Bookplates for children-
Lloyd Adams Noble, Publisher


Here is a stapled booklet of bookplates for children, dated 1918. They were sold by Lloyd Adams Noble, Publisher.


The booklet contains three different designs to choose from. Each page has three of the same bookplate in perforated panes with an adhesive on the back for moistening and applying to the book. A protective guard between each page prevented the bookplates from sticking to each other. This booklet is missing one bookplate at the back, otherwise it is completely intact with minimal wear despite its age and supposedly having been handled by children. I have seen individual plates for sale from these booklets, but a whole booklet appears to be quite scarce.




I'm not sure when this series of bookplates started or ended, but this set is copyrighted 1918 and I know the bookplates were still being published in 1921. A Lloyd Adams Noble title from that year, Pieces for Every Day the Schools Celebrate, by Deming and Bemis, contains ads in the back in which it is stated that three books of 36 bookplates each could be purchased for fifty cents. In addition to Bookplates My Older Children Love Best of All, there were bookplates for younger readers: Bookplates My Younger Children Love Best of All.

You may be wondering, if you didn't click on the link at the beginning, if Noble were any relation to the Barnes & Noble booksellers. Noble was the son of Clifford Noble, a partner in Hinds & Noble, which would later become Barnes & Noble.

The link at the beginning of this post tells of the Barnes & Noble lineage and includes Clifford Noble's efforts to help his son, Lloyd, get started in business. He helped him set up the publishing house, which enjoyed some success with several bestsellers until World War I intervened and the Noble boys (Lloyd and Kendrick) went off to war.

Clifford struggled with his bookselling business as well as Lloyd's publishing business with his sons gone and eventually had to bring in a partner, William Barnes. Lloyd returned to his publishing business after the war concluded in 1918 (the year this bookplate booklet was published) and Kendrick went to work elsewhere, though he returned to the family fold in 1921. At this point, the publishing firm changed its name to Noble & Noble.

They made it through the Great Depression, which caused father Clifford to sell his share in Barnes & Noble to partner Barnes and concentrate on helping the publishing business. Noble & Noble Publishing thrived in the years following World War II and by 1965 the end came in the form of the company selling all its stock to Dell Publishing.

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