Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-11-17

that the public taste had changed, but SIM
ply that the paper cover was longer respect
able. So strong was the revers1on against
paper covers that most booksellers will not
today stock book in paper covers 1t was re-
recently urged by a prominent British man
of letters that the first novels of young writ
ers be brought out in paper covers so that
the cost of such an uncertain venture would
not be so great. He was laughed at. No
one would buy anything in a paper cover
Meantime, Diamond Dick" has gone
marching on in respectable board covers. He
has merely changed his name to "Fie-eyed
Pete of Polecat Canyon" or "Stuttering
Simpson,, or he has put on skirts md run
wild as ''Scrap of the Lazy K,'' or Susan of
Piute Pass" His name is legion and al
ways he is the same. When the reader opens
wild west story he knows just what he is
going to f1nd-a beautiful girl who rides
wild horses, a strapping cow-puncher who is
cross between Sir Galahad and Billy Sun
day, villain, usually Mexican or half-breed,
who is coming to bad end after nefarious
attempt on the heroines virtue. The action
will be plastered with purple sunsets, rock
walled mazes of mysterious canyon, SHIN
mering leagues of alkaline desert. When
the writer cannot think Of anything else to
do, he will let the coyotes howl for while.
One could go on to describe all OF the
other well-knownJ standard 'types--the de-
tective story in which a wealthy clubman is
always murdered in his library, and after
suspicion has lowered over the head of some
hubble young woman and her handsome lover
for while, the deed is found to have been
done by the butler; the mountain story in
which a beautiful mountain belle vamps
revenue officer and precpitates lot of san
culinary shooting, the sweet story OF pure love
in which the smile and the tear alternate with
mechanical regularity until the final clinch
and the fade-out into vrtuous bliss; and the
sort of thing we have with us now, in which
a strapping Arab man handles and disrobes
beautiful debutante throughout several
hundred pages, but all is made well in the
end with license.
All of these types are still with us, and
all of them are still read. Then what is the
evidence for literary awakening! 1t is in
the fact that good books are at last compel.
ing with the trade goods on an equal foot
ing. Three out of five books most in de-
mand at public libraries the work of
first class novelists who praised by
discerning critics. On list of 80 books
most in demand at the stores are at least
seven that stand in the front rank of con-
temporary literature. Moreover, no wild
west or detective or mountain-moonshine
story holds high place. The last produc-
ton of writer of cheap mOralizing tales,
who has sold Ills other books by millions
holds low place on the list. One very senti-
mental love story holds it's own, and the
above-me Mentioned study in erotomania is
best seller. This great moral nation must
have it's smut, and also it's mush.
The change nevertheless is one that
amounts to revolution. Rot is still read, but
there are ten readers for a good book in
this country today where one grew before
the war.