A deal The Times has brought off with the Daily
Mail a little surprises me. The two final volumes of that notable publica- tion The History of the Times are to be published on April 23rd. Review copies were sent out about a week ago, with stern injunctions, not merely slipped into each volume but pasted in, that no reference to the contents of the volumes be made till the prescribed date. That,. of course, is common practice. But on Tuesday of this week the Daily Mail suddenly announced that it had made arrangements to publish immedi- ately extracts from the vew volumes describing Lord North- cliffe's chequered association with The Times. This (if I am not transgressing the injunction in saying so much) is about the most interesting portion of the whole two volumes, and some- thing every reviewer would inevitably seize on. This is quite a different matter from serialisation of the volume well in advance of publication. To circulate review copies, forbid (properly enough) all reference to the book till publishing-day, and then give one paper the right to publish several instalments of the most interesting part of the volumes seems a regrettable arrangement.
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