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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.   
      
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