Collier's Young Folks books questions

[Chris in VA]

There's a thread on the hi sch board about reading these lovely classic compilations --Young Folks' Shelf of Books.

I was wondering about differences in editions--some say 1948 is the best, but I'm finding a lot on ebay from 1957 and some other years. Anyone know the differences or how I could find out?

[swimmermom3]

Interesting question, Chris. Did anyone say why they thought the 1948 set was better? I have a set from 1960 which we love. It's labeled the "Popular Edition" and previous copyrights are listed as 1938, 1948, and 1949. When I looked, I could only find the one set and it was $35 plus postage. I bought it and never looked back.:D Have fun. They are wonderful books.

[Lori D.]

Ours is c. 1957, with similar past copyrights as Swimmermom3's. We love ours! The only thing I have been able to discover about the different editions is that after the 1960 edition, Collier's shuffled the order of which stories were in which volume, dropped some material and added new material, and then renamed all of the 10 volumes to reflect the change of content

 

Original volume titles:

Volume 1: Fairy Tales and Fables

Volume 2: Stories of Wonder and Magic

Volume 3: Myths and Legends

Volume 4: Hero Tales

Volume 5: Stories That Never Grow Old

Volume 6: Stories About Boys and Girls

Volume 7: The Animal Book

Volume 8: Stories From History

Volume 9: Sport and Adventure

Volume 10: Poetry Reading Guide Indexes

 

 

Post 1960 volume titles:

A B C Go!

Once Upon A Time

Magic In The Air

Just Around The Corner

In Your Own Backyard

Harvest Of Holidays

Legends Of Long Ago

Roads To Greatness

Call Of Adventure

Gifts From The Past

 

 

Here is a helpful description about the 1962 edition:

"The purpose of Collier's Junior Classics is to introduce boys and girls to some of the best books ever written for children, to stimulate young readers to seek for themselves the books from which the selections have been drawn as well as other good books of similar appeal, and to encourage children to become disriminationg, thoughtful, life-time readers. author, title, and publisher are given at the foot of the page on which each selection opens. this enables readers to ask for the complete book at a library or bookstore. when necessary, brief introductions set the scene for the selection, while follow-up recommendations, complete with publishers' names, appear at the end of most stories."

 

"junior classics is a series of ten individually indexed volumes. A, B, C: Go! has been lovingly compiled for the youngest, and consists of nursery rhymes , favorite folk tales, best-loved poems, and stories for reading aloud. four volumes have been assembled for the intermediate group consisting of folk and fairy tales, fantasy, warm-hearted stories of other lands, and stirring books about our own country. four additional volumes cater to the interests of more mature boys and girls: world classics, great myths and American tales, excerpts from biographies of some of the greatest men and women of the world, and selections from action and suspense stories. Finally, the most unusual of all, is the volume entitled Harvest of Holidays, a feast of stories, poems, documents, and factual material about twenty-two American national and religious holidays."

Edited May 19, 2010 by Lori D.
clarification

[Chris in VA]

Interesting question, Chris. Did anyone say why they thought the 1948 set was better? I have a set from 1960 which we love. It's labeled the "Popular Edition" and previous copyrights are listed as 1938, 1948, and 1949. When I looked, I could only find the one set and it was $35 plus postage. I bought it and never looked back.:D Have fun. They are wonderful books.

 

Thanks everyone--Swimmermom, I just looked at the link in the hi school board post and it was for the 1948 edition, so I was just making sure I'd be ok with a different one--will look for the one Lori says she has!

Thanks again!

[Lori D.]

Thanks everyone--Swimmermom, I just looked at the link in the hi school board post and it was for the 1948 edition, so I was just making sure I'd be ok with a different one--will look for the one Lori says she has!

Thanks again!

 

 

I think you'll be fine with ANY edition that is 1960 or earlier! And even the 1962 edition probably has fine material in it, just a different selection which is arranged differently. :)

[kwg]

How old are these for?

[Lori D.]

How old are these for?

 

Depends on what story you're asking about; each volume is a bit of a mix. Below I've listed a general idea of what's in each of our 1957 volumes. Based on that, I would say in general (with exceptions, of course):

volumes 1, 2, and parts of 10 = gr. 1+

volumes 3, 4, 10 (due to vocabulary and sentence structure = gr. 6+

volumes 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 = gr. 5+

 

Enjoy! Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

 

 

1 = Fairy Tales and Fables

(66 fairy tales from England, Ireland, Germany, Norway, France, Czechoslovakia, Russia, and India by 11 different authors, including some by the Grimm brothers; also 14 Aesop fables)

 

2 = Stories of Wonder and Magic

(26 folk tales and magic stories by famous authors such as Edward Lear, A.A. Milne, Carl Sandburg, George MacDonald, Walter de la Mare, Padraic Colum, Howard Pyle and Frank Stockton; also includes reprints of Aladdin and Ali Baba from "The Arabian Nights"; plus 8 stories by Hans Christian Andersen)

 

3 = Myths and Legends

(10 Greek/Roman myths, some by Thomas Bulfinch or Nathaniel Hawthorne; 9 Norse myths; 6 myths from India; 7 Native American myths; 19 "old legends" which include St. George and Dragon, William Tell, The Flying Dutchman, and a number of legends about beasts and saints)

 

4 = Hero Tales

(ALL selections are prose retelling excerpts (some by James Baldwin or Paidric Colum) from:

"The Odyssey"

"Rustem and Sohrab (from the ancient Persian epic "Shah-Nameh")

"The Forging of the Sampo" (from the Finnish epic "The Kalevala")

"The Song of Roland"

"The Chronicle of the Cid"

"Beowulf"

King Arthur and the Round Table

"The Hunting of the Boar" (a King Arthur story from the Welsh epic "Mabinogion")

"Finn and Oisin" and "Cuchulain" Finnish epics)

Robin Hood)

 

5 = Stories That Never Grow Old

(ALL are complete reprints of the original, except where noted:

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)

The King of the Golden River (John Ruskin)

Jackanapes (Juliana Horatia Ewing)

A Midsummer Night's Dream (Charles & Mary Lamb)

The Gold Bug (Edgar Allan Poe)

excerpts: Tales from the Travels of Baron Munchausen (Rudolph Eric Raspe)

excerpts: Gulliver's Voyage to lilliput (Jonathan Swift)

excerpts: Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes)

Rip Van Winkle (Washington Irving)

A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens)

 

 

6 = Stories About Boys and Girls

(20 works, mostly reprinted chapters from longer works by mostly obscure authors, but includes more well known authors such as: Rachel Field; Louisa May Alcott; Mark Twain with a chapter from Adventures of Tom Sawyer; Booth Tarkington, with a chapter from Penrod; and Kathryn Forbes, with a chapter from Mama's Bank Account)

 

 

7 = Stories About Animals

(26 works, mostly reprinted chapters from longer works by mostly obscure authors, but includes more well-known authors such as John Muir; Anna Sewell with a full reprint of her book "Black Beauty"; Jack London with a full reprint of his short story "Brown Wolf"; Eric Knight with a full reprint of his short story "Lassie Come Home"; Marjorie Rawlings with a chapter from "The Yearling"; and Rudyard Kipling with a full reprint of his short story "Moti Guj -- Mutineer")

 

 

8 = Stories from History

(22 works, mostly reprinted chapters from longer works by such authors as Howard Pyle with a chapter from his Men of Iron; Andrew Lang; Hendrik Van Loon with 2 chapters from his Story of Mankind; Ester Forbes with a chapter from Johnny Tremain; Carl Sandburg from his biography on Abraham Lincoln; Robert Trumbull with a chapter from his autobiography on surviving a WW2 plane crash and survival in the ocean for 34 days; Ernie Pyle, WW2 war correspondent, with a reprinted article of heroism; chapters from biographies on Abraham Lincoln; an General MacArtherLouisa May Alcott; and a tall tale about The Devil and Daniel Webster)

 

 

9 = Sport and Adventure

(24 works, some are reprinted chapters from longer works by mostly obscure authors, but also includes more well-known authors such as: Jack London with a full reprint of his short story "Chased by the Trail"; Howard Pyle with a chapter from his Pirates book; Conan Doyle with a full reprint of his short story "The Red-Headed League"; Robert Byrd with a chapter from his autobiography about flying over the North Pole; and Charles Lindbergh with a chapter from his autobiography about crossing the atlantic in a solo flight)

 

 

10 Poetry (and reading index guide to all 10 volumes)

(over 320 poems, with a mix of nursery rhymes; poem riddles; children's poems, and at least 100 of the world's most famous poems (written before 1900) by all the most famous poets )

[Crimson Wife]

We have the 1938 edition that was FIL's when he was a kid. I would say that they're written at a late elementary/early middle school level.

[Violet Crown]

It's good to see these books in a thread discussion. They ought to be on some hypothetical list called "Best Homeschool Bargains." Entire pre-1960 sets not infrequently show up at Half Price Books for about $10.