A POOR WINTER BOOK SEASON.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 461, 20 March 1909, Page 9

A POOR WINTER BOOK SEASON.

The editor of the "Book'..Monthly " lias induced various- eminent. publishers ; to.. givo their explanations 'of the ' poorness of tho winter book'season', lor by. gunernj'consent it seems, to'have been a poor. one. i\lr. .John, Murray, indeed, is cautious about this, but Mr. Dent goes so, far. as. to speak of tho season as a slump. Like Laneasnire, the book trade seems to bo suffering" from overproduction, and the steauy traders in it are liable to be disturbed by large irruptions of tho special cheap line, 'lins Ij/st soason some very bi« lots of books have reached tho public through channels outside the ordinary publishers, and there have been at least two: reprints that have/interfered. a good deal with regular sales. The sevenpenny novel has macto it increasingly difficult for the sixshilling ono, without friends to hold its own, though, curiously, Mr. Reginald Smith believes that the sixpenny reprints in /paper covers are "fungible," and do no harm to the new books. Mr. Murray says that- the result' of the great output of now books and reprints of tho masterpiece class is that the proportion of the new books which reach a second or third edition is smaller than it was twenty or thirty years ago; reviews, too, are spread over such a wide area that a single ono cannot have, such an effect as in the days when a good notice in "The Times" onsured a reprint.. It is good to hear'from:Mr. Reginald Smith that tho sales of tho best quality of books have not been affected bv the great masses of cheap ephemeral stuff, but tin's does not mean much if Mr. Dent is right in his opinion—and we venture to say that he is not —that there were no books of outstanding valuo published last year. It' is in-

teresting to hear that of the manuscripts ■sent in to Messrs. Smith, Eider, and Co. only 2 per cent, arc accepted. Mr. Smith wants his fellow-publishers to take a resolute stand against rubbish, and to drclinp to havo anything to do with authors who are ready to pay all the expenses of publication.