The pieces he submitted to Bird were at first untitled (Pound called the submission "Blank"); later the title "in our time" – from the "Book of Common Prayer" – was chosen. Bird printed the volume on a hand-press with handmade paper, telling Hemingway, "I'm going to pull something really fancy with your book". The book contained eighteen vignettes and only thirty-one pages; each one was laid out with plenty of white space, highlighting the brevity of the prose. According to Cohen, the "visual suddenness intensifies its narrative abruptness, heightens the shock of violence, and the chillingly matter-of-fact tone". The book's presentation was intended as unconventional, with its use of lowercase throughout and lack of quotation marks. When challenged by American editors over the use of lowercase in the titles, Hemingway admitted that it could be seen as "silly and affected".