W. W. Norton & Co. (New York, US)
Series dates: 1926-1929
Size: 4.25″ x 6.75″
W. Warder Norton and his wife Mary Dows Herter Norton began transcribing and printing Cooper Union lectures in 1923 (source). These were sold as the “Lectures-In-Print” series, which became the core of the People’s Institute Publications Co. The People’s Institute was Cooper Union’s adult education program. Success led to the establishment of W.W. Norton & Co. in 1925. The People’s Institute published titles until at least 1927, and a few of the original “Lectures-In-Print” were republished by Norton in subsequent years. W.W. Norton & Co’s first effort was the New Science Series with British series editor C.K. Ogden, and in cooperation with British and German publishers (some of the titles had been previously published in Europe). The series was intended to assist the lay-reader in grasping the frontiers of scientific knowledge. Priced at $1, the first titles were issued in 1926 and the last in 1929. The series was advertised through the 1940s, and a few reprints show up as late as the 1970s.
Jackets for the series are of a common design printed on heavy red paper. The spine contains the series name in addition to author, title, and publisher. The front of the jacket contains details about the book, with a text description. The front jacket flap lists 9 titles in the series. This copy of Culture: The Diffusion Controversy was first published in the series in 1927.
The back of the jacket contains a series of quotes from series reviews. The rear jacket flap contains a promotional blurb for the series and a coupon that can be sent in to receive announcements about the series.
The books are bound in blue cloth with red printed typography and the Norton colophon on the front of the book.
The half-title page:
A list of series titles (9 titles listed) faces the title page.
Titles in the series include:
Bronislaw Malinowski, Myth in Primitive Psychology (1926)
I.A. Richards, Science and Poetry (1926)
C. Judson Herrick, Fatalism or Freedom (1926)
C.J. Warden. A Short Outline of Comparative Psychology (1927)
E. Miller, Types of Mind and Body (1927)
Bronislaw Malinowski, The Father in Primitive Psychology (1927)
Vilhjalmur Stefansson, The Standardization of Error (1927)
P. Sargant Florence, Economics and Human Behaviour (1927)
Smith, Malinowski, Spinden & Goldenweiser, Culture: The Diffusion of Controversy (1927)
There were 12 additional titles published after the initial 9, for a total of 21 titles in the series.
William Morton Wheeler, Emergent Evolution and the Development of Societies (1928)
A.L. Rowse, Science and History (1928)
Joseph Needham, Man a Machine (1928)
Oliver Leslie Reiser, The Alchemy of Light and Color (1928)
Claude Claremont, Intelligence and Mental Growth (1928)
W.R. Bousfield, The Basis of Memory (1928)
John Watson, The Battle of Behaviorism (1929)
Thomas Hunt Morgan, What is Darwinism? (1929)
P. Sargant Florence, Sociology and Sin (1929)
H. Hatfield. The Conquest of Thought by Invention in the Mechanical State of the Future (1929)
Montgomery Evans II, Prodigal Sons; or, The Evolution of Caste (1929)
Harold Jeffreys, The Future of the Earth (1929)
The copyright page includes the date and an indication of printing in the U.S. “by the Van Rees Press.” The table of contents is on the facing page.
Another half-title page follows the table of contents.
The first page of text:
The last page of the book contains an advertisement for Psyche, a quarterly periodical of psychology. Norton would later issue Psyche Miniatures, a series of brief psychology titles.
