Books: Philadelphia Renaissance

Philadelphia, birthplace of U.S. book publishing, took another whack at Manhattan's near-monopoly last fortnight. The sturdy old Philadelphia firm of J. B. Lippincott, climaxing four years of expansion, bought control of the old Manhattan firm of Frederick A. Stokes. Like many another U.S. book publisher, both Lippincott and Stokes have remained one-family institutions. But Lippincott, aged 149 this year, has kept greener than Stokes.

Four generations and seven individual Lippincotts have kept the Lippincott house in order. Its current president, tall, foxhunting, 54-year-old Joseph Wharton Lippincott, got off to a slow start. But...