ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the importance of quality design and production to the bookwomen’s conceptualisation of what made a ‘good book’. The quality of the paper, binding, illustrations and print was just as important, in their view, as the content of the book itself. This imperative needed to be balanced, however, with the commercial implications of producing books at a price that would be acceptable to buyers. The chapter uses the example of Eleanor Graham’s editorship of Puffin Story Books to illustrate the bookwomen’s holistic approach to children’s publishing, their close involvement with all aspects of the production process and the way in which they worked with illustrators and printers to achieve the results they wanted.
