Here is an antique classic young adult hardcover anthology book of stories from the 1930s with brilliant color and black and white illustrations of boys adventures and play throughout. It has a color board cover that is marked up a bit not with any pen or pencil but with white wear marks, and a cloth spine. The edges are a bit dented and tattered, as seen in the photo. However, inside every single page is in very good condition including the wonderful prints! It has no date but from the looks of the fashions, haircuts, etc. I judge it to be from the 1930s. The publisher, Birn Brothers of London, began sometime in the 1880s and were "fine art" publishers, publishing posters, cards and postcards, including highly collectable embossed ones. So this book is filled with incredible black ink visuals and one full page very framable color print of a boys boxing match signed Hal Lany(?) but I cannot find anything on him. Otherwise there is no credit for the illustrations unfortunately.

The "Stories for Boys" and the accompanying ones for girls were anthologies that showcased adventure, domestic, mystery, science-fiction, sports and nature stories interspersed with comic strips and full-page color prints, really showing off the what the publisher does best in terms of visuals. In the later 19th C. and first part of the 20th C. annual anthologies were popular sources of reading pleasure for young adults and children.

There are 23 images and in addition to the color one there are 3 full page black and white ones. Also, the inside covers, front and back, are fully illustrated with a sports theme. There are 10 pages of comic strip. These are the stories:

"The Fighter of the Fifth" by Gordon Grimsley
Comic Serial: "Glyn Hayes"
"The Mallin Affair" by Edgar Garrett
"The Hamilton Jewels" by M. Myers
Comic: "The Dust of Death"
"The Phantom Brig: A Story of Cornish Smugglers" by Arthur Groom
"A Texan Stranger" by Gordon Grimsley

A copy that is damaged with writing in it is selling for 30.00 through Barnes and Noble from a European dealer!

It measures 10 1/2" high and 7 1/2" wide and is 93 pages.