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You know the limited edition ramp. If you write very obscure verse (and why shouldn't you, pray?) for which there is little or no market, you pretend there is an enormous demand, and that the stuff has to be rationed. Only 300 copies will be printed, you say, and then the type will be broken up forever. Let the connoisseurs and bibliophiles savage each other for the honor of snatching a copy. Positively no reprint. Reproduction in whole or in part forbidden. 300 copes of which this is Number 4,312. Hand-monkeyed oklamon paper, indigo boards in inter-pulped squirrel-toe, not to mention twelve point Campile Perpetua cast specially for the occasion. Complete, unabridged, and positively unexpurgated. Thirty-five bob a knock and a gory livid bleeding bargain at the price.
Well, I have decided to carry this thing a bit further. I beg to announce respectfully my coming volume of verse entitled 'Scorn for Taurus.' We have decided to do it in eight point Caslon on turkey-shutter paper with covers in purple corduroy. But look out for the catch. When the type has been set up, it will instantly be destroyed, and NO COPY WHATSOEVER WILL BE PRINTED. In no circumstances will the company's servants be permitted to carry away even a rough printer's proof. The edition will be so utterly limited that a thousand pounds will not even buy one copy. This is my idea of being exclusive.
The charge will be 5 shillings. Please do not make an exhibition of yourself by asking me what you get for your money. You get nothing you can see or feel, not even a receipt. But you do yourself the honor of participating in one of the most far-reaching literary experiments ever carried out in my literary workshop.
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