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.

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