Alexander Moring, De La More Press (London, UK)
Series dates: 1920-1938
Size: 5″ x 7.5″
The somewhat obscure (or at least undocumented) Alexander Moring Ltd. and the De La More Press began publishing in 1902. See the entry on The King’s Classics for more historical information on Alexander Moring & The De La More Press.
The Saint George Series began publication around 1920 and consisted of shorter classics with a small press look and feel. Earlier titles seem to have been numbered serially. Titles were initially hardcover, then issued in paper covers after the mid-1920s. This copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is dated 1925. It has no serial number. It seems that around 1925 the titles lost their series numbering and both hard and softbound versions became available. Jackets are unique to each title in the series. The jacket is on heavy paper with an arts and crafts design in red. There is no mention of the series name on the dust jacket. The front flap is blank. The title is printed on the (very narrow) spine of the jacket.
The back of the jacket contains a design, but no text. The rear flap is also blank.
Hardcover titles are bound in cloth, of different colors, and replicate the design found on the dust jackets.
A page describing the series (the only place the series name is indicated on the book or jacket) replaces what would be the half-title page.
A frontispiece with elaborate border and an illustration from the book face the similarly framed title page. The title page includes the illustrator of the 12 illustrations in the book, Blanche McManus (spelled with a “Mac” on the title page). McManus was born in East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, USA in 1870, studied in London in Paris before returning to the US to open a studio in 1893. In 1905 MacManus returned to Paris where she completed a significant number of illustrations for books. The copyright page which follows is blank.
The last page in the book contains a note on the source of the text in the book.
