Maecenas & Co. Available to Purchase

FEW people would deny that the most remarkable recent development in publishing is the Book Club. Not everybody would agree that the influence of such clubs on writing is potentially as great as their influence on the mechanics of selling, but that is the fact, and the clubs should be carefully watched by all who would like to see literature free. The clubs vary greatly in size and seriousness. Some are almost entirely comic. Others, like the Book Society, have an academic air and confer a quite important cachet, a kind of literary Monthly Medal. How is their standing justified ? The Left Book Club is actually a publishing concern, and the Right Book Club is run by a bookseller. Commerce and ideology are running in harness.