The Press: The First Reader

At Garden City, Long Island, was produced a book. It was the first book bred by the massive merger (TIME, Oct. 3, 1927) of Doubleday, Page & Co. and George H. Doran Co.; the first to bear their new stamp of Doubleday, Doran & Co. It was written by Booth Tarkington, the title Claire Ambler. It was bravely bound in special parchment paper; first sample of a luxurious edition published to signalize properly the inauguration of a vast new power in U. S. publishing.

Rose the question who should be the first reader of this memorable first book. The answer was: Amy Loveman.

Amy Loveman is Associate Editor of The Saturday Review of Literature, widely considered the foremost of its kind in the U. S. More than 20,000 constant readers depend on it to guide their tastes in books. Miss Loveman makes no speeches, marches in no parades, is seldom mentioned on the radio. She gets out The Saturday Review. Accurate, tireless, tactful, intelligent she is a serene, important, almost indispensable character in the book of literary life. In honor of good deeds done quietly she was given the first copy of Claire Ambler. Her book was autographed by F. N. Doubleday, George Doran, Booth Tarkington. Eminent speechmaking critics drew succeeding copies of the de luxe edition.