The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hi:
I ran across an interesting book today. I was in a used book store, so I asked the keeper if he had any books on the history of phonographs. He did not, but he had a book on opera. It is The Victrola Book of the Opera, 4th revised edition, copyright 1917 by the Victor Talking Machine Company. It is an interesting book. It has a subtitle, Stories of One Hundred and Twenty Operas with Seven-Hunred Illustration and Descriptions of Twelve-Hundred Victor Opera Records by Samuel Holland Rous.

It lists the title of the oper, has pictures and engravings of different scenes and singers, plus lists the names, numbers, size of record and prices of the records. Each opera also contains a list of Double-Faced and Miscellaneous records.

I thought it was interesting, so I bought it.

Kevin

I picked up a copy myself about 18 months ago. I thought it was unusual to find a Victor book in HMV territory and as I'd never seen one before, I posted a thread that you might find interesting-

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... era#p21583

They're an interesting book, even if you're like me & aren't a huge opera fan. I think it was worth getting for the pictures along. When first printed, it must have been comparible to watching Hollywood A-listers walk the red carpet today.

Those were (and still can be) useful books. The pictures are great, too.

There's lots of them around, not rare at all.

Correction: I believe it was always called "The Victor [not Victrola] Book of the Opera." Certainly the edition you have, from 1917, is so titled. I recently acquired one at a library book sale for $2; it's the 1929/36 edition, spanning the period when the Victor Talking Machine Co. (VTMC) was acquired by the Radio Corporation of America to become RCA Victor. Still a useful reference in 2011. I posted about it in a previous thread. See http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... rs&start=0 Happy reading!

My 1924 edition is the 'Victrola' Book.

When I bought my first one I found it so interesting that I just had to have the earlier editions as well. The first Victor Book of the Opera from 1912 has a brown cover with gilt letters and explains 70 Operas. The 1913 version is blue and has stories of 100 Operas. The 1915 version is red and covers 110 Operas. With the 1917 version in green cover they changed the name to Victrola Book of the Opera and list 120 Operas. As far as I know the number of 120 Operas remained constant for later versions as well. Not sure when they changed the name back to Victor Book of the Opera? New editions came out regularly well into the 40s or 50s.
Andreas

alang wrote: Not sure when they changed the name back to Victor Book of the Opera?
Andreas

Don't know either, but I suspect it was at the time of the merger with RCA (c. 1929). There must be a reason why the merged entity was named "RCA Victor" and not "RCA Victrola"!

Because the company name was Victor Talking Machine, not Victrola Talking Machine.

They junked the Victrola name with the demise of spring-powered phonographs because it sounded old-fashioned by then. When it was brought back in the 1950s, it still sounded old-fashioned to me along with (New) Orthophonic.

Jim

'New Orthophonic' 78's are those that conform to the RIAA playback curve. Odd designation, I agree.

I have a really clean 1919 copy. I paid $12 US.