The Book League of America, Inc. was a US book publisher and mail order book sales club. It was established in 1930, a few years after the Book of the Month Club. Its founder was Lawrence Lamm, previously an editor at Macmillan. The company was located at 100 Fifth Avenue, New York City, New York in a 240,000-square-foot (22,000 m2) office building that was constructed in 1906. It printed and distributed a variety of volumes in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. A victim of the Great Depression, the Book League of America was purchased by Doubleday in 1936.
Book League of America printed and published contemporary and classic books. The clothbound hardcover was commonly a dark navy-blue, though sometimes red or black. There was an embossed logo on the front. Depending upon a variety of exposure conditions and perhaps publishing years, the spine cloth faded differently, with some of the spines remaining dark navy, while others turned purple or navy-green. The spine featured book title and author in gold or silver gilt lettering, along with decorative scrolling, sometimes in an art deco motif.
Most of the pages were smooth-cut on the top and bottom edges, and deckled on the outer edge. Some books contained the note: "This book is standard length, complete and unabridged. Manufactured under wartime conditions in conformity with all government regulations controlling the use of paper and other materials." This explains the yellowed or tanning paper condition, more noticeable in some books than others. Some books were illustrated. Many of the books did not include a publish date. Dust jackets were not included.
Approximately 5,000 subscribers received monthly fliers that offered a selection from a variety of contemporary and world classic literature choices.
"The famous Board of Editors selects for you 2 books each month: the best new book -AND- one of the greatest classics. The Book League of America supplies these 2 books each month at 1/3 of the usual cost!
Some books, published by other companies but carrying the Book League of America imprint, were included in the club sales offerings. These publishers included:
A. S. Barnes & Company, New York
Bartholomew House, Inc., New York
Blakiston Company, Philadelphia
Caxton House Inc., New York
Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., New York
E. M. Hale and Company, Wisconsin
Everybody's Vacation Publishing Company, New York
Literary Classics Inc., New York
Puritan Publishing Company, Chicago & Philadelphia
William H. Wise & Co., New York
There was no membership fee to join the plan. The subscription cost $16.68 and entitled the subscriber to twelve books each year.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, by Mark Twain, 1917
Abe Lincoln of Pigeon Creek, by William E. Wilson, 1950
Across the Frontiers, by Sir Philip Gibbs, 1938
A History of New York & The Sketch Book, by Washington Irving
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll, 1941
All Night Long, a Novel of Guerilla Warfare in Russia, by Erskine Caldwell, 1942
All that glitters, by Frances Parkinson Keyes, 1941
Always A River, by Drayton Mayrant, 1957
America Visited, by Dickens, Thackeray and Others; arranged by Edith I. Coombs, 1937
Areopagitica and Other Prose Writings, by John Milton; editor William Haller, 1929
A Tale of Two Cities & Christmas Carol & The Chimes, by Charles Dickens
At the Sign of the Reine Pedauque, by Anatole France, 1931
A Time Will Come, by Rachel McBrayer Varble, 1940
A Woman is Witness, a Paris Diary, by Ernst Lothar, 1941
Away All Boats, by Kenneth Dodson, 1954
Ben-Hur, a Tale of the Christ, by Lew Wallace
Bernard Shaw, by Frank Harris, 1931
Beyond Horizons, by Lincoln Ellsworth, 1938
Bless This House, by Norah Lofts, 1955
Camille, by Alexandre Dumas, 1937
Captain Courageous, by Rudyard Kipling
Captain Of The Medici, by John J. Pugh, 1955
Captain Lightfoot, by W.R. Burnett, 1955
Caravan for China, by Frank Stuart, 1941
Catch the Gold Ring, by John Stephen Strange, 1955
Chance, a Tale in Two Parks, by Joseph Conrad, 1921
Charlotte and Dr. James, by Guy McCrone, 1956
Cimarron, by Edna Ferber
Cities of Refuge, a Novel, by Philip Gibbs, 1937
Comedies of Oscar Wilde, by Oscar Wilde
Comedies of Molière, selected by John Gassner; translation by Baker & Miller, 1946
Confessors of the Name, by Gladys Schmitt, 1953
Conquest of Mexico, by William H. Prescott, 1934
Conquest of Peru, by William H. Prescott
Coromandel!, by John Masters, 1956
Crocus, a Novel, by Neil Bell (pen name for Stephen Southwold), 1937
Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand
Dangerous Ground, by Francis Sill Wickware, 1946
Death of a Peer, by Ngaio Marsh, 1940
Demelza, by Winston Graham, 1953
Devil's Bridge, by Mary Deasy, 1953
Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes; translation by Richard Emery Roberts
Dr. Krasinski's Secret, by M. P. Shiel, 1929
Edgar Wallace, the Biography of a Phenomenon, by Margaret Lane, 1939
Ella Gunning, by Mary Deasy, 1951
Emma, by F.W. Kenyon, 1956
English Comedies, edited by John Gassner
Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Excelsior!, by Paul Hyde Bonner, 1956
False Witness, by Irving Stone, 1903
Family Fortunes, by Gwen Davenport, 1949
Famous French Novels, Seven Modern Condensations, editor Cameron Hyde
Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev
Farewell to Valley Forge, by David Taylor, 1956
Favorite Works of Sir Walter Scott, by Sir Walter Scott, 1942
Fetish, by Christine Garnier, 1953
Flamenco, by Lady Eleanor Smith, 1931
For My Great Folly, a Novel, by Thomas B. Costain, 1942
Gladiator, by Philip Gordon Wylie, 1930
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
Great Novels of Anatole France by Anatole France, 1918
Green Mansions, by William Henry Hudson
Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift, 1937
Hear This Woman, by Ben and Ann Pinchot, 1951
Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo
Intruder From The Sea, by Gordon McDonell, 1954
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, 1940
Jefferson's Letters, arranged by Willson Whitman
John Brown's Cousin, by Jane Hutchens, 1940
Jubel's Children, by Lenard Kaufman, 1951
Jubilee, by John Brick, 1956
Kotto, Being Japanese Curios, by Lafcadio Hearn, 1929
Lady Blanche Farm & Queen Anne's Lace, by Frances Parkinson Keyes, 1954
Lavengro & the Romany Rye, by George Borrow
Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo, 1943
Living Biographies of Famous Novelists, by Henry Thomas & Dana Lee Thomas, 1943
Lord Vanity, by Samuel Shellabarger, 1955
Lorna Doone, a Romance of Exmoor, by Richard Blackmore
Love in the Sun, by Leo Walmsley, 1940
Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, 1937
Mary Lavelle, by Kate O'Brien, 1936
Meet Mr. Fortune, by H. C. Bailey, 1942
Mexican Maze, by Carleton Beals, 1931 with Illustrations by Diego Rivera
Michael Strogoff, by Jules Verne, 1940
Mikado and Other Operas, by W. S. Gilbert, 1929
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, 1940
Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins
Nana, by Émile Zola, 1937
O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1941, edited by Herschell Brickell, 1941
Plays of the Greek Dramatists, selections from Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes
Poems and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, by Edgar Allan Poe
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, 1937
Quo Vadis, a Narrative of the Time of Nero, by Henryk Sienkiewicz; translation from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin, 1925
Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier, 1938
Road to Endor, by Esther Barstow Hammond, 1940
Rob Roy and Selected Poems, by Sir Walter Scott
Romola, by George Eliot
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam
Samuel Pepys, by Arthur Ponsonby, 1929
Sapho, by Alphonse Daudet, 1932
Sara Dane, by Catherine Gaskin, 1955
Science of Life, by H. G. Wells, Julian Huxley, G. P. Wells, 1936
Selected Stories of Bret Harte, by Bret Harte
Selected Writings of Thomas Paine, by Thomas Paine
Selections from the Arabian Nights, translation by Sir Richard Burton
Sense and Sensibility & Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
Short Stories of de Maupassant, by Guy de Maupassant, 1941
Show Boat, by Edna Ferber, 1926
Signed with Their Honor, by James Aldridge, 1942
Six Famous French Novels, edited by Cameron Hyde, 1943
So Big, by Edna Ferber
Solomon And The Queen of Sheba, by Czenzi Ormonde, 1955
Stephania, by Ilona Karmel, 1953
Tales from the Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio, 1930
Tales of Mystery and Imagination, by Edgar Allan Poe, 1940
Tender Victory, by Taylor Caldwell, 1957
That Lofty Sky, by Henry Beetle Hough, 1941
That None Should Die, by Frank G. Slaughter, 1941
The Adventurers, by Ernest Haycox, 1955
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, 1937
The Best Known Works of Daniel Defoe, by Daniel Defoe, 1942
The Best Known Works of Elizabeth & Robert Browning, by Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1942
The Best Known Works of Émile Zola, by Émile Zola, 1941
The Best Known Works of Gustave Flaubert, by Gustave Flaubert, 1941
The Best Known Works of Ibsen, by Henrik Ibsen, 1941
The Best Known Works of Ivan Turgenev, by Ivan Turgenev
The Best Known Works of James Fenimore Cooper, by James Fenimore Cooper, 1942
The Best Known Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Best Known Works of Oscar Wilde, by Oscar Wilde, 1940
The Best Known Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1941
The Best Known Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1941
The Best Known Works of Thomas Carlyle, by Thomas Carlyle, 1942
The Best Known Works of Voltaire, by François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire
The Best Known Works of Washington Irving, by Washington Irving, 1942
The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, by Marco Polo, 1929
The Chuckling Fingers, by Mabel Seeley, 1941
The Clairvoyant, by Ernst Lothar, 1932
The Cloister and the Hearth, by Charles Reade
The Collected Poems of Walt Whitman, edited by Emory Holloway
The Complete Works of Horace, edited by Casper J. Kraemer, Jr., 1938
The Corioli Affair, by Mary Deasy, 1955
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, père
The Countryman's Year, by David Grayson, 1936
The Crime of Sylvester Bonnard, by Anatole France, 1937
The Crime Wave at Blandings, by P. G. Wodehouse, 1937
The Dance of Life, by Havelock Ellis, 1929
The Death of Lord Haw Haw, by Brett Rutledge (pen name of Elliot Paul), 1940
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon
The Diary of Samuel Pepys, edited by Isabel Ely Lord
The Droll Stories of Honoré de Balzac, by Honoré de Balzac
The Education of Henry Adams, by Henry Adams, 1928
The Egoist, a Comedy in Narrative, by George Meredith, 1941
The Essays of Elia, by Charles Lamb, 1929
The Favorite Works of Charles Dickens, by Charles Dickens, 1942
The Feast, by Margaret Kennedy, 1950
The Fool Killer, by Helen Eustis, 1954
The Foolish Immortals, by Paul Gallico, 1954
The 4 Georges, by William Makepeace Thackeray, 1937
The Freeholder, by Joe David Brown, 1949
The Gentle Kingdom of Giacomo, by Evelyn Wells, 1953
The Gypsy In The Parlour, by Margery Sharp, 1954
The Hangman's Whip, by Mignon G. Eberhart, 1940
The Happy Harvest, by Jeffery Farnol, 1940
The History of Henry Esmond, by William Makepeace Thackeray
The History of Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo
The King's Vixen, by Pamela Hill, 1955
The Lady Who Came to Stay, by Robin Edgerton Spencer, 1931
The Last Days of Pompeii, by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
The Life and Letters of Benjamin Franklin, by Benjamin Franklin
The Little Ark, by Jan DeHartog, 1954
The Long Memory, by Howard Clewes, 1952
The Love Books of Ovid, 1937
The Lyric South, an Anthology of Recent Poetry from the South, by Addison Hibbard, 1929
The Master of Ballantrae, by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1931
The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot, 1932
The Mixture as Before, by W. Somerset Maugham, 1940
The Moon and Sixpence, by W. Somerset Maugham
The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins
The Origin of the Species, by Charles Darwin
The Passionate Journey, by Irving Stone, 1950
The Peaceable Kingdom, by Ardyth Kennelly, 1950
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
The Pilgrim's Progress & The Holy War, by John Bunyan
The Plays of Anton Chekhov, by Anton Chekhov
The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James
The Proud Man, by Elizabeth Linington, 1956
The Queen's Cross, by Lawrence Schoonover, 1956
The Red Lily, by Anatole France, 1937
The Rest of Your Life, by Leo Cherne
The Rifleman, by John Brick, 1953
The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy, 1937
The Salem Frigate, by John Jennings, 1946
The Selected Works of William Makepeace Thakeray, by William Makepeace Thackeray, 1942
The Seven that were Hanged, by Leonid Andreyev, 1931
The Shadow Catcher, by Donald Sloan
The Short Novels of John Steinbeck, by John Steinbeck, 1954
The Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant, by Guy de Maupassant
The Ship and the Shore, by Vicki Baum, 1941
The Sundowners, by Jon Cleary, 1952
The Temptation of St. Anthony, by Gustave Flaubert, 1936
The Trouble in Thor, by Jo Valentine, 1954
The Two Wives, a Tale in Four Parts, by Frank Arthur Swinnerton, 1940
The Unvanquished, by Howard Fast, 1942
The Velvet Doublet, by James Street, 1953
The Vicar of Wakefield, by Oliver Goldsmith, 1939
The Virginians, by William Makepeace Thackeray
The Warden & Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope
The Way of All Flesh, by Samuel Butler, 1937
The Weather Tree, by Maristan Chapman, 1932
The Woman Who Would Be Queen, by Geoffrey Bocca, 1955
The World's Great Speeches, edited by Lewis Copeland, 1942
The Young Elizabeth, by Jennette and Francis Letton, 1953
They Stooped to Folly, by Ellen Glasgow, 1929
They Tell No Tales, by Manning Coles, 1942
Three Great Novels of Robert Louis Stevenson, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas, père, 1940
Tidefall, by Thomas H. Raddall, 1954
Time And Time Again, by James Hilton, 1955
Tom Sawyer and Other Sketches by Clemens, by Mark Twain
Torch For A Dark Journey, by Lionel Shapiro, 1950
Travellers' Tales, arranged by Jay Du Bois
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne, 1940
Two Came By Sea, by William S. Stone, 1953
Valley Of The Vines, by Joy Packer, 1956
Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero, by William Makepeace Thackeray
War And Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë, 1940
Yonder, by Margaret Bell Houston, 1956
