Review of ' Best wit of the English people: proverbs of England’.
CITATION: Anon (1922?). Proverbs of England (Little Blue Book # 113 (People’s Pocket Series)). Girard, Kansas: Appeal to Reason
REVIEWER: Dr William P. Palmer
A surprising feature of the whole Haldeman-Julius Little Blue Books series is the large number of the early books entitled ‘Proverbs of?’, ‘Aphorisms of?’ or ‘Epigrams of?’. These books are not really suitable for continuous reading, yet they must have sold well over a thirty-year lifespan as books that did not sell well were discontinued. Nine books with the title of ‘Proverbs of?’ were published together in 1922 at twenty-five cents each (or $1.50 for the set); the countries providing the proverbs are said to be, England, France, China, Spain, Italy, Russia, Japan, Ireland and Arabia. Their popularity remains a mystery. A quotation from ‘The first hundred million’ gives Haldeman-Julius’s view of the series.
‘At the end of 1927 I find that the series of proverb collections in the Little Blue Books, as series, is a failure. At first there were only nine of these books - Chinese Proverbs, Irish Proverbs, Russian Proverbs, and so forth. People were much interested in the early days - these collections have always been a unique feature of the University in Print, embodying, as they do, the crystallized wisdom of various races and nations. But as a wider range of popular books was offered, interest in this form of reading dwindled, until now only three or four of these books are successful - notably the Proverbs of China and those of Ireland. The others - there are nineteen books of proverbs in all as I write, and I may retain half a dozen - are slated for The Morgue. They have to go. Even pointing out, by the catalogue listing, that these proverbs are the best wit and wisdom of large groups of humanity has done no good. In general, it has been shown that readers are not interested in such collections.’
Nonetheless, the series probably profitable as the content used a source out of copyright which he would have been free to publish.
Reading through ‘Proverbs of England’, most are not familiar to me and several are incomprehensible. On p. 30 three proverbs will be quoted to give the feel of them. There are about nine proverbs per page and forty–three pages of proverbs. This does not appear to me to be fascinating reading material.
(1) A man’s folly ought to be his greatest secret.
(2) Favours unused are favours abused.
(3) Every dog is brave before his own door.
In 1927, the title of ‘Proverbs of England’ was changed to 'Best wit of the English people: proverbs of England' now credited to D. C. Trent as author and to E. Haldeman-Julius as editor but it retained its number of Little Blue Book # 113 and stayed in publication until the 1960s.
BILL PALMER
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