Herbert Marshall McLuhan, The Mechanical Bride
New York: The Vanguard Press, 1951 (1st ed), 1967 (2nd ed)
“When I first designed this book McLuhan was just another Vanguard author, and I only tried to give the disparate material at hand — the snatches of text of very variable lengths, the ads torn from papers & magazines, the comic strips, and particularly the teasers of questions, an appropriate form. The problem, as I saw it, was two-fold: give the provocative questions, which appear to be the heart of the book, great prominence, which they would not have as customary subheads below the titles; and then, not to lose too much space. The solution, to me at least, seems fresh, graphically attractive, and intelligent. The book did not sell well; McLuhan bought up all remainders; his reputation grew with his subsequent publications, he dropped the ‘Herbert’ from his name, and I re-designed, therefore, the title page of the second edition.
“His later books are very self-consciously designed: this one turned provocative just by its substance, properly handled.”
