Just a while before the time when certain people got the ambition to own a tea shop in Greenwich Village, the very same people thought it the aim of their lives to be the proprietors of book shops in the vicinity of Washington Square. Still more ambitious were they. They wanted to print their own books. The Boni Brothers (now Boni and Liveright) started their Glebe magazine there, and published pretty little books by all sorts of authors; Kreymborg here printed his booklets; and many others, whose fame was too short lived to be recorded, half a dozen of them. One sold out to the other and finally Egmont Arens purchased whatever there was left from pretty Renee LaCoste. His became _the_ bookshop of the neighborhood. Arens is a born publisher, a litterateur, himself, a connoisseur of good books, and an excellent business man, to boot. So he became the first successful business man in Greenwich Village. His shop is crowded with intellectuals from the whole town. He invites geniuses as well as buyers of books. His series of plays--there are seven of them published to date--are the first plays of men who are making their way in the great theatrical world, and who gave life for a time to the Little Theatre movement in New York. Arens is a good business man, as I said before, and so he recently purchased a printing plant and is printing his own books. His Whitman book is the best on the market, and his next publication shows his daring spirit. To publish a verbatim translation of Arthur Schnitzler’s famous “Reigen,” is surely a courageous undertaking in our times of Comstockery, Sumnerism and superprudery. These ten dialogues caused a considerable stir throughout the civilized world. They were translated into every language, including Japanese, but excluding English. No English or American publisher cared to give these exquisite silhouettes of real life to the reading public. Some months ago a young writer who is known for his imbroglios with the vice censor (from which he invariably emerged as victor) gave a private reading of the plays before an invited audience. Arens was there and at once decided to undertake the publication. “The publisher ought to be a book seller and should spend most of his time in his book shop. That is the only way to feel the pulse of the reading public,” is Mr. Arens’ motto. It isn’t a bad maxim for a modern American publisher. A German Bookseller High upon Lexington Avenue, near Fifty-seventh street, is the book shop of Mr. E. Weyhe. His specialties are books on art, rare prints, etchings and books on laces.