 Zwemmer insisted that his books' scholarly content was matched by the "highest standards of typography, illustration, printing and binding" and by careful editing, all of which he closely supervised.Since publishing specialist books of such quality would rarely generate sufficient sales to cover costs, Desmond, his brother John and their father agreed that profits from the retail section of the business would be used to subsidise the publishing section.In 1976 the firm acquired Lund Humphries, another art books publisher with whom A. Zwemmer Ltd. had long been associated.