I have a book, leather spined and entitled "The Union Jack 1881" 800+ pages.
It has 51 issues of the The Union Jack, Vol II Nos 41-92 (Oct 1880 - Sep 1881)
But looking through existing "The Union Jack" (
https://comicbookplus.com/?cid=2929) I don't think these are collated original releases bound into a book. I cannot locate images of Union Jack #41-92 anywhere else, and earliest one on CB+ is #152 from Mar 18, 1897.
Trying to accomplish some things here:
1 - trying to date this book
2 - trying to establish if this is a 'at-the-time' re-issue/compilation or much later
3 - If not an original release like ones in 1880/81, would scans of this still be wanted in CB+ ? and in Union Jack section?, as I don't think ones of this vintage would be that common, and if so what section would it go in?
Although book is not dated, there are some things about it which give the impression it is a later reissue. It appears to be bound by "Goulden Binder High St Canterbury", and each Union Jack edition has "All rights reserved" on it, a term which apparently originated at the Buenos Aires Convention of 1910.
Pages are numbered 1-832 and not 1-16 within each individual weekly release.
They are all "Edited by G.A. Henty" who according to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._A._Henty lived 1832-1902. So obviously editing was done before he became permanently horizontal in 1902.
At beginning of book is a mounted younger photo of GA Henty, not printed.
It says at bottom "Woodburytype".
Woodburytype was the first successful photomechanical process fully able to reproduce the delicate continuous tone of photographs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoodburytypeIf this is the case, I wonder why they put a photo mounted onto the first page instead of just printing his image there? Maybe it is just the photo using the Woodburytype and not the whole printed book? This process was mainly used in 19th century.
Book also has Coloured Plates and Engravings which do not contribute to numbered pages.
According to
http://www.philsp.com/homeville/BJSP/k00384.htm#A8The original release of #41 also had a pasted in photograph.
So alot of the evidence says this is late 19th century version, but the 'all rights reserved' seems to indicate post 1910+
Was it common at the time for these (some call them penny dreadfuls)to be released in a yearly compiled book?
Back them there were no mass storage devices to retrieve all of the typed matter and images.
I wonder how they did reprints of these, surely they did not re-type set them all each time?
