Ten Nights in a Bar-Room Illustrations

Scholarly articles have been written about the significance of the different illustrations in this book. Generally, the conclusions are meaningless because nobody really knows what Arthur's thinking was. And there is nowhere that the publisher's motives are explained.

What I intend to do is show the various illustrations with the time line. This page does not include any pictures of magic lantern slides.

Frontispieces:

The first edition published by Lippincott, Grambo & Co. in 1854 and several early 1854 reprints had two frontispieces drawn by William Van Ingen.

Sickle and Sheaf	Come Home Father

Later in 1854 until 1860 the Sartain mezzotint was the frontispiece. It did not appear after 1860.

Some of the later reprints of the 1890's and 1900's had portraits of Arthur as the frontispiece.

The first internal illustrations were in John E. Potter & Co. editions (Potter illustrations) in the early 1870's. There were six in all. Many books from this era moved the Van Ingen "Come Home Father" internally as well. The Porter & Coates book of the 1880's are an example.

The "Huzza" picture was occasionally the frontispiece and the only illustration in a number of the Henry Altemus reprints in the early 1900's.

		Huzza illustration

"Ten Nights" which was part of the Good-Will Library published by the Revolution Temperance Publishing House in the early 1880's has eight illustrations.

The two Van Ingen illustrations are present. The "Sickle and Sheaf" is on the cover and "Come Home Father" is internal. In addition an artist, K. A. L., did six internal drawings using the Potter illustrations as a basic template.

Van Ingen

K. A. L. Illustrations

Edith Foote Upham did the illustrations (Upham illustrations) for several of the reprint publishers (Hurst and Lupton most importantly) in the 1890's and 1900's. There was a new frontispiece as well as four internals. Interestingly two of Upham's pictures have the same captions as the Potter's and were designed to capture the same events. But the depictions are quite different.

In 1898 John Anderson Pub. Co. from Chicago published a copy of this book in Norwegian. The illustrations are modified copies of the Potter six.

In comparing them side by side, slight differences can be appreciated.

The David Cook Publishing Co. printed a copy of "Ten Nights" in December, 1898 as #9 in its "New Sabbath Library". Two formats have been seen: Cloth and in wraps. These books include the six Potter illustrations plus an internal Van Ingen "Come Home Father". The wraps' cover has a different and unique picture of the Sickle and Sheaf.

F. M. Lupton published "Ten Nights" as #145 in its Arm Chair Library in about 1902. This paperback book had only a cover illustration: Joe Morgan with his daughter. This picture does not appear in any other "Ten Nights" book.

At the turn of the century H. M. Caldwell Company published this title in a number of its publisher's series. Many of its books had a portrait of Arthur as a frontispiece and four illustrations not previously seen. The scenes shown in these pictures had not been illustrated in the earlier books.

J. S. Ogilvie Publishing Company published "Ten Nights" in multiple series. These books did not have any internal pictures. The 1902 copy below is #214 in the Sunset Series and does have an illustration on the cover. I suspect it was meant to be book appropriate.

The Saalfield Publishing Company published "Ten Nights" in 1903. Its copy had four glossy illustrations drawn by W. H. Fry.

John C. Winston Company published "Ten Nights" initially in its Every Boys Library in 1906.
The frontispiece is Van Ingen's "Come Home Father". Potter's "Huzza" and "Joe Morgan's Child" were seen in my copy. Whether other copies/editions have all six of the Potter pictures is unknown.

A. L. Burt Company published a number of reprints in the 20th century. The books, when illustrated, had the Potter pictures and in some books the Van Ingen “Come Home Father” as a frontispiece.

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)

Unique to this company however is one format which has a book cover specific illustration. This volume is part of the Oxford Series of 12 mos. and was published in the 1920's.