The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Picked up the fifth revised edition and the sixth edition at a used book sale today. Does anyone know how many editions were published?

Thanks.

This sez...13 editions.

https://www.loc.gov/jukebox/victor-book-of-the-opera

Fun books, I still pull mine out for reference once in a while.

Thank you!

Thanks for the link, Wolfe! That's quite a site. It's worthwhile to download the edition, which also is linked to the recordings. This deserves more attention when I have some time later next week.

I picked up my copy of the Victor Book of the Opera at a library used book sale a couple of years ago. It has two copyright dates: 1929 by Victor Talking Machine Co., and 1936 by RCA Manufacturing Company, Inc., Camden , N.J. To judge by the 1929 date, and the RCA imprint, this might be the last version that was originally published before the Victor merger with RCA. It's the Ninth Edition, revised by Charles O'Connell, author of the Victor Book of the Symphony, according to the front matter. In any event, I always have it by me while listening to the Met Opera Saturday matinee radio broadcasts, for the descriptions of those operas it contains are still useful to follow the action if one hasn't a score or libretto in hand. The photos of past singers, as well as historic opera houses, are very interesting, as are the references embedded in the text to the relevant Victor recordings. The book is a valued item in my small collection.

I have the 5th edition from 1919 (436 pages) and the 7th from 1924 (447 pages.)

I have the first revised edition of 1913, when it was still called the Victor Book of the Opera, and the HMV equivalent "Opera at Home", a 1926 reprint of the 1925 third edition. This appears to have been the last before the introduction of electrical recording, as every record listed in it is acoustic.

I have a 1929 Edition of the book, the 8th Printing. It is a nice resource.