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 Fanatic's Fare for the Common Man 
  
 Certainty level: 90% 
  
 The article reproduced below was penned by Bernard Levin 
 for the Features section of the Times on 21 September 1991. To my mind, it 
 described the situation at the time and in particular a recent meeting with 
 a friend, during which I for the first time admitted to someone other than 
 my GP that I had been subjected to a conspiracy of harassment over the 
 previous year and a half. 
  
 There is a madman running loose about London, called David Campbell; I have 
 no reason to believe that he is violent, but he should certainly be 
 approached with caution. You may know him by the curious glitter in his 
 eyes and a persistent trembling of his hands; if that does not suffice, you 
 will find him attempting to thrust no fewer than 48 books into your arms, 
 all hardbacks, with a promise that, if you should return to the same 
 meeting-place next year, he will heave another 80 at you. 
  
 If, by now, the police have arrived and are keeping a close watch on him, 
 you may feel sufficiently emboldened to examine the books. The jackets are 
 a model of uncluttered typography, elegantly and simply laid out; there is 
 an unobtrusive colophon of a rising sun, probably not picked at random. 
 Gaining confidence - the lunatic is smiling by now, and the policemen, who 
 know about such things, have significantly removed their helmets - you 
 could do worse than take the jacket off the first book in the pile. The 
 only word possible to describe the binding is sumptuous; real cloth in a 
 glorious shade of dark green, with the title and author in black and gold 
 on the spine. 
  
 Look at it more closely; your eyes do not deceive you - it truly does have 
 real top-bands and tail-bands, in yellow, and, for good measure, a silk 
 marker ribbon in a lighter green. The paper is cream-wove and acid-free, 
 and the book is sewn, not glued. 
  
 Throughout the encounter, I should have mentioned, our loony has been 
 chattering away, although what he is trying to say is almost impossible to 
 understand; after a time, however, he becomes sufficiently coherent to make 
 clear that he is trying to sell the books to you. Well, now, such quality 
 in bookmaking today can only be for collectors' limited editions at a 
 fearsome price - €30, €40, €50? 
  
 No, no, he says, the glitter more powerful than ever and the trembling of 
 his hands rapidly spreading throughout his entire body; no, no - the books 
 are priced variously at €7, €8 or €9, with the top price €12. 
  
 At this, the policemen understandably put their helmets back on; one of 
 them draws his truncheon and the other can be heard summoning 
 reinforcements on his walkie-talkie. The madman bursts into tears, and 
 swears it is all true. 
  
 And it is. 
  
 David Campbell has acquired the entire rights to the whole of the 
 Everyman's Library, which died a lingering and shameful death a decade or 
 so ago, and he proposes to start it all over again - 48 volumes this 
 September and 80 more next year, in editions I have described, at the 
 prices specified. He proposes to launch his amazing venture simultaneously 
 in Britain and the United States, with the massive firepower of Random 
 Century at his back in this country, and the dashing cavalry of Knopf 
 across the water, and no one who loves literature and courage will forbear 
 to cheer. 
  
 At the time this article was written I had believed for some time that 
 columnists in the Times and other journalists had been making references to 
 my situation. Nothing unusual about this you may think, plenty of people 
 have the same sort of ideas and obviously the papers aren't writing about 
 them, so why should my beliefs not be as false as those of others? 
  
 What makes this article so extraordinary is that three or four days 
 immediately preceding its publication, I had a meeting with a friend, 
 during the course of which we discussed the media persecution, and in 
 particular that by Times columnists. It seemed to me, reading the article 
 by Levin in Saturday€s paper, that he was describing in some detail his 
 "artist€s impression" of that meeting. Most telling are the final 
 sentences, when he writes, "The madman bursts into tears, and swears it is 
 all true. And it is." Although I did not "burst into tears" (he seems to be 
 using a bit of poetic licence and exaggerating) I did try hard to convince 
 my friend that it was all true; and I am able to concur with Mr Levin, 
 because, of course, it is. 
  
 At the beginning of the piece Levin reveals a fear of being attacked by the 
 "irrational" subject of his story, saying "I have no reason to believe that 
 he is violent, but he should certainly be approached with caution". This 
 goes back to the xenophobic propaganda of "defence" against a "threat" 
 which was seen at the very beginning of the harassment. The impression of a 
 "madman running loose" who needs to be controlled through an agency which 
 assigns to itself the mantle of the "police" is also one which had been 
 expressed elsewhere. 
  
 In the final paragraph of this extract, his reference to Everyman€s Library 
 as having "died a lingering and shameful death a decade or so ago" shows 
 clearly what sort of conclusion they wish to their campaign. They want a 
 permanent solution, and as they are prevented from achieving that solution 
 directly, they waste significant resources on methods which have been 
 repeatedly shown to be ineffective for such a purpose. 
  
 31633 
  
  
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