Publishers as a group promise, for the immediate future, to be a harassed and unimpressionable body. Influence upon them can be brought to bear only through public demand. Should a public demand for books revive, it will be imperative for the Society either to quench it altogether--a project which the Committee has discarded as visionary--or to take it in hand at its inception and give it constructive shape by forcing upon public attention such knowledge of the more elementary points of good taste as shall make impossible the further prostitution of standards. As the most direct means to this end it is urgently recommended by the Committee that the Society take up at once the study of advertising.
[Illustration]W. A. DWIGGINS[Illustration]
TWENTY YEARS AFTER: MR. McG., MR. A., MR. L. _and_ THE SOCIETY OF CALLIGRAPHERS
From _Publishers' Weekly_, Sept. 2, 1939. Copyright 1939 by R. R. Bowker Co. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
NOTE: _In 1919 the Society of Calligraphers published a pamphlet_: Extracts From An Investigation Into the Physical Properties of Books. _In the summer of 1939, three of the people who reported in the investigation were visited again and their opinions solicited as to what had happened in the interval of twenty years to change the physical characteristics of books. Transcriptions of parts of the three interviews follow._
Q: Twenty years ago you were kind enough to discuss book-manufacturing with us.
--It meant a great deal to us--your help. It was in 1919. We were conducting an inquiry--perhaps you remember--into the physical qualities of books.
--Oh, yes! How you could improve them, and so on. Yes.
--Now we are back again--to see what you think now.
--Good. Interesting idea. Ask me questions.
--For instance ... Does it strike you that trade books have improved in the twenty years?--as physical objects,--packages?
--Packages. Very neat. Sums up the situation.
--We mean, both as implements, tools, for getting a job done; and as pleasant things to look at, handle, use ... or the contrary.
--Well. Let's see. Yes. I think trade books have improved decidedly in twenty years. Decided improvement.
--What points of improvement, would you say?
--Well. More care taken with the get-up, margins, format as you call it, title pages. Real design coming into it. And much more careful about the type--legibility and all that--paper, suitability for reading, good surface for the eye, etc., etc.