Departing somewhat from the customary order of the preface for the
annual Book Review Digest, we shall omit the usual explanations. We
believe that four annual recitals have been enough to familiarize our
patrons with the scope and purpose of this work as an organ of book
valuation. Instead, we should like to say a word to the publisher, the
author and the librarian—all three of whom look upon book criticism from
different angles of interest.
The publisher, above all else, wants to sell his book; the author
desires to be understood and appreciated; the librarian aims to provide
the best food for the appetite of the reading public. If the publisher
cannot find in reviews material that will aid him in putting his book on
the market; if the author is misunderstood and misjudged; and if the
librarian sees ground for complaint in the over favorable tone of
reviews and in the lack of comparative estimates, the trouble may
usually be traced to the book itself or to the reviewer.
We shall pass over the author’s duty to readers. We do wish, however, to
remind our patrons that the responsibility of the reviewer is a vital
one. Thru his criticism, the book is made or marred for a large class of
readers who have not time to experiment with the season’s output of
literature. Because the reviewer’s obligation is a serious one, the list
of periodicals from which we cull excerpt material for the Book Review
Digest has been selected with the utmost care; only reliable and
authoritative magazines have been chosen whose departure from high
standards of excellence results in injury to an established reputation.
The reviews published in such periodicals may not be infallible—nothing
short of the millennium can eliminate personal bias—but they represent
the most conscientious interpretation and the best judgment of the
present day.
With the foregoing facts in mind, we beg our patrons to remember that
the Book Review Digest, without an opinion of its own, aims only to
assemble the various critical judgments in a manner that will enable a
reader to arrive quickly at a reasonably intelligent conclusion
concerning the merits of a new book, and to offer reference data that
will make possible easy access to the reviews from which the clippings
were made.