Page:Soldier poets, songs of the fighting men, 1916.djvu/113

Rh On the Scope and Quality OF THE Little Books of Georgian Verse " Here is a brave new publishing adventure which I know will take your fancy. Mr. Erskine MacDonald, one of the most alive and enter- prising of our younger publishers, has just issued the first volumes in a series of * Little Books of Georgian Verse,' under the capable editorship of Miss S. Gertrude Ford." From "What to Read" in The Bookman. " We are glad to welcome a new endeavour to popularize the work of present day poets. The editor and publisher of this definite series of con- temporary verse hope that by judicious and sympathetic selection of the volumes the confidence of the discriminating public interested in new poetry will be gained ; that * each little volume of authentic promise or distinctive achievement will be found to contain something really notable and precious in the best sense of the term . . . that they will prove that new verse as well as more utilitarian books can be published successfully at a low price.' It is all to the good that the promoters of this interest- ing undertaking have placed before themselves so definite an ideal j and they may be sure that if, as they think, the present generation is more responsive now than at any previous time to the spirit of poetry, the enterprise will not be allowed to fail." The Bookseller. " It is a bold and interesting experiment that Mr. Erskine MacDonald is making with the Georgian series of daintily produced volumes of verse by writers of the neo-Georgian era ; it is bold because there is a tradition it has been refuted again and again that * poetry doesn't pay,' a say- ing which is paralleled by the old theatre tag that * Shakespeare spells bankruptcy.' There have, fortunately both for writers of poetry and for readers thereof, always been publishers who have flown in the face of tradition, and have proved it wrong. . . . Now Mr. MacDonald is follow- ing the same admirable course and is, in slang parlance, going even one better than his contemporaries, and producing his latest renderings of the age in song in a perfectly tasteful way at the price of a shilling a volume. Judging by the first volumes of the series, the new venture assuredly deserves success, for it can safely be said that in the matter of beautiful paper and type and neat covers the publisher has done his best to that end. The general editor of the series is Miss S. Gertrude Ford, who may be warmly congratulated upon the * finds ' represented. These Little Books of Georgian Verse are all so good that they should have a con- siderable success as small greeting-gifts on birthdays and other occasions." "Daily Telegraph. Send for list of titles and ask for the series at any bookshop. ERSKINE MACDONALD, LONDON, W.C. adv