Peck's Sunshine

The first edition of this title was published in 1882 by Belford, Clarke and Company. It is a "collection of articles written for Peck's Sun, Milwaukee.." . The early as well as the later editions all have 296 pages and are illustrated by Hopkins.

Livingston "Hop" Hopkins (1846-1927) was an illustrator and cartoonist who did the artwork for numerous magazines (Puck, St. Nicholas, The Weekly, etc) as well as a number of books. He wrote and illustrated "A Comic History of the United States". He spent his later years in Australia working as a writer and cartoonist.

This book was published as a solitary title by a number of publishers.

Solo title:
Belford, Clarke and Company (1882-1890)
Frank Lovell and Company (1887)
Butler Brothers (1889-1890)
Donohue, Henneberry and Company (1890)
John W. Lovell Company (1891)
Morrill, Higgins and Company (1892)
W. B. Conkey (Early 1900's)
Homewood Publishing Company (1902-1905?)

Peck's Sunshine was included in two combination books which were published by a number of firms.

1. Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa and Compendium of Fun included Peck's Bad Boy No. 1, No. 2, and Peck's Sunshine. The format is the same regardless of the publisher but the Sunshine book in this edition is not complete. The Sunshine part of the book has only about half the stories as the individual book. This large volume was published by:

Thompson and Thomas
W. B. Conkey Company
Homewood Publishing Company
Charles C. Thompson Company (Title is Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa)
Stanton and Van Vliet Company
John R. Stanton Company (Title is Peck's Bad Boy and His pa)

2. Peck's Compendium of Fun is an oversized 540 page collection of vignettes written by George W. Peck. It is edited by Elmo (Thomas Handford). The contents include 284 stories. There are 100 illustrations by Gean Smith (Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa illustrator) and miscellaneous others.

The stories were previously published in Peck's Bad Boy, No. 1(1883), Peck's Fun (1879) and Peck's Sunshine (1882). Thus although this book is not a total reprint of Sunshine, it does include portions of the book.

The following publishers printed this book:
Belford, Clarke and Company 1883-1885
Russell Publishing Company, Albany, New York 1883-1884
A. L. Bancroft and Company, San Francisco 1883
Caxton Publishing Company, Chicago 1883-1885
Manhattan Publishing Company 1885
Canadian Subscription Company, Montreal 1884
Baker & Co., Buffalo, New York (ND)

See http://georgewpeck.com/publishers/caxton.html for more details.

As a single titled book:

Belford, Clarke and Company
This firm published the 1882 first edition as well as several other issues between 1882 and 1890. Books were published both in cloth ($1.00) and in wraps (25 cents initially but by 1883 the wraps' book was 50 cents). 60,000 copies had sold by May of 1883. In 1887 the paperback was again 50 cents. By 1888 125,000 copies had been sold.

1882 First Edition
1882 Later Edition	1882 Latest Edition
1882 Title Page	First edition 1882 copyright page
Later 1882 edition copyright page
1883 Edition

A new format 1887 Peck's Sunshine was published. The 1887 title in wraps and cost 25 cents has not been seen.

1889 Format	1890 Format

Frank Lovell and Company, New York
This publisher printed Peck's Sunshine in wraps in its Household Library in 1886-1887. These books cost 25 cents each.

Butler Brothers, New York and Chicago
Butler Brothers published a multivolume paperback series, the Electric Series, which had more than 500 titles. Six Peck titles including Peck's Sunshine which was Number 91 are part of this series. This series was published in the 1889-1890 time frame.

Donohue Henneberry and Company, Chicago
Seven Peck books, including Peck's Sunshine, were published in 1890 as part of this publisher's Caxton Edition of 12 mos. These books have been seen in a number of different colors and came with a dust jacket.

John W. Lovell Company
Lovell published seven Peck books in its Oxford Edition Series. This series was introduced with 200 volumes in 1890. Peck's Sunshine is #238 and was published in 1891.

Morrill, Higgins and Company
This firm published Peck's Sunshine in 1892. No copy has been seen.

W. B. Conkey Company, Chicago
Conkey published this title in a number of its publisher's series. Some series are in wraps and others are in paperback. It also published this book in 1893 in a non series wraps' book costing 25 cents.

The hardcover series include:
- Harvard Series (pre-1900)
- New Cameo Series- ca.1903
- Copyright Series- (ca. 1902-1904)
- New Abbey Series- post 1900
- Homewood Series- post 1900
- Humorous Series- post 1900

Representative pictures from each series are shown below:

Harvard Series

Copyright Series ca. 1902-1904

New Abbey Series 1902	New Abbey Series 1904

Humorous Series
The format of this book is unknown. This book cost 75 cents.

Unknown Series
These Peck's Sunshine books undoubtedly belong to a series. It is not known which ones.

Conkey books in wraps

- White City Series (wraps) 1893
- Franklin Series (wraps) 1893 / ca.1903
- People's Series-3 Formats (1895)
a. wraps
b. Half imitation Morocco-plain edges
c. Half imitation Morocco- gold gilt top and edges
- Peerless Series (ca. 1903)

The books in wraps are quite scarce. Paperbacks from this era are fragile and not readily available. Thus most of these books have not been seen.

Here is a Peck's Sunshine book from the 1895 People's Series.

W. B. Conkey Company published one combination book which included this title:

Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa and Compendium of Fun combines Peck's Bad Boy, No. 1 and Peck's Bad Boy, No. 2 with Peck's Sunshine in one volume. I have seen this book with blue as well as red covers. The Sunshine part of the blue book only has 155 pages while the Sunshine in the red book only has 124 pages. It includes about half of the stories that are in the original book.

Homewood Publishing Company (Early 1900's)
The Franklin Series included Peck's Sunshine. This series was published in wraps and appears to be the same as the Conkey series of the same name. It is likely that this title was published on other Homewood Series but the details of these unknown books are undiscovered.

Homewood published one combination book which included this title:

Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa and Compendium of Fun combines Peck's Bad Boy, No. 1 and Peck's Bad Boy, No. 2 with Peck's Sunshine in one volume. This combination book was previously published by Conkey in the same format. It has 124 pages

Combination books
As noted above, a number of publishers printed the combination book which included Peck's Sunshine as well as Peck's Bad Boy, No. 1 and Peck's Bad Boy, No.2. The formats of all these publisher's books are the same. Examples can be seen above in the Conkey and Homewood Sections. In these non-Conkey reprints Peck's Sunshine has 124 pages and includes up to the "Two Girls at a Picnic" vignette.

Note that the John R. Stanton does not say Compendium of Fun on the front cover.

John R. Stanton Company -124 page Sunshine

Thompson and Thomas published this combination book in the early 1900's Editions with both 154 pages and 124 pages have been seen.