CHEESE-PARING
SIR,—Mr. Amis in his review of the late Norman Cameron's poems castigates us as publishers, saying that our 'way of cramming two unrelated poems on to a page is cheese-paring of the most miserable kind.' The Hogarth Press, in its forty years of exist- ence, has published more poetry and more unknown poets (some of whom have become famous) than most publishers. Owing to the fact that the British public does not buy poetry (unless the poet has become famous and/or dead), practically every book of poems published is published by the publisher at a loss. When I began as a publisher we used to lose on an average round about £.10 on a book of poems; today the loss will be ten, twenty or thirty times greater. We published Cameron solely because we thought he wrote good poems which should be made generally available again, but there are limits to the losses which a publisher can sustain, Under present circumstances the choice lies between not publishing a book of poetry like this of Cameron's or of printing two poems on a page. It is a little disheartening to be castigated in the Spectator for choosing the latter alternative.—Yours faithfully,
LEONARD WOOLF The Hogarth Press, 40-42 William IV Street, WC2
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