J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd (London, UK) & E.P. Dutton (New York, US)
Series dates: 1914-1942
Size: 4.5″ x 7″
By 1914 Everyman’s Library had reached nearly 700 titles and was published in the UK as well as the U.S. by Dutton. Dent continued to publish the scholarly Temple Classics in the U.K. The Wayfarers’ Library, published in the UK by Dent and the US by Dutton, “embraces all that is healthy, clean and good in the lighter field of modern literature, ranging from works of pure romance to the best collective essays of the day” according to a series prospectus. Thus the series focused on modern literature, less scholarly and more popular. In the U.S., the Modern Library simply incorporated such popular titles in the series; Dent and Dutton segregated popular titles in a new series. The Wayfarers’ Library eventually reached about 100 titles before the publication of new volumes slowed in the early 1930s. A few titles are added in the mid-1930s, and a few reprints until 1942.
A.G. Gardiner’s Prophets, Priests and Kings is undated, but probably from the initial year (1914) of the Wayfarers’ Library. The jacket flap indicates forthcoming (early 1915) titles in the series. The jackets are illustrated and unique to the title (unlike titles in Everyman’s Library and the Temple Classics). The spine portrays a gentleman wayfaring and reading (a copy of the Wayfarers’ Library, no doubt). The price is indicated on the jacket spine, 1/ net (F. 1.50 also indicated). The series number for the title (21) is also printed on the spine.
The rear of the jacket lists titles in the Wayfarers’ Library and the rear flap advertises Everyman’s Library.
Bindings are cloth, in varying colors. Gold stamping.
Endpapers are decorated with miscellaneous fairies.
An illustrated frontispiece faces the title page. The reverse of the title page is blank. Dent had a tendency to not indicated dates on first printings, only on reprints.
A catalog in the back repeats the titles listed on the back of the jacket.
E.P. Dutton published Everyman’s Library in the U.S. and also published the Wayfarers’ Library.
This copy of Daudet’s Kings in Exile is undated but probably from the first year of the series (1914). The jackets are common to the series, different from the U.K. versions. The price, .40 cents, is indicated on the spine. The Everyman Encyclopedia in its variant bindings is advertised on the front jacket flap.
The reverse of the jacket advertises the new series, as well as the Dent & Dutton French series, Collection Gallia.
Cloth bindings are the same as the U.K. versions.
The same frontispiece illustration and title page design, except that Dutton is added as co-publisher.
Shaw’s Love Among the Artists and Sheldon’s Bubble Fortune are two 1914 Dutton U.S. books in the Wayfarers’ Library.
Dent, like other publishers, was apt to rebind series titles for gift and holiday sales. In this case, a 1917 printing of Stackpool’s The Blue Lagoon sports a suede binding and is packed in a box with the book’s title on the edge (shown at the top in the image below). The design of the suede binding was probably offered on better selling titles in the series and was common for each title.
Dent would have printed copies of the Wayfarers’ Library and kept them unbound until needed. In this case, the book was bound in suede.
Dent typically indicated printings after the first: in this case, a 1919 copy (reprinted in 1917 and 1918) from an initial 1914 printing in the series.
Bennett’s The City of Pleasure is a 1920 2nd printing (first 1914). The price on the jacket spine is overprinted with a price increase to 1/6 net. Gardiner’s The War Lords is undated, but 1915-1917.
H.B. Marriott Watson’s Rosalind in Arden is a 1922 reprint (first printing in series, 1914). Belloc’s The Historic Thames is also a 1922 reprint (first printing in series, 1914).
A 1927 first printing in the series copy of Many Furrows by the illustrious ‘Alpha of the Plough’ reveals a simpler design on the jacket front and spine. The jacket flaps are blank. A full list of titles in the series, 98 in all, are listed on the back of the jacket. Bindings remain the same. No series number is included on the spine, as it had been previously.
The title page has also been simplified.
Sanger’s Seventy Years a Showman in a 1927 printing in the series. Prices are gone from the jacket spine, and the series number is included.
A 1934 copy of Quiller-Couch’s The Astonishing History of Troy Town shows more refinements in the jacket design. A full list of titles is on the back of the jacket, the flaps are blank. The title page and binding continues without change.
Two Conrad titles, The Shadow Line and Within the Tides are undated but possibly the mid-1930s as the series was waning. The catalog on the back of the jacket is replaced by advertisements for Swan pens. Jacket flaps are blank.
A possibly close to complete list of Wayfarers’ Library titles is below, thanks to Terry Seymour. The English titles are numbered 1 to 132. Dutton issued some different titles in the US (seemingly without serial numbers). Those follow the English list.
English Titles (Dent)
1: Mason, A.E.: Running Water
2: Winifred, James: The Wheels of Chance
3: Stacpoole, H. deVere: The Blue Lagoon
4: Bennett, Arnold: The Grand Babylon Hotel
5: Sidgwick: The Professor’s Legacy
6: Gibbon, Perceval: The Adventures of Miss Gregory
7: Weyman, Stanley: Shrewsbury
8: Whiting, Mary Bradford: The Plough of Shame
9: Quiller-Couch, Arthur: Astonishing History of Troy Town
10: Lamb, Charles: The Essays of Elia
11: Osborne, Dorothy: Letters to Sir William Temple
12: Chesterton, G. K.: The Defendant
13: Conrad, Joseph: Twixt Land and Sea
14: Sheldon, Gilbert: Bubble Fortune
15: Hewlett, Maurice: The Fool Errant
16: Hardy, Thomas: Under the Greenwood Tree
17: Vachell, H. A.: The Pinch of Prosperity
18: Besant, and Rice: Chaplain of the Fleet
19: Weyman, Stanley: The Abbess of Vlaye
20: Lee, Charles: The Widow Woman
21: Twain, Mark: Innocents Abroad & Jumping Frog
22: Russell: Selected Essays
23: Gardiner, A. G.: Prophets, Priests and Kings
24: Jefferies, Richard: The Open Air
25: Wells, H. G.: The Wonderful Visit
26: Boothby, Guy: A Lost Endeavour
27: Stacpole, H. deVere: The Pools of Silence
28: Zangwill, Israel: Children of the Ghetto
29: Whiteing, Richard: Number 5 John Street
30: Walpole, Hugh: The Wooden Horse
31: Watson, H. B. Marriott: Rosalind in Arden
32: Weyman, Stanley: The Castle Inn
33: Stockton, Frank R.: The Rudder Grange
34: Belloc, Hillaire: The Historic Thames
35: Dobson, Austin: Eighteenth Century Studies
36: Shorter, Clement: The Brontes and their Circle
37: Stevenson, Robert: St. Ives
38: Bennett, Arnold: City of Pleasure
39: Bindloss, Harold: The Mistress of Bonaventure
40: Ridge, Pett: The Wickhamses
41: Lowndes, Belloc Mrs.: The Heart of Penelope
42: Von Arnim, E.: Princess Priscilla’s Fortnight
43: Pasture, de la: Lonely Lady of Grosvenor Square
44: Sienkiewicz, Henryk: Quo Vadis?
45: Pain, Barry: De Omnibus
46: Jackson, Holbrook: Southward Ho! And other Essays
47: Milne, James: The Epistles of Atkins
48: Russell, W. Clark: Round the Galley Fire
49: Crockett, S. R.: The Lilac Sunbonnet
50: Lawrence, C. E.: Pilgrimage
51: Pickthall, Marmaduke: The Valley of the Kings
52: Crockett, S. R.: The Raiders
53: Converse, Florence: The Children of Light
54: Booth , Edward C.: The Cliff End
55: Beddoe, David: The Lost Mameluke: A Tale of Egypt
56: Daudet, Alphonse: Kings in Exile
57: Anstey, F.: Baboo Jabberjee, B. A.
58: Paul, Herbert: Queen Anne
59: Spender, J. A.: The Comments of Bagshot
60: Goodchild, George: The Lore of the Wanderer
61: Zangwill, Israel: Grandchildren of the Ghetto
62: Parker, Gilbert: A Ladder of Swords
63: Cornford, L. Cope: The Master Beggars of Belgium
64: Dickens, Charles: Christmas Carol
65: Dickens, Charles: The Cricket on the Hearth
66: Betham-Edwards, Mrs.: Under the German Ban in Alsace and Lorraine
67: Vachell, H. A.: The Face of Clay
68: Weyman, Stanley: Chippinge
69: Quiller-Couch, Arthur: The Delectable Duchy
70: Castle, Agnes and Egerton: The Pride of Jennico
71: Capes: A Jay of Italy
72: Ferguson, Emily: Open Trails
73: Cornford, L. Cope: The Black Watch
74: Gissing: Demos
75: Vachell, H. A.: Her Son
76: Watson, H. B. Marriott: The Privateers
77: Crockett, S. R.: The Black Douglas
78: O’Grady, Standish: In the Wake of King James
79: Courtney, W. L.: Rosemary’s Letter Book
80: Walker, F. W.: The Great Deeds of the Seaforth Highlanders
81: Gardiner, A. G.: The War Lords
82: Bell , J. J.: Dancing Days
83: Hobbes, John Oliver: The Serious Wooing
84: Watson, H. B. Marriott: Once Upon a Time
85: Wilson, Woodrow: The New Freedom
86: Walker, F. W.: The Coldstream Guards
87: Steuert, J. A.: Cupid, V. C.
88: Crockett, S. R.: The Grey Man
89: Oxenham, John: Rising Fortunes
90: Ward, Mrs. Humphry: Eleanor
91: Weyman, Stanley: The Long Night
92: Gardiner, A. G.: The Pillars of Society
93: Wray, Fitzwater: Across France in Wartime
94: Gardiner, A. G.: Pebbles on the Shore
95: Ferguson, Emily: Janey Canuck in the West
96: Vachell, H. A.: The Shadowy Third
97: Fogazzaro, Antonio: The Saint
98: Steuert, J. A.: Minister of State
99: Hobbes, John Oliver: The Dream and the Business
100: Weyman, Stanley: Starvecrow Farm
101: Jepson, Edgar: The Lady Noggs Peeress
102: Shorter, Clement: The Life of George Borrow
103: Bindloss, Harold: Concession Hunters
104: Steuert, J. A.: Rock of the Ravens
105: Crockett, S. R.: The Red Axe
106: Conrad, Joseph: Within the Tides
107: Lea, Fannie: Chloe Malone
108: Kerr, Sophie: The Blue Envelope
109: Martin, Helen R. : Those Fitzenbergers
110: Martin, Helen R. : Martha of Mennonite Country
111: Cooke, Marjorie: The Dual Alliance and Titania
112: Donnell, Annie Hamilton
113: O’Brien, Howard Vincent
114: Davies, Maria Thompson
115: Harris, Corra: The Co-citizens
116: Dixon, Thomas R.: The Root of Evil
117: Kerr, Sophie: The Golden Block
118: Roche, Arthur: Plunder
119: Roche, Arthur: Spoil
120: Roche, Arthur: The Sport of Kings
121: Gardiner, A. G.: Leaves in the Wind
122: Conrad, Joseph: The Shadowline
123: Conrad, Joseph: The Rescue
124: Gardiner, A. G.: Windfalls
125: Gardiner, A. G.: Many Furrows
126: Sanger, George: Seventy Years a Showman
127: Hudson, W. H.: Afoot in England
128: Quiller-Couch, Arthur: The Blue Pavillions
129: Lee, Charles: Our Little Town
130: Durrant, Willima Scott: Cross and Daggers
131: Multiple: A Modern Miscellany
132: Gardiner, A. G.: Certain People of Importance
Dutton Only Titles
Winifred James: Bachelor Betty
G. S. Street: Ghosts of Picadilly
G. B. Shaw: Cashel Byron’s Profession
G. B. Shaw: The Irrational Knot
G. B. Shaw: Love Among the Artists
G. B. Shaw: An Unsocial Socialist
Peter Harding: The Corner of Harley Street
George Gissing: The House of Cobwebs
George Gissing: The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
Mrs. George Wemyss: The Professional Aunt
R. W. Chambers: In the Quarter
Mary Johnston: Audrey
Mary Johnston: By Order of the Company
Mary Johnston: Lewis Rand
Mary Johnston: The Old Dominion
Mary Johnston: Sir Mortimer
Henry Harrison: Queed
H. G. Wells: New Worlds for Old
John, Jr. Fox: Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come
George Meredith: Selected Poems
Isabella F. Bird: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan
American Section: 13 known titles, but these all have standard Wayfarer numbers and may only be just a term of classification rather than any distinctive grouping of titles.
Fannie Heaslip Lea: Chloe Malone
Helen R. Martin: Those Fitzenbergers
Helen R. Martin: Martha of the Mennonite Country
Marjorie Cooke: The Dual Alliance and Titania
Annie Hamilton Donnell: Miss Theodosia’s Heart-Strings
Howard Vincent O’Brien: Thrirty
Maria Thompson Davies: The Daredevil
Corra Harris: The Co-citizens
Thomas R. Dixon: The Root of Evil
Sophie Kerr: The Golden Block
Arthur Roche: Plunder
Arthur Roche: Spoil
Arthur Roche: The Sport of Kings
