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- Publisher
- Emerald Publishing
- Copyright
- Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
- ISSN
- 0024-2535
- DOI
- 10.1108/eb060401
- Publisher site
- See Article on Publisher Site
Abstract
No one concerned for the dignity of letters can have failed to notice the increasing voracity and audibility of publishers' advertising of recent years. With this in mind I have been studying the literary section of an issue of the Observer. The results are disquieting. The Books of the Day feature runs from page 4 to page 9. On page 4 the text proper occupies three centre columns not quite full columns, for Michael Joseph butts in with an advertisement across the foot. It is flanked on the left by Hodder and Stoughton, a twocolumn spread from top to bottom on the right is another twocolumn spread of which Victor Gollancz has the lion's share. Hodder's display is a series of drab shaded panels, Gollancz's is a characteristically resonant proclamation in heavy type the two in opposition strike discords in the midst of which the actual matter of the book reviews twitters faintly like a virginal trying to be heard in a massmeeting of trombones and bugles. Page 5 is split clean in half, three columns being devoted to text and the remaindera massive fourcolumn spreadbeing again dedicated to Mr. Gollancz's commercial purposes. Page 6 repeats the talethree columns of text to four of advertisements. On pages 7 and 8 the proportion of advertisement to text is equally heavy. On page 9 the last of the literary section the comparatively decent pomp of Harrap and Cassell is to the forefrontbut by some oversight a dividend of two halfcolumns of text above the average quota has been allowed to creep in. In all, the six book pages of one of our leading Sunday journals are carved up, roughly, as text, nineteen columns advertisements, twentythree columns.
Journal
Library Review – Emerald Publishing
Published: Feb 1, 1939