The Henry Altemus Company was a

publishing Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

company based in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

, for almost a century, from 1842 to 1936.

History

The firm started as a bookbindery. In 1863, Altemus was awarded a

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

for a particular type of binding for photographic albums. These albums were huge sellers for Altemus and were the mainstay of their publishing business until the mid-1880s. The albums were supplanted by

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...

s in the 1880s. Starting in 1889, books were published with the Henry Altemus

imprint Imprint or imprinting may refer to: Entertainment * ''Imprint'' (TV series), Canadian television series * "Imprint" (''Masters of Horror''), episode of TV show ''Masters of Horror'' * ''Imprint'' (film), a 2007 independent drama/thriller film ...

. Like other publishers of its era, it published a wide variety of titles, in a wide variety of formats. The company published over two hundred

series Series may refer to: People with the name * Caroline Series (born 1951), English mathematician, daughter of George Series * George Series (1920–1995), English physicist Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Series, the ordered sets used in ...

. These series can be seen listed at henryaltemus.com. More than 95% of all the published works of Henry Altemus were in series form.The Henry Altemus Company: A History and Pictorial Bibliography
oldchildrensbooks.com. Retrieved 5 July 2021. Altemus' most popular series included the Young People's Library, Wee Books for Wee Folks, and their numerous juvenile series books. Among the latter are those written by

H. Irving Hancock Harrie Irving Hancock (January 16, 1868 – March 12, 1922) was an American chemist and writer, mainly remembered as an author of children's literature and juveniles in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and as having written a fictional de ...

References

External links

Henry Altemus
- website documenting Henry Altemus, his books and his series * * Publishing companies established in 1842 Publishing companies of the United States Children's book publishers Companies based in Philadelphia Publishing companies disestablished in 1936 {{US-publish-company-stub

History

References

Further reading

External links