Here is the first half of Raleigh Rainbows. This is a rare book. It is probably the rarest of all of the Gregg Shorthand novels because it was only in print for a few years.
Raleigh Rainbows was meant to be used by a new Gregg Shorthand student who had just started using the 1916 Gregg 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.
As this book was meant to be used with the 1916 Gregg Manual, it was only around for a few years in the 1920's. It stayed in the Gregg Publishing Catalog until 1931. It was never revised for Anniversary shorthand. It made no sense to keep this book around, because the chapters and shorthand did not match the Anniversary Manual.
This concept of this book is rather dull and silly. There is 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 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.
Chapter 1 is very short. Just so that you are not confused, Chapter 1 requires an explanation. The limited vocabulary for Chapter One in the Manual caused Raleigh Rainbows Chapter 1 to be very strange and limited. It simply lists each fictional student's name. After each name is listed, that student rattles off a list of unrelated shorthand words limited to what a student can write after Chapter 1 in the Manual. If you try to read those word lists as logical sentences, you will be very confused.
The original source book for this scan was in mint condition without any marks. Most of the plates were sharp. However, the source book was the typical tiny pre-Anniversary shorthand book with teeny, tiny text. It was scanned in color. If you print it out, you should probably print it "Fit to Full Page" and used the best print quality available.
This PDF was so large that it has been split up into 2 parts to get it on this site. Part 1 has the introduction and Chapters 1 through 15. The second part will follow shortly in another posting. It has Chapters 16 through 20.
There is no known key to this book, so you are on your own. You would do well if you had a copy of the 1916 Gregg Manual handy while reading this.
Labels: preanniversary, readingmaterial