From the Special Article (13 pages) by Mr. GUY BOOTHBY:
Bookmaking.—... Towards the close of the Nineteenth Century the literary output was enormously increased by the intervention of labour-saving machinery. Had the phonograph and the type-writer been available in the Elizabethan era I feel convinced that Bacon would have written not only Shakespeare, but the entire literature of the civilised world. A full-sized, full-blooded novel can now be produced in ten days, for although the employment of band-working machines to some extent weakens each section, this weakening can be partially neutralised by careful headbanding. Furthermore, undue and laborious insistence on niceties of expression is largely obviated by the greater rapidity of production now attainable. Style is no longer a fetish, and breaches of grammar or syntax no longer constitute an obstacle in the way of generous public recognition....
[The New Volumes also contain Articles on HOT CAKES, LITERARY AGENTS, and GEORGE MEREDITH.]
Bridge. See Mrs. SARAH BATTLE.
A MANXMAN INDEED!
From the Special Article (61 pages) by the MINX-WOMAN:
Caine, Hall.—... As he stood considerably more than six feet in height, was a fairly trained athlete, and had a countenance of extraordinary impressiveness, if not of commanding beauty—Greek in type with a dash of the Hebrew—we may assume that there had never before appeared on the Manx highroads so majestic-looking a Deemster as he who, on an afternoon in May, left his semi-detached castle with bundle and stick to begin life on the roads that lead to Rome. Shaping his course to the south-west, he soon found himself in the Eternal City. And then his extraordinary adventures began....
[The New Volumes also contain Articles on POPES ON THE STAGE, PUBLISHERS’ READERS, THE HOUSE OF KEYS, and KING EDWARD VII.]