Books in Brief

Parnassus Corner, by W. S. Tryon (Houghton, $7.00). This learned and gossipy book, bound like a Ticknor and Fields volume, is about the publisher of Ticknor and Fields volumes, James T. Fields, and about that “Parnassus Corner” in Boston where a Brahminical cult of art met with the Yankee instinct for a dollar. Fields worked himself up to his controlling partnership, insured that his books got good reviews by writing the reviews himself (under pseudonyms), and generally acted as if the one path up Parnassus were called Madison Avenue. In 1855, the Boston Traveller rebelled, and published the fact that all Ticknor advertising had been withdrawn as the result of a bad review given a “silly legend of aborigines” called Hiawatha. Down in New York, Horace Greeley took up this crusade for a free press, and had the free press in arms for revealing that reviews had hitherto been dishonest. Fields loved it—Longfellow’s poem sold 10,000 copies in four weeks. In 1861, Fields became editor of the Atlantic Monthly—a job which’ Lowell, his predecessor, said was “no bad apprenticeship or prelude for that warmer and more congenial world to which all successful publishers are believed by devout authors to go.” Under Fields, the bankrupt Atlantic prospered as well as “the Scribes and Pharisees of Harper’s.” It blossomed into a union-flag cover, with “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” inside, and a conscience that would not allow Hawthorne to refer to “Uncle Abe,” And of course the Atlantic ran excellent reviews of Ticknor books. To prevent the pirating of good stories, Fields worked out a plan for simultaneous publication with the editor of London’s All the Year Round. Since that editor was Charles Dickens, Fields also found a way to corner the Dickens market in America. And Dickens, who had as keen a nose for the pound as Fields for the dollar, got his first American royalties. Madison Avenue has its uses.

G. WILLS

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Parnassus Corner, by W. S. Tryon (Houghton, $7.00). This learned and gossipy book, bound like a Ticknor and Fields volume, is about the publisher of Ticknor and Fields volumes, James T. Fields, and about that “Parnassus Corner” in Boston where a Brahminical cult of art met with the Yankee instinct for a dollar. Fields worked himself up to his controlling partnership, insured that his books got good reviews by writing the reviews himself (under pseudonyms), and generally acted as if the one path up Parnassus were called Madison Avenue. In 1855, the Boston Traveller rebelled, and published the fact that all Ticknor advertising had been withdrawn as the result of a bad review given a “silly legend of aborigines” called Hiawatha. Down in New York, Horace Greeley took up this crusade for a free press, and had the free press in arms for revealing that reviews had hitherto been dishonest. Fields loved it—Longfellow’s poem sold 10,000 copies in four weeks. In 1861, Fields became editor of the Atlantic Monthly—a job which’ Lowell, his predecessor, said was “no bad apprenticeship or prelude for that warmer and more congenial world to which all successful publishers are believed by devout authors to go.” Under Fields, the bankrupt Atlantic prospered as well as “the Scribes and Pharisees of Harper’s.” It blossomed into a union-flag cover, with “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” inside, and a conscience that would not allow Hawthorne to refer to “Uncle Abe,” And of course the Atlantic ran excellent reviews of Ticknor books. To prevent the pirating of good stories, Fields worked out a plan for simultaneous publication with the editor of London’s All the Year Round. Since that editor was Charles Dickens, Fields also found a way to corner the Dickens market in America. And Dickens, who had as keen a nose for the pound as Fields for the dollar, got his first American royalties. Madison Avenue has its uses.

G. WILLS