THE SCHOOLBOYS ANNUAL

Edited by J. Burnett Knowlton, published by Boy’s Own Paper, No date but possibly late twenties early thirties.

The coloured front cover picture shows three boys, two of them wearing swimming trunks in a rowing boat, one laughing as he climbs out into the sea, the other stripping off his shirt to follow, and the third already swimming. The back cover is an advert for Palmer Tyres, showing Brittania (clad in the Union flag) standing on top of the world, where she has just cast forth a Palmer Tyre. The caption states, " Palmer gave the World the Cord Tyre".

The outer edges of the boards are rubbed, the lower front tips are just peeping through and there is a small amount of surface ‘erosion’ of the cover paper on the front lower tip. The spine has some blotchy fading, especially around the title. The rear cover has been impressed by something about an inch square at the top towards the spine which has given the cover a very slight curvature. There is a small triangular stain at the base of the rear cover at the spine, a tiny pinhead sized hole through to the strawboard and two small ‘rust’ marks, also on the back cover. There is a small ‘circle’ about a quarter of an inch in circumference about a half an inch from the top of the spine at the rear where the board shows through. Inside, the four colour plates are all intact. The third one has some vertical crinkling to the top half of it, which I don’t believe to be serious as it is in the sky part of the picture. The fourth is vertically perforated along the margin like a stamp, but remains in place. There are two neat but faded ink inscriptions inside the front cover boards. The faults that I have outlined are not, in my opinion, serious but have to be mentioned in the cause of accuracy. The overall condition is very good, the bindings are tight, and the pages are lovely and clean, with some superb black and white sketches. The pages are made of very thick paper and the whole book is a lovely survivor.