Collins White Circle Pocket Edition Original Publishers Part III

 Part I lists all the original publishers for the White Circle Pocket Edition (1942-1952) mass market paperback imprint of the Toronto based subsidiary of Scottish/British publisher Wm. Collins. There are 28 publishers with one title.

Here are five more of the publishers with a single White Circle.

• Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock first published in 1912 (London: John Lane)
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1883 (London: Cassell)
• Black Jade by Angeline Taylor in 1947 (New York: Robert M. McBride)
• Without Armour by James Hilton in 1933 (London: Ernest Benn)
• Turvey by Earle Birney in 1949 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart)

White Circle Pocket Edition 39 1942

White Circle Pocket Edition 223 1945

White Circle Pocket Edition 50 1942

White Circle Pocket Edition CD357 1948

White Circle Pocket Edition CD404 1949

White Circle Pocket Edition CD534 1952

Collins White Circle Pocket Edition Original Publishers Part II

Part I lists all the original publishers for the White Circle Pocket Edition (1942-1952) mass market paperback imprint of the Toronto based subsidiary of Scottish/British publisher Wm. Collins. Titles from the parent company dominate (323 of 416) with the second, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, far behind with 18. Here are six from that long gone New York publisher.

• Born in Paradise by Armine von Temski first published in 1940 
• How to Grow Old Disgracefully by Norman Anthony in 1946 
• Trouble in July by Erskine Caldwell in 1940 
• Everybody Slept Here by Elliott Arnold in 1948 
• Thomas Forty by Edward Stanley in 1947 
• Vigilante by Richard Summers in 1949 

White Circle Pocket Edition 296 1947

White Circle Pocket Edition 331 1947

White Circle Pocket Edition 335 1948

White Circle Pocket Edition CD379 1949

White Circle Pocket Edition  CD400 1949

White Circle Pocket Edition CD466 1950

Collins White Circle Pocket Edition Original Publishers Part I

The Toronto based subsidiary of Scottish/British publisher Wm. Collins published 429 titles in a numbered mass market imprint from 1942 to 1952. Only nine of the White Circle Pocket Edition titles are paperback originals with the remainder (420) new editions of previously published books. I have identified the original publisher for 416 of those books. There are 45 publishers with two accounting for 82%. The full list - 

• Wm. Collins             323 
• Duell, Sloan and Pearce    18 
• Michael Joseph                  8 
• Prentice-Hall                5 
• Wm. Collins Canada        5 
• J.B. Lippincott                4 
• William Morrow                4 
• Charles Scribner's        3 
• Eyre & Spottiswoode        3 
• Arcadia House                2 
• Arthur Barker                2 
• Dodd, Mead                2 
• E. P. Dutton                2 
• Julian Messner                2 
• Macrae Smith                2 
• Random House                2 
• Appleton-Century-Croft      1
• Blakiston Company, The     1 
• Casell                        1 
• Charles L. Webster        1 
• Coward-McCann                1 
• David McKay                1 
• Ernest Benn                1 
• Farrar, Straus                1 
• Fleming H. Revell        1 
• G. P. Putnam's                1 
• Gazette Printing                1 
• George J. McLeod        1 
• Greenberg                        1 
• Harper & Brothers        1 
• Houghton Mifflin                1 
• J.H. Sears                        1 
• John Lane                        1 
• Little, Brown                1 
• Macaulay                        1 
• McClelland & Stewart         1 
• McGraw-Hill                1 
• Phoenix Press                1 
• Robert M. McBride        1 
• Simon and Schuster          1          
• Standard, The                1 
• Sun Dial Press, The        1 
• Thornton Butterworth        1 
• Vanguard Press                1 
• William Heinemann        1 

Here is the single book from five of the publishers.

• Death and the Dancing Footman by Ngaio Marsh first published in 1941 (Boston: Little, Brown)
• Shabby Tiger by Howard Spring in 1935 (New York: Sun Dial Press)
• Favourite Wife by May Edginton in 1936 (New York: Macaulay)
• El Caid by Clare Sheridan in 1931 (London: Thornton Butterworth)
• The Horncasters by Victor H. Johnson in 1947 (New York: Greenberg)

White Circle Pocket Edition 76 1943

White Circle Pocket Edition 230 1945

White Circle Pocket Edition 327 1947

White Circle Pocket Edition 290 1946

White Circle Pocket Edition 332 1947

White Circle Pocket Edition CD427 1950

Collins White Circle Retitled Books Part III

Wm Collins Sons & Co. Canada Ltd (Toronto) published 429 titles in their White Circle Pocket Edition paperback reprint line from 1942 until 1952. All but nine are new editions of previously published books but Collins never included the original publication information and for sixteen books titles were changed. Part I lists nine books for which I was missing the first edition information because the title was changed. Since then I have tracked down five, leaving four unknown. Here I'll bring the list up to date.

• The Dangerous Age first published as One Room for His Highness by Maysie Greig in 1947 (Glasgow, London: Wm. Collins)
• Only To Ask as The Young Invader by Anne Maybury in 1947 (Glasgow, London: Wm. Collins)
• Lawless Range as Just Dusty by Ranger Lee in 1947 (Glasgow, London: Wm. Collins)
• Winter Week-End as The Girl From Switzerland by Renee Shann in 1947 (Glasgow, London: Wm. Collins)
• Breath of Desire as The Winds of Spring by Anne Maybury in 1948 (Glasgow, London: Wm. Collins)

Still unknown:

• Stephanie by Pamela Wynne
• Florida Night by Jennifer Ames 
• Guns on the Copper Trail by Gary Marshall 
• Blood on the Sage by Chester Wills 

White Circle Pocket Edition 321 - 1947

White Circle Pocket Edition 366 - 1948

White Circle Pocket Edition 428 - 1949

White Circle Pocket Edition 393 - 1949

Sign of the White Circle

Seventy years ago, sometime in the first half of 1952, the last of 459 books in the White Circle Pocket Library series was published by Toronto's Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Canada Ltd. The series had lasted 10 years. Collins publicized the series in the usual way - ads in newspapers and bookstore display. Here is an example of a bookstore promotion.

The sign is about two feet long and was originally at the bottom of a wood display case. The price helps date the sign. The first White Circle with a price is #55 (Death Takes a Flat) from spring 1943 but it doesn't look like the sign's version. The first one that does (with small differences) is #74 (Tunnel From Calais), the first book published in the fall of 1943. Examples below. The last White Circle to have a price is #225 (The Commandos) from the fall of 1944 (note: there are no books with numbers 119-199). So the sign dates from fall 1943 to fall 1944.

White Circle 80 - 1943

White Circle 81 - 1943

White Circle 85 - 1943

Star Weekly Novel Part I

The Star Weekly Complete Novel was published, as best I can determine, every week for 36 years from 1938 to 1973. That is about 1880 issues. The novel was part of the Star Weekly insert that Canadians saw every Saturday if they bought the Toronto Star. Until 1956 it was usually 16 pages (15 1/2"x11") with 40,000 - 45,000 words. There were a number of two part novels so I estimate around 1700 titles were published.

I recently bought a few of these including Maysie Greig's That Girl in Nice, published on August 1, 1953. This was months ahead of the book, published by Wm. Collins (London, 1954). The Canadian White Circle paperback imprint was no longer around in 1953 but from 1946 to 1949 there were 12 Grieg novels published.

The artist is American Marland Stone (1895-1975).

Star Weekly Novel - August 1, 1953

White Circle 260 - 1946

White Circle 280 - 1946

White Circle 312 - 1947

White Circle 321 - 1947

Kate Aitken and Tamblyn Drugs

In an earlier post I discussed the relationship between Canadian author Kate Aitken and Tamblyn Drugs. Here is a bit of that relationship - a four page collection of recipes from Tamblyn dated May 1950. The last page advertises her "Pocket Size Cook Book".

Note the "Tamblyn Broadcast" at the bottom of the first page. The radio station is CFRB. After 93 years Toronto's CFRB is still broadcasting.

Collection Fill

A book I've been wanting for 12 years has arrived. It is one of two of the 459 White Circle Pocket Library first printings that I was missing.

Mr. Babbacombe Dies by Miles Burton is one of 50 published in 1942 by Toronto's Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Canada.

Here is complete list - 1942 White Circle.

White Circle N - 1942

White Circle N back

Norman Conquest Part III

Norman Conquest's creator Berkeley Gray's real name was Edwy Searle Brooks (1889-1965). He also wrote as Victor Gunn. Here are the last of the 17 Norman Conquest books published by Wm Collins Co & Sons Canada.

White Circle 383 - 1949

White Circle 465 - 1950

White Circle 442 - 1950

White Circle 486 - 1951

White Circle 512 - 1951

White Circle 527 - 1951

Norman Conquest Part II

In Part I I introduced the Norman Conquest series by Berkeley Gray. Specifically the 17 novels from the series published by Toronto publisher Wm Collins & Sons Canada from 1942 to 1952. 

Today not a single one of the 51 novels in the series is in print. Here are the next six White Circle editions.

White Circle 291 - 1946

White Circle 60 - 1943

White Circle 227 - 1945

White Circle 244 - 1945

White Circle 267 - 1946

White Circle 360 - 1948

Norman Conquest Part I

Series characters have long been a staple of the crime/mystery/thriller genre. Today large publishers are very careful about keeping a well-selling character in print. Older series are typically brought back into print in a systematic way. The best example today is Penguin's new editions of Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret series - all 75 novels, most in new translations. In the early days of paperbacks this was not the case.

An example is Berkeley Gray's Norman Conquest series - 51 novels between 1938 and 1969. The early Canadian paperback imprint from Wm. Collins and Sons Canada, White Circle Pocket Library, published 17 of the first 24 between 1942 and 1952, at which time the WC imprint ended. They had been published between 1938 and 1951 by the parent company in the UK. In addition to skipping seven of the books the ones that were published are not in sequence. The list below has the original publish date and the WC number.

1	Mr. Mortimer Gets the Jitters	1938	P
2	Vultures Limited	1938	46
3	Miss Dynamite	1939	85
6	Conquest Takes All	1940	B4
7	Meet the Don	1940	344
9	Convict 1066	1940	291
11	Six Feet of Dynamite	1942	60
12	Blonde for Danger	1943	227
13	The Gay Desperado	1944	244
14	Cavalier Conquest	1944	267
16	Mr. Ball of Fire	1946	360
17	Killer Conquest	1947	383
19	The Spot Marked X	1948	465
20	Duel Murder	1948	442
21	Daredevil Conquest	1950	486
22	Seven Dawns to Death	1950	512
23	Operation Conquest	1951	527

White Circle P - 1942

White Circle 46 -1942

White Circle 85 - 1943

White Circle B4 - 1942

White Circle 344 - 1947