E. McKnight Kauffer (who drew us from the life for the last of his illustrations to The Anatomy of Melancholy) at one time had office-room with us. The hours I spent in discussing aesthetics with him were stimulating—over-stimulating, we found, when there was work to do. So, in the end, we nailed up a list of "red-herring words" ("functional," "the Artist" and so forth) which were not to be used during office hours on pain of a fine of sixpence for each use. But there was no sixpenny escape from George Moore. While Ulick and Soracha was at the printers, he came almost daily, hung up his square bowler hat and settled down to read aloud to us the revisions he had made in his last batch of proofs. Each time it was an entirely new text. The first version was almost illiterate. The second grammatical but undistinguished. The third a transfiguration. It was fascinating to see the process of his composition at close quarters: and our feelings were undisturbed by anxieties about the printer's bill, for he had proposed at the outset that he should pay for his own corrections. They exceeded the original cost of the setting. In any event, who am I to be critical? For one book I had 37 different varieties of title-page set up. My friend William Maxwell, who printed this book, said that he did not mind "losing" (printers are like farmers) on the text of a Nonesuch book because he always made up his loss on the title-page....
In 1925 we moved from our cellar to Great James Street and we decided (with some misgivings) to incorporate the firm. It seemed better to our auditors although we had suspicions that our subscribers might be discouraged from collecting when they saw first the formula "Ltd." on our letter-paper. We did them an injustice. The partners became directors and shareholders. Vera Meynell bought a little book entitled "The Secretary and His Directors" and, impressed by the legal penalties that hedge about these offices, occasionally wound up one of our long triangular discussions by taking down the minutes book and saying: "Well, I suppose that this might as well have been a board meeting." Once a year, for the benefit of Somerset House we (the directors) presented to ourselves (the shareholders) with all due formalities, a report on the year's accounts and progress. Otherwise it made no difference.
The Antigone Greek type used in Homer's Iliad, decorated by Rudolph Koch. Printed by Joh. Enschedé en Zonen. Published 1931; edition, 1450 copies.
Even the "mundial bad-time" (to quote the phrase of an Indian friend) of 1930 did not seem to affect us or our customers much. But the second year of the great depression brought onto the market many hoarded copies of our books from the pickle-shelves of profiteers and deflated some of their more astronomical prices. Our survival-value (as luxury trades go) is perhaps due to the fact that even in boom-time we tried to be honest traders, not using our success with collectors to put prices as high as the traffic would bear, but giving a constant ratio of good value in the sheer materials of book-making, so that our paper, printing, binding were as good as any to be had at the price.
No book-producing of our kind can subsist without sales in America. It was our good fortune to ally ourselves in 1927 with Random House of New York. No collaboration could be more satisfactory from a technical or a personal point of view. It survived the get-rich-quick temptations of 1929; it has survived the difficulties of the depression. New blood and money entered the Press two years ago when Cecil Harmsworth, Desmond Harmsworth and Eric Harmsworth joined our board. But they belong to our Second Century, not to our first.
We have avoided antagonisms, even avoided competition. My friend Osbert Sitwell suggested that we should publish a satire on Noel Coward; Coward that we should publish his satire on the Sitwells. To both we said "no." How pleasant it would have been to issue them together in a single book! When I found that Peter Davies and the Nonesuch were both planning to reissue Cobbett's Rural Rides, we met and tossed for it. He won; and our editorial work was made over to him.
Of all Nonesuch books that by which I should best like the venture to be judged is our Shakespeare, edited by Herbert Farjeon. It brought us, among other things, a characteristic contact with T. E. Lawrence. Lawrence had written a letter of fervent praise of the Shakespeare to David Garnett; and I sought permission to use it. David Garnett was himself our ambassador. Lawrence appealed to the group of friends with whom he happened to be. "I don't want my letter to be reprinted. I hate the advertising of my name and opinions," he protested. To his obvious chagrin (for Lawrence had a passion for publicity as great as his passion against it) his friends supported his view. "After all," said they "you are not a Shakespeare expert." That decided Lawrence. "I think it is my duty to give permission," he said. This was his letter: