Swedish publishing imprint, 1942–1950
Zephyr Books. (Details ) Zephyr Books were published by The Continental Book Company ,[1] a subsidiary of the Swedish Bonnier Group , from 1942 to 1950. The imprint took its name from the Greek god of the western wind , indicating its speciality.
During World War II no books in English could be imported into Sweden. The Continental Book Company was established in 1942 with the object of publishing books in English in Stockholm. The intended market comprised Sweden and other parts of the European continent where it was possible to sell English books in spite of the war, namely Switzerland, Portugal and Turkey. Considerable quantities of Zephyr Books were also exported to Hungary, Italy, occupied Denmark and the non-occupied zone of France.
After the war it was decided to continue, and even expand, the series. The intention was to replace the English book series published by Tauchnitz before the war. The total destruction of the Leipzig book industry made it clear that Tauchnitz would not be able to start work again for some time. Sweden, on the other hand, had its means of production intact and abundant supplies of paper.
Publication was extended as fast as the continental market was reopened for freer trade, and the number of volumes was doubled within a year. The series was given a distinctive note by its "special volumes", such as its anthologies of prose and verse, and an edition of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland " with illustrations by Mervyn Peake , which appeared as a Zephyr Book in 1946, two years before it was published in London.
Soon, however, competition from British and American publishers became too strong, and the publication of the Zephyr series ended in 1950. By then 167 volumes had been published.
The covers were colour-coded depending on the content: red for modern American authors, blue for modern English authors, green for classics, yellow for detective fiction and thrillers, grey for anthologies and special volumes, light blue for poetry and drama, and purple for memoirs and biographies.
List of Zephyr Books [ edit ] Book number Author Title Years printed 001 Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms 1942, 1943, 1945, 1947 002 Dorothy Parker After Such Pleasures 1942, 1943, 1944, 1946 003 Clarence Day Life with Father 1942, 1944, 1945 004 Charles Morgan The Voyage 1942, 1944, 1945 005 Christopher Morley Kitty Foyle 1942 006 William Shakespeare Six Plays 1943, 1946 007 John Steinbeck Tortilla Flat 1942, 1943, 1945, 1947, 1949 008 Emily Brontë Wuthering Heights 1943, 1945, 1946 009 Freeman Wills Crofts The Pit-Prop Syndicate 1943, 1945 010 Dorothy Sayers Murder Must Advertise 1943, 1944, 1946 011 Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice 1943, 1945, 1947 012 Louis Bromfield Twenty-four Hours 1943, 1944, 1946, 1949 013 Howard Spring Fame is the Spur 1 1943, 1946 014 Howard Spring Fame is the Spur 2 1943, 1946 015 Aldous Huxley Brave New World 1943, 1944, 1945 016 John Steinbeck The Moon is Down 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947 017 James Hilton Random Harvest 1943, 1945 018 James Joyce A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 1943, 1945 019 Dashiell Hammett The Maltese Falcon 1943, 1946 020 Edna Ferber Saratoga Trunk 1943, 1944, 1945 021 W. Somerset Maugham Of Human Bondage 1 1943, 1945, 1949 022 W. Somerset Maugham Of Human Bondage 2 1943, 1945, 1949 023 Robert Louis Stevenson Treasure Island 1943 024 Dorothy Sayers Clouds of Witness 1943, 1949 025 Lytton Strachey Queen Victoria 1943, 1945 026 Ernest Hemingway For Whom the Bell Tolls 1943, 1945, 1946 027 John Buchan The Thirty-Nine Steps 1944, 1946 028 John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath 1943, 1947, 1948 029 Cecil Scott Forester The Happy Return 1944, 1945 030 Cecil Scott Forester A Ship of the Line 1944, 1946 031 Cecil Scott Forester Flying Colours 1944, 1946 032 Ngaio Marsh Enter a Murderer 1944, 1945 033 P. G. Wodehouse Money in the Bank 1943, 1945, 1946, 1947 034 Pearl Buck Dragon Seed 1943, 1945, 1947 035 Mark Twain Huckleberry Finn 1944, 1945 036 Ronald Fraser Financial Times 1944, 1946 037 James Hilton And Now Good-Bye 1944, 1946 038 William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair 1 1944, 1946, 1947 039 William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair 2 1944, 1946, 1947 040 Freeman Wills Crofts Man Overboard! 1944, 1946 041 John Steinbeck The Long Valley 1944, 1946, 1948 042 Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre 1944, 1947 043 Dorothy Parker Laments for the Living 1944, 1946 044 Charles Nordhoff Mutiny! 1944 045 John Boynton Priestley Daylight on Saturday 1945 046 Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter 1944, 1946 047 Dorothy Sayers Lord Peter Views the Body 1944, 1946 048 Izaak Walton The Compleat Angler 1945 049 Ellery Queen The Roman Hat Mystery 1945, 1947 050 Charles Dickens Oliver Twist 1944, 1947 051 Ebba Dalin , Editor The Zephyr Book of American Verse 1945 052 Ebba Dalin , Editor The Zephyr Book of American Prose 1945 053 Graham Greene The Power and the Glory 1945, 1947, 1949 054 Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings The Yearling 1945 055 William Saroyan The Human Comedy 1944 056 George Meredith The Egoist 1945, 1947 057 Lin Yutang The Importance of Living 1944, 1945, 1948 058 Peter de Polnay Water on the Steps 1944 059 Michael Sadleir Fanny by Gaslight 1945 060 M. and R . Bottrall, Editors The Zephyr Book of English Verse 1945, 1948 061 John Bunyan The Pilgrim's Progress 1945, 1946, 1947 062 Anthony Berkeley The Silk Stocking Murders 1946 063 George Eliot Silas Marner 1945 064 Anthony Thorne I'm a Stranger Here Myself 1945 065 Joyce Horner The Wind and the Rain 1945, 1946 066 Elizabeth Gaskell Cranford 1945 067 Lewis Carroll Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass 1946 068 William Faulkner The Wild Palms 1945, 1947 069 Oliver Goldsmith The Vicar of Wakefield 1945, 1946 070 Jonathan Swift Gulliver's Travels 1945 071 W. Somerset Maugham The Razor's Edge 1945, 1948 072 Elizabeth Bowen To the North 1946 073 Erskine Caldwell God's Little Acre 1945 074 C. S. Forester The Captain from Connecticut 1945 075 Charles Nordhoff Botany Bay 1945 076 Stella Gibbons The Rich House 1945 077 Nevil Shute Pastoral 1945, 1946 078 John Steinbeck Cannery Row 1945, 1946 079 G. K. Chesterton The Scandal of Father Brown 1945 080 A. E. W. Mason Musk and Amber 1946 081 Walter Van Tilburg Clark The Ox-Bow Incident 1946 082 Dorothy Sayers Unnatural Death 1946 083 John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men 1945, 1948 084 G. K. Chesterton Charles Dickens 1946 085 T. S. Eliot Murder in the Cathedral 1945, 1948 086 Erskine Caldwell Tobacco Road 1945, 1947 087 Dorothy Sayers The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club 1948, 1950 088 Harold Nicolson Some People 1946 089 Graham Greene A Gun for Sale 1947 090 Margaret Storm Jameson Cousin Honoré 19?? 091 Francis Iles Malice Aforethought 1946 092 Dorothy Sayers Strong Poison 1949 093 Ernest Raymond We, the Accused 1946 094 Cecil Scott Forester The Ship 1945, 1946 095 John Buchan The Three Hostages 1947 096 Ernest Raymond For Them that Trespass 1947 097 Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest 1946 098 Helen MacInnes Above Suspicion 1947 099 Christine Weston Indigo 1947 100 Artur Lundkvist , Editor Twelve Modern Poets 1946 101 James Aldridge Signed with Their Honour 1945 102 Kate O'Brien The Last of Summer 1948 103 Rachel Field And Now Tomorrow 1945 104 Edith Sitwell The English Eccentrics 1947 105 Pearl Buck The Promise 1945 106 Mark Twain The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 1948 107 John Boynton Priestley Black-out in Gretley 1945 108 E. X. Ferrars Neck in a Noose 1947 109 Osbert Sitwell Open the Door 1947 110 Frank Tilsley I'd do it Again 1947 111 Kate O'Brien The Land of Spices 1947 112 Carson McCullers The Heart is a Lonely Hunter 1947 113 Mignon G. Eberhart Speak no Evil 1947, 1948 114 Charles R. Jackson The Lost Weekend 1946 115 Osbert Sitwell Before the Bombardment 19?? 116 Rose Franken Claudia 1945 117 Eudora Welty A Curtain of Green 1947 118 Carson McCullers Reflections in a Golden Eye 1947 119 Phyllis Bottome The Mortal Storm 1947 120 William Faulkner Sanctuary 1947 121 Mignon G. Eberhart Wings of Fear 1947 122 Charles Dickens David Copperfield 1 1947 123 Charles Dickens David Copperfield 2 1947 124 George Moore Esther Waters 1947 125 Gertrude Stein The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas 1947 126 Christopher Isherwood Goodbye to Berlin 1947 127 Walter De la Mare Memoirs of a Midget 1948 128 A. E. W. Mason Königsmark 1947 129 Robert Louis Stevenson Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1950 130 Jane Austen Emma 1947 131 Walter de la Mare The Return 1948 132 Edgar Allan Poe Tales of Mystery and Imagination 1947 133 Edward Morgan Forster Howards End 1948 137 David Cecil The Young Melbourne 1949 139 Bruce Marshall All Glorious Within 1946 140 Nevil Shute Most Secret 1947 144 Eugene O'Neill Mourning Becomes Electra 1948 146 Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises 1947 147 Daphne Du Maurier Hungry Hill 1946, 1947 148 Raymond Chandler The Big Sleep 1947 149 Edison Marshall Benjamin Blake 1946 151 Christopher Isherwood Prater Violet 1946 152 Nevil Shute Pied Piper 1947 153 Samuel Shellabarger Captain from Castile 1 1947 154 Samuel Shellabarger Captain from Castile 2 1947 155 Nigel Balchin Mine Own Executioner 1948 156 P. G. Wodehouse Joy in the Morning 1947 157 Edmund Wilson Memoirs of Hecate County 1947 158 Henry James The Aspern Papers 1947 159 Henry James The Turn of the Screw 1947 161 Erskine Childers The Riddle of the Sands 1948 162 Raymond Chandler The Lady in the Lake 1948 166 John Masefield Sard Harker 19?? 167 Irving Stone Lust for Life 1 1949 168 Irving Stone Lust for Life 2 1949 169 George Hopley Night has a thousand eyes 1948 170 Margaret Storm Jameson The Other Side 1947 179 Dorothy Sayers Have his Carcase 1948 180 William Saroyan The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze 1948 181 Kenneth Fearing The Big Clock 1948 188 H. E. Bates A House of Women 1948 199 John O'Hara Appointment in Samarra 1948 201 Raymond Chandler The High Window 1948 209 William Sansom Fireman Flower and Other Stories 1949 211 Denys Val Baker The White Rock 1948 223 Carter Dickson She Died a Lady 1948 227 James Hilton Contango 1948 228 W. Somerset Maugham The Gentleman in the Parlour 1949 229 Ernest Hemingway To Have and Have Not 1947 230 Betty MacDonald The Egg and I 1949
References [ edit ] External links [ edit ] Zephyr Books - detailed essay and list by a collector of the series