Notable New Yorkers of 1896-1899: A Companion Volume to King's Handbook of New York City

616 pp. Light green cloth boards with decor on front board and spine. The first edition of this book--50,000 copies of 616 pages each--is a notable single undertaking of these times. Each sheet is a solid form of 32 pages, containing 128 portraits, every one of which must be brought out for its full value... In fine book-making, only one side of a single sheet can be printed at a time on the best book presses, and instead of a few minutes to start it requires several days' careful preparation for a form one-quarter the size of a newspaper, and the book-printed does well to get off 50,000 well-printed sheets of this character in two weeks. This volume, 20 different forms--1,000,000 sheets, 36 x 50 inches--on which two modern book presses have been kept constantly running for five months, shows the difference between book and newspaper work, and the time required accounts for many seeming discrepancies in the inscriptions. The Printing was done by Bartlett & Company... As to the photographs: More than 1000 were made expressly for the book by the Alman Photograph Gallery... There are, also, many exquisite productions from photographs in all parts of the world... The binding---40,000 in silk cloth, and 10,000 in full morocco with gilt edges--is the work of Robert Rutter & Son and William Launder.--The Makers of This Book. Two thousand three hundred and thirty-seven (2337) portraits make this the most comprehensive collection ever published for any city in the world. The portraits being exact reproduction of photographs from life... More than fifteen hundred original photographs have been made for this collection. The titles are brief, and condensed in every instance to two lines below the name--usually given in full. Besides the portraits, with their titles and classifications, there is only an index, divided into to sections: First, the names; second, the topics or vocations.--Introduction