To the Vacationist, the Week-end Traveler, Any One Who Wants a Romantic Love Story, suggest THE ROAD OF DESTINY By ELLIS MIDDLETON A thrilling, hard-fought prizefight; a strange encounter with a gypsy band; a duel to the death-these and other swift-moving events center around the hero of this delightful love story of Yorkshire in the 18th century. The tale's mystery, romance and high adventure suggest the popular Jeffery Farnol stories. Published July 20th. Striking jacket in full color. $2.00. Other Vacation Suggestions: MR. AND MRS. SEN By LOUISE JORDAN MILN An anglo-Chinese novel by the author of “Mr. Wu”—a colorful, dramatic story. Fifth Printing. FAMILY $2.00 By WAYLAND WELLS WILLIAMS A novel of one of the old First Families of New England as it lives and feels and thinks today. Third Printing. $2.00. SCISSORS By CECIL ROBERTS A novel of Youth whose vivid scenes are laid in Turkey, England, Belgium and, finally, again in Asia Minor. Third Printing. $2.00. THE BUSH-RANCHER By HAROLD BINDLOSS A tale of courage, thrilling adventure and romance in the wilds north of Vancouver. $1.75 WET CLAY By SEUMAS O'KELLY A novel of Irish country life in which the progressive ideas of a young IrishAmerican conflict with his neighbor's more conservative methods. $2.00. Publishers FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY New York The Publishers' Weekly THE AMERICAN BOOK TRADE JOURNAL Founded by F. Leyboldt July 14, 1923 "I hold every man a debtor to his profession, from the which, as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor themselves, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament thereunto."-BACON. A Writing Boys' Books N article well worth reading for those who are interested in books for boys and girls appeared in the Saturday Evening Post of June 16th, "Why Boys' Books?" by Clarence B. Kelland, author of "Mark Tidd" and "Catty Atkins." Mr. Kelland says that when he meets people who ask him why he spends his time writing boys' books when there are fields of writing that bring more immediate attention, he knows that they are questioning his good sense as a breadwinner, and for that reason he has put down in print some of the great advantages to a writer of coming into the field of books for boys. He believes that a good boys' book, once accepted, brings a steady sale year after year, while a book of fiction of equal merit would fail to produce royalty at the end of six months. The figures that he produces of selling records of this kind will be interesting to any author and interesting to the book-trade, which may not have realized how long-lived a good book for children is. Mr. Kelland also points out that a great number of prominent authors of the past live in the present because of the fact that they made an appeal to boys and girls. Such a list is striking reading "Pilgrim's Progress," "Robinson Crusoe" and "Gulliver's Travels," to mention a few early examples; or, to come to later times, note the present sale of the boys' books of Mark Twain compared with others on his list, of Kipling, Stevenson, Kingsley, or of Thomas Bailey Aldrich. A score of instances can be pointed out, showing that immortality in authorship may depend on having written so that children could understand, altho the books may not have been written down for children or with children in mind. Every Town Its Own Book Fair A N unusual service to the community was rendered by the Lombard, Illinois, Free 'Library, as described in an article in the Chicago Daily News. The Library conducted a book fair, with 200 volumes on exhibition, illustrating the story of book-making thru six centuries. Such an idea would be suitable for any community, and might be included in the fall programs of either bookstore or library in October, when people's reading interest is coming to the front. The public and private collections of any city will produce good material for such an exhibit. There can be found early printed books-even incunabula such as was found for the Lombard exhibit -or Bibles from family bookshelves, early textbooks, fine examples of beautiful book illustration, both early and late, beautiful books from current book-making, such as Updike's "Printing Types," which was used at Lombard. Some books can be arranged by the type of illustration, so that the difference between wood engraving and steel, copper plate and photogravure can be seen. A collection of book-plates might be added to this, and an exhibit of a model home library would seem not to be out of place. T The Sale of the Novel HE Pall Mall Gazette prints an interview with G. H. Grubb, head of Putnam's London office, in which he estimates that the average sale of a novel in England is not much over 1,000 copies, possibly 1,500. This seems an extraordinarily low figure for profitable publishing, and, if the cost of plates has to be divided over that number of copies the chances of getting books out at less than the current price of 7s. 6d. are quite obviously impossible. It is this factor of the original cost of setting type and making plates that makes an increase in the market of books of importance to a healthy book business and to the public's own interest. The chances of a novel running to larger printings are much greater in the United States, and it has already come about that many English authors look for their chief profit to this country. Editions of only 1,000 to 1,500 copies are very seldom thought of here. Mr. Grubb, in this interview, points with ap proval to the work of the National Association of Book Publishers in America in reaching out to a larger reading public, which will put book manufacture on a healthier basis, and asks why this plan should not be adopted for England. A Books and Culture BOOK that can do much to help the sale of books and which has been previously emphasized in these columns is Jesse Lee Bennett's book "On Culture and a Liberal Education," published by the Arnold Company in Baltimore. This little volume has now been made in paper covers at $1, which will enable it to get a wider circulation. The book has a forceful way of promoting the reading interest that has seldom been equalled in volumes devoted to reading lists. Dr. Crane said in a recent essay, "One of the commonest questions in the world and one of the most difficult to answer is: 'Can you suggest a list of books for me to read?' This book on culture is the best answer to that question I have ever seen." P A Drama Centenary HILADELPHIA will celebrate in the fall the centenary of the birth of one of its most illustrious citizens, George Henry Boker, (1823-1890) author of "Francesca da Rimini," the greatest play in verse that exists in American dramatic literature. Boker wrote many other poetic dramas. "Calaynos" was frequently acted in London and America. His masterpiece, "Francesca da Rimini," was given by Davenport, Lawrence Barrett, and by Otis Skinner at two separate times. An interesting article on Boker appears in the June Scribner by Arthur Hobson Quinn. Revival of Boker's play recalls the fact that a new translation of Silvio Pellico's version of "Francesca da Rimini" has just been made by Kenneth McKenzie and issued by the Chicago University Press. An earlier translation by A. Bartholeyns is published by the Oxford Press. Some of the most famous authors have written plays on the old Dante story of Francesa da Rimini. Among them are D'Annunzio (Stokes), Stephen Phillips (Lane), Marion Crawford, a French version for Sara Bernhardt (Charpentier), besides Richard LeGallienne, Ouida, and Leigh Hunt. The "Three Francescas" by Edith Wharton in the North American Review, compares all of these different versions. B. G. A Dickens Atlas VERY unusual literary guide has been A printed by the Hatton Garden Press of New York, a Dickens atlas, including "Twelve Walks in London With Charles Dickens." It has been prepared by Albert A. Hopkins. The portfolio contains numerous maps and charts of all manner of places connected with Dickens's stories-Canterbury, Lowestoft, Bath, for example-and birdseye views especially drawn which picture different districts that have been selected for a literary walk, with most exact directions of how to be sure of every place mentioned in any Dickens novel and reference to the chapters in the novels where the places were mentioned. One of the features is a list of the houses in which Dickens lived and worked, a most extraordinary showing. If England attempted to preserve, besides 48 Doughty Street, other places where he had residence, it would have enough houses to represent a city in itself. The book represents extraordinary detailed research, probably the most exhaustive that has ever been made in connection with a single author. P The Book-Plate Pamphlet ERSONAL book-plates for the books of boys and girls has always been a very delightful method of emphasizing that sense of ownership which does so much to make books a real joy to children. Many well designed book-plates have been made and put into circulation and sold in large quantities, but the Children's Book Week Committee believes that a great deal could be accomplished to build up reading interest by encouraging the designing of book-plates in the schools. A very carefully prepared circular is to be issued, which will be gone over by a professional designer and which will give specifications and plans which will make it easy for art classes to take up this type of designing. With the plates designed, the printing classes can print book-plates for local distribution, and it is thought that children thruout the different cities will thus find an opportunity to give a more personal touch to their growing bookshelves. Certainly it is true that the children who own book-plates are always calling for more books. This is the selfish point of view of those who sell books. Accompanying this circular will be a reprint of a very admirable article on "Boys' and Girls' Book-Plates" by Stephen Allard which appeared in St. Nicholas a year ago. The idea of such school interest first developed in Birmingham, Alabama, the public library and the schools being in co-operation. of high prices the only obvious alternatives carried rentals of $200 to $300 a month. Finally the shop was driven to its present location facing Lafayette Square in front of the White House, but off the car line, on a street restricted to "one way" vehicular traffic. The rent was $55 per month on a three year lease, but some $1,200 was expended in converting an unpromising basement into a bookshop rich in atmosphere, the gross expense chargeable to rental thus being kept within the $1,000 limit. When it came to stocking the bookstore, the copartners resolutely placed the limit of investment at $3,000, the amount they were willing to risk to prove their ideal a success or a failure. And, today, sobered by the fate of small bookshops that have ventured into publishing and other ambitious diversions, they insist that no small bookshop is justified in carrying a stock that exceeds a valuation of $5,000. From the outset, the Washington firm showed extreme conservatism with respect to side lines. A few periodicals are regularly carried in stock, and latterly the agency has been taken for a local brand of boxed confectionery that has not a distribution proportionate to its merits. But, for the most part, there has been steadfast concentration on books. No stationery, no book plate service, no circulating library adjunct. This does not mean that the Wayfarers' has not, with mounting experience, tended to specialization. The little shop has one of the most complete stocks of modern poetry to be found in the United States. Local demand has been found to justify a certain degree of specialization on economics. And particular attention has been bestowed children's upon books, chosen for superior literary quality. The Wayfarers', recognizing the limits of its resources, has made no effort to stock rare books or cater to collectors, but a profitable trade, both local and mail-order, has been developed in English editions. Of the stock on the shelves, perhaps one-third is fiction, but the visitor will fail to find so much as a single copy of certain classes of best sellers. This does not betoken indulgence of any pet prejudices on the part of the booksellers, but rather sensitive sympathy with the demand of the recruited clientele. Just here we come upon the first principle responsible for whatever degree of success the The entire stock Wayfarers' has attained. is hand-picked and gauged to the taste of an are conscienaudience whose preferences tiously studied. It is a rule, with few exceptions, at the Wayfarers' that every book shall be read by one or more of the partners before it is stocked. The firm has learned its bitter lesson in placing, on the strength of a name, advance orders for fifty or one hundred copies in order to gain the advantage of a tempting discount. Now, 25 is the absolute maximum for an initial order on any book that has not been read at the bookshop, and ten is a more normal opening requistion even with the most promising non-fiction works,— non-fiction habitually leading fiction in sales. The This policy is conductive to modest stock investment and high rate of turnover. slowest moving items in the Wayfarers' stock average better than three turns a year. But hand-to-mouth ordering necessitates eternal vigilance on the part of the stock-keepers if sales are not to be missed. And, the plan, as followed at the Washington shop, is possible only because of the fine cooperation given by publishers. The managers of the Wayfarers' cannot speak too highly in praise of the celerity with which publishers have filled small orders by parcel post shipments. Close watch on stock and repression of overhead constitute, however, no more than half the secret of the shop's success. The dominant factor is the intimate personal service which has been attained. The physical appointments of the Wayfarers' are no whit superior to many other small specialty shops, but there is a homey air, a freedom to browse or prowl, and comfortable chairs where sojourners may dip at leisure into the books that are informally spread on the tables. By and large, it is the service rather than the setting that has won. First of all, this service is advisory. Many a customer has been won by the recommendation of a book. As every new candidate in bookdom is read at the shop before it is placed on sale, there is an unusual explicitness in synopsis and definiteness of frank, impartial opinion. This knowledge has brought impressive rewards. Not long ago, the managers of the Wayfarers' were given carte blanche to select a library of some hundreds of volumes for a large private yacht being fitted out. The shop has standing orders from a number of persons, in town and out, who are regularly supplied with one or more books each month. Such authorizations do not encompass fiction only. In some instances it is left to the book firm to send to a patron at weekly or monthly intervals the most important new books on economical subjects or worth-while memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies. Washington is not a book center, and the Wayfarers' has never advertised extensively and yet this intelligent, selective service has won for it continuing contracts from a number of libraries in small cities and towns that rely upon the judgment of this bookshop for the choice of volumes that are added to the libraries at stated intervals. |