MASON (A.E.W.). The Dean’s Elbow. Hodder and Stoughton, London 1930. 8pp. integral advertisements at end; pp.312+[viii]; vertically light and dark streaked light grey-blue rough buckram, lettered black on front cover, gilt on spine. Slight fading to cloth of spine; single light fox-spot on top-edges and extreme top margin of first four leaves; otherwise a fine copy in a very slightly frayed pictorial dust-wrapper strengthened almost invisibly with archival tape. In our experience, a scarce title.

GB £90.00

US $147.60

Not in Hubin, who may have been misled by the title. It is a detective novel involving industrial espionage, embedded within a ‘straight’ novel the interrelations of the characters of which contribute to its emotional depth. Written at what was evidently an important moment in the development of Western economics, it also includes some interesting sociological analyses: “‘The little independent men have built up England,’” one of the threatened small businessmen remarks (pp.207-8), “‘The foreman who has the courage and brains and character to become a master, and when he’s a master to work till one o’clock in the morning, when his comrade stops virtuously at six in the evening. Yes, those are the fellows. They’re the heart and the strength of England. But they’re done for. . . . There’s not a politician in any party who’ll cast a vote or make a speech to keep the little independent man alive and kicking. . . . We are governed not by men, but by phrases and gestures and slogans. ‘Big Business’ is one of them. Big business means that no man shall work later or harder or better than his neighbour. So the little man can’t get through. Conservatives say it, Liberals say it, Labour men say it. . . . He must stop work at six and remain a man on a wage, somebody’s servant always and never his own master. He has got his recreation ground to make up for his servitude.’” And one of the workmen says (p.161): “‘I never saw a piece of new machinery which didn’t make the workman’s job just a tiny bit more soulless than it was before. You watch, watch, watch, watch, watch and then you touch a little lever. Then you watch, watch, watch, watch, watch and touch the little lever again. And you do it twice a minute for eight hours a day for forty-five years. . . .’” Meantime, the large capitalist is making life better for everybody by giving them more affordable luxuries. . . In this copy the following errata and typographical flaws have been noted (state or issue significance, if any, undetermined): p.44, l.18, battered ‘a’ in ‘as’; p.68, l.15, risen space after ‘at’; p.96, l.25, wrong fount ‘a’ in ‘all’; p.128, l.19, ‘a’ of ‘was’ and l.23 ‘g’ of ‘light’ broken’; p.134, l.10, enlarged comma after ‘windows’; p.147, l.12, risen space before ‘of’; p.157, last line, first ‘t’ of ‘interrupt’ printed faintly; p.193, l.22, risen space after ‘all’; p.194, l.29, risen space after ‘lustrum’; p.198, l.14, ‘p’ of ‘poignant’ battered; p.201, l.4, ‘k’ of ‘Derek’ broken; p.207, l.14, ‘your’ for ‘you’; p.227, l.19, ‘impressive’ for ‘inexpressive’; p.231, penultimate line, risen space after ‘not’; p.253, l.6, ‘ou’ of ‘moustache’ printed too heavily; p.255, l.30, risen space after ‘opened’; p.286, l.1, enlarged full-stop at end of line; p.307, last line, risen space after ‘it’.
Ref: KRT817856