Press: Digested Digest

In 1890 Dr. Isaac Kauffman Funk and Dr. Adam Willis Wagnalls founded a weekly magazine called Literary Digest. In 1891 Dr. Albert Shaw founded a monthly magazine called Review of Reviews. Last week there was a wedding of the products of these venerable oldsters when Literary Digest was purchased by Review of Reviews for a reported $200,000.

The new product, called The Digest, will appear on July 17 as a weekly.* Its publisher, Albert Shaw Jr., son of Founder Dr. Shaw, announced: “We propose to publish an interpretative digest of everything in print that is important—and to do it every week.” Dr. Shaw, now almost 80, who was away on vacation with his 26-year-old second wife, quickly returned to New York to take editorial charge of the new magazine. It will consist of three sections: a lead called “The Story of a Week,” a centre filled with picture layouts, a back-of-the-book dedicated to digesting magazine articles and books.

An initial print order of 600,000 is planned for the combined magazine. Before Literary Digest mispredicted a Landonslide last year it alone had 685,537 circulation. The Digest will accept liquor advertising, something which Literary Digest never did. The firm of Funk & Wagnalls will continue in the book and dictionary publishing business under the management of Robert J. Cuddihy & sons, who own 60% of its stock. President Wilfred John Funk, son of Founder Dr. Funk and 40% stockholder, is reported to have an idea for a new magazine up his sleeve.

*Another weekly got a new publisher last week when Malcolm Muir resigned as president of McGraw-Hill (Business Week, Engineering News-Record, Coal Age, Aviation) to take over the guidance of News-Week.