Regardless of how it began (which I can't offer any useful information on),
I seem to remember that British publishers were divided between top to
bottom and bottom to top until the late 1960s when they standardized on
their present top to bottom. [I actually lived through this!, I was
working in the Library Order Department at the time, so we noticed]. There
was probably an industry working party which drew up a standard -- in fact,
I seem to remember seeing something in "The Bookseller" about such a
Standard at some stage in the early 1970s.
I know that I can date many of the paperbacks I inherited from my father by
the direction of the title -- and I seem to remember him complaining at
some time in the 1960s about the publishers' inconsistencies (which is why
I noticed the standardization when it came in).
Kathleen Coleridge
Kathleen A. Coleridge
Special Materials Librarian
University Library
Victoria University of Wellington
P.O. Box 3438 Telephone: +64-4-463 5681
Wellington Facsimile: +64-4-471 2070
New Zealand E-mail: Kathleen.Coleridge@vuw.ac.nz