On Its Own

Halfway through the war a hopeful newcomer called Transatlantic appeared on British newsstands. The magazine's angel was brisk Allen Lane, well-to-do publisher of Penguin Books, who thought (quite correctly) that 50,000 Britons would gladly pay a shilling a month to get a good, candid look at their U.S. allies.

Chubby, brilliant Geoffrey Crowther, editor of the influential Economist, agreed to mind the war baby in his spare time. The U.S. Writers' War Board chipped in with some top U.S. bylines, writing for peanuts and patriotism.

Last week, after 28 months of this patronage, digest-size Transatlantic had to shift for itself. The British Publishers' Association promptly demanded that it surrender its entire wartime paper allotment, get in line with everyone else. Transatlantic announced a new editor, a bachelor Scot and prewar book publisher named Tom Smith Fairley.

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