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  • Procrustes' Bed
  • George Core

"Of making many books there is no end," saith the preacher Ecclesiastes; and that remains the case even in a time in which the book as a physical object, not an image on a screen, is threatened by a long lingering death. "A good book," as John Milton declares, "is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." Most real readers devoutly believe that; and one of the them, the writer and editor William Maxwell, worried most of his mature life about whether books would be available in the next world—the "life beyond life."

This issue extends and amplifies the spring 2001 number of the Sewanee Review, which appeared under the title "Language, Culture, Periodicals, and the Book." The two issues are the only ones of their kind in the SR's 120-year history. The general subjects taken up here are almost endless, and it has proven impossible to cover nearly all of them. I would have liked to have run essays on editing magazines, especially such quarterlies as the American Scholar, the Paris Review, and the Hudson Review, written in the vein of George Garrett's reminiscence on the Transatlantic Review (SR, summer 2008); or on the present state of newspapers at a time when the daily newspaper in some large cities is being published only three or four times a week (see Russell Baker's "Decline But Not Fall" on the Washington Post [New York Review of Books, September 30, 2010]); or on the fascinating topic of book thieves and forgers from T. J. Wise to the Swedish librarian Anders Burius (see the New York Times, June 27, 2012); or on what is occurring at such large-circulation slick magazines as Newsweek; or on the present and future state of book reviewing in periodicals (see John Palatella, "The Death and Life of the Book Review" [Nation, June 21, 2010] and Sarah Fay, "Book Reviews: A Tortured History" [Atlantic, April 2012]); and so forth. In some cases I tried and failed to commission reports on many of these matters and still others. All the same I am delighted with the issue as it stands—and proud of it and its makers, whom I salute.

Peter Ryan has written an engaging memoir about his quarter-century (1962-88) as director of the Melbourne University Press. This witty and wise and perspicacious book offers a model of its kind to editors and publishers who write memoirs of their days in publishing, whether at university presses or trade houses or periodicals. I have failed on more than one occasion to secure reminiscences from such editors and publishers as Chester Kerr, John E. Palmer, and Albert Erskine (though Joseph Blotner published a lively profile of Erskine in these pages in winter 2005).

Ryan's Final Proof (Quadrant Books, 2010) proceeds apace from beginning to end. It contains many witty asides; sharply etched portraits of politicians, scholars, editors, and various others; succinctly presented and memorable anecdotes; and useful generalizations about the business of successful publishing. Ryan, despite his modesty, reveals himself as a successful evaluator of books, including multivolume projects; a shrewd judge [End Page lxxxv] of humanity in all its manifestations and guises; and a remarkable stylist (he has been compared to George Orwell, quite properly, by several critics, including this one).

Mr. Ryan writes a monthly column for the Australian magazine Quadrant, and he is never less than interesting and is often brilliant as he ranges widely over many topics, including his service behind Japanese lines on New Guinea during World War ii. His memoir on that experience, Fear Drive My Feet, is a durable book of great but understated power. It is the first of his six books; Final Proof is the latest. In his "Learning Journalism by Degrees" (Quadrant, May 2012) Ryan declares that he has published over two million words in newspapers, magazines, and books, establishing him "as a long survivor in the racket." He is a man of letters, not a journalist, and he has been an incomparable force in Australian publishing. Long may he flourish.

The Bibliographical Society of the...

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