Friday, October 11, 2013

A pox upon Thomson West

The publishing standards of the legal-book industry are a shambles. First of all, what sort of title is "Prosser, Wade and Schwartz's Torts"? And is it Prosser, Wade and Schwartz's Torts: Cases and Materials (as the cover suggests) or Cases and Materials: Prosser, Wade and Schwartz's Torts (as the title page suggests)? Or is it merely Torts: Cases and Materials (or perhaps Cases and Materials: Torts), with the names being merely decoration? And why is there no bastard title page?

You publish only a very few types of books. Do better. (We won't even mention the absurdities perpetrated in multi-volume updated works like Wright & Miller.)