Life — August 3, 1922 — page 3: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This page is primarily an **advertisement**, not editorial content or satire. It promotes a 30-volume Shakespeare collection sold by the Haldeman-Julius Company of Girard, Kansas. The ad emphasizes affordability ($2.35 for 30 volumes—"less than 8¢ a volume"), marketed toward busy professionals with limited reading time. The portrait shows Shakespeare himself. The copy includes testimonial language from the publisher, explaining the low price through economical production methods (small format, direct printing). A tear-out coupon at the bottom invites mail orders. The only potentially satirical element is the framing device—presenting Shakespeare as accessible to ordinary Americans through mass-market publishing—but this reflects genuine 1920s-era optimism about democratizing literature rather than mockery.