A. L. Burt, New York City

A. L. Burt was established in 1883 by Albert Levi Burt. In 1902 it incorporated and thus all imprints from 1902 and later state A. L. Burt Company on the title page whereas the pre-1902 imprints state A. L. Burt.

The Burt address can sometimes be helpful in dating these books.
1896-1900 97 Reade Street
1900-1912 52-58 Duane Street
1912-later 114-120 East 23rd Street

This firm only published one T. S. Arthur title- Ten Nights in a Bar-Room.
It appeared in four different Burt series: Burt’s Home Library, The Cornell Series, Oxford Series of 12 mos., and the Rugby Series for Boys.

Burt's Home Library was a large multivolume, multi-author library which at its peak consisted of hundreds of titles (500 at its peak) from all areas of literature. It was first published in 1892 and continued until the 1920’s. “Ten nights” was first part of this series in about 1899 and was phased out by the early 1920’s. These books are blindstamped with gold gilt lettering on the spine. 12mos. Pre-1902 volumes note that A.L. Burt not A. L. Burt Company as the publisher.

(Post-1902 Edition)

Cornell Series was published between 1898 and 1915 with an increasing number of titles reaching a peak of 405 books. This is a series of the literary reprints of numerous popular and classic authors. The books are blindstamped with gold gilt lettering on the spine. 7.5” x 5.25”. Ten Nights was published from 1898 until the late 1920’s.

There is one illustration. The frontispiece is the Van Ingen line drawn bar scene- "Come Father! Won't you come Home?"

1898 dust jacket	1900 dust jacket	1902 dust jacket

pre-1902
1902 or later

Oxford Series of 12 mos. was a multi-volume, multi-authored series of reprints by popular authors published between 1907 and the 1930’s. The number of titles varied (50-60) as did the front cover pictures. Of note is that the only cover I have seen for this title in this series is book specific. (See below).
This book does have illustrations:
1. "Come father! Won’t you come home?”. Van Ingen bar scene
2. There it is now!
3. Huzza for the Rummies!
4. Harvey Green plunged the knife into Willy Hammond’s side
5. One long scream of horror.

The Rugby Series for Boys was a multi-volume, multi-authored series of reprints that was published between 1899 and 1913. “ Series of excellent stories of adventure on sea and land”. The series increased in size from 40 titles in 1899 to 130 volumes in 1913. Over the years there were a number of different cover pictures. These books had dust jackets. 12 mo. 7.5” x 5.25”.

Two "Ten Nights in a Bar-Room" are shown below. The first book is the earlier one. The title page imprint does not note Burt’s incorporation of 1902 and thus was published before 1902. The second book has A. L. Burt Company as its imprint. Thus it is a 1902 or later book. Sometime thereafter the covers for this series changed.

These books have one illustration. The frontispiece is the Van Ingen line drawn bar scene- "Come home father”.