The most anarchist of anarchist book outfits
February 23, 2020 8:57 AM Subscribe
For Contingent Magazie, Karin Falcone Krieger tells the story of Dover Books, which democratized knowledge, revived paper dolls, and helped create the trade paperback.
The company was sold in 2000, after the death of co-founder Hayward Cirker. It currently faces an uncertain future, having been acquired by a multinational commercial printing company that recently laid off half of Dover's 50-person staff and apparently intends for the imprint to focus on publishing adult coloring books.
The company was sold in 2000, after the death of co-founder Hayward Cirker. It currently faces an uncertain future, having been acquired by a multinational commercial printing company that recently laid off half of Dover's 50-person staff and apparently intends for the imprint to focus on publishing adult coloring books.
The initial link seems to be wrong, can mods correct?
posted by q*ben at 9:05 AM on February 23, 2020
posted by q*ben at 9:05 AM on February 23, 2020
correct link https://contingentmagazine.org/2020/02/23/this-is-a-permanent-book/
posted by bitslayer at 9:11 AM on February 23, 2020
posted by bitslayer at 9:11 AM on February 23, 2020
I rarely think of publishers when I think about books. I have thousands of books. Except for Dover. I grew up with Dover books. This news is tragic, to say the least. Classic books in quality editions. Math books. Tons of math books. A huge variety of subjects. THEIR PICTORIAL ARCHIVE SERIES!! A repository of classic illustrations available nowhere else. The f-ing shortsidedness of capital makes me sick. Well, now my Sunday is ruined...
posted by njohnson23 at 9:14 AM on February 23, 2020 [17 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 9:14 AM on February 23, 2020 [17 favorites]
I love Dover Books.
How much do I love them? When I got married, every single person at the reception got a personalized Dover Book at their seat.
I used to go to the old bookstore on Varick (?) Street in NYC, which looked like a middle school library from the 70s-- rows and rows of light green metal shelves with everything they published. It was housed in a random office building-- just the kind of hidden mystery that I had dreamed NYC would be like when I was a kid. By the time we got married it had closed and we headed to the shop on Long Island.
This news of layoffs and shutdown is heartbreaking. I hope a new generation of bibliophiles will give it a go.
posted by gwint at 9:27 AM on February 23, 2020 [24 favorites]
How much do I love them? When I got married, every single person at the reception got a personalized Dover Book at their seat.
I used to go to the old bookstore on Varick (?) Street in NYC, which looked like a middle school library from the 70s-- rows and rows of light green metal shelves with everything they published. It was housed in a random office building-- just the kind of hidden mystery that I had dreamed NYC would be like when I was a kid. By the time we got married it had closed and we headed to the shop on Long Island.
This news of layoffs and shutdown is heartbreaking. I hope a new generation of bibliophiles will give it a go.
posted by gwint at 9:27 AM on February 23, 2020 [24 favorites]
this is awful news
posted by thelonius at 9:35 AM on February 23, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 9:35 AM on February 23, 2020 [6 favorites]
Thanks for fixing the link!
For what it's worth, I don't think it's clear what's going to happen to the back catalog. It could be that they're going to acquire adult coloring books from here on out, but they'll still continue to publish some (or all) of the gloriously eclectic stuff that they currently have. It's still terrible news, but don't grieve quite yet.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:40 AM on February 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
For what it's worth, I don't think it's clear what's going to happen to the back catalog. It could be that they're going to acquire adult coloring books from here on out, but they'll still continue to publish some (or all) of the gloriously eclectic stuff that they currently have. It's still terrible news, but don't grieve quite yet.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:40 AM on February 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
We also provided thematically-appropriate Dover Press titles as wedding favors. (How did you get them personalized?)
Their budget classics have been such a boon to bibliophiles on a budget. Before Project Gutenberg, they helped put the public in public domain.
posted by cheshyre at 9:41 AM on February 23, 2020 [9 favorites]
Their budget classics have been such a boon to bibliophiles on a budget. Before Project Gutenberg, they helped put the public in public domain.
posted by cheshyre at 9:41 AM on February 23, 2020 [9 favorites]
There was a Dover bookshop in London too, on Earlham Street back when that was a collection of funky emporiums and boutiques selling games, button badges, rave fashion and other things that wouldn't survive today's central-London rents. Dover was responsible for making some of the early books on the history of games both findable and affordable, and for that I am still grateful.
posted by Hogshead at 9:42 AM on February 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Hogshead at 9:42 AM on February 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
Their printing plant was right by my aunt & uncle's house in Mineola on Long Island. I thought it was SO COOL that an actual book printing press was within walking distance of their home.
posted by KingEdRa at 9:45 AM on February 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by KingEdRa at 9:45 AM on February 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
Dover books were a huge part of my education, lots of math texts in upper undergrad and grad school were $8 classics! And the math depts were usually happy to assign them when they could, as a small way of fighting outrageous textbook prices.
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:54 AM on February 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:54 AM on February 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
Man, the two volumes on self-working card tricks are absolute gold... The Gilbraith Shuffle is my go to trick when introducing the Fourier transform on groups. :)
posted by kaibutsu at 9:58 AM on February 23, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by kaibutsu at 9:58 AM on February 23, 2020 [5 favorites]
We also provided thematically-appropriate Dover Press titles as wedding favors
Whoa!
How did you get them personalized?
We, uh, literally walked around the store with our guest list and looked for titles that would match the person. Like, oh, J is a chess player, let's get him Why You Lose at Chess, and M loves to garden, so definitely A Gardener's Handbook of Plant Names: Their Meanings and Origins, etc. We had like 80 guests, so, we were, yeah, there all day.
posted by gwint at 10:00 AM on February 23, 2020 [17 favorites]
Whoa!
How did you get them personalized?
We, uh, literally walked around the store with our guest list and looked for titles that would match the person. Like, oh, J is a chess player, let's get him Why You Lose at Chess, and M loves to garden, so definitely A Gardener's Handbook of Plant Names: Their Meanings and Origins, etc. We had like 80 guests, so, we were, yeah, there all day.
posted by gwint at 10:00 AM on February 23, 2020 [17 favorites]
When I got married, every single person at the reception got a personalized Dover Book at their seat.
I cannot convey how much I absolutely adore this idea! So much fun!
I used to love the Dover postcard books, and the clip-art books. I never bought any of the coloring books or paper dolls, but they were fun to browse.
posted by bookmammal at 10:45 AM on February 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
I cannot convey how much I absolutely adore this idea! So much fun!
I used to love the Dover postcard books, and the clip-art books. I never bought any of the coloring books or paper dolls, but they were fun to browse.
posted by bookmammal at 10:45 AM on February 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
I loved the cheap classics, but really loved the ghost story and horror collections! I first learned about M. R. James from these.
posted by acrasis at 11:05 AM on February 23, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by acrasis at 11:05 AM on February 23, 2020 [4 favorites]
I used to have a bookstore. If you were late on your payment to Dover Books, you got a letter that said (my best recollection)
A good collection letter should be short, courteous, and effective. We made it short. We intend it to be courteous. You can make it effective. and a copy of your recent account balance.
Their bookkeeping was clearly extremely simple, not highly computerized (30 years ago) and generally accurate. If you wrote them about an error (pre-e-mail), you got a prompt response. I genuinely enjoyed doing business with them because it was easy and straightforward and cordial. Most of the book business was way more civil than other businesses; but Dover was low-key and personal. I can't imagine how that works in the era of Peak Capitalism.
posted by theora55 at 11:45 AM on February 23, 2020 [20 favorites]
A good collection letter should be short, courteous, and effective. We made it short. We intend it to be courteous. You can make it effective. and a copy of your recent account balance.
Their bookkeeping was clearly extremely simple, not highly computerized (30 years ago) and generally accurate. If you wrote them about an error (pre-e-mail), you got a prompt response. I genuinely enjoyed doing business with them because it was easy and straightforward and cordial. Most of the book business was way more civil than other businesses; but Dover was low-key and personal. I can't imagine how that works in the era of Peak Capitalism.
posted by theora55 at 11:45 AM on February 23, 2020 [20 favorites]
The Dover Bookstore in London was a place of wonder (2011 NYTimes article). That shop closed early in the 2010s, and it had long been an anachronism.
posted by The River Ivel at 12:17 PM on February 23, 2020
posted by The River Ivel at 12:17 PM on February 23, 2020
Incredibly, this article doesn't seem to mention what must have been some of Dover's steadiest sellers - Emma Goldman's autobiography in two volumes and her other writings. There's probably not an American anarchist who lived before the era of ebooks who doesn't have the very idea of Emma Goldman bound up with the blue and the orange book and their old familiar typefaces. Probably hardly an American anarchist with books at all who doesn't have a Dover copy of something she wrote.
I volunteered at an activist bookstore for many years and those books were probably our most reliable sellers. I wouldn't be surprised if we sold more of them than anything else over the life of the store.
posted by Frowner at 12:34 PM on February 23, 2020 [6 favorites]
I volunteered at an activist bookstore for many years and those books were probably our most reliable sellers. I wouldn't be surprised if we sold more of them than anything else over the life of the store.
posted by Frowner at 12:34 PM on February 23, 2020 [6 favorites]
Most of my engineering and mathematics textbooks were from Dover. In the 1980s they were something like £5 each. So many great books went through their imprint: Lucas & Morrow's What a Life!, Ernst's Une semaine de bonté, books by Jarry, art textbooks — I've pretty much lived inside their (somewhat butchered) edition of Bourgoin's Arabic Geometrical Pattern & Design.
Of course, Internet Archive has lots of their books: Internet Archive Search: Dover Publications Inc, including quite a few Tom Tierney books. I always wanted their clipart CD box set (the one with all. of. the. clip. art) and their font CDs were always briefly diverting. Guess that's passed me by.
posted by scruss at 1:01 PM on February 23, 2020 [4 favorites]
Of course, Internet Archive has lots of their books: Internet Archive Search: Dover Publications Inc, including quite a few Tom Tierney books. I always wanted their clipart CD box set (the one with all. of. the. clip. art) and their font CDs were always briefly diverting. Guess that's passed me by.
posted by scruss at 1:01 PM on February 23, 2020 [4 favorites]
I introduced my kids to The Rocket Book just the other day! Man, I grew up on Dover.
posted by not_the_water at 3:24 PM on February 23, 2020
posted by not_the_water at 3:24 PM on February 23, 2020
My introduction to Dover was String Figures and How to Make Them.
posted by Rash at 4:28 PM on February 23, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Rash at 4:28 PM on February 23, 2020 [5 favorites]
It is so important that not only old and classic works be accessible in content, but that they be accessible in format as well. Dover excelled at this -- not only did they create access to otherwise unobtainable material, but they did it at an affordable price point, and in a format where you weren't afraid to access it. You could take your Dover edition on the bus, or to the beach, knowing that if it got wrecked, that would be no problem. That gilt-edged collected Shakespeare is never coming off the shelf, but that cheap Dover Malleus Maleficarum will get carried around everywhere and READ.
posted by Capt. Renault at 4:39 PM on February 23, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by Capt. Renault at 4:39 PM on February 23, 2020 [10 favorites]
as a college English instructor, i loved that they provided low cost, solidly printed and properly copy-edited versions of public domain texts. Even in this day and age of digital text, I still order optional print versions of Dover texts for those students who prefer a hardcopy text ( quite a few college students do want hardcopies of longer texts to mark up and such).
Their prices have steadily gone up the last few years, but we're talking $3 instead of $1, not the baseline $14.95 from a traditional publisher for anything used in a classroom.
To me, their last great gasp of greatness before being consumed by coloring books was when they started reprinting comics from the 80's that had been lost to time and indifference. Nice, chunky hardcovers with quality reproduction and a very good pricepoint. The former editor, Drew Ford, is still trying to do the same thing at his own It's Alive Press, but he's had to rely on Kickstarter funding and got sidetracked by his desire to reprint Sam Glanzman's out of print work while the royalties could help Glanzman and his widow.
posted by jkosmicki at 5:02 PM on February 23, 2020 [4 favorites]
Their prices have steadily gone up the last few years, but we're talking $3 instead of $1, not the baseline $14.95 from a traditional publisher for anything used in a classroom.
To me, their last great gasp of greatness before being consumed by coloring books was when they started reprinting comics from the 80's that had been lost to time and indifference. Nice, chunky hardcovers with quality reproduction and a very good pricepoint. The former editor, Drew Ford, is still trying to do the same thing at his own It's Alive Press, but he's had to rely on Kickstarter funding and got sidetracked by his desire to reprint Sam Glanzman's out of print work while the royalties could help Glanzman and his widow.
posted by jkosmicki at 5:02 PM on February 23, 2020 [4 favorites]
I’ll throw a bit of shade by mentioning that they may not have been a good publishing partner for living authors - for instance Robert Burnham's Celestial Handbook. From what I've read, he'd agreed on a percentage of every sale, not expecting that Dover would later slash the price of the book set. It was his life's work, he'd had some success self-publishing it before selling the rights and had a reasonable expectation that it would provide some income security in his retirement. He died broke and bitter.
posted by bonobothegreat at 5:35 PM on February 23, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by bonobothegreat at 5:35 PM on February 23, 2020 [5 favorites]
Dover clip art books were the source of inspiration for ads I did for our food co-op in the 1980s and early 90s. Their low price made them easy to acquire. When I cleaned out my office when I retired I had 4 feet of clip art books to move. I still see bits of clip art from those books used in all kinds of art. I used to be able to name the exact book they had come out of.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 6:51 PM on February 23, 2020
posted by a humble nudibranch at 6:51 PM on February 23, 2020
Dover math books are the best!! Here are some that are on my shelf:
Advanced Euclidean Geometry (I used this in my dissertation!)
College Geometry: An Introduction to the Modern Geometry of the Triangle and the Circle (I used this one too, for isogonal conjugates) -- Both of these are *hard*. If you really want to learn old school Euclidean geometry, these are both good.
A Catalog of Special Plane Curves
Combinatorial Geometry in the Plane (actually I have an earlier printing and it's awesome Dover has reprinted it)
Euclidean Geometry and Transformations
Geometry from Euclid to Knots
(I keep thinking maybe I should use this the next time I teach geometry)
Lectures in Projective Geometry (eBook) (I have an old version of this one too)
Regular Polytopes
Spherical Models
and the fabulous Tilings and Patterns: Second Edition
OK, I have more, but you're probably bored now.
posted by leahwrenn at 9:49 PM on February 23, 2020 [5 favorites]
Advanced Euclidean Geometry (I used this in my dissertation!)
College Geometry: An Introduction to the Modern Geometry of the Triangle and the Circle (I used this one too, for isogonal conjugates) -- Both of these are *hard*. If you really want to learn old school Euclidean geometry, these are both good.
A Catalog of Special Plane Curves
Combinatorial Geometry in the Plane (actually I have an earlier printing and it's awesome Dover has reprinted it)
Euclidean Geometry and Transformations
Geometry from Euclid to Knots
(I keep thinking maybe I should use this the next time I teach geometry)
Lectures in Projective Geometry (eBook) (I have an old version of this one too)
Regular Polytopes
Spherical Models
and the fabulous Tilings and Patterns: Second Edition
OK, I have more, but you're probably bored now.
posted by leahwrenn at 9:49 PM on February 23, 2020 [5 favorites]
I’ve loved Dover books from science fiction to philosophy to politics to science to chess to history. It’s a treat particularly when I find an old one with “This is a permanent book” on the back. Truly appreciated from a book lover.
posted by graymouser at 2:10 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by graymouser at 2:10 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
Classical musicians have much to thank Dover for - their reprints of public domain editions are very compatible with IMSLP's copyright requirements, and scans of them are among the most downloaded files for a lot of significant works.
The books themselves are often worth having, too, being generally more complete, less overedited, and much cheaper than modern editions.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 2:30 AM on February 24, 2020
The books themselves are often worth having, too, being generally more complete, less overedited, and much cheaper than modern editions.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 2:30 AM on February 24, 2020
This is tragic. Dover holds a special place in my heart next to only Hackett books. I guess everything ends and changes but In just don't see any reason for it.
posted by dis_integration at 5:26 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by dis_integration at 5:26 AM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
Dover technical books are such a great resource. I slept with Radiative Transfer under my pillow for most of graduate school, and I taught Fundamentals of Astrodynamics last year. My students were delighted with the $20 textbook!
posted by BrashTech at 9:17 AM on February 24, 2020
posted by BrashTech at 9:17 AM on February 24, 2020
When buying books over the counter in another life, I remember new book buyers occasionally being thrown by Dover's "thrift" imprints, which were public domain works printed on low-quality paper - they were an interesting contrast to the "Permanent" imprints, which had nice sewn signatures and acid-free paper.
posted by aspersioncast at 11:50 AM on February 24, 2020
posted by aspersioncast at 11:50 AM on February 24, 2020
Oh, Dover books. I have and have had so many.
I can remember buying philosophy and literature in high school. Getting a couple shipped to my university dorm room.
Later on, assigning them to students, as jkosmicki did. Last week I mentioned Dover in one of my intro to copyright lectures.
Oh, I will miss them.
posted by doctornemo at 12:53 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
I can remember buying philosophy and literature in high school. Getting a couple shipped to my university dorm room.
Later on, assigning them to students, as jkosmicki did. Last week I mentioned Dover in one of my intro to copyright lectures.
Oh, I will miss them.
posted by doctornemo at 12:53 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
I first learned about M. R. James from these.
They were how I read Arthur Machen for the first time. and Charles Fort!
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 1:41 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
They were how I read Arthur Machen for the first time. and Charles Fort!
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 1:41 PM on February 24, 2020 [1 favorite]
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posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:59 AM on February 23, 2020 [4 favorites]