[Trade Catalogue] Suggestions. For Your Annual. Selected from some of the 1931 Annuals Produced by Us. The Read-Taylor Co. Designing -- Engraving -- Printing. Baltimore

Baltimore: The Read-Taylor Co., 1931. First Edition. Wraps (Mid-weight card, cloth spine). Very Good. Unusual trade catalogue of sample pages to be used by college yearbooks. Pages are generally decorative, and their purpose was to separate sections within the yearbook. The decorative element could be derived from illsutration or decoration on the page or the texture of the page. 4to. 27 by 19.5 cm. Unpaginated. 70 leaves, all but two with content, always on rectos, with two also with printing on the versos as well. Six of the pages could be described as color plates, with several others featuring some color (Wedgwood blue especially). Title page features a photo of the Read-Taylor plant, and its verso shown an gauzy (deliberately so) photo aerial view of the plant and its surrounding neighborhood. Many of the pages or plates with one word categories written, such as "Seniors", "Juniors", "Sophs", "Freshs", "Organizations", "Classes", "Athletics", "Activities", etc. etc. In other words, demarcating the sections of a yearbook. Among the genre of pages are faculty or administration photos, cartoon-ish illustrated, mock Medieval scene illustrations, mock Greek or Latin illustrations of statuary -- these with the Wedgwood blue highlighted backdrop, Medieval and Renaissance scenes in a gouache, duotone woodcut illustrations, among other things. The offerings blend whimsy with historicism and Art Deco decoration as typify the collegiate visual sensibility of the day. Scarce. No other copies found, either in commerce at date of cataloguing or on OCLC First Search, although publications printed by Read-Taylor to be found, and there is a 1926 publication held by the Univ. of Delaware that may be similar to this one -- described as engravings for school annuals. This publication notwithstanding, we are of the tentative view as well as the type of catalogue, one directed at college yearbook publications, is an uncommon survivor regardless of the printer source. Condition: closed tear upper few inches along front joint fold. Cover with fairly heavy soiling, a small closed tear along the edge, slightly chewed corner. First leaf some soiling. Otherwise, generally clean and tight.