by E. Nesbit, a prolific and famous children's writer. The panels of nine jackets are pasted into Blamped's personal album of wrappers, two of which are known only from this album. Four more titles by E. Nesbit were later reprinted by Fisher Unwin, but not with a jacket designed by Blampied. At least two of these later titles, The Magic City and The Wonderful Garden, have a jacket signed Nick
, which is the diminuitive used by John Nicolson, a close friend of Edmund Blampied.
The 11 books with jackets designed by Blampied were reissued by T. Fisher Unwin until they merged with Ernest Benn Limited in 1928, who continued to use the same jacket design into the 1940s. While it would be nice to show the first use of the jacket design, the jackets of books for children do not always survive, so I have shown the jacket of the best edition, which may be the Benn edition, if that's all I have. It may not be exactly the same as the first impression, so I have shown the panel of the jacket from Blampied's personal album, which is assumed to be the first impression to use his design. According to notices in the Press the publishers issued a free illustrated booklet in 1923 to advertise the 11 titles in the uniform series.
This title was first published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1909, so the T. Fisher Unwin edition of 1923 is, in fact, the second edition. It is the first edition published by T. Fisher Unwin and the first to use a dust jacket designed by Blampied, which has only been seen on the 2nd impression dated 1926. The jacket has not been seen on impressions published by Ernest Benn. The frontspiece is from the jacket of Nine Unlikely Tales.
E. Nesbit (1858-1924) was a writer and socialist. In 1880 she married Herbert Bland and with him was one of the founder members of The Fabian Society. Bland died in 1914 and she married in 1917 Thomas Terry Tucker.
First edition, thus
Bibliography code: TFU-23.12
Publisher: T. Fisher Unwin, then Ernest Benn Limited
Series: E Nesbit's Children's Stories
Year: 1923
Format: 8vo
Pages: 280
Binding: Blue cloth with title, author and Author of 'The Treasure Seekers'
impressed and picture of child and woodcutter bya log; title, author and publisher in gold on spine an impressed image of a girl.
Size: 190 x 133 mm approx
Dust jacket: signed Blam, lower right
Price: 6 shillings in 1923 (from adverts)
Internal illustrations: Frontispiece of cover of Nine Unlikely Tales and 7 line drawings some signed H.R. Millar
Printing history: First published in 1909 according to Jisc, but 2nd impression of 1926 gives year of first publications as 1923, which is wrong
Printed by: Unwin Brothers, Limited, London and Woking
Notes: The 2nd impression (1926) has a colour frontispiece by Blampied from another title, Nine Unlikely Tales. No Benn impression has been seen with the Blampied dust jacket.
Dust jacket of the 3rd impression of 1923 (click to enlarge)
Panel of dust jacket from Blampied's album (click to enlarge)