The founding and development of the Book-of-the-Month Club from 1926 to 1955. The material consists of interviews with the founders, members of the Selection Committee, and executive and technical personnel. In the most detailed of these memoirs, Harry Scherman, founder and board chairman, describes his own background, gives the origins of the idea of selling current books by mail to subscribers, tells of the first judges and later additions to the Selection Committee, discusses problems of editorial policy and the preferences of various judges, and recalls many of the selections and their reception. Mr. Scherman and other participants also deal with: the reader system for culling books submitted by publishers, attempts of outsiders to influence selection relationships with publishers, membership and sales through the years, characteristics of subscribers, the book dividend system, the use of premiums, the preparation and testing of advertisements, distribution of art reproductions and musical recordings, book design and calligraphy, the Literary Guild and other book clubs, opposition of the book sellers, book manufacture, corporate structure of the company, problems of servicing subscribers, personnel and employee relations. Students of the literary scene in these years will find the Canby, Fadiman, Fisher, Highet, Loveman, Marquand, Scherman and Wood memoirs of particular interest. Participants and pagination: Henry Seidel Canby, 28; Harry Dale, 22; Clifton Fadiman, 45; Helen R. Feil, 16; Dorothy Canfield Fisher, 129; George Gallup, 32; Robert K. Haas, 31; Gilbert Highet, 18; Gordon Hyle, 24; Edwina Kohlman, 18; Amy Loveman, 17; Warren Lynch, 28; John Marquand, 30; Oscar Ogg, 35; Axel Rosin, 45; Maxwell Sackheim, 17; Harry Scherman, 367; Ralph Thompson, 28; Lester Troob, 26; Edith Walker, 40; Meredith Wood, 103.
