Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. (New York, US)
Series dates: 1957-1969 (reprints through 1991)
Size: 5″ x 8″
Vienna publisher Frederick Ungar fled Austria in 1939 after the Nazi occupation. A publisher since 1922 and a prodigious translator, he established the Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. in New York in 1940. Continuum Publishing acquired the firm in 1988.
Ungar’s American Classics series titles were first issued in 1957. The series consisted of classic history titles, 50 in all (counting titles, not volumes – several titles had more than one volume) by 1969. Reprints were issued until 1991.
Carl Schurz’s biography Henry Clay, originally published in 1887, was reprinted in the American Classics series in 1968. The original and reprint are in two volumes. This was among the last few titles issued in the series.
Jackets are unique to each title but follow a particular layout. The series name is included on the top of the jacket spine and the top of the font of the jacket. This two-volume set has identical jackets except for the Volume 1 and Volume 2 indications on the spine and jacket front. A blurb is included on the front of the jacket, along with an image of Clay. The front jacket flap discusses both Clay and Schurz. The price is $17.50 (for the two volumes).
The rear flap continues the description of the book. A partial list of titles fills the rear of the jacket. A full list of all 50 titles is at the end of this entry.
The entire jacket for the 2nd volume:
The books are bound in heavy and durable brown buckram with the series name and publisher stamped in silver and the author and title in blue.
The half-title page:
The title page, which includes the series name:
The copyright page includes the year of printing as well as an indication that the book was reprinted from the 1915 edition (published by Houghton Mifflin)
A list of titles in Ungar’s American Classics series (prices included on some titles, taken from the jacket shown above):
1957
William B. Hesseltine, Ulysses S. Grant: Politician. ($9.50)
George F. Howe, Chester A. Arthur: A Quarter-Century of Machine Politics.
Cotton Mather, The Diary of Cotton Mather: Vol. 1: 1681-1708, Vol. 2: 1709-1724. ($17.50)
Allan Nevins, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration. (2 vols., slipcase, $17.50)
Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution. ($10.50)
Moses Coit Tyler, The Literary History of the American Revolution, 1763-1783.
1958
Howard K. Beale, The Critical Year: A Study of Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction. ($8.50)
Leonard W. Labaree, Royal Government in America: A Study of the British Colonial System. ($8.50)
Sarah N. Randolph, The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson: Compiled from Family Letters and Reminiscences by his Great-Granddaughter.
1959
Frederick Bancroft, Slave Trading in the Old South. (Introduction by Allan Nevins; $8.50)
Charles A. Beard, The Enduring Federalist. ($7.50)
Thomas Cuming Hall, The Religious Background of American Culture.
Marcus Wilson Jernegan, The American Colonies, 1492-1750: A Study of their Political, Economic, and Social Development.
Charles W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft, With An Account of Salem Village and a History of Opinions on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects. (2 vols., $15.00)
1960
Viola Florence Barnes, The Dominion of New England: A Study in British Colonial Policy.
Carl Holliday, The Wit and Humor of Colonial Days.
Carl Holliday, Woman’s Life in Colonial Days.
Marcus Wilson Jernegan, Laboring and Dependent Classes in Colonial America, 1607-1783.
1961
Allan Nevins, Fremont: Pathmaker of the West. (2 vols., $14.00)
Lucy Lockwood Hazard, The Frontier in American Literature.
Robert Selph Henry, The Story of the Mexican War.
John Bach McMaster, The Acquisition of Political, Social, and Industrial Rights of Man in America.
James Ford Rhodes, History of the Civil War, 1861-1865.
1962
Alice Morse Earle, Colonial Dames and Good Wives.
Ralph L. Rusk, The Literature of the Middle Western Frontier.
1963
James Fenimore Cooper, Notions of the Americans, Picked Up By a Travelling Bachelor. (Introduction by Robert E. Spiller; 2 vols., $10.00)
Emerson David Fite, Social and Industrial Conditions in the North During the Civil War.
S.S. McClure, My Autobiography.
Moses Coit Tyler, The Literary History of the American Revolution, 1763-1783.
Woodrow Wilson, George Washington.
1964
James Morton Callahan, Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy.
Livingston Farrand, Basis of American History, 1500-1900.
Evarts Boutell Greene, Provincial America, 1690-1740.
William B. Hesseltine, Civil War Prisons: A Study in War Psychology. ($5.50)
Matthew Josephson, The President Makers: The Culture of Politics and Leadership in an Age of Enlightenment, 1896-1919.
1965
William Maclay, The Journal of William Maclay, United States Senator from Pennsylvania, 1789-1791.
Francis Parkman, France and England in North America. (Introduction by Allan Nevins, Illustrated with over 150 rare early engravings and illustrations; 9 vols., $75.00)
Margaret Bayard Smith, The First Forty Years of Washington Society in the Family Letters of Margaret Bayard Smith.
Richardson Wright, American Wags and Eccentrics From Colonial Times to the Civil War. ($7.00)
Richardson Wright, Hawkers and Walkers in Early America. ($7.00)
1966
Henry Walcott Boynton, James Fenimore Cooper.
Edward Potts Cheyney, European Background of American History.
J.N. Larned. The Literature of American History; A Bibliographical Guide.
Helen Evertson Smith, Colonial Days and Ways, as Gathered from Family Papers. (Decorations by Louis Filler; $7.00)
William Henry Smith, A Political History of Slavery: Being an Account of the Slavery Controversy From the Earliest Agitation in the Eighteenth Century to the Close of the Reconstruction Period in America.
Moses Coit Tyler, Patrick Henry.
1967
1968
Evarts Boutell Greene, The Foundations of American Nationality.
Carl Schurz, Henry Clay.
1969
John Quincy Adams, The Diary of John Quincy Adams, 1794-1845: American Diplomacy, and Political, Social, and Intellectual Life, from Washington to Polk.
