18 JANUARY 1930, Page 22

In a recent number of The Publisher and Bookseller, a

table was published classifying and enumerating the books published in the United Kingdom during the year 1929. It is surprising but none the less true that there were one thousand and sixty nine fewer books published in 1929 than in 1928. The number of novels published in 1929 has increased, and the number of biographies has decreased compared with the 1928 figures. It is useless, however, to try to make any deductions from a comparison of these two tables. We can only hope, fervently, that the fact that fewer books have been published this year means that the general standard of books has risen.