Evening star., 1932-01-01
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

to free themselves also Of the clutter
of price. At least to some extent
The idea of giving the most ana pest
books to the people at the lowest
prices consistent with decent crafts
manship has been an ideal IN every
age since the diffusion Of printing. II
has represented one end Of the scale,
the other being fixed by the most oeau-
tiful, and thus often the most expen-
sive, formats. There has been notn-
ing inconsistent about all this. When
Snobbish ideas are taken out OF pooKS
there remains little difference, except
in beauty between the cheap eolt!on
of a classic and the strictly limited
edition. The latter is on fxer paper,
usually has much wider margins ano
Stouter covers. Sometimes, at least
nowadays, it rather foolishly includes
the signature of the author in his own
| handwriting.
The cheap edition of the same classic
(and by that we mean simply any gcoo
book is no less pleasing to the real
booklover. This is a test. DO you
get as much of kick" out OF picking
| up a good book for a small price as
you do from running onto very nne
edition at large one? This is one
of the marks of the real bookloVer.
In perhaps no other field is the matter
of price of so little moment. 1t IS
thus seen that the dollar book Is
not to be commended so much because
it is sold at low price, or a COM
paratiVely low price, as simply because
it is enough, because 1t permits the
ambitious person to possess many
books 1t is true that Lincoln gained
mastery of English by reading the
Bible and Shakespeare, or so the story
goes, but that means little. man
of his calibCr would have written his
fine speeches just the same If he had
read nothing but almanacS. Instead
of being echoes of great literature they
perhaps would have been all Lincoln
The rise of the dollar book has been
tremendous. Only those who went
through the period of the "fiVe-dollar
books" can know personally how many
today in the dollar form. Many a
reader who has been collecting books
since childhood finds himself aston
iShed to discover the number of books
in his home library which can be pur-
chased today for fraction of the price
he paid for them.
And what if one does not read GER
tain books the very month they ap-
pear? 1t will make no difference to
the sort of reader we are discussing.
He will leave all that to those who
insist on being right up to the minute
II means SO much to them 1t means
nothing to him. Some aStute students
believe that no book which will not
survive two or three years or more is
worth reading, anyway BY that time
the volume they want is down to their
price level
And there is another particularly
good thing about these floods of
cheaper books. While the booklover
is waiting for them to come out in
| cheap editions, he is securing the time
to make up his mind about them. 1t
is with new books as with so many
things one Sees-they are attractive,
one wants them and one considers
whether he should buy them. The
curious thing Is that if one does not
purchase them forthwith the chances
are that his desire will grow cold for
some Of them and that he will never
buy them at all. This is the safety
valve of the honest, everyday human
being who does not possess pots of
money. His buying must be diScrim-
inatory. Honest business is not the
loser by this, in the long run, but the
gamer.
The so-called dollar book" has done
more to boost the book business than all
the publishers ballyhoo, and If any one
doesn't believe this, just let him step
into book mart and look at the tables.