History & Description
The Observer's Pocket Series

History

In 1937 Fredrick Warne & Co. published the first two books in the Observer's Pocket Series "British Birds" and "British Wild Flowers". When the popularity of these were realised several more titles were added 'uniform in the series', however in the intervening war years production was limited due to paper and labour shortages.
The first few titles were 'Nature' orientated, but gradually other subjects were introduced like Geology, Music, Architecture. 'Spotter' titles like Aircraft, Automobiles and Railway Locomotives proved very popular. During the mid fifties and sixties collecting sets of these books was very popular among children and adults alike.
Around 1971 Warne decide to give the series a 'face lift' and all titles were issued with a uniform white jacket style with red title, these lost some of the individual charm and character of the earlier 'wavy edge' style paper jackets but the paper was laminated with a film of plastic making them durable thus less prone to wear and soiling.
During the seventies a much greater range of subjects were introduced, some proved very popular, but others were specialised and titles like 'Jazz' and 'Vegetables' found little interest other than to boost a collection of all titles.

In 1979 the books were given another makeover, this time the boards were picture illustrated and laminated, the paper jackets were omitted never to appear again.
Many of the old popular titles were issued with the new look, but some titles disappeared altogether. Several new titles were added to the series between 1979 and 1982 but did not gain much popularity and at the same time interest in collecting declined, the new titles like 'Folk Music', Silver', 'Paris', 'World Atlas' have become rarities due to their limited sales.
In all formats, 97 titles were published until 1982, all were consecutively numbered however the last few titles released in 1982 had skipped the number 96 which was to be "Country Houses", this title was never produced or published, so the last title in the series "Opera" was actually number 98
In 1983 Warne introduced the 'New Observer's Books' in a flexijacket with slightly increased dimensions with glued rather than bound pages, at this time production of the bound titles virtually ceased.
Many of the old titles were dropped and the reminder were given new a numbering sequence N1 to N25, a few completely new titles were issued in this series, 'Athletics', 'Warships', 'Airliners' and 'Tractors and Farm Machinery' whereas a few were re-titled and rewritten, 'Commercial Vehicles' replaced by 'Trucks' and  'Postage Stamps' becomes 'Stamp Collecting'.

After the take-over of F.Warne by the Penguin Group circa 1985,  these were restyled  with the the title plainly 'Observers (no apostrophe) Title, retaining the soft covers and numbering sequence. A few of the old titles like 'Birds' and 'Butterflies' were brought back to make this series up to 30 titles in all.
In 1991 another change occured when the Penguin Group reverted back to hard bound books this time published by their subsidiary Bloomsbury Books, title numbering was dropped and the size increased slightly.
The first few titles issued were produced with a cream board with an inset photo similar to the 1970's style of jackets or covers, the contenst were vitually unchanged in these few issues, however the remainder were given the all over picture treatment. 
Twelve of the most popular titles were re-released in 1996 by Claremont (still part of the Penguin Group) in hardback, this now appears to be the last production run of the Observer's series and are now out of print.

The content of these pages however is mainly concerned with the original "Observer's Pocket Series" titles published by F.Warne from 1937 to 1982.

Description

The Observer's Pocket Series is unique in being such small hard bound books, probably the smallest you will come across making it easily recognisable.  Measuring just 5 3/4" x 3 1/2" with between 120 and 312 pages depending on title. with colour and/or black and white plates & line drawings, etc.

A page from "British Birds", the concise 'one per page' format and wonderful illustrations made this the most popular of them all.
'The Observer's Book of British Birds' the first book published in the series in 1937, and later as 'Birds'  sold over 3 million copies during its life time.

The early books were bound in cloth, replaced later with an imitation cloth in various colours, jacket designs were pretty basic but fairly uniform with distinctive lettering for the spine title on the jacket.
The 'British' as  in this first edition title - British Geology was dropped in 1953.

Up until 1979 all books were sold with a paper dust jacket and excepting the very first editions of Birds and Wild Flowers the jackets were printed in colour, up until 1971 Observer's jackets had the characteristic 'wavy' top and bottom margins.

Around the mid 1960's colourful jackets were introduced for many of the titles.
This 1968 edition of Geology is a good example.

After 1971 jackets were in the familiar and similar white jackets with uniform black and red titling, the "little white books".
This design continued with the introduction in 1979 of a gloss laminated pictorial cover without a dust jacket but of similar size and design to the previous '70's titles.  The pictorial cover was used on all new titles and reprints after this date.

In 1983 Warne introduced the 'flexijacket' Observers, these were paperback style with glued rather than bound pages, only the popular subjects were re-issued in this slightly larger sized format, 25 different titles in all, a few of these titles were completely new however.

The New Observers Book Of Airliners published 1983 in the new soft back format, this was also a new title from Warne, numbered N4.

After the take-over by the Penguin group in 1985, the books continued but the titles were shortened to just 'Observers title', although style and content was very similar to the New Observer's Books.

In the 1990's Observer's were re-introduced again published with the Bloomsbury imprint under Penguin's wing! This time with a hardback cover but still with glued pages. Many of the  old favourites were given a face lift, but now the method of numbering the series had been dropped for good.

Just a few titles were again re-introduced in 1996, this time published by Claremont and retailing at £1.95, these appear to have been the last books printed, copies may occasionally be still found in bookshops, they have "Claremont Books" on the spine.