How to Run a Bassoon Factory by Mark Spade (Nigel Balchin) first edition 1935

SPADE, Mark (BALCHIN, Nigel) - How to Run a Bassoon Factory or Business Explained
 
London: Hamish Hamilton (1934)
 
8vo; In blue boards with white letting to the front and on the spine, with the original pale blue dust wrapper with lettering and illustration in black, correctly priced on the spine 3/6 net; pp. [ii], [8], 118, [ii]; The boards are in excellent condition, there is browning to the first and last couple of pages, the lower pastedown has a small times book club sticker, and there is a date stamp on the rear preliminary page, there is a small chip to one of the illustrations opposite p18, the dust wrapper has a toned spine and some loss of about 2cm to the top of the spine, the bottom of the spine has some chipping as well, there is a small tear to the upper edge of the front panel; overall this is a very good copy. 
 
Mark Spade is a pen name for writer Nigel Balchin, and he used it in his early writing endeavours for Punch Magazine. Under his pseudonym he provided Punch with several satirical articles about how to run a business, that are collected here under the title ‘Hoe to Run a Bassoon Factory”. It is Balchin’s first published book, along with the novel he wrote in his own name: ‘No Sky’. It is not clear which of the two was published first in 1934.
 
The book is profusely accompanied by some great illustrations. Balchin covers such topics as time and motion studies, welfare, market research and the psychology of the worker. The book and the other two titles published under Balchin’s alter ego are both difficult to find now, and particularly so, as is the case with this copy, retaining the original dust wrapper.