"Privately printed"

■ All men who are bibliophiles, and most men who are not, encounter every now and then a book which bears no publisher's name on the title page. Instead there is the little legend: Privately Printed. Those two small words contain a world of woe.

A few years ago, when I knew much less about writing than I do today, and was in consequence much more enthusiastic about literary customs and literary personages, I wrote a biographical paper about fifteen hundred words in length. I wrote it in what I considered an experimental style. As a matter of fact, the style was pure undergraduate preciosity, stiff and artificial and exceedingly self-conscious. But very fine I thought it, and, as was entirely natural, I pined for someone to share my enthusiasm. Had this normal craving prompted me to show the manuscript to some close friend or relative, no harm might have resulted. But 1 took another course. I sent the paper to a publisher.

Of course I did not send it to any old-established or prominent publishing-house. No indeed. My manuscript, I felt sure, was concocted in too novel a vein to he acceptable by any of the stodgy old school. My manuscript was a brilliant experiment, an ingenious departure from any established tradition. (Millions of youthful, self-important writers have the same sad notion.) And so I scanned the lists for a discerning "modern" publisher. I read all the advertisements in the "writers' magazines" and in the Sunday hooksections of newspapers. And, in a little time, I found the very firm I wanted. Because I cannot give its real name, I shall refer to it as the Gilded Moon Press, and it may he mentioned that the real name was quite as exotic. The advertisement of the Gilded Moon ran something like this:

WE WANT TO PUBLISH YOUR BOOK!

The Gilded Moon Press is constantly seeking for publication the works of promising new writers. We have unequalled facilities for beautiful hook-making, and WE WANT TO 1IEI.P YOU. Yotl will never he really prominent UNTIL YOU HAVE HAD YOUR NAME ON A ROOK. Let us consider your manuscript. If it meets our rigid editorial requirements, we will publish it. We will see that it is well advertised, and we will handle all matters of reviewing, publicity, etc. YOU HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO PUBLISH A BOOK; WHY NOT CONSULT US?

Now you might suppose that only a half-wit would he impressed by such an advertisement. But if you think so, it is only because you do not know the temperament of young people who are full of the Literary Urge. I sent my manuscript to the proprietors of the Gilded Moon. That night I could scarcely sleep for wondering whether, by some marvellous luck, my manuscript might measure up to their "rigid editorial requirements."

The Gilded Moon Press (although of course I did not know it) consisted entirely of one man. He was a Central European who had adopted a new name Mr. Luno. Whether it was this name which had suggested the name for his Press, or whether Gilded Moon had suggested the Luno, I do not know. But, at any rate, Mr. Luno was his adopted name, and he was the whole Gilded Moon Press. In his fashion, he was quite a clever man.

Two days after I had mailed my manuscript, a telegram was delivered to me. I do not suppose that at that time I had ever received more than three or four telegrams in my life, and I looked upon them as momentous. A telegram to me meant Big Business— the Real Thing. You may he sure that I opened that telegram with tremulous excitement. It was, of course, from Mr. Luno. Nor had he spared expense:

THINK YOUR MANUSCRIPT QUOTE DISRAELI AND THE PAINTED DOOR UNQUOTE IS MACNIFICENT STOP OUR EDITORS ARE UNANIMOUS IN RECOMMENDING IT FOR PUHLICATION STOP PLEASE COME TO SEE ME AT FIVE TODAY AND WE CAN DISCUSS PLANS FOR IMMEDIATE PURI.ICATION STOP SHALL CONSIDER MYSELF PRIVILEGED IF YOU WILL TAKE DINNER WITH ME AFTERWARDS STOP ACCEPT MY CONGRATULATIONS AND BEST PERSONAL REGARDS—LUNO GILDED MOON PRESS.

It is difficult to describe my thoughts and emotions at that juncture without giving the impression that I must have been quite the simplest simpleton who ever lived. I was in a transport of delight. Here, after all my trials and rejection-slips, here was Literary Success! My hook was about to he published! I would see reviews in the newspapers, perhaps photographs of myself. I was now important enough to receive costly telegrams and dinner invitations from publishers. I was a Real Writer!

■ It was not yet five o'clock when I reached the offices of the Gilded Moon Press, but Mr. Luno was able to see me at once—in his private office. I later learned that this "private office" of Mr. Luno's was the whole extent of the Gilded Moon premises. Several doors connected with it, however, and 1 assumed that these doors led to other offices of the organization. As a matter of fact the doors merely connected with other private offices in the large suite of which Mr. Luno rented the tiniest unit.

Mr. Luno made me very much at home. He pressed cigarettes upon me, and treated me with a florid and ostentatious courtesy which was highly flattering. He talked incessantly, and his talk was full of vague hut thrilling allusions. "As I was saying the other day to Lewis. . . ." "Now of course we do not want to bring out your book in exactly the way we would bring out one of Dreiser's. . . ." My head was swimming with Mr. Luno's endless whirl of words. And then—

"In the kind of edition I have in mind, it would not cost you more than Jive hundred dollars."

This was a dreadful jolt. Was I to pay for the publishing? For one sickening moment my elaborate castle of fancy verged on tumbling. But then Mr. Luno went on to reassure me. 1 wish I had a transcript of all his remarks, in order to see what hypnotic power they can have possessed. For little by little Mr. Luno made it seem perfectly reasonable and safe and even desirable that I should pay for the publishing. Walt W'hitman, said Mr. Luno, had published at his own expense—and made a fortune. Dozens of our biggest authors hail paid for their early publicationsand never regretted it.

It was impossible, said Mr. Luno, for me to lose money. And he wrote columns and columns of figures to Drove it. Suppose we should publish Disraeli and the Painted Door in a de-luxe edition of 250 copies. That would cost $500. The hook, being a super-de-luxe one, with every copy numbered and with a very fancy format, would retail for $7.50. Thus we could break even by selling less than seventy copies! All sales over and above seventy copies would be so much velvet! And it would be child's play to sell seventy copies. What about my friends and relatives? Surely they must he good for numerous copies? And then the libraries! Why. seventy copies would he sold in no time! Suppose we worked it out this way: I to receive 50 per cent of the gross, until I had been paid hack for the original publication-cost; thereafter to receive 20 per cent. Then, for his share of the proceeds, Mr. Luno to supervise the actual making of the book, to see that review-copies were mailed, to tend to publicity, and so on. Mr. Luno asked me whether that did not impress me as a 100 per cent sure-fire, fool-proof plan?

I have to confess that it did sound very reasonable. The sale of enough copies to pay myself hack did not apnear to he very difficult, and the profits thereafter looked tempting. In addition. it would mean that I was an author ... an author with a book to his credit. Yes, it sounded splendid, but still. . . .

And then Mr. Luno used his ace

"Of course," he said, "there would he another factor. We would set aside perhaps thirty copies of the book, each one to be specially autographed by you personally. The price of those copies would he $15 each. Collectors would snap them up. It would make you one of the 'collected' authors, and also net $450."

That decided me. Just picture an utterly unknown writer, faced with the prospect of being allowed to autograph his books and having them sell for $15 each! It meant leaping from nonentity into a class with Galsworthy, Shaw. Cabell. It was utterly dazzling.

I gave Mr. Luno $500 without a qualm. I had to close out my savings account to do it, but I was moving in a wonderful literary haze and did not mind at all. I lay in bed at night and fancied pictures of me in the newspapers, sitting at a desk signing copies of my book. I saw "Disraeli and the Painted Door" displayed on bookshop counters, with collectors battling for an autographed copy. I dreamed and dreamed and had a splendid time.

The days that followed were intoxicating. There was the day when a messenger delivered me the first proofs. (Mr. Luno was like that; he never wrote when he could telegraph, and he never employed 4an express company when he could send a special messenger. He was a genius at flattery.) Correcting proofs! At last I was actually doing it. Proof-correcting is the very heart and essence of Literary Life. I felt that I had reached my goal, that I was in truth a Literary Person.

Then there were the conferences at Mr. Luno's office. (He consulted me on every possible occasion, and listened for my Personal Opinion on every point before proceeding.) What did I think of this binding and that one? What about paper? Did I approve of having So-and-So, the master designer, do the title-page? And so on and so on. I am certain it was one of the happiest times in my life.

I recall the day when Mr. Luno telegraphed me that the hook was completed and at bis office. I believe. I took a taxicab to the premises of the Gilded Moon, although the fare was a great deal more than I could afford.

And what a book it was! Every kind of gewgaw and claptrap that can go into the making of a de-luxe edition had gone into this one. The paper was some kind of hand-made affair that was alleged to he about as expensive as gold-leaf. The pages were rough-edged. The title was stamped on the cover with the most sumptuous heavy gold imaginable. A sheet of the rarest and most delicate Japanese tissue-paper separated the frontispiece from the title-page. The type was some gorgeous and very unusual variety, all set by hand by master-craftsmen. The whole honk, in fact, looked much less like a hook than a fancy bridge-prize. I was delighted with it.

■ The rest of this history need not be so long in the telling. I looked in vain for reviews of Disraeli and the Painted Door in the newspapers. When I telephoned Luno to ask the reason for the delay, there was never any answer. When I called in person, Mr. Luno was usually out. Whenever I did chance to find him, he seemed to have surprisingly little interest in me. and the excuses he invented grew thinner and thinner.

Finally I suggested that I might take part of the edition home with me and see what I could do about marketing it myself. Mr. Luno thought this an excellent idea, and within a day or two practically the whole edition was delivered—via express collect.

Now even a foolish young author begins to lose his temper after a time. When, about a week later, I called at Luno's office I was very angry indeed, and had determined to tell him what I thought of him. Unfortunately it was never possible to do this. Where once the sign on the door had said Gilded Moon Press, it now said Laussig & Greenstein, Real Estate. Mr. Laussig told me that the Gilded Moon Press had vanished, owing a month's rent. No one—not Mr. Laussig or the renting-agent or anyone else—could tell me what had become of Mr. Luno. To the moment of this present writing I have never found out.

Naturally I made all possible efforts to dispose of my $500 worth of Disraeli and the Painted Door. I tried my friends and relatives, and found them painfully apathetic. For months I made the rounds of the bookstores, occasionally selling a signed copy for as much as fifty cents (never, of course, admitting that I was the unfortunate au-

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After about a year I was faced with the fact that my hook was a dead loss. It cluttered up my rooms and was no earthly use. 1 could not have even the pleasure of giving away inscribed copies to my friends, for by this time I hated the very sight of the hook and was convinced it was a wretched piece of writing. I looked at the piles on my floor, and ached to he rid of them.

Finally I made a proposition to the proprietor of a miserable little secondhand store. 1 offered him the entire balance of the edition—about a hundred and eighty copiesfor two cents apiece if lie would cart the hooks away. After a great deal of protestation, to the effect that he was sure to lose money on such a transaction, he grudgingly consented.

The hooks were hauled away. I banished them from my mind, and decided

to try to forget the whole experience.

But now there is a little more to the story. A few months ago I was looking through the catalogue of an English bookseller who specializes in the highpriced and the rare. And there, nestling between a scarce edition of Cabell and a folio illustrated by Dore, I was astonished to see Disraeli and the Painted Door. This is what I read:

Disraeli and the Painted Door was published in a special-de-luxe edition, limited to 250 numbered copies, privately printed. The hook was designed throughout by the Gilded Moon Press, and is printed on hand-made paper. Frontispiece from an unpublished photograph. The present superb copy is one of 30 specially autographed by the author, and is in mint condition. Enclosed in purple solander slipcase, and offered at the bargain price of S35.00.

The processes of the literary world are very strange.

ALAN DEVOE