Then could follow information giving the prices of the books when purchased separately, the prices of the books when purchased as sets and the savings made in the latter purchases.

All this would be certain to attract a lot of attention. and create a great amount of talk with the result that numerous sets of the books would be sold and the store would profit: accordingly.

could be classified in much the same way that books are classified in the public library.

There is always a distinct fascination about any sort of a catalog to the average person. That is why the mail-order houses find it such a big help to them in increasing sales to put out such huge catalogs from time to time. Many of the store's visitors would find a real fascination in inspecting

Books with an especial appeal to middle

aged people.

Biographies of important people.

sult in numerous sales.

A Store Catalog

This list would be found to be of

The book dealer in moving slow books could also feature a typed "Bargain List of Books."

On this list the store could have the titles, names of authors, publishers and regular prices of all books that the store was offering at bargain prices together with the bargain price of the books and the number of copies of each title that the store had in stock.

This list could be placed prominently at the front of the store where visitors could refer to it easily. With it there could be a large placard explaining that the list was a catalog of all the bargain books in stock in the store and store visitors could be urged to look at the list and see what books in which they were interested could be purchased at the special bargain prices. They will appreciate a chance to look over the titles at their leisure.

To make it easier for the visitors to see if there were any titles in the list in which they were particularly interested, the list

moving books when the bargain table at the front of the establishment was occupied by other goods. It could be used as a perpetual inventory of the slow-moving books in the store by always putting down at the right spot the figures showing the exact number of each title in stock-the figures to be changed as the sales are made and new titles added from time to time when they reach the slow-moving stage to which even the best of books must at some time

A third plan which would be of help to the book dealer in pushing the sale of slow-moving volumes would be the scheme of wrapping a number of slow-moving books of the less expensive kind so that no one could tell what books they were. putting these wrapped books at the end of the bargain table and then offering any book in the group for an unusually low price-fifty cents or something like that. Many people would like this grab-bag proposition and would buy one of the books just to see what they were getting. So, by teasing their curiosity a very considerable number of slow-moving books could be distributed.

Slow-moving books can be moved if special effort is put on moving them. It is up to the bookseller to use this special effort and January is the best month in which to do it.

福

SEARCH thru all the late leaflets, did not help me find

what he wanted," the Junior Clerk announced to the Old Bookseller. "I don't believe there is any such book."

"Why, what did he ask for?" the Old Bookseller inquired, interested.

"Believe Me, Mr. Robinson," answered the Junior Clerk. "If there is such a volume, it isn't listed in any recent announcements."

"How about the big catalog?" inquired the Old Bookseller.

"Oh, I didn't bother with that... he said it was a recent book," answered the Junior Clerk. "I didn't have time to look it up there. . . .

"Pick up pebble, touch to bracelet and throw it in the sea!" answered the Old Bookseller, smiling.

"What?" asked the Junior Clerk.

"I shall tell you a fable," announced the Old Bookseller. "Once upon a time a poor traveler in India applied for a night's lodging to a native of one of the small villages. The man to whom he applied was very poor, having hardly more than a roof over his head, a fish, which he caught in the sea for dinner, a drink of water with which to wash it down. But such as it was, he gave of it willingly to the traveler, together with room on the floor of his rude hut on which to sleep and some rags with which to keep himself warm.

"In the morning the traveler thanked his host for his hospitality.

"You do not know whom you have entertained,' he stated simply. 'I am one of the Chosen of Buddha. And because

you have been good to me, I will grant your dearest wish.'

"The native believed what was told him. 'Give me, then, Oh, Chosen of Buddha, gold,' he made answer.

"Gold thou shalt have. But much gold to the poor is a curse, not a blessing. So I give thee gold only by working for it,' answered the Chosen of Buddha. 'Go thou to the sea shore. On that shore I have placed a magic pebble. When the pebble is touched to iron, it turns iron to gold. You will find it before night.'

"With that the traveler picked up his staff and went on his way. The fisherman hastened to the shore. He picked up the first pebble he saw, touched it to an iron bracelet he wore, and, finding the bracelet remained iron, tossed away the pebble. He picked up another, touched it to the bracelet, and also tossed it away. All morning he picked up pebbles, touching them to the bracelet and tossed them away into the sea. Meanwhile, he amused himself thinking what a wonderful time he would have when he found the mystic pebble. What would the gold not buy! Wine, and women, friends and clothes, houses and slaves, raiment and jewels . . . all would be his. Pick up pebble, touch to bracelet, and

throw it away.

"In the afternoon he got rather tired, but he consoled himself. 'He said I would find it ere nightfall. Gold and gold and yet more gold!'... pick up pebble, touch to bracelet and throw it away.

He

"To make a long story short, suddenly he glanced down at the bracelet. hadn't looked at it for some time, so engrossed in his thoughts was he. And lo, the bracelet was gold! Some one of all those pebbles had been the magic pebble, and he had tossed it away. He had lost his golden chance by not paying enough attention to his business!

"One of the things you will find out about this peculiar and fascinating business of selling books is that many booksellers don't behave like human beings! They don't attend to their business. Buyers often have peculiar twists of memory.

They mix titles and authors and subjects. A man reads a review of a book and decides he wants to read it. He puts it off a day or so and then comes in and asks for a book about spoons and gravestones. He isn't quite sure who wrote it, but he thinks it's some one by the name of Anthem. You have to know he means Spoon River Anthology. That's part of your business ... to be able to pick up the golden pebble from the sand of a man's mind and evolve the perfect golden bracelet of a book you have to sell!"

"I get the Anthology from Anthem, and the spoons, but what have gravestones to do with it?" asked the Junior Clerk.

"If you had read the book, you'd know," responded the Old Bookseller. "But even tho you didn't ask your customer a question, you ought to have known he wanted Lewis Brown's 'This Believing World.'" "But he said it was Robinson!"

"Of course" agreed the Old Bookseller. "That was your pebble. The newspapers carry a feature called 'Listen, World' by an Elsie Robinson. The title of the book is 'This Believing World.' Your inquirer had just mixed up the two printed associations of the 'world.' If you had asked him what the book was about and he had said 'travel' or 'history' it might have made it easier, because the book, of course, is about the great religions of mankind, and takes up both the travel and religious ideas and the history of many countries."

"I wonder if that was the book!" The Junior Clerk seemed a little doubtful.

"The native wondered if each one was the pebble. I have made many a wilder guess and found it correct," answered the Old Bookseller.

"I

"But how can you expect me to know all that?" inquired the Junior Clerk. can't read every book published."

"Neither can I. I don't pretend to. But I read reviews of all I can; I look over all the new books when they come in; I make it my business to know the merchandise I sell. And I don't throw away any pebbles. How else can I sell books? If a man demands a volume about a mythological character that had something to do with the Four Horsemen, I don't immediately get down Ibáñez' book and hand it over. I think. Then I ask is it a new

book?' He tells me it is . . . he just read a review of it. Then I think some more and venture 'Bellarion?' 'That's it, he cries.' Of course he was thinking of Bellerophon, who was a mythological character who rode a horse, Pegasus. That happened to me yesterday.

"Last week a woman came in to get 'Blue Times.' She couldn't tell me a thing about it, except that she thought it had something to do with prohibition. That rather stumped me for a minute. But that funny little second sight, which all good booksellers ought to have, brought the words to my mind. She wanted Beer's 'The Mauve Decade,' which of course has nothing to do with Prohibition except the thirst-quenching name of the author.

"Have you never been asked for the poems of Amy Harvard, Amy Boston or Mrs. McPherson? They all mean Amy Lowell. 'Names' by Hamilton, is of course 'Labels' by Gibbs, whose first name happens to be Hamilton. Yesterday I had to untangle a young girl who wanted 'Philosophy in College' by something that sounded like a motor car."

"She wanted Durant's "Story of Philosophy,' didn't she?" broke in the Junior Clerk.

"She did not. She wanted 'Philosophy 4' by Owen Wister. Somewhere her mind had picked up something about Professor Durant's marvelous book, and she had confused the two. There is a 'Durant' car, but there is no college in the 'Story.' I dug out of her that it was a funny story and not very long, and of course that settled it. Not very long ago a man came in to buy a book. He knew it was about the west, and that they hung a man and there was a frog in it, and it hadn't any hero. I guessed 'The Virginian' right away."

"But it has a hero!" cried the Junior Clerk.

"The book was noted for many things, among others that the hero is never named. He is simply "The Virginian' all thru the book!" responded the Old Bookseller.

"You sound to me like a regular prestidigitator of books!" commented the Junior Clerk.

"So I may be, and so you must be!" snapped the Old Bookseller. "You can't

be a booksalesman and not know books. You can't just wrap them up and have the customer put down the money and take away the goods. Lots of people know just what they want and lots more don't. You have to hunt for the pebble on the sand. of their minds, which, touched to what little they do know, reveals the gold of the volume they want. You can't do it except by paying attention to your job. You have to know something about a lot of books. You have to have imagination. You can't, like the poor native, let your thoughts wander. You can't 'not have time' to look up everything and anything. You have to be just everlastingly on the job. If you are not, and don't want to be, you might just as well sell bales of hay or

horseshoes, or some other perfectly obvious merchandise. If you want to sell books . . . if you want to be a real help to people who really want to know, you have to pick your pebbles up intelligently, touch them to the iron of knowledge with attention, and use the resultant gold for the benefit of the puzzled inquirer! But you must do it intelligently.

"If you can do this, you are a bookseller. If you can't, you are just an order taker." "Please, Oh Chosen of Cadmus, the Phoenician, or whoever it was that invented books" quoted the Junior Clerk "where shall I begin to look for book pebbles?" "

"In the Publishers' Weekly, of course," answered the Old Bookseller.

O the printed records of American book publishing has been added a monograph on "The House of Stokes, 1881-1926" which has just been issued by that firm, thus giving opportunity to review the story of an imprint which has been notable in publishing enterprise and played a conspicuous part in American literary history.

Frederick Abbott Stokes is the head of a business which he founded in 1881 as a young man just out of college. There is today no more honored figure in publishing circles and no personality more respected for initiative and imagination, high standards and general contributions to trade progress. Of him indeed it might be said he was the type of man asked for in Bacon's requirements that: "Every man is 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."

This little volume just published gives almost too modest account of the founder, but it includes in the picture a generous and deserved recognition of the important

part his associates played in building up the enterprise: of Maynard Dominick, Vice President of the firm who has been with the Company since boyhood and who has so large a circle of friends in London as well as in New York; of Henry F. Savage, recently made director of the Company, for nearly a quarter of a century with the house; of George F. Foster for many years treasurer; William Morrow, secretary of the Company for 19 years and now head of his own business; Emily Street, manager of the advertising department; Helen Fish, editorial department, and of many others who have been with the firm for a long term of years.

Frederick A. Stokes was born in Brooklyn in 1857 and graduated from Yale in 1879. The firm was organized as White & Stokes in 1881, Joel P. White being the partner. Their first address was at 1122 Broadway, the corner of 27th Street in the Hotel Victoria, and the business then included not only a book publishing program but fancy stationery and an agency for S. C. Griggs & Company, Chicago. In 1883 another member was admitted and the firm then became White, Stokes and Allen. In 1887 Horace S. Stokes entered as

a partner and the firm name was changed to Frederick A. Stokes and Brother. In 1890 it was incorporated with Mr. Stokes as president and George C. Foster as secretary and treasurer.

Mr. Stokes brought to the business a record of literary activity in Yale, including the writing while there of "College Tramps; Adventures of Yale Students during a Summer Vacation in Europe." There had also been various contributions in The Century Magazine and Wide Awake and the editing of several publications including John Suckling's poems. He decided that he was not to be an author and so called on Frank H. Dodd saying that he

was determined to be a publisher even to working without pay. He was given a paid job.

Also

The first advertisements of the firm as they appeared in the Publishers' Weekly in 1881, June and September, were "Esau Harding," a novel by W. O. Stoddard, and "The Children's Hour," a cutout. an art book for children in connection with whose promotion there were prizes amounting to $150 offered to the children sending in books most daintily colored. We also read in this advertisement that "the firm permitted no splitting orders," seeming to indicate an early interest in trade practice. There were soon such works appearing in