Three Vassar Girls Series

This eleven title series was published by Estes and Lauriat. As with this publisher’s other enormously popular travelogue series (the Zig Zag Series and the Knockabout Series), these books were released at Christmas time of the copyright year so as to take advantage of the Christmas gift purchasing public. The title page of the first editions note the year after the copyright year at the base of the title page.

Estes and Lauriat used its extremely popular formats for these titles. That is, the oversized gilt decorated cloth books (multiple colors have been seen) as well as the illuminated board cover books. Cloth volumes cost $2.00 whereas the board cover books cost $1.50. The endpapers have maps of the travel destinations.

Although it is purely anecdotal, it does seem as if the cloth books are much less common than the board cover volumes.

Dana Estes reprinted the board cover books beginning in 1895.

Title	First edition date on title page
1. Abroad	1883
2. England	1884
3. South America	1885
4. Italy	1886
5. Rhine	1887
6. Home	1888
7. France	1888
8. Russia and Turkey	1889
9. Switzerland	1890
10. Tyrol	1891
11. Holy Land	1892

These books feature the Vassar girls traveling throughout the world. A number of different girls are highlighted in these volumes.

Elizabeth Champney (1850-1922) was a graduate of Vassar College, class of 1869. She traveled extensively with her artist husband, James Wells Champney. He died in 1903 as a result of a fall down an elevator shaft! He illustrated a number of his wife's books.

Format 1