Best broadcasts of 1938-39 (1939)

Preface SLSLaSJLSLSLSLSLSiSLSLaJiSLSLSL&JLSLiL^^ IT IS indeed ironical that fifteen years of scheduled broadcasting have left so little behind them in the way of permanent record. The first dignified and respectable anthology of radio material appeared only a few months ago. It was a collection of fourteen dramas produced by the Columbia Workshop, selected and edited for publication by Douglas Coulter, Associate Director of Broadcasts of the Columbia Broadcasting System. This book was carefully prepared, and it truthfully represents the best efforts of one of America’s outstanding radio institutions. It is distinguished also for its unusual readability and great variety of mood, and it is not likely to be surpassed in its special class for many years. The book is concerned with the presentation of dramatic material only. In compiling the Best Broadcasts of 1938-39, it has been my intention to offer to the public for the first time a collection of superior programs representing all the major subdivisions in which the written word and the spoken word express themselves over the air. It will perhaps be charged that the classifications into which this volume falls are arbitrarily arrived at. This is partly true. The circumstance springs from the inescapable fact that what I consider to be the significant piece and the significant department might be considered by some other critic to be without significance. In this regard the book will have to speak for itself. Beyond saying that I believe this effort to be a true cross section of radio enterprise as we know it today, I shall bring no other defense to the selections that make it up. The preparation of this work was a matter of sixteen months of reading. It was, of course, impossible to read or to hear every show originating in this country during the period covered by the book, but over six thousand individual properties were examined. Thirty-two have been reprinted. The experience was a considerable chore because V