CORRESPONDENCE
(To the Editor of The London Mercury)
Sir,—On the assumption—I hope justified—that you propose to have a "Correspondence Column" in your paper, I write to plead that you should devote some of your attention to the subject of what is, I believe, called "book production." That your guidance as to the contents of books will be valuable I do not doubt; but I feel that an organ such as yours might be of considerable service if it would determine to devote some consideration to their physical form.
It may fairly be said, I think, that, as a body, English publishers produce their books as respectably as any publishers in the world. The Germans produce—or produced before the war—a larger number of agreeable-looking cheap books, and a larger number of finely-printed and bound editions de luxe, such as were specialised in by firms like Langen of Munich. But the ordinary German book of commerce was frequently very shoddy and the pseudo-romantic "Albert Memorial" tradition had never been entirely shaken off. The French presses issue many books which are a delight to possess. Their tradition is an old one. It can be traced through the delicate eighteenth-century editions, with their unequalled engravings, back to the Estiennes and the Torys, who were infinitely superior to the printers of their time. Throughout the last fifty years French publishers and "societies of bibliophiles" have issued editions of poetry and of old rarities exquisite in their taste: beautifully printed on the best paper and never eccentric. But the ordinary French novel or political book, printed in blunt unattractive type and "bound" in yellow paper covers, which fall in pieces at a touch, is certainly not a model that anyone would wish to copy. Much may be said against our wood-pulp paper and our common cloth bindings; but, on the whole, we certainly clothe most books in garments more durable than the books deserve; and the same thing holds good of America, though there the types and bindings are, as a rule, uglier than ours.
The fact remains that not one book out of twenty that we produce can be called beautiful, and that fifteen out of twenty are indisputably ugly. That the "public" will ever demand an improvement is a fantastic dream. The ordinary reader likes a nice book when he sees it, but will never make an "effective demand" on his own account. We have to rely on the initiative, largely disinterested, of (1) the publishers, (2) the authors, and (3) the critics.
Publishers, we know, must earn their living like other men; their chief attention must be given to procuring saleable "matter." But they have to get their books printed, and they have to get them bound; and while they are about it they would lose nothing, and we should all gain something, if they would see to it that the work was done by someone who cared about types and was anxious to make the best of the materials available at a specified price. Authors, again, may often be heard complaining that they do not like the look of their books; but does any author (except Mr. Bernard Shaw and a few bibliophiles who patently supervise the job themselves) ever take any steps to secure a "production" of which he would approve? Finally, though the critics occasionally praise a book for being "beautifully printed" or tastefully "bound," not one of them seems to make a regular practice of commenting on the physical design of books—which, after all, is an ingredient in our civilisation just as much as the design of cottages.
I should, as I say, be relieved to hear that the Mercury, from which we all hope so much, intends to "do its bit" in this connection.—Yours faithfully,
Original Subscriber.
[We think our correspondent is a little hard on English publishers. Some of them, though a minority, seldom produce an unattractive book; and the book-production of them all is on a higher average level than it was ten years ago, or has ever been in our time. But we agree that there is room for improvement, and scope for commendation or the reverse; and we purpose in our next issue to institute a regular page of "Book Production Notes," which we hope will give our correspondent satisfaction.—Ed. L.M.]