Book Reviews : Yesterday in Mexico: A Chronicle of the Revolution, 1919-1936. By JOHN W. F. DULLES. (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1961. Pp. xvi, 805. $8.50.)

• Author: Erwin Karner
• Date: 01 September 1961
• Published date: 01 September 1961
• DOI: 10.1177/106591296101400322
• Subject Matter: Articles

780
The general course of book production since 1800 parallels that of news,
papers and magazines. Good books continue to be published, and responsible
publishers do exist. But, says Dudek, they lose money. They publish good
books for whatever prestige it may bring to the firm.
Modern society, Dudek indicates, has, by its newspaper, completely ex-
pelled the book from the mental life of the people; and he calls on Spengler for
a particularly telling passage:
The book world, with its profusion of standpoints that compelled thought to select and
criticize, is now inhabited only by a few. Most read the one paper ... which forces itself through
the front doors daily, spellbinds the intellect from morning to night, drives the book into oblivion
by its more engaging layout, and if one or another specimen of a book does emerge into visibility,
forestalls and eliminates its possible effects by &dquo;reviewing it.&dquo;
In order to reveal the conditions of authorship at close hand during the
period of the mechanization of the mass media, Dudek studies three prominent
Victorians who wrote good books. Dickens, Thackeray and Carlyle, he suggests,
give us the chance to observe the relationship between creative talent and the
new economic and social pressures of printing.
Dickens was not only the most popular literary figure in his period but
also the best example of a man struggling with the key problem of writing
under modern conditions of publishing: the conflict between money and
creative, honest work. Thackeray is described as a &dquo;high-grade product of
the new literary economics.&dquo; He took up journalism seriously and graduated
into fiction of high order, as Vanity Fair well illustrates. After Vanity Fair, he
was the hard-driven professional writer, forced to produce beyond his real
capacity.
If anyone could withstand the tyranny of cash it would be Carlyle. And
of course he did. But in order to maintain his integrity he was willing to write
for the few. And he...