Jack Harkaway And His Son’s Adventures In China by Bracebridge Hemyng (M. A. Donohue Series Reprint) 🇨🇳🚢💰

This volume is an authenticated early 20th-century reprint of Jack Harkaway and His Son’s Adventures in China, one of the later entries in the hugely successful Jack Harkaway series.

Published by M. A. Donohue & Company in Chicago, this book is a classic piece of late Victorian and Edwardian boy’s adventure fiction. The Harkaway series was a cultural sensation in its time, known for its thrilling, globe-trotting narratives.

The primary value of this asset is its Aesthetic Premium—the visually striking red pictorial cloth binding—making it a superior display piece for a collector of American literary series and juvenile fiction.

2. About the Artwork/Book/Object 📖✍️✨

The Jack Harkaway stories were the original global adventure franchise, captivating readers with tales of exotic locales and high-stakes conflict. In this volume, Jack Harkaway and his son, Young Jack, face a mix of their traditional adversaries and new, exotic enemies like Chinese pirates and brigands. The narratives were explicitly designed for "regular thriller" entertainment, involving continuous action, violence, and sensational episodes.

The book is "Book Number Ten" in the Donohue series. It includes a frontispiece illustration titled, “THE MYSTERIOUS BOTTLE—LITTLE EMILY’S GUESS.—ADV. IN CHINA”, which depicts a scene of tension and mystery on a ship's deck. The illustrations and plot content are a direct reflection of the public's appetite for action-adventure narratives that emphasized the triumph of English heroes over foreign threats.

3. About the Artist/Author/Maker ✍️🏛️

Samuel Bracebridge Hemyng (1841–1901) was an English barrister and journalist who became one of the most successful and prolific writers of story papers and dime novels in the late 19th century. Educated at Eton, Hemyng achieved fame with the debut of Jack Harkaway's School Days in 1871. The success of the Harkaway series was so immense that Hemyng became wealthy enough to live in a mansion in New York for a period.

Despite the series' popularity, it was highly controversial, noted for its brutality, cruelty, and sensational violence. Hemyng's tales, while popular, represented a form of wish fulfillment for the working-class reader, where the hero, Jack Harkaway, was "stronger, smarter, more stylish, more popular, and simply better than everyone else". Hemyng died destitute in 1901, but his legacy as a defining voice of Victorian boys' adventure was cemented by the countless reprints of his work, including this volume.

4. Historical/Political Era Context 🌍🕰️📜

This reprint was produced by M. A. Donohue & Company around the turn of the century (circa 1900-1910). The novel's creation in the 1870s and 1880s, and its subsequent popularity in the early 1900s, situates it within the peak of Western Imperialism and Colonial Expansion.

The stories in the Harkaway series directly played into the popular British and American public mindset of the time, which featured narratives of "good (in the form of the English) triumphing over evil (in the form of foreigners)". Adventures in China specifically reflects the West's exploitative and exoticized view of the Orient during this period. This book is a cultural time capsule, documenting the prevailing jingoistic sentiments and the societal demand for imperial adventure narratives that validated Western dominance on the global stage.

5. The Ideal Collector 💡🧐🏛️

This volume is tailored for a Curator of Victorian and Edwardian Juvenile Literature and a collector of American Dime Novel reprints. The Ideal Collector is someone who seeks books that function as primary source material on the evolution of popular cultural tropes and the historical consumption of adventure fiction.

The book belongs in a collection focused on early 20th-century decorative Americana and publishing history, specifically documenting the output of M. A. Donohue & Company. The volume's vivid, pictorial binding is a key display factor for the collector who prioritizes the aesthetic of a period-specific serial collection.

6. Value & Rarity 💎✨🏛️

This book is a common reprint edition from the early 20th century, published by a house that specialized in inexpensive, mass-market series. True rarity is not applicable to this title in this edition. The book's value, therefore, is secured by its age as a vintage antique (approximately 115 years old) and its Aesthetic Premium.

The mandatory deduction principle must be strictly applied due to the missing dust jacket and the observed structural issues, such as the wear to the boards. The final price is positioned to reward the decorative visual appeal of the red pictorial binding, making it an appropriate acquisition for a collector who seeks a clean, iconic artifact of the Jack Harkaway phenomenon.

7. Condition 🔎📚✨

This is an early 20th-century hardcover reprint lacking the original dust jacket. The condition reflects a century of use, with notable wear.

• Positive Qualities:

  • The vibrant red pictorial cloth binding remains largely intact and retains its visual appeal.

  • The frontispiece illustration is clean, and the title page is present and legible.

  • The interior pages are generally clean and free of major markings or foxing.

• Imperfections:

  • The cloth boards show moderate rubbing and general shelf wear.

  • The spine ends and corners exhibit significant wear and fraying, consistent with a book of this type and age.

  • The binding appears somewhat loose, and the boards may be slightly detached, a structural defect that is factored into the valuation.

  • The pages are uniformly age-toned, typical of the inexpensive paper used for mass-market series.

8. Fun Facts & Unique Features 🤓📜🤩

• The Jack Harkaway series was so popular that news agents would physically fight in the street outside the publisher's office to be the first to get copies of a new Harkaway story.

• The narratives were often criticized for their cruelty and violence; in one story, Jack Harkaway's enemy, Hunston, is crucified by natives over slow-growing bamboo.

• This book was published by M. A. Donohue & Company, a publisher established in 1901 that traced its origins back to the post-Chicago Fire bookbinding business of Michael A. Donohue.

• The publisher, M. A. Donohue, was known for selling their series books to department stores in bulk assortments to be retailed at ten to fifteen cents each, a key insight into the early mass-market book trade.

9. Supporting Information 🏷️📦💰

• Title: Jack Harkaway And His Son’s Adventures In China

• Author: Bracebridge Hemyng

• Year of Publication: Circa 1900-1910 (Undated Reprint)

• Publisher: M. A. Donohue & Company

• Place of Origin: Chicago

• Format/Binding: Hardcover, Red Pictorial Cloth Boards

• Edition: Series Reprint (Book Number Ten)

• Rarity: Common Edition

• Verbatim Transcription of Inscription/Marking: On the front free endpaper: "$10.00".