into type
in England for publication in both countries. For the purpose of
bringing the text of such books into line with the requirements of
English readers, it is the practice of the leading American publishers
to have one division of their composing-rooms allotted to typesetting by
the English standard, with the use by the proof-readers of an English
dictionary. It occasionally happens, however, that the attention of
these proof-readers to the task of securing an English text limits
itself to a few typical examples, such as spelling "colour" with a "u"
and seeing that "centre" does not appear as "center," while all that
constitutes the essence of American style, as compared with the English
style, is passed unmolested and without change.

Such a result is, doubtless, inevitable in the case of a work by an
American writer who has his own idea of literary expression and his own
standard of what constitutes literary style, but the resulting text not
infrequently gives ground for criticism on the part of English
reviewers, and for some feeling of annoyance on the part of cultivated
English readers.

In the case of books by English authors which are put into type in
American printing-offices, there is, of course, no question of
modification of style or of form of expression, but with these, as
stated, the proof-readers are not always successful in eliminating
entirely the American forms of spelling.

The English publisher, even though he give a personal reading to the
book in the form in which it finally leaves his hands, (and, in the
majority of cases, having read it once in manuscript, he declines to go
over the pages a second time, but contents himself with a cursory
investigation of the detail of "colour," of "centre,") is not
infrequently dissatisfied, but it is too late for any changes in the
text, and he can only let the volume go out. In the case of books
printed in England from plates made in America, there is nothing at all
to warn the reader; while in the case of books bound in England from
sheets actually printed in the United States, there is nothing which the
reader is likely to notice; and in nine cases out of ten the Englishman
is unconscious that he is reading anything but an English book. The
critic may understand, and the man who has lived long in the United
States and who can recognise the characteristics of American diction,
assuredly will understand, but these form, of course, a very small class