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170 The Publishers' Circular Feb. 15,189...
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COiTI'BlsrTS
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LITERARY INTELLIGENCE 170 BOOKS AND RUMO...
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St. Dunstan's House, E.C. February 15, 1890.
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E are not enamoured of Sunday newspaper ...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
170 The Publishers' Circular Feb. 15,189...
170 The Publishers' Circular Feb . 15 , 1890
Coiti'blsrts
COiTI'BlsrTS
Literary Intelligence 170 Books And Rumo...
LITERARY INTELLIGENCE 170 BOOKS AND RUMOURS OF BOOKS 171
NOTES AND NEWS 172 CONTINENTAL NOTES 174 AN AUTOGRAPH OF SHAKSPEARE 174
BOOKSELLERS' PROVIDENT INSTITUTION 174 PUBLICATIONS OF THE GERMAN BOOK TRADE IN THE YEARS 1888 AND 1889 175
LITERATURE AT THE ANTIPODES . -1 175 WRITTEN TESTIMONIALS AND REFERENCES .... 176 THE WILL OF DR . WESTLANJ ) MARSTON 176
THE POPE AND THE BOOK ' wORLD .. 176 ANGLO \\ AUSTRIAX \ j < 3 iix i £ \\ PRINTING srs \ i ± AND aim PUBLISHING x > xj iojlijxi
jx ^ XLj \ j - -n . . .. x . ^ x Amur is jr ij .. vx CO 177
SECOND-HAND BOOKSTALLS 177
TRADE CHANGES 177 \ IN MEMORIAM 178 I REVIEWS , & c 179
INDEX TO BOOKS PUBLISHED IN GREAT i BRITAIN BETWEEN FEBRUARY 1 & 15 184 i BOOKS PUBLISHED IN GREAT BRITAIN FROM
FEBRUARY 1 TO 15 186 > AMERICAN NEW BOOKS 189 NEW wrw BOOKS Tinmra AND avti BOOKS Tinmra lately LATELY pttp PUB- . 1 . ' .
LISHED 191 ! MISCELLANEOUS 201 j
BUSINESS CARDS 210 , 211 - SITUATIONS WANTED 213 , ' ASSISTANTS WANTED . 213 >
BOOKS FOR SALEfe * ,. 213 BOOKS WANTED TO PURCHASE 214 !
St. Dunstan's House, E.C. February 15, 1890.
St . Dunstan ' s House , E . C . February 15 , 1890 .
E Are Not Enamoured Of Sunday Newspaper ...
E are not enamoured of Sunday newspaper Wliterature , but a sample of peculiar and suggestive interest lies before us . It consists
of a copy of the Ne > n York Times for Sunday , i January 19 , 1890 , and one out of the twenty
pages bold type making , the up heading the issue l Books cont Gi ains ven , in Awa very y !
From Scott and Dickens to Stevenson and ! Haggard . Who is your Favourite Author ?'
Then follows a list of nearly 600 books , most of them by well-known English writers ( many ]
of whom are still living ) . And what does the gentle reader suppose is the object of this
parade of English Literature ? The printed page conspicuously and alluringly entreats you
to ' Ask your Grocer , ' and when you wonder ' For what , in the name of - Heaven ? ' you
learn , * For one bar of Book Soap ! ' Now there are , unhappily , a large number of books
( ancient and modern ) that would require a considerable quantity of moral book soap
to make them clean enough for any decent reader . But . the books in the big list , for
the most part , do not require this treatment . We read on , and discover that one of
Messrs . Pears' rivals , rejoicing in the decidedly American name of Enoch Morgan ' s Sons Co .,
are prepared to give one copy of any book in the list , all being duly numbered for the
purpose , to everyone who purchases a bar of Enoch Morgan ' s Sons Co . ' s soap . ' Try one bar , '
they say ; ' the quality of the soap and the character of tJie books' ( our italics ) , ' and you
will be satisfied on every point . ' So if any individual is persevering enough to use 1 , 000
bars of Enoch Morgan ' s Sons Co . ' s Soap , by the mere exercise of that ' cleanliness which is
next to godliness / he may accumulate a very fair library , including books that differ so widely as ' Adam Bede' and Banting ' s ' Letter on
Corpulence / Smiles' ' Duty' and Ouida ' s * Moths . ' I Now what can be more attractive than this
combination of business energy , book recommendation , and the advocacy of soap ? Is it '
not good to be clean 1 Is it not desirable to push good books ? Have not pur American '
cousins long ago accepted and pushed to ; perfection Barnum ' s variation of Demosthenes' (
famous maxim , ' Advertise , advertise , adver- : tise' ? Why then find fault with this latest
the specimen % J A A ^ mf point m ^ \ y AAA ^ S of of ^^ r Mm Yankee view w A ^^ ¥ V of ^ - ^ cuteness Jk the % SA A X ^ Eng wmb ^ M m ? * fi ^ lish * S A ^^ peaking A Jm publisher S ^ r ^ V \ J A A" ^ fro * * A w m * , A ¦
because there is a little stain on the transaction that all the soap that Enoch Morgan ' s
Sons Co . have manufactured during their existence cannot wash out . To put it bluntly , j
the possibility of this or any similar firm being able to make such an offer depends \
almost entirely upon the way in which the United States Congress allows the American
publisher to rob the English author of the pecuniary results of the driving of Iris quill .
With regard to the whole question of inter- \ national copyright , we may yet echo with a
variation Lewis Carroll ' s words in ' Sylvie and Bruno ' :
' However legal it may be To take what never has been lent ,
This style of business seems to me Extremely inconvenient . '
It is true there are signs of an awakening conscience . Far be it from us to discourage
any such healthy process . We would only very humbly and very w diffidently —r sugges * t ** % ^ t
to Enoch Morgan ' s Sons Co ., and to all who , like them , either in or out of the soap
manufacturing industry , are trying to push the publishing trade of the United States ,
that , until a just international copyright law passes , they should include in their lists of
books to be given away those parts of a very old and hig ¦^ w hly resteemed book which contain
two brief commands—the first being ' Thou analt not steal / the second ' Whatsoever ye
would that men should do to you , do ye even so to them . ' ¦ ' ' ' ' ' ¦ ! —* - —¦**
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Citation
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Publishers’ Circular (1880-1890), Feb. 15, 1890, page 170, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/pc/issues/tec_15021890/page/4/
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