J. P. Skelly & Co., Philadelphia

J. P. Skelly & Co. was a new publishing house in 1866. It was known previously for the sale of engravings. Skelly mostly published religious and moralistic books. It was active until about 1873.

1866 732 Chestnut Street
1867-1873 21 South Seventh Street

Skelly and Alfred Martien worked out of Martien's building at No. 21 South Seventh Street. In July, 1872 a fire damaged this building. Skelly had no insurance. This may have precipitated the firm's demise.

In October, 1873 Alfred Martien announced that it was adding to its firm's list all of the publications (over 250 volumes) of J. P. Skelly & Co. Coincident with the timing of Martien's stoppage regarding the juvenile books it got from Skelly, James A. Moore in 1877 began publishing a number of Skelly's Series. Summarizing, Martien published five of Skelly's series while Moore published eight of them.

Skelly utilized a very limited number of cover formats for its series which were published between 1868 and 1873. The spines from series to series usually differed in regards to the gilt lettering and design.

Noted directly below are a number of Skelly covers and which years they were published. Various different colors have been seen with each cover format. Note that most of the series' books have dated title pages.

1868-1870	1871	1869-1873

1870-1871	1872-1873	1873

The books in these series were published alone in addition to being volumes in boxed sets. The books of the boxed sets have uniform bindings within the set.

Series for Juveniles: