The Long Short Cut

The Long Short Cut is a 192-page novel by English author Paul Winterton using the pseudonym Andrew Garve. It was published by Harper and Row in April 1968. It was the first book printed completely by electronically controlled typesetting (also known aa electronic composition).

Plot
Anthony Bliss and his glamorous collaborator Corinne Lake use a chance event to develop a money-making scheme. They happen to be at a nightclub on the night when the owner is wounded in a drive-by shooting. Called to give evidence which will convict a notorious gangster, Bliss pretends to be frightened of the gangster’s associates, and agrees to testify only on condition he is given police protection and help in emigrating after the trial. Actually, he has worked out a plan to use the police protection as a means of helping a crooked financier to jump bail and get out of the country, and expects to be well paid for it. The bulk of the book consists of the detail of the plot, which includes an account of how to obtain a genuine British passport in a fictitious name, anticipating by three years the similar and more famous account given by Frederick Forsyth in The Day of the Jackal (1971). Naturally the plot does not go smoothly, and the author delivers a very sharp last-page shock.

Technology
The publisher notes on the last page that this book was the first book printed involving the technology of electronic type composed by an electron beam. The beam printed pages with speeds up to 600 characters per second using a special computer system designed for the purpose. The text was 10 point in size and put together in the form of a full page displayed on a high resolution cathode ray tube. Haddon Craftsmen had the electronic equipment to produce the book.

The book producer could make changes and corrections more quickly using electronics than using the traditional method of normal composition. Before this electronic method the fastest composition was about ten characters per second. The new electronic composition was 60 times faster. Using the old method of the linotype machine, the cost of producing the book would be about four dollars at the time. The increased speed of the new electronic method brought down the cost considerably and was an economic advantage to the book publisher. Within a decade the new electronic computer method of printing would be commonplace.