Nothing books
Sir: Bookend's note on Nothing Books (March 22) calls to mind an earlier example. In 1923 Kegan Paul published The Meaning of Meaning by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards. When Ogden died (1957), a binding was found among his 100,000 volumes. On its spine the 'title of the book was stamped in gold cursive lettering and all its pages were blank save only the middle page, on which Ogden's favourite couplet was pencilled in script: Consider the mountain top, It neither hums nor spins.
Those familiar with Ogden's brand of humour may suspect one of two things about this binding as a 'nothing book' of his joint effort with Richards: it was either the indulgence of a whim at the time of publication or a blow struck twenty years after at his co-author whom he had then bitterly condemned for a reason unknown except to his two closest friends still, happily, with us and, happily, still close friends.
Mark Haymon The Athenaeum, Pall Mall, London SW I
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