Fine Books and Manuscripts

Lot #278:

Complete Set of My Book House and My Travelship in Original Wooden House.

Miller, Olive Beaupré, editor. Complete Set of My Book House and My Travelship in Original Wooden House. Chicago: The Bookhouse for Children, 1920/1929. This original wooden “Book House” (ca. 1927; one of 100 issued) holds two sets of volumes: My Bookhouse, a six-volume set comprising of In The Nursery (1925); Up One Pair of Stairs (1925); Through Fairy Halls (1920); The Treasure Chest (1925); From the Tower Window (1925); and The Latch Key (1925); the second set, My Travelship, is a three volume set comprised of Little Pictures of Japan (1925); Tales Told in Holland (1926); and Nursery Friends from France (1927). [Together with:] a scarce salesman sample dummy of a My Bookhouse binding for an eighth volume titled Flying Sails (ca. 1936) and a Bookhouse for Children salesman’s handbook titled Successful Selling (Chicago, 1929). Publisher’s pictorial cloth, printed endpapers, t.e.g. Profusely illustrated. 8vo/4to. Light shelf wear to extremities, occasional browning to margins, few small chips with losses to wooden house near chimney, small cracks to rear roof panel; else fine. Scarce. The Book House for children was founded in 1919 by Winnetka, Illinois resident Olive Beaupre Miller (1883-1968), an American author, publisher, and editor of children's literature.  She began by printing children's literature that Mrs. Miller personally edited to meet her own high standards.  The individual books were sold door-to-door by a completely female sales force known as the "Bookhouse Ladies."  By 1921 when all six of the original volumes were available, the complete set was offered in a cardboard house.  The next three volumes, comprising My Travelship, were added in 1926, and the wooden book house was then offered only occasionally as a special promotion, and is therefore extremely rare. Only 100 were ever produced.  The Book House for Children was remarkable for its large female staff, at a time when most women did not work outside of the home.  "The utilization of women in all phases of its business activity was one of the unique aspects of The Book House for Children. Not only was there an all-woman sales force but the majority of the employees were women." (Taylor: Olive Beaupre Miller and The Book House for Children).