Atlantic Shop-Talk

SOMEBODY once gave us a copy of an old epitaph, written by an eighteenth-century typesetter for a fellow-printer and bookbinder. The printer, according to the epitaph, was

In these days, printers and bookbinders rarely write pretty epitaphs for one another’s headstones. Instead, they lavish their inventive genius on the covers and the make-up of their books. As the first copies of the new Atlantic books came down this month to the office, the ShopTalk editor was struck by their variety in appearance, price, and subject matter. Of the list, he selected four for special mention, not because any one of them pretended to be ‘without a || , but because each was representative of a special phase of bookmaking.

The first of the four is the sort of book that can now be sold at two dollars: cloth over boards, 12mo, full-page illustrations, decorative coverdesign in gold. The cover-design is the figure of a great antlered moose of the Maine woods charging at full speed over the crest of a hill; and the title is Wild Folk, by Samuel Scoville, Jr. The Shop-Talk editor must confess that he read the book once in manuscript, once in proof, and once, quite gratuitously, in print for the sheer pleasure of seeing once more the little raccoons coming headfirst down the trunk of a tree, and the sea otter diving noiselessly under the kelp, and the ‘pincushion of the woods’ rustling his fretful way through the underbrush.

The book, like Mr. Scoville’s earlier volume, Everyday Adventures, is full of the suppressed excitement of the woods, where drama is always going about on padded feet. Perhaps the best of the chapters is the one about the Seven Sleepers. If any reader is curious to know who the Seven Sleepers are, their roll call is as follows: the bear, the bat, the woodchuck, the chipmunk, the raccoon, the jumping mouse, and the skunk. The skunk’s motto, by the way, according to Mr. Scoville, is, ‘Don’t hurry; others will.’

The second book is The Notion-Counter. On its title-page, in plain sight, it displays many convenient odds and ends, as every NotionCounter should. The title-puge announces:—

THE NOTION-COUNTER
A Farrago of Foibles
Being Notes About Nothing
by NOBODY
Illustrated by SOMEBODY
Dedicated to EVERYBODY

In putting this book together, the manufacturing department ransacked the counters until they found the right pattern of tiny-flowered cretonne to use for the cover. The little volume sells for a dollar, is illustrated with informal pen-and-ink sketches ’by Somebody, and is just the size (16mo) that fits most neatly into a pocket or a camping-kit, or a hammock or a catboat, the size, in fact, for the summer vacation trip. A few of its chapters are already familiar to frequenters of the Contributors’ Club: ‘My wife’s CheckBook,’ ‘My Wife’s Address-book,’ ’On Dyeing,’

‘What Kind of a Snob Are You?’ and various discussions between Cynthia and Algernon.

The preface suggests tlie spirit of the chapters. A shopper, whose motto is ‘I am only just looking,’is talking to the floorwalker. ‘I want to find the counter,’ says she, ‘where they sell cute little knickknacks, something kind of odd, such as clusters of pins that look like blackberries, and emery bags that look like radishes, and pincushions that look like tomatoes, and sort of comical things that ain’t what they seem.’ And the floorwalker points toward a remote corner, and says, ‘What you want is the Notion-Counter.

Like that floorwalker, the Shop-Talk editor can say to all those who are in search of something to read aloud, something ‘kind of comical,’ something that hits off the odd circumstances of daily life, ‘The Notion-Counter is what you want.’

Book number three, I aung Boswell, by Chauncey B. Tinker, is the most dignified of all: large 8vo, beautiful paper, readable page, dark-brown cloth binding, gold top and lettering, and the familiar Neptune — or Father Atlantic imprint of the Atlantic Press, embossed on the cover. In appearance, it is the sort of thing that was represented by Bliss Perry’s Life of Henry Lee Higginson, and by The Magnificent Farce; but it is less expensive than either of these, selling for three dollars and a half. Its illustrations are a point of pride, for Young Boswell seems never to have denied anyone who asked him to sit for his portrait. Like The Magnificent Farce, the book is enriched by scores of illustrations, picturing the places, people, and events described in the text. Gazing at one of the complacent periwigged portraits of ‘The Biographer in Meditation,’ we can imagine Boswell saying, on finding himself and his letters so prominently set forth, what he once said on finding himself suddenly in love: ‘I never was before in a situation to which there Was not some objection; but here ev’ry flower is united, and not a thorn to be found.’

The fourth book is selected because it is an example of the, careful piece of workmanship that can be produced nowadays and sold for seventyfive cents. The gray and purple binding in paper over boards, the restful page, and the exquisite detail of the arrangement combine to prove that the inexpensive need not be the unattractive. Consolation, by Albion Fellows Bacon, has already made its way to hundreds of those who respond to its ideas. The story of the mother’s way of meeting the death of her young daughter reminds one of that sentence in which Professor George Herbert Palmer sums up his sense of the mystery of the death of his wife: ‘ Who can contemplate the fact of it. and not call the world irrational if, out of deference to a few particles of disordered matter, it excludes so fair a spirit? ’

Sometimes, in the hurry of modern business, the Shop-Talk editor turns his mind to that passage in Dickens where an old hostler is describing the fleetness of a horse he recommends. ‘Nice light fly and a fast trotter, sir,’says he.

‘ Fourteen miles a hour, and surroundin’ objects rendered inwisible by ex-treme welocity.’ At times, the ‘ ex-treme welocity’ of modern existence blinds our eyes to ‘surroundin’ objects’ to such an extent that it is well to pull up now and then, and look at the facts. Mr. Arthur Pound has tried to tlo this in his new book, The Iron Man. He analyzes the effect of the Iron Man (the automatic machine} on the real men who spend their days in great industrial plants. A director in a large industrial company commends the ‘excellent insight’ with which Mr. Pound has ‘tackled a problem of truly mastodontic proportions.’ A progressive worker says that Mr. Pound has ‘struck thirteen o’clock’ in the matter of sound facts and good sense. ‘The Dismal Science of Economics,’ one professor writes, ‘is here applied in a way that is refreshing.’

Just as this book had been placed in its chink on the shelf, there came a rattling at the panel of the office-wall, and a small square door flew open. This little door, like the slide of a butler’s pantry, is the arrangement wherethrough the Shop-Talk editor and the Textbook editor thrust manuscripts and proof that must be read. This time the Textbook editor had a letter in his hand, ‘When you mention the texts,’ said he, ‘you might like to know that the college entrance reading-list now includes a selection of modern plays. Leonard’s collection meets that need.’ Modern Plays, by Sterling W. Leonard, is suitable, not only for students, but for older readers who enjoy a representative collection of short plays by such authors as Galsworthy, Ferguson, Lady Gregory, Percy Mackaye, and Synge.

While we are on the subject of texts, it may be well to say that four of the Atlantic books are now published in two forms, the trade edition and a less expensive school edition. The four books are Bird Stories, Hexapod Stories, Uncle Zeb and His Friends, and Prose and Poetry.

Lest we seem to purr too loudly, we are going to let Nelson Andrews, author of Finding Youth, speak for himself. ’One of the biggest social wastes is the waste of the latter years of the lives of men and women. Savages, not knowing what else to do with their people of years, kill them. We let them stagnate. ... As long as a man can laugh humorously, laugh with his mind as well as with his mouth, he has the vitality to create.’

John Ruskin used to say that every man ought to buy stout gloves for his children and leather covers for his books. Since Ruskin’s time the price of leather has gone up. Yet we still cherish a lurking fondness for humble modern volumes made out of cloth and boards and paper. The Autocrat once said: ’I like books. I was born and bred among them, and have the easy feeling, when I get in their presence, that a stable-boy has among horses.’ We know that Atlantic readers will agree with Dr. Holmes.