L.C. Page & Company

Penelope in California by Dorothea Castelhun came across my desk the other day with a L.C. Page & Company imprint. No big deal, until I saw the copyright and first impression date of 1926. I knew that L.C. Page & Company had changed their name to Page Company in 1914, so what's the deal? I did some research and after about a day of looking in different places, I finally have a clear somewhat clear L.C. Page & Company timeline! For those of you who do authority work and work with books with no dates, you know how important a company timeline can be. A simple publisher's name can give you a really good (and sometimes not so good) date range.

           1897- Joseph Knight Co. is renamed L.C. Page & Company when Louis Coues Page took over the company. The company was housed in the Estes Building, 212 Summer Street, Boston ("L.C. Page & Co. Publisher's Weekly 1520 (Mar 16, 1901); 762).

1901- February 1, 1901 moved locations to the New England Building at 200 Summer Street, Boston ("L.C. Page & Co. Publisher's Weekly 1520 (Mar 16, 1901); 762).

1914- End of January, first of February L.C. Page & Company change their name to Page Company with no change in management of ownership ("Books and Authors." Living Age 31 Jan. 1914; Mills, William H., and Robert Luce. Writer Jan. 1914).

1914- Three months after the company changed their name, the firm took over all of Dana Estes & Co. except for the H.M. Caldwell Company subsidiary, which went to the Dodge Publishing Company. By this time they were at the 53 Beacon Street location. The New York Times reported the the Dana Estes & Co. premises at 208 Summer Street and the workers would be kept. This wasn't really an odd acquisition. Dana Estes was actually Lewis Coues and George's stepfather. He had married their mother in 1884 (Mills, William H., and Robert Luce. Writer Apr. 1914; "Absorbs Dana Estes & Co." New York Times 29 Mar. 1914: S5; Tebbel, John. A history of book publishing in the United States. New York: R.R. Bowker, 1975. 400, 402.). 

Link to blurbs in The Writer

1923- **This was the information that took me a while to find. I finally found it in the New York Times.** The New York Times reported in the May 20, 1923 issue that the Page Company reverted back to it's original name of L.C. Page & Co. and that Louis C. Page was still president ("Books and Authors" New York Times 20 May 1923: BR12.).

1957- The New York Times reported on August 11, 1957 that the L.C. Page Company (missing the ampersand--does this mean it changed names again? I haven't found anything to back this up. Might just be a error of omission?)  was acquired by Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, Inc.but that they would continue to publish books under the Page imprint ("L.C. Page Changes Hands" New York Times 11 Aug. 1957.).

I was pretty excited when I found the 1923 piece of the puzzle since that tied everything together. If anyone knows if L.C. Page & Company decided to change their name again to just L.C. Page Company, or if you find a copy with that particular imprint, let us know!