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The Three Miss Graemes
By the Author of Christina McNab, S[arah] [Broom] MacNaughtan
Sarah Broom MacNaughtan (1864-1916) was a Scottish writer, traveller and volunteer nurse in both the Boer War and the First World War. She wrote 14 books which have been described as intelligent, humorous, mildly feminist fiction, often set in high society between 1880 and 1916
(Oxford Companion to Edwardian Fiction, 1997). MacNaughtan died of a disease she contracted while travelling in Persia, perhaps malaria. This is a novel about three young women living on an island in western Scotland whose father was jealous of a beautiful wife, with tragic consequences.
Blampied, who was serving in the Militia in Jersey at this time, was sent instructions for this, his first jacket design for Thomas Nelson and Son, by Edwin Chater Jack on 6th November 1916:
The Three Miss Graemes
. We should like you to do a wrapper for this book. The size of our reprint will be 7 7⁄16" x 4 ⅞" with the back 1 ⅜". We had better leave you without any instructions on our part as to the kind of cover we want, but we wish a decorative cover, one that will take the eye on a book stall, and we wish you to work out a design including the lettering both the back and the side. In addition to the title of the book we wish on both back and side the words “By the author of Christina McNab”, the word “Nelson” , the price 1/- net. If you could find it possible to leave space somewhere on the side for 5 or 6 lines of type describing the book, so much the better, but we do not wish design spoiled by an attempt to get in too much.
The novel referred to on the jacket was actually called The Fortune of Christina M'Nab, so Blampied was given incorrect instructions. The jacket looks as if it has been stuck together on the spine, so may have been modified by the publisher.
First edition, thus
Bibliography code: NEL-17.1
Publisher: Thomas Nelson and Sons
Series: Nelson's Shilling Novels
Year: [1917]
Format: 16 mo in two gatherings of 4 leaves and 12 leaves
Pages: 384
Binding: Blue cloth with title and author in dark blue on front with rim around edge; title, author and publisher on spine with decorations in dark blue
Size: 190 x 132 mm
Dust jacket signed: Blampied, lower left, underneath the price
Internal illustrations: none
Price: 1 shilling
Printing history: none stated
Dust jacket (click to enlarge)
Printed by: Printed in Great Britain at the Press of the Publishers
Notes: This is a reprint of a novel first published in 1908 by John Murray.