Henry A. Sumner & Co., Chicago

This firm was in business from 1880 until 1885. Upon establishing his namesake firm, Sumner bought a number of book plates from Henry A. Young. Thus the fact that many of the juvenile series published by Sumner are the reprints of the earlier Young Publications. The Sumner factory was burned in a blaze in the spring of 1885. Although it was noted that the plates survived, by June, 1885 Sumner was the manager of the Chicago branch of Biglow and Main and was no longer operated his own publishing establishment.

Not much is known about Sumner's early years. He was a named partner in Kenney and Sumner firm which was also called The Chicago Baptist Book House. Although this company published a few books in 1869 and 1870, it appears to have been mainly a bookstore that dealt with "theological, sunday school and miscellaneous books". At the same address (110 Dearborn Street) the Henry A. Sumner outfit published a number of books between 1870 and 1874. This firm declared bankruptcy in 1874. It published no juvenile series that I am aware of.

Shortly thereafter he placed an ad in the newspaper touting his 14 years of experience. He was hired by John Church and Co. and worked with it for the next six years, three of them as the manager of its New York Office. In 1880 he left to open up his publishing company.

The Sumner firm published quite a number of juvenile series listed just below. As noted above, many of them had been previously printed by Henry A. Young.

Appreciate that although this firm only published series between 1880 and 1885, there are instances where a series had more than one format. I have shown the formats that I know but others may be noted in the future. A good example of this can be found in the Red Shanty Series which published books in one format on 1880 and another format in 1882/1884.

In addition several series used identical cover formats. Note Standard Series of Temperance Tales, Glance Gaylord Series and the Red Shanty Series all have an identical format.