"Mrs. Dickens' Book Shop is not only a booksellers' corner for handling the latest and wisest pickings out of the eight thousand and more books published every year in the U. S. A. It is a place of lanterns, lights, colors, alphabets, reminders, helps. It is a book lovers' tavern, ancient, shrewd, up-todate, on the job, careless, lavish, paradoxical, whimsical. Its welcomes are as fresh as the freshest fresh eggs; the panels of its doors have passwords for all book bugs. It is a bookseller's corner and a book lover's tavern. Whether you laugh or pray depends on how you feel." Prizes for Window Displays during Children's Book Week The Publishers' Weekly offers the following cash prizes for pictures showing retail window displays used during Children's Book Week, Nov. 9-15, 1924. This contest is open to any retail bookseller. Photographs (smooth finish) must be received by Monday, Dec. Ist. Awards will be announced and checks sent on Dec. 13th. The judges will be Marion Humble, Executive of the Children's Book Week Movement, Charles H. Denhart, advertising expert, and Frederic G. Melcher of the Publishers' Weekly. The winning photographs will be reproduced in the Publishers' Weekly. Others will be returned if desired. There's A Photographer in Your Town Address Editor – The Publishers' Weekly 62 West 45th Street New York An Old Publishing House Changes Location NINE The Thomas Y. Crowell Company the Latest Firm INETY years of continuous business is an enviable record in any line, and one which few of our present-day publishers can emulate. The Thomas Y. Crowell Company, which is removing to 393 Fourth Avenue at the corner of 27th Street after a quarter of a century in downtown New York, traces its lineage back thru almost a century of publishing and binding. In 1834, Benjamin Bradley established a bindery in Boston. He was one of the pioneers in cloth binding in this country, and his first deliveries to the old-time publishers, Ticknor & Fields, Crosby & Nichols, Phillips, Sampson & Company, and others, were made by wheelbarrow from house to house. Those were not the days of rapid transit or hundred thousand editions. One of the boys who did chores for Bradley was Thomas Y. Crowell. He began at the bottom and worked steadily upward until in 1870, after Mr. Bradley's death, he succeeded to the business, and put his own name over the door. For nearly half a century thereafter Mr. Crowell continued personally to direct the firm's affairs, leaving at his death a wellestablished house well opened a branch office in New York for the publication of books. In 1876, he purchased the plates of a line of books then published by Warren & Wyman at 744 Broadway, and retained William W. Wyman as general manager. Meanwhile the bindery was continued in Boston. One of the first lines issued by the New York house was "Crowell's Red Line Poets" which became FIFTH widely popular and was sold for many years in varied bindings. Then came a series of juveniles chiefly for the circulating Sunday School libraries so much in vogue in the eighties. By this time the firm had outgrown its Broadway quarters and, in 1881, removed to 13 Astor Place. It also began to build up its own list of writers, and began to issue translations of the books of Tolstoi, being among the first to make this foremost Russian writer generally known in America. The publication of Tolstoi's "My Religion," in 1885, was a notable event. In the same year, Sarah K. Bolton's "Poor Boys Who Became Famous" proved the forerunner of a series of popular biographies for younger readers. Dr. James R. Miller began his series of famous religious books. Warren Lee Goss "struck twelve" with his Civil War tale, "Jed.” 31 ST 30TH 29T TH T.Y.CROWELL 28TH COMPANY 27 TH 26T 25TH TH In 1890, still larger quarters were required, and the New York branch moved to 46 East Fourteenth Street, where it remained for ten years. To this period belong the popular series of pocket volumes known as the "Handy Volume Classics," the "Astor Library," the booklet and line, "What is Worth While Series," so called from the phenomsuccessful enally essay by Anna R. Brown which sold into several hundred thousand copies. The house was also fortunate at this time in linking up with Dr. Orison S. Marden, whose "Secret of Achievement" was the first of a long line of books on endeavor and inspiration. The "Camberwell" Browning and the "Luxembourg Li'brary" of notable FOURTH AVE. LEXINGTON MADISON 800000-00000 THIRD (1) Cupples & Leon, Dodd, Mead, F. A. Stokes; books in fine editions were also products of the nineties. The continued expansion of the two branches in Boston and New York then made it advisable to unite them under one roof. Accordingly, the Boston plant was brought to New York. A large, sixstory building was leased at 426-428 West Broadway, running thru the block to Thompson Street. This was in 1899, and the firm has remained there for the twentyfive years intervening to the present time. The Crowells are now confining themselves exclusively to book publishing, and are therefore moving from the downtown manufacturing district into the heart of publishing affairs. Fourth Avenue is almost a "publisher's row." The new location at the corner of 27th Street is in one of the most accessible traffic sections of the city. An entire floor has been leased, containing 16,000 feet of floor space, and is exceptionally well lighted. There are more than forty large windows, running the entire two sides, not to mention a spacious inside court. The floor is well served with both freight and passenger elevators. It is the intention to carry a full stock on this floor in close conjunction with the salesrooms and offices. There are two sample rooms and a special department for city trade.. A complete and modern office and stockroom equipment has been installed, with an eye for both attractiveness and utility. Every item in the publishing and marketing of a book, aside from the actual printing and binding, can thus be handled on one floor with very little lost motion. During the last few years the firm has strongly increased its reference lines by such books as Crowell's Dictionary of Business and Finance, Roget's International Thesaurus, and the Social Science Series of advanced books for college. In a lighter vein, they are bringing out the Frank Heller mystery and detective stories, highgrade juveniles, and color books. Under the presidency of T. Irving Crowell, with J. O. Crowell as general manager the T. Y. Crowell Co. has continued to uphold the fine publishing tradition laid down by its founder. Severe "I saw a capital thing in your pamphlet the other day," said a cynic. "Indeed," said the delighted author. "What?"-"A pound of butter." -From "Quotable Anecdotes," D. B. The National Arts Exhibit FOR OR nineteen years the National Arts Club has held annual book exhibits in its galleries, which have become more and more popular and more and more influential. Harold Howland, thru whose energy and interest these exhibits have grown in importance, is again serving as chairman of the committee, having the assistance of George P. Brett, Jr., Maxwell Aley, John Clyde Oswald and others. The plan for the exhibit includes the placing of narrow shelves completely around the big galleries. These shelves are about three inches wide and will hold a great number of books placed flat against the wall. These are illuminated by the lights used for painting exhibits. The books are classified by subject, and the members of the club and the visitors to the exhibit can pass from one group to another and examine the books with great ease. The In connection with these exhibits, it has been customary to hold weekly authors' nights, and the series for 1924 opened with a crowded house on October 29th. evenings will continue for the four Wednesdays of November. The evening programs have been put in charge of various literary editors, John Farrar of the Bookman, Henry Seidel Canby of the Saturday Review, Irita Van Doren of the HeraldTribune and W. Orton Tewson of the Evening Post Literary Review. Mr. Farrar introduced as author guest for last Wednesday Ruth Hale, now literary critic of the Brooklyn Eagle, whose article in the November Bookman on children's reading startled a good many people, Stephen Vincent Benét, novelist and poet, Mary Austin, poet and prophet of the southwest, Louis Bromfield, whose first novel has had so notable a success, and Ernest Boyd. Mr. Boyd, besides his literary work and important translation undertakings, has been made literary editor of the Independent under its new management. In connection with the exhibit, three prizes have been offered to the one who will make the best answer to the following questions: JUST The Barn Bookshop on Beacon Hill UST over the brow of Beacon Hill, Bos- The Barn Book Shop sprung into being out of sheer necessity. When, in 1922, the present owners of the Joy Street property discovered the court and its possibilities as a gathering place for artists and others whose work demanded quiet and sympathetic surroundings, their plans entailed only a place for an experimental theater. The situation of the property, however-reputed to be the first settlement made on Beacon Hill, dating from 1795-altered the original plans of the new owners. With admirable vision, they foresaw, as each day of energetic renovating progressed and in spite of the dilapidated condition of the buildings, the possibility of adding to their conception of a theater. The finding of a real brick oven under layers of paint and wall paper was an occasion for celebration, and turned the attention of the discoverers to the task of making the "Brick Oven" tea room known all over Boston. In addition, the rooms in the original Loring. Jacobs house, as well as other apartments in the buildings which formed the group, were made into living quarters for friends and supporters of the project, interested in the Book Shop or the Barn Theatre, the Brick Oven tea room or any of the other factors which now go to make up the concentrated existence of Joy Court. Beautifully paneled doors with their original Holy Lord hinges now hang in many of the rooms where they served when the place occupied by the Barn was a garden plot and Beacon Hill a meadow. The stalls which housed the race' horses of an early owner, as well as the rooms where the gay blades of the early nineteenth century gathered to place bets, have been altered only enough to allow them to be put to profitable uses. The center of all this diversity of interests continues to be the Barn Book Shop, which has gone on catering to the connoisseur and the average reader, always contenting itself, however, with the best of modern literature, for everything is very new now in the oldest settlement on Beacon Hill. |