The latest addition to the Spill library is perhaps the rarest. Aces! — All Aces! produced in 1926, when The New Yorker was not yet two years old, is yet another hard cover book put out by the magazine’s business department, and the earliest I know of (Corey Ford’s The Making Of A Magazine, also produced in 1926, had its roots in the editorial department, specifically in founder Harold Ross’s office). Unlike Mr. Ford’s booklet, which has been available online for years (it’s pricey), Aces! has had a zero online presence until a week or so ago, when a copy showed up at an auction house in Israel.
The book ended up here at the Spill as part of an international three-way deal, engineered by Stephen Nadler of Attempted Bloggery. My thanks to Stephen!
As with all other books put out by the magazine’s business department, the point was to encourage potential advertisers to consider who sees and buys The New Yorker. The book is 9″ x 11 1/4″, 28 pages, with good paper stock. The art within looks great. If you browse the sample content below you’ll see “spot” drawings (no cartoons) from, among others, Peter Arno, one of the magazine’s break-out stars in those earliest of years. Unfortunately, some of the other work is unsigned, and will require cartoon detective work to ID.
Below you’ll see the New Yorker advertising books in the Spill‘s library. You might ask: Are these all the known books? The answer is… no.
I know of one more title that’s out there, Something Different (it was produced sometime in the late 1920s). But of course, until Aces! showed up last week, and a month ago, The Costume That Was A Sensation…, I thought there was only that other title outstanding, and no others. So, we’ll just have to wait and see what pops up next (if you know of any other titles, other than Something Different, please let me know).
May We Say A Few words About Our Esteemed Contemporaries (1926-1927)
This differs from the others shown here in that it is soft-cover, bound by a not-so-heavy thread. An interesting tour of the New York City newspapers at the time. not dated, but there is a mention of it being produced less than two years after the magazine’s first issue. So I’m dating it as 1926-1927 (February 1927 marking The New Yorker‘s 2nd birthday). 8″ x 10″, printed on quality paper.
What! No Pie Charts? (1928?)
Unusual in that it is credited (to Corey Ford and artist, Julien deMiskey). 20 pages. 8 3/4″ x 11″. World Cat estimates it was published in 1928. Good paper, but not as good as the previous books.
The Costume That Was A Sensation At Auteuil…But Was Never Seen On Fifth Avenue (1930s)
We’ll Show You The Town (1934).
The book stands 18 1/4″ high and a foot and a quarter inch wide — yes, it’s that big — with 52 pages of text and black-and-white photographs depicting New Yorkers (mostly) at play.
Rebuque From Dubuque (1940)
I should add that in later years The New Yorker‘s business department produced numerous small booklets aimed at specific areas of interest to advertisers: cars, perfumes, furs, etc., etc. Those booklets were very different from the ones you see above, both in size and content (they all contained cartoons). I’ll post a number of those one of these days.