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Love (1905) was the last of the Mosaic Essays series compiled by Paul Elder. The first booklet in the series, Friendship, was published in 1902 and sold very well. In 1903, Elder followed with Happiness, Nature and Success in 1903.

In 1906 he reissued the five booklets in a single volume called Mosaic Essays.

As with the other four titles in the series, Love was published in multiple forms: dark paper wraps, soft suede, and perhaps also a “full white calf by Miss Crane.”

Success is a booklet of quotations in the Mosaic Essays series, compiled by Paul Elder. It was published in 1903 along with Happiness and Nature in response to the high sales of 1902’s Friendship. In 1905, Elder published the last booklet in the series, Love. In 1906 he issued the five booklets in a single volume called Mosaic Essays. As with the other booklets in the series, Success was published in three bindings:

• Edition A: bound in flexible Omar sultan, with fly-leaves of Japan wood-fiber. Enclosed in uniform envelope. Price, 50 cents [“sultan” is a deep red color, and “Omar” is just a word Elder added for a flair of the exotic.]
• Edition B: bound in flexible suede, with fly-leaves of imperial Japan vellum. Enclosed in box. Price, $1.25
• Edition C: bound in full white calf by Miss Crane. Price, $5.00

I can find no further information about the bookbinder, “Miss Crane.”

Nature is a booklet of quotations in the Mosaic Essays series, compiled by Paul Elder. It was published in 1903 along with Happiness and Success in response to the success of 1902’s Friendship. In 1905, Elder published the last booklet in the series, Love. In 1906 he issued the five booklets in a single volume called Mosaic Essays.

As with the other booklets in the series, Nature was published in three bindings:

• Edition A: bound in flexible Kozak sultan. Enclosed in uniform envelope. Price, 50 cents [“sultan” is a deep red color, and “Kozak” (i.e. Khazak) is just a word Elder added for a flair of the exotic.]
• Edition B: bound in flexible suede. Enclosed in box. Price, $1.25
• Edition C: bound in full white calf by Miss Crane. Price, $5.00

The frontispiece is “In the Heart of the Woods,” from the painting by William Keith.

I have examples of both Nature and Happiness in green instead of red “sultan.” Perhaps this green color is what Elder meant by “Kozak sultan.”

In a corner of San Francisco’s Portsmouth Square stands a granite pedestal topped by a bronze sailing ship. It is the Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial, designed by Bruce Porter and Willis Polk in 1897. During Stevenson’s brief time in San Francisco in 1880 and 1887, he often came to the Square to sit in the sun and regain his health.

The Spanish galleon atop Stevenson’s monument was chosen by Paul Elder as the totem for the booklet Happiness. It appears on the title page, frontispiece, as well as stamped in gold on the cover of the leather edition. It is also used within the booklet as the dingbat separating the quotations (see image below).

Stevenson had always been one of Elder’s favorites. Elder was working at William Doxey’s bookstore in the Palace Hotel when Stevenson suddenly died in Samoa in 1894; Doxey subsequently devoted an entire storefront window to Stevenson’s memory. Elder published three works of Stevenson’s and made frequent use of his quotations in calendars, leaflets, mottos and, of course, within Happiness itself.

The three booklets Happiness, Nature and Success were published in 1903 in response to the (perhaps unexpected) popularity of Friendship. The fifth booklet in the series, Love, would follow in 1905. And as with Friendship, Elder issued Happiness three different ways:

• Edition A: bound in flexible Mecca sultan. Enclosed in uniform envelope. Price, 50 cents [“sultan” is a deep red color, and “Mecca” is just a word Elder added for a flair of the exotic.]
• Edition B: bound in flexible suede, with fly-leaves of illuminated Japan vellum. Enclosed in box. Price, $1.25
• Edition C: bound in full white calf by Miss Crane. Price, $5.00

In 1906, Elder gathered the five booklets into a single volume called Mosaic Essays, also issued in multiple bindings.

Friendship is a 1902 collection of quotations compiled by Paul Elder and published by Elder and Shepard. It proved popular enough that Elder compiled four more booklets on similar inspirational topics: Nature, Happiness, and Success in 1903, and Love in 1905.

In a 1904 catalog, Elder notes “the favor extended to these little brochures has been most gratifying, and as the sale totals well up to 70,000 copies, it follows that the Cynic’s and other nonsense books do not exclusively occupy the public demand.” While on the one hand it must have galled Elder—who stocked all the classic literature and who was also a noted antiquarian book dealer—that his most consistently popular titles were the Cynics’ Calendars and Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum, on the other hand he had to make a living, and if humorous verse paid the bills, so be it.

Elder issued Friendship in three different bindings:

• Edition A: bound in flexible Bokhara sultan, with fly-leaves of Japan wood-fiber. Enclosed in uniform envelope. Price, 50 cents [“sultan” is a deep red color, and “Bokhara” is just a word Elder added for a flair of the exotic.]
• Edition B: bound in flexible suede, with fly-leaves of imperial Japan vellum. Enclosed in box. Price, $1.25
• Edition C: bound in full white calf by Miss Crane. Price, $5.00

In 1906, Elder gathered the five booklets into a single volume called Mosaic Essays, which was also issued in multiple bindings, and also sold very well.

So well, in fact, that in 1910 Elder reissued Friendship in a splendid edition designed by John Henry Nash, with a frontispiece from one of the Impressions Calendars (artwork probably by Harold Sichel or Spencer Wright).