NATIONAL BOOK FAIR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23365, 3 December 1937, Page 17

NATIONAL BOOK FAIR

OPENED BY MR CHURCHILL “ THE GLORY OF LITERATURE ” VARIETY AND FREEDOM (From Our Own Correspondent; (By Air Mail) LONDON, Nov. 10. One of the most popular of London’s annual shows —and there are legion—is alivays The Sunday Times National Book Fair. Thousands of books are collected by 130 exhibitors and every day for a fortnight three nofable authors address large audiences. This week the fair was opened by Mr Winston Churchill. Authors who have spoken so far include Philip Guedalla, A. J. Cronin and Sir Hugh Walpole. Others who have accepted invitations include A. E. W. Mason, Laurence Housman, Valentine Williams, Lord Horder, Beverley Nichols. Ethel Boileau, A. P. Herbert, M.P., and lan Hay. In declaring the fair open, Mr Churchill said that the author created out of his brain important new values —material and moral. “ If,” he said, “ his books are read abroad, he is an addition to the export trade, without any corresponding reciprocal importation.

“ I think a wise Chancellor of the Exchequer—we are some months before the next Budget—would allow authors to write off every year against income tax a substantial sum for depreciation of mental machinery through wear and tear, through age and use.—(Laughter.) I thought of this when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I refrained from motives of delicacy. But all my successors may not be equally hampered.—(Laughter.) Some of them may have other special values, so that they could do complete justice to the author, trusting that some day an author may again be Chancellor of the Exchequer and able to repay the debt.” A NEW DANGER

“ There is.” Mr Churchill continued, “ one aspect of publishing activity upon which I think we should cast a close scrutiny. I mean the deliberate publication of books of a uniform political tendency to an organised mass of readers. Ido not care whether it is the Left or Right side of politics to which this process is directed. But to have an elaborate process set up to feed a particular kind of leaf to a particular tribe of injurious caterpillars, incapable of taking any other nourishment, and who take their colour as well as their food from the foliage on which they crawl, is entirely contrary to the spirit of literature or the means of disseminating knowledge. “Nothing can be worse than to introduce totalitarianism into the field of literature, and to try to breed in a single country races of men and women incapable of understanding one another. The glory of literature in any free country is its variety, and the most fertile means from which happiness may be derived in life is from variety. The issues in the world to-day are such that readers should be on their guard against any attempt to warp their intellects or to narrow or enfeeble their judgment by tendencious literature with facts increasingly coloured and statistics ever more carefully selected. “ The ordinary man and woman in the age in which we move has to have a new vigilance and to be alive to new perils, to see that they are not being sucked in by propaganda. We see whole nations the slaves of propaganda, we see great States in which only one opinion is to be tolerated, which is contrary to the genius of man and the inherent urge of human nature.” SEVERAL INNOVATIONS

The Book Fair contains several innovations. Each of the large rooms where the publishers display their exhibits on the second floor is named after one of the famous presses of the past. There is an Aldus Room, an Elzevir Room, a Caxton and a Gutenberg Room, and others are named from Vaskerville, Garamond, Bodoni, Caslon and Plantin.

The exhibition is the fifth of its kind and shows an advance in several respects on its predecessors, notably in the arrangement of the books. “ Booksellers Row ” is the name of a street of miniature bookshops, each devoted to a subject of importance and affording the layman an insight into the problems that confront the world. These collections of books have been made by authoritative organisations under the headings of The Countryside, Home and Garden, Contemporary Art, The Parents’ Bookshop, Peace Problems, Travel and Adventure, and The Boys and Girls’ Bookshop. Special attention has been paid to children’s reading this year, the selection of titles having been made by Miss Kathleen Lines, formerly of the staff of the Toronto Public Libraries, the children’s section of which is said to be the best in the world.

Literary competitions have been introduced for the first time, including an essay competition, a book knowledge competition based on the thoroughness with which visitors have inspected the fair; and on the lighter side a competition to name various photographs of literary celebrities, and a rod-and-line comnetition with books instead of fish. The main section of the fair, with the extensive publishers’ exhibits, is divided into nine separate rooms, each named after a famous printer of the past. Of equal interest are the exhibits of the various trades engaged in the actual manufacture of the books.