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best-seller. Instead of selling no copies at all, we rushed a big new edition back to press. Of course, we played the incident up for all it was worth. It was another vindication of my theory that all that these obsessed, self-appointed bluenoses do is to make the very books they're trying to suppress nation-wide best-sellers.

Also in 1947, to show how editors can do things on the side if they want to, Lynscott and Commins, our two big editors, did a four-volume set called The World's Great Thinkers, which is still selling well today. I guess that the Book-of- the-Month Club by this time has used a half million of these sets. It's one of their most popular premiums.

Have you, as a publishing firm, ever done anything as far as conflict of interests? Where would this come in? Would they get a certain portion of the money?

They got a standard royalty. Whenever one of our editors came in with a feasible idea and we acted upon it. he got a fair share of the take. Everybody gained handsomely thereby.

Let's finish up with 1948, which was another big year for us. The Young Lions was our leader and Sig Spaeth did A History of Popular Music in America for us. It has been a standard ever since. Henry Commager, the Columbia professor, edited the St. Nicholas Anthology for us--another outstanding success. I love it because, as a kid, I had read St. Nick.