condescension

“Gertrude Stein proved in her Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas that, when she want to, she can write straightforward English that any average high-school student can understand. Wars I Have Seen, with a few very minor aberrations, is another such book. The first half, in fact, which conveys an impression that the author was more concerned with foraging food for her dogs than with the fate of democracy, struck this publisher as all too comprehensible.”

(Bennett Cerf, front jacket copy for Random House’s 1945 edition of Wars I Have Seen.)

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