L.C.PAGE Chatterbox

CHATTERBOX COVERS

L.C. Page & Company - Boston

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In 1891, having recently graduated from Harvard, *Lewis Coues Page* began working for the Boston publishing firm of *Estes & Lauriat* of which his stepfather, *Dana Estes, was a partner. Page was soon made treasurer of the Joseph Knight Company, a division of Estes & Lauriat. When Knight resigned in 1896, Page assumed leadership of Knight's former company and renamed it L. C. Page & Company. Dana Estes died in June 1909 but his publishing house carried on for four years without much change. Quite abruptly in 1913, for reasons still unclear, there was a sudden drop in both quantity and quality of the Estes list. No-one was surprised when in 1914 the company was acquired by the L.C. Page & Company* for a bargain price. Although L.C. Page initially published such contemporary novelists as Gabriele d'Annunzio, it soon found a niche in juvenile series including Lucy Maud Montgomery's popular Anne of Green Gables series beginning in 1908. But the greatest success of all was the 1913 publication of Eleanor Hodgman Porter's Pollyanna. The story of the tirelessly cheerful young Pollyanna sold more than a million copies in its first year. The literary conservatism of L.C. Page & Company, however, proved to be the undoing of its independence. Mr. Page abhorred what he called "sophisticated literature," by which he evidently meant contemporary fiction especially if by a foreign author. In 1937, he declared that the great bulk of the U.S. public simply wanted reprints of classics and had no taste for more modern writing. Predictably, the company's sales declined. In 1957, the year following Page's death, his firm was acquired by *Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, Inc.* which had become successful publishing the very literature which Page had disdained. *Farrar, Straus & Giroux* discontinued the L. C. Page imprint in 1980. *L.C. Page’s “Popular Limited Editions”* I've now found a number of these "popular limited editions" published throughout the 1920's. I don't know for certain what happened, but I can make a guess. The most expensive part of the annual to produce is the cover, and it looks to me that L.C.Page ended up with large stocks of unused covers from Dana Estes warehouse. From 1914 to 1928 Page were publishing Chatterboxes, some with new "Page" covers, and some with old "Dana Estes" covers, the latter with a sticker or over-printing over the original date with "Popular Limited Edition" on it. So, it looks like a sensible economy measure !
Chatterbox 1917		Chatterbox Presentation Edition 1917	The Page Co. Publisher's Note Reads: Due to the War conditions the Publication of the Present Volume has been so delayed that it has been deemed advisable that it shall bear the date of 1919, and that no issue bearing the date 1918 shall appear. Subsequent issues of Chatterbox will appear annually in October & will bear the date of the following year. Chatterbox 1919
	Chatterbox Presentation Edition 1919		Chatterbox 1920
Chatterbox Popular Edition 1920 (in 1911 cover !)		Chatterbox Popular Edition 1920 (in 1913 cover !)		Chatterbox 1921
	Chatterbox 1922		Chatterbox Popular Edition 1922