Aubrey's brief life
Sir: Mr Auberon Waugh reveals, in his otherwise kind review of Stanley Weintraub's Beardsley (27 1 October), a woeful ignorance of publishing economics. A selling price of 35s for a biography of 320 pages, which includes sixteen pages of pictures, and a frontispiece and an index, is actually well below the present-day average. Had this book not been co-produced with an American publisher—and incidentally the paper is far from cheap—we should probably have had to charge not less than 42s.
At least it is a comfort to know that Mr Waugh likes the book's `agreeable smell. compounded of flour paste and margarine'—but, as far as book production is concerned, he does not know Stork from butter.
C. M. Goulden Production Manager W. H. Allen and Co. 43 Essex Street, London WC2
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