posted on 22 May 2022

Update: The mystery of the unidentified children’s books

Last week (18.5.22) I published an article on a series of unusual children’s books that had no publishing details, author accreditation or dates and asked readers if they had seen them or had any information they could give me about them.

All I was able to offer about them was that one title had the following snippet of information -  ‘B.B. Ltd 920/9 Printed in England’ – and this was very little to go on given that printers identified as B.B. Ltd seemed to abound and pinning down who was responsible seemed difficult.

However, I’m delighted to say that this piece prompted one of Letterpress’ most dedicated supporters and valued guest reviewers, Alun Severn, to pick up the baton. Here’s what he came up with in his first email………

 

“I was just reading your piece about the unidentified children’s books and couldn’t resist a bit of a search…

There are many mentions of B.B. Ltd books — as below:

The Dolly Dressmaker https://www.biblio.com/book/dolly-dressmaker-bb-ltd-509-printed/d/902425105 

Fun For All (B.B.Ltd) https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333184894233 

Stella & Rose's Books: https://stellabooks.com/publisher/bb-ltd 

https://marchhousebookscom.blogspot.com/2012/10/novelty-books-part-two.html?m=0 

None of these throw any light on who or what B.B. Ltd was, but interestingly these items on eBay credit the company as B.B. Ltd (Birn Bros.):

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221560442135 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/312579006976 

Searching using the name Birn Brothers Ltd produces rather more information:

A blog called The Scrap Album says: “Birn Brothers of London, England were a major publishing house. Listed in the London trade directories from 1882 at 135 London Wall and in subsequent years at 27 Finsbury Street and 67-70 Bunhill Row.” http://www.scrapalbum.com/xmasp15.htm 

And the Enid Blyton Society lists dozens of Birn Bros titles: https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/book-groups.php?pick=publisher&value=Birn+Brothers 

 

 

My guess is that B.B. Ltd is Birn Bros and that the company pumped out endless cheap, uncredited, virtually pirated titles for decades — all through the first half of the twentieth century. In fact, I remember having or at least seeing many such titles when was very young. You could buy them for coppers on market stalls, at newsagents, in toyshops. I recall being given them — probably by my parents or relatives. I think what I remember most are butchered, cheaply illustrated versions of children’s classics. They were horrible books and I remember that those I had I threw away when I realised that ‘proper’ versions existed. The paper had a cheap smell that even now I can almost conjure up…”

 

This was followed by a second email:

 

“This website https://www.brixtonbuzz.com/2015/03/the-curious-case-of-the-edwardian-couple-cuddling-on-the-top-of-brixton-hill/ quotes another (which seems to be no longer functioning) which says:

‘Birn Brothers, based in London, were a major publishing house. They were listed in the London trade directories in 1882 at 135 London Wall, and in later at 27 Finsbury St and later at 67-70 Bunhill Row EC1Y.

Birns were famous for producing cards covering a wide variety of themes. These included Christmas cards, greetings cards, actresses, views and artist signed cards. They also produced propaganda plus military and naval themes.

In the early part of WWI as Kitchener built his army, there was a rash of postcards depicting the cap badges that these new soldiers would wear.  Birns produced some of the most attractive of these – embossed with the regimental badge in gold, a sketch of soldiers in action and verse explaining the role of the regiment.

Birns also published many real photo postcards, sepia postcards and embroidered silks. Despite their large postcard production (up to nineteen million cards in the years of the late Victorian period) they seem to have been primarily involved in printing cheap pictorial books. Many of their cards were published under the name BB London and, in common with those of a similar vintage, printed in Saxony and Bavaria.’”

 

In the light of Alun’s outstanding detective work I feel pretty certain that all of these booklets came from Birn Brothers at a date late in the first half of the 20th century and the mystery is now solved.

Thanks again to Alun for his contribution and it is another example of the internet working at its best as a research tool to fill in gaps for us.

 

Terry Potter

May 2022