Chapter Six
THE YELLOW BOOKS
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It would be unflattering indeed to imply that Arthur Machen’s books were quickly discarded by their owners, or that they had ever crowded, in any considerable numbers, the shelves of the second-hand book shops. Nevertheless it is a fact that for some years, especially in the late Twenties and early Thirties, the shelves, counters and sidewalk tables of Fourth Avenue were high-lighted for browsers by the bindings that blazed forth the magic of Machen.
SOME MACHEN ITEMS: Showing one of the famous Knopf “Yellow Books,” title pages of Knopf edition and Pocket Book, Putnam’s 1915 edition of “The Bowmen” and several rare items.
Mr. Alfred Knopf who undertook in the Twenties to introduce, or to reintroduce, Arthur Machen to American readers elected, perhaps for obvious reasons, to issue the odd-sized books in a bright yellow binding. For this, as well as for his work in bringing Machen across the Atlantic, Mr. Knopf is to be thanked; but whoever designed the books, having specified an unmistakable color for the cloth binding, decided also upon a dark blue paper label with gold lettering—a combination that became, in a reasonably short time, completely indecipherable. There was, however, no mistaking a Machen—even when it turned up in the darkest corner of the most unassuming hole-in-the-wall in Fourth Avenue, Twelfth Street or lower Lexington Avenue. The adept Arthurian merely looked for the unmistakable yellow binding with its dark and indecipherable patch. It must be admitted that the production manager or book designer for Knopf planned better than he knew, for it seemed that time could not dull, nor dirt disguise, nor grime diminish the yellow of those bindings. The experienced browser could spot one at thirty feet in the dimmest corner of the dingiest shop, sandwiched though it might be between V. V.’s Eyes and The Conquest of Fear or buried under a pile of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Martian romances. A recent convert might, for a time, respond to the lure of the yellow only to find, on closer inspection, something about a eunuch by a man named Pettit, or an early Ben Hecht, or some other ordinary book bound in yellow; but in time he learned to distinguish that one especial hue. He came to know it, however faded, for it seemed to fade predictably.
Thus the yellow books issued by Knopf became the most eagerly sought-after books along Fourth Avenue. It was not too long of course, before they became scarce. Soon they were taken from tables and stacked reverently on shelves, and before very long they were behind glass doors or in the shelves behind the proprietor’s desk, or even in that holy of holies—the back room.
Today they have disappeared from Fourth Avenue. You may find, now and then, one of the Martin Secker editions, or perhaps one of the deluxe editions of the Heptameron—or even a set, fabulously priced, of the Caerleon edition. For the most part, however, the book shops are Machen-less, a condition that might be remedied, and profitably, by some enterprising publisher, or even by Mr. Knopf.