Zephyr Books

Zephyr Books were published by The Continental Book Company, a subsidiary of the Swedish Bonnier Group, from 1942 to 1950. The imprint took its name from the Greek god of the western wind, indicating its speciality.

Zephyr Books. (Details)

During World War II no books in English could be imported into Sweden. The Continental Book Company was established in 1942 with the object of publishing books in English in Stockholm. The intended market comprised Sweden and other parts of the European continent where it was possible to sell English books in spite of the war, namely Switzerland, Portugal and Turkey. Considerable quantities of Zephyr Books were also exported to Hungary, Italy, occupied Denmark and the non-occupied zone of France.

After the war it was decided to continue, and even expand, the series. The intention was to replace the English book series published by Tauchnitz before the war. The total destruction of the Leipzig book industry made it clear that Tauchnitz would not be able to start work again for some time. Sweden, on the other hand, had its means of production intact and abundant supplies of paper.

Publication was extended as fast as the continental market was reopened for freer trade, and the number of volumes was doubled within a year. The series was given a distinctive note by its "special volumes", such as its anthologies of prose and verse, and an edition of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" with illustrations by Mervyn Peake, which appeared as a Zephyr Book in 1946, two years before it was published in London.

Soon, however, competition from British and American publishers became too strong, and the publication of the Zephyr series ended in 1950. By then 167 volumes had been published.

The covers were colour-coded depending on the content: red for modern American authors, blue for modern English authors, green for classics, yellow for detective fiction and thrillers, grey for anthologies and special volumes, light blue for poetry and drama, and purple for memoirs and biographies.

List of Zephyr Books
Book number Author Title Years printed
001 Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms 1942, 1943, 1945, 1947
002 Dorothy Parker After Such Pleasures 1942, 1943, 1944, 1946
003 Clarence Day Life with Father 1942, 1944, 1945
004 Charles Morgan The Voyage 1942, 1944, 1945
005 Christopher Morley Kitty Foyle 1942
006 William Shakespeare Six Plays 1943, 1946
007 John Steinbeck Tortilla Flat 1942, 1943, 1945, 1947, 1949
008 Emily Brontë Wuthering Heights 1943, 1945, 1946
009 Freeman Wills Crofts The Pit-Prop Syndicate 1943, 1945
010 Dorothy Sayers Murder Must Advertise 1943, 1944, 1946
011 Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice 1943, 1945, 1947
012 Louis Bromfield Twenty-four Hours 1943, 1944, 1946, 1949
013 Howard Spring Fame is the Spur 1 1943, 1946
014 Howard Spring Fame is the Spur 2 1943, 1946
015 Aldous Huxley Brave New World 1943, 1944, 1945
016 John Steinbeck The Moon is Down 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947
017 James Hilton Random Harvest 1943, 1945
018 James Joyce A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 1943, 1945
019 Dashiell Hammett The Maltese Falcon 1943, 1946
020 Edna Ferber Saratoga Trunk 1943, 1944, 1945
021 W. Somerset Maugham Of Human Bondage 1 1943, 1945, 1949
022 W. Somerset Maugham Of Human Bondage 2 1943, 1945, 1949
023 Robert Louis Stevenson Treasure Island 1943
024 Dorothy Sayers Clouds of Witness 1943, 1949
025 Lytton Strachey Queen Victoria 1943, 1945
026 Ernest Hemingway For Whom the Bell Tolls 1943, 1945, 1946
027 John Buchan The Thirty-Nine Steps 1944, 1946
028 John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath 1943, 1948
029 Cecil Scott Forester The Happy Return 1944, 1945
030 Cecil Scott Forester A Ship of the Line 1944, 1946
031 Cecil Scott Forester Flying Colours 1944, 1946
032 Ngaio Marsh Enter a Murderer 1944, 1945
033 P. G. Wodehouse Money in the Bank 1943, 1945, 1946, 1947
034 Pearl Buck Dragon Seed 1943, 1945, 1947
035 Mark Twain Huckleberry Finn 1944, 1945
036 Ronald Fraser Financial Times 1944, 1946
037 James Hilton And Now Good-Bye 1944, 1946
038 William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair 1 1944, 1946, 1947
039 William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair 2 1944, 1946, 1947
040 Freeman Wills Crofts Man Overboard! 1944, 1946
041 John Steinbeck The Long Valley 1944, 1946, 1948
042 Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre 1944, 1947
043 Dorothy Parker Laments for the Living 1944, 1946
044 Charles Nordhoff Mutiny! 1944
045 John Boynton Priestley Daylight on Saturday 1945
046 Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter 1944, 1946
047 Dorothy Sayers Lord Peter Views the Body 1944, 1946
048 Izaak Walton The Compleat Angler 1945
049 Ellery Queen The Roman Hat Mystery 1945, 1947
050 Charles Dickens Oliver Twist 1944, 1947
051 Ebba Dalin, Editor The Zephyr Book of American Verse 1945
052 Ebba Dalin, Editor The Zephyr Book of American Prose 1945
053 Graham Greene The Power and the Glory 1945, 1947, 1949
054 Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings The Yearling 1945
055 William Saroyan The Human Comedy 1944
056 George Meredith The Egoist 1945, 1947
057 Lin Yutang The Importance of Living 1944, 1945, 1948
058 Peter de Polnay Water on the Steps 1944
059 Michael Sadleir Fanny by Gaslight 1945
060 M. and R. Bottrall, Editors The Zephyr Book of English Verse 1945, 1948
061 John Bunyan The Pilgrim's Progress 1945, 1946, 1947
062 Anthony Berkeley The Silk Stocking Murders 1946
063 George Eliot Silas Marner 1945
064 Anthony Thorne I'm a Stranger Here Myself 1945
065 Joyce Horner The Wind and the Rain 1945, 1946
066 Elizabeth Gaskell Cranford 1945
067 Lewis Carroll Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass 1946
068 William Faulkner The Wild Palms 1945, 1947
069 Oliver Goldsmith The Vicar of Wakefield 1945, 1946
070 Jonathan Swift Gulliver's Travels 1945
071 W. Somerset Maugham The Razor's Edge 1945, 1948
072 Elizabeth Bowen To the North 1946
073 Erskine Caldwell God's Little Acre 1945
074 C. S. Forester The Captain from Connecticut 1945
075 Charles Nordhoff Botany Bay 1945
076 Stella Gibbons The Rich House 1945
077 Nevil Shute Pastoral 1945, 1946
078 John Steinbeck Cannery Row 1945, 1946
079 G. K. Chesterton The Scandal of Father Brown 1945
080 A. E. W. Mason Musk and Amber 1946
081 Walter Van Tilburg Clark The Ox-Bow Incident 1946
082 Dorothy Sayers Unnatural Death 1946
083 John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men 1945, 1948
084 G. K. Chesterton Charles Dickens 1946
085 T. S. Eliot Murder in the Cathedral 1945, 1948
086 Erskine Caldwell Tobacco Road 1945, 1947
087 Dorothy Sayers The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club 1948, 1950
088 Harold Nicolson Some People 1946
089 Graham Greene A Gun for Sale 1947
090 Margaret Storm Jameson Cousin Honoré 19??
091 Francis Iles Malice Aforethought 1946
092 Dorothy Sayers Strong Poison 1949
093 Ernest Raymond We, the Accused 1946
094 Cecil Scott Forester The Ship 1945, 1946
095 John Buchan The Three Hostages 1947
096 Ernest Raymond For Them that Trespass 1947
097 Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest 1946
098 Helen MacInnes Above Suspicion 19??
099 Christine Weston Indigo 1947
100 Artur Lundkvist, Editor Twelve Modern Poets 1946
101 James Aldridge Signed with Their Honour 1945
102 Kate O'Brien The Last of Summer 1948
103 Rachel Field And Now Tomorrow 1945
104 Edith Sitwell The English Eccentrics 1947
105 Pearl Buck The Promise 1945
106 Mark Twain The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 1948
107 John Boynton Priestley Black-out in Gretley 1945
108 E. X. Ferrars Neck in a Noose 1947
109 Osbert Sitwell Open the Door 1947
110 Frank Tilsley I'd do it Again 1947
111 Kate O'Brien The Land of Spices 1947
112 Carson McCullers The Heart is a Lonely Hunter 1947
113 Mignon G. Eberhart Speak no Evil 1947, 1948
114 Charles R. Jackson The Lost Weekend 1946
115 Osbert Sitwell Before the Bombardment 19??
116 Rose Franken Claudia 1945
117 Eudora Welty A Curtain of Green 1947
118 Carson McCullers Reflections in a Golden Eye 1947
119 Phyllis Bottome The Mortal Storm 1947
120 William Faulkner Sanctuary 1947
121 Mignon G. Eberhart Wings of Fear 1947
122 Charles Dickens David Copperfield 1 1947
123 Charles Dickens David Copperfield 2 1947
125 Gertrude Stein The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas 1947
126 Christopher Isherwood Goodbye to Berlin 1947
127 Walter De la Mare Memoirs of a Midget 1948
128 A. E. W. Mason Königsmark 1947
129 Robert Louis Stevenson Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1950
130 Jane Austen Emma 1947
133 Edward Morgan Forster Howards End 1948
137 David Cecil The Young Melbourne 1949
139 Bruce Marshall All Glorious Within 1946
140 Nevil Shute Most Secret 1947
144 Eugene O'Neill Mourning Becomes Electra 1948
146 Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises 1947
147 Daphne Du Maurier Hungry Hill 1946, 1947
148 Raymond Chandler The Big Sleep 1947
149 Edison Marshall Benjamin Blake 1946
151 Christopher Isherwood Prater Violet 1946
152 Nevil Shute Pied Piper 1947
153 Samuel Shellabarger Captain from Castile 1 1947
154 Samuel Shellabarger Captain from Castile 2 1947
155 Nigel Balchin Mine Own Executioner 1948
156 P. G. Wodehouse Joy in the Morning 1947
157 Edmund Wilson Memoirs of Hecate County 1947
158 Henry James The Aspern Papers 1947
159 Henry James The Turn of the Screw 1947
161 Erskine Childers The Riddle of the Sands 1948
162 Raymond Chandler The Lady in the Lake 1948
166 John Masefield Sard Harker 19??
167 Irving Stone Lust for Life 1 1949
168 Irving Stone Lust for Life 2 1949
169 George Hopley Night has a thousand eyes 1948
170 Margaret Storm Jameson The Other Side 1947
179 Dorothy Sayers Have his Carcase 1948
180 William Saroyan The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze 1948
181 Kenneth Fearing The Big Clock 1948
188 H. E. Bates A House of Women 1948
199 John O'Hara Appointment in Samarra 1948
201 Raymond Chandler The High Window 1948
209 William Sansom Fireman Flower and Other Stories 1949
211 Denys Val Baker The White Rock 1948
223 Carter Dickson She Died a Lady 1948
227 James Hilton Contango 1948
228 W. Somerset Maugham The Gentleman in the Parlour 1949
229 Ernest Hemingway To Have and Have Not 1947
230 Betty MacDonald The Egg and I 1949
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  • Zephyr Books - detailed essay and list by a collector of the series
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