Conclusion

Summary

The three-and-six-penny libraries and other quality reprint series reached their peak in the mid-1930s. By 1934, the Travellers’ Library had more than 200 titles on its list. The Phoenix Library included desirable books such as Brave New World (the fourteenth title by Aldous Huxley in this series). Albatross had energised a continental market long dominated by Tauchnitz. But after the rise came the fall. First, there was the growing competition of the Penguin paperbacks, launched in 1935. Then, the Second World War created major disruptions. Not only was it was difficult to obtain paper to print books, it also became impossible to distribute Anglophone texts on the Continent (including in German-occupied France). Albatross was forced to close its office in Paris. Successful series simply disappeared from circulation: Albatross, but also Tauchnitz, the Travellers’ Library and the Phoenix Library. Series with a more modest scope – such as the two-shilling Dolphin Books, published by Chatto & Windus – were also discontinued.

For a brief moment after the war, publishers tried to revive their old collections. Albatross and Tauchnitz resumed production, but it soon became clear that both enterprises were in serious trouble. As Alistair McCleery points out, ‘the Tauchnitz name and any residual rights were sold off in July 1950’ and ‘nothing much more was ever published under the Tauchnitz imprint’. Albatross did not survive much longer, due to mismanagement and difficulties brought by the war (including the loss of many contracts). Moreover, in a context of intense competition in the reprint market, British publishers increasingly refused to sell rights for continental editions. In a letter to Arnoldo Mondadori (the printer of Albatross titles), Harold Raymond of Chatto & Windus wrote:

What I might call the Heinemann, Cape or Chatto type of author, is generally translated into several European languages and has considerable sale in the European capitals, and a cheap edition of an author's work appearing on the Continent a year or so before the issue of the first clothbound reprint of a book naturally had a severe effect on its sales.

In 1950, Chatto & Windus decided to launch the New Phoenix Library – and Jonathan Cape did the same thing with the New Travellers’ Library. Both were commercial failures.