AMONG MALAY PIRATES. A Tale of Adventure and Peril

New York City: A. L. Burt Company, 1902. Hardcover. black-&-white illustrations. pp. 295, ads.,Small 8vo,,,This title consists of one novella (the title piece) and five short stories. It was first published in book form by Hurst & Co., New York, in 1897. Kennedy & Farmer speculate that the stories were probably collected from the 'Boy's Own Annual' and Blackie books, and might have been pirated. This is quite possible, as there are numerous other American editions of this title, and pirating of Henty's stories was quite common around the turn of the century. This edition was certainly not published before 1902, as that is the year in which Burt incoporated (see Thompson, 'The Boys' Dumas, p. 43). Our copy is blocked on the front board in red and black, with an image of a kneeling soldier firing a rifle at three soldiers peeking over a hill. The spine is lettered in silver. The book is bound in olive cloth and the boards are bumped at the tips, and rubbed along the edges, with light general soiling. The plain endpapers are a bit soiled, and there is an early signature on the front free endpaper. The front hinge is cracking; the rear hinge is tight. The quality of the paper on which the text was printed was inferior and it has predictably darkened a bit with age, but is otherwise clean. Overall, a good copy.