File:The Raleigh Rainbows - Written in Gregg Shorthand.djvu

The Raleigh Rainbows was published in February 1928. A careful search through the copyright database revealed that the copyright was NOT renewed during the 28th year after publication. Books published in the U.S. from 1923 through 1963 required a copyright renewal during the 28th year after publication to avoid falling into the public domain on January 1st of the 29th year. This book entered the public domain on January 1, 1957.

The Raleigh Rainbows, written in Gregg Shorthand, is a rare book. It is probably the rarest of all of the Gregg Shorthand novels because it was only in print for 3 years.

Raleigh Rainbows was designed to be used by a new Gregg Shorthand student who had just started using the 1916 Gregg Shorthand Manual. Raleigh Rainbows has one chapter for each of the 20 chapters in the 1916 Gregg Manual. The vocabulary and words in each Raleigh Rainbows chapter cannot go beyond what the student has learned in the same chapter in the 1916 Gregg Manual. So the early chapters are very limited and short. The later chapters are more complex as the reader learns more shorthand techniques from the 1916 Gregg Manual. The story seems strange when read in English because of the shorthand vocabulary limitations through much of this book.

As this book was meant to be used with the 1916 Gregg Manual, it was only around for a 3 years. This book was published in February 1928, but it became obsolete when the Gregg Shorthand Anniversary Manual was published in May 1929. Raleigh Rainbows stayed in the Gregg Publishing Catalog until 1931. It was never revised for Gregg Anniversary shorthand. It made no sense to keep this book around, because the chapters and shorthand did not match the greatly revised Anniversary Manual.

The story is about a small group of friends who live in Raleigh Ridge. The characters are described in English text at the beginning of the book. They have just graduated from High School. The English text introduces these students. There is a short scene written in English where the students are starting their first day in a Gregg Shorthand College Class. Then the rest of the book is in Gregg Shorthand, as these fictional students learn Shorthand from scratch. Raleigh Rainbows is the club name for the group of students in this book.