Ginn and Company (GIN)

Ginn and Company Ltd, Queen Square, London, W.C.1

Ginn and Company was founded in the USA by Edwin Ginn (1838-1914) and is now a part of the Pearson Group. Ginn started publishing in the UK in about 1874 and by the 1930s was mostly publishing educational text books. These three titles were probably printed in very large numbers to teach children French in secondary schools, as they were reprinted from 1937 into the middle of the 1960s, according to one impression seen: the 21st impression of En Marche is dated 1965. As they were a series it is likely that all were reprinted together. They were used to teach French in schools in Jersey as one of my copies has a label inside for the Jersey College for Girls.

No copy has ever been seen with a dust jacket. There may not have been one, as they were textbooks. None of the titles names Edmund Blampied; the title page states that it is Illustrated by Blam. A fourth book in the series called Enfants de France (1942) was illustrated by Blampied's friend John Nicolson, probably because by the time it was commissioned Blampied was trapped in Jersey by the German Occupation.

All four titles are registered in the British Library Catalogue under a single entry, Cours de Français by Emma Saxelby. The date of En Marche is given as 1938; the copy I have is dated 1937, but it is a later impression, so might be wrong.

● Click on the thumbnail to see a large image; click on the link to see details of each book and an image, if available.

— 1937 —

GIN-37.1: En Route, Cours de Français I by E[mma] Saxelby (Cover and internal line drawings)

GIN-37.2: En Marche, Cours de Français II by E[mma] Saxelby (Cover and internal line drawings)

— 1939 —

GIN-39.3: En France, Cours de Français III by E[mma] Saxelby (Cover and internal line drawings)