| 244 | https://historysoa.com/items/show/244 | The Author, Vol. 01 Issue 06 (October 1890) | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Author%3C%2Fem%3E%2C+Vol.+01+Issue+06+%28October+1890%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 01 Issue 06 (October 1890)</a> | | | <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031017927&view=1up&seq=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031017927</a> | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Publication">Publication</a> | 1890-10-15-The-Author-1-6 | | | | | 129–162 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1">1</a> | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1890-10-15">1890-10-15</a> | | | | | | | 6 | | | 18901015 | Vol. I.—No. 6.]<br />
OCTOBER 15, 1890.<br />
[Price, Sixpence.<br />
The Author.<br />
THE ORGAN OF THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS<br />
(INCORPORATED).<br />
CONDUCTED BY<br />
WALTER BESANT<br />
Published for iße Societê Be<br />
ALEXANDER P: WATT, 2, PATERNOSTER SQUÀRË;<br />
LONDON, E.C:<br />
1890.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 128 (#164) ############################################<br />
<br />
ii.<br />
ADVERTISEMENTS.<br />
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## p. 129 (#165) ############################################<br />
<br />
(The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly!)<br />
CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT.<br />
Vol. I.—No. 6.] OCTOBER 15, 1890. [Price Sixpence.<br />
C O N T<br />
PAGE<br />
News and Notes — 129<br />
"The Methods of Publishing." By S. Squire Sprigge 138<br />
"The Literary Handmaid of the Church." A Reply by the Author<br />
of the Pamphlet 139<br />
American Literature in America 148<br />
An Old Man s Rejoinder. By Walt Whitman 149<br />
Leaflet No. IV. Authors' Quarrels 151<br />
Examination in Vanity Fair 153<br />
A Model Agreement 153<br />
A Hard Case, No. V. Through a Literary Agent 154<br />
E N T S.<br />
PAGE<br />
International Copyright « *55<br />
"Sing a Song for Sixpence." By W. R. Colles »55<br />
Correspondence 156<br />
Queries 156<br />
Dreams and the Imagination *57<br />
"The Authors' Manual" 158<br />
At Work »58<br />
New Books and New Editions »59<br />
Advertisements 160<br />
NEWS AND NOTES.<br />
IT is very much to be regretted that the Inter-<br />
national Literary and Artistic Congress,<br />
which has been sitting from October 4th to<br />
October nth, should have been managed with so<br />
little consideration for its success. Nobody knew<br />
that it was going to be held; nobody knows, now,<br />
who invited the Congress to assemble in London.<br />
They have received the hospitality of the Lord<br />
Mayor, who has proved himself ever ready to<br />
welcome every kind of work and every good<br />
worker. But that is not enough. English authors<br />
have been conspicuous by their absence. How<br />
could they be expected to attend? They knew<br />
nothing about the Congress. The Society of<br />
Authors was not informed until a few days before<br />
the Congress met. Nor were they officially<br />
informed even then, but heard casually through<br />
the Mansion House. Two or three of the members,<br />
however, joined, at this last moment, the Reception<br />
Committee. But the Society was absolutely ignored<br />
by the managers of the Congress. As a natural<br />
result, not a single English author took part in the<br />
proceedings of the Congress. The proceedings will<br />
be briefly reported in the next number.<br />
—«<br />
At the Church Congress, which has just con-<br />
cluded, Archdeacon Farrar read a paper on the<br />
"Ethics of Commerce." He began by saying that<br />
he would purposely take only the most obvious<br />
and elementary side. This is well. Men require<br />
to have always kept before them the elementary<br />
side. The Decalogue is extremely elementary, yet<br />
it is found most useful to hang it up, written large,<br />
in every Church. "Human beings," he said, "do<br />
not constitute a mass of dead, impersonal force, to<br />
be treated only in accordance with the laws of<br />
supply and demand; every living soul has rights,<br />
indivisible, inalienable, eternal, which cannot be<br />
trampled and crushed into the mire as though<br />
political economy were some monstrous Juggernaut<br />
which must be dragged along in triumph . . . .<br />
As for the law of honesty . . . what are we<br />
to say ... of bargains made by skilled prey-<br />
ing on the ignorance or the necessities of others;<br />
. . . of betraying a confidence fraudulently<br />
gained by pretence of simplicity? . .' . I might<br />
expose the dishonourable customs which in many<br />
cases taint what should be, and often is, the eminently<br />
respectable trade of the publisher; I might speak<br />
of the sweating publishers who, without a blush,<br />
toss to the author perhaps a hundredth part of<br />
what, by bargains grossly inequitable, they have<br />
themselves obtained. . . . There are many<br />
reasons why the conscience of England should be<br />
awakened on this subject. In the words of a<br />
vol. 1.<br />
K<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 130 (#166) ############################################<br />
<br />
130<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
living historian, 'When men live only to make<br />
money, and the service of God is become a thing<br />
of words and ceremonies, and the Kingdom of<br />
Heaven is bought and sold, a fire bursts out in<br />
higher natures. Show me a people whose trade is<br />
dishonest, and I will show you a people whose<br />
trade is a sham.'"<br />
Dishonest trade may be the buying or selling of<br />
things adulterated, bad, not what they pretend to<br />
be; or it may be selling at such a price as to give<br />
an unjust profit to the seller, over and above what<br />
he has given to the producer. He then becomes a<br />
Sweater. Now there will be found on p. i 39, certain<br />
examples of profit made by the S.P.C.K., which do<br />
not, indeed, touch the hundredfold spoken of by<br />
the Archdeacon, but they are double, treble, ten-<br />
fold, and even twenty-fold! Other traders Sweat<br />
for their private gain. These traders sweat for the<br />
promotion of Christian Knowledge. Which is<br />
worse—the poor wretch who only degrades him-<br />
self, or he who traffics in the sacred name of<br />
religion?<br />
My answer to this "Memorandum" of the so-<br />
called Committee of Inquiry of the S.P.C.K. will<br />
be found on pp. 141-148.<br />
The Standard has recently published a long<br />
string of letters coricerning a so-called Society 6f<br />
Science, Letters, and Art. It is an interesting ex-<br />
posure of human folly and human cunning. This<br />
precious Society confers upon a member the privi-<br />
lege of calling himself a " Fellow," of wearing a gowrt<br />
and a hood, showing a diploma, and even wearing<br />
a badge, like an omnibus cad. As for any qualifi-<br />
cations necessary to secure these privileges, there<br />
appear to be none; and as for any joy to be got by<br />
wearing the badge of the Society, this writer cannot<br />
understand where it comes in. Certain school-<br />
masters, it is stated, find it to their advantage to<br />
call themselves F.S.Sc, and on prize-giving days to<br />
wear the hood, which appears to be a very splendid<br />
thing. The Society, however, holds examinations,<br />
Well, so does the College of Preceptors, so does<br />
the Society of Arts; there is no reason why one<br />
Society should not hold examinations as well as<br />
any other Society, if they can persuade people to<br />
believe in their certificates. It does not appear<br />
that this Society of Science, Letters, and Art, does<br />
anything else at all to justify its existence. It is<br />
slid to publish no balance sheet, and the evidence<br />
is overwhelming that it offers its membership for<br />
sale, although the President—they have got a Presi-<br />
dent, as well as a Secretary—parades the fact that a<br />
form of election is gone through. Oneneednot, how-<br />
ever, be too hard upon the S.Sc.L. and A. It does<br />
pretty much what all Societies do which permit<br />
their members to put letters after their names. How<br />
many antiquarians, geographers, geologists, as-<br />
tronomers, would belong to the Societies represent-<br />
ing and supporting these sciences if it were not for<br />
the letters which they allow their members to use.<br />
Schoolmasters, writers, lecturers, and people gener-<br />
ally anxious to make themselves known,always try to<br />
make up for the absence of a degree by the addi-<br />
tion of these letters. To be an F.R.G.S., F.R.H.S.,<br />
F.R.C.S, F.R.A.S., F.R.S.L., seems to the outside<br />
world a proof of distinction. Why not, therefore,<br />
F.S.Sc.? It means nothing, nor do any of the<br />
letters, except the plain old-fashioned M.A., R'.A.<br />
(whether Royal Academy or Royal Artillery), R.E.,<br />
LL.D., D.C.L. or F.R.S. The poor schoolmaster<br />
who cannot use one of these legitimate titles might<br />
as well call himself F.S.Sc. as F.R.G.S. And if it<br />
helps him in his business, he will, I suppose, con-<br />
tinue to do so. As for the hood, it seems to be<br />
believed that only a University can confer a hood.<br />
That is not so. All that a University can do is to<br />
confer a certain kind of hood; and, indeed, if a<br />
man chooses to make and to wear an Oxford hood<br />
when he does not possess an Oxford degree, what<br />
pains and penalties does he incur? 1 once saw<br />
a reverend gentleman mount the reading desk<br />
in quite a splendid hood, of the Oxford colour,<br />
but ampler, fuller, more magnificent. I did not<br />
remember to have heard that he was an Oxford<br />
rrtan. He was not, in fact. He wore, I was told,<br />
the hood of St. Bees or of St. Augustine. Perhaps,<br />
after all, it was the hood of the Society of Science,<br />
Letters, and Art. Five guineas would have been<br />
cheap for such a hood.<br />
When a daily paper has exhausted all the sub-<br />
jects of the day, there remains, at the bottom of the<br />
basket, one—the novel of the period. The editor<br />
can always have a fling at the novelists. In every<br />
paper, once a year at least, and generally twice a<br />
year, there is the leader on modern fiction by a<br />
leader writer who never reads any modern fiction.<br />
His view, of course, is pessimistic. In the same<br />
way, when a man has attained a certain position<br />
—nd matter in what line—he considers himself<br />
qualified to address his fellow-creatures on the<br />
choice of books. This gives him also an opportunity<br />
of " slating" fiction of the day.<br />
Mr. Frederick Harrison, I learn from the fol-<br />
lowing extract, has been lecturing us on the Choice<br />
of Books, and has naturally seized the occasion to<br />
fling mud at the novelists. Let him speak—<br />
"But assuredly black night will quickly cover the vast<br />
bulk of modern fiction—work as perishable as the generations<br />
whose idleness it has amused. It belongs not to the great<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 131 (#167) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
creations of the world. Beside them it is flat and poor.<br />
Such facts in human nature as it reveals are trivial and special<br />
in themselves, and for the most part abnormal and unwhole-<br />
some. I stand beside the ceaseless flow of this miscellaneous<br />
torrent as one stands watching the turbid rush of the Thames<br />
at London Bridge, wondering whence it all comes, whither<br />
it all goes, what can be done with it, and what may be its<br />
ultimate function in the order of Providence. To a reader<br />
who would nourish his laste on the boundless harvests of the<br />
poetry of mankind, this sewage outfall of to-day offers as<br />
little in creative as in moral value. Lurid and irregular<br />
streaks ol imagination, extravagance of plot and incident,<br />
petty and mean subjects of study, forced and unnatural situa-<br />
tions, moroid pathology of crime, duM copying of the dullest<br />
comm mplace, melodramatic hurly-burly, form the certain<br />
evidence of an art that is exhausted, produced by men and<br />
women to whom it is become a mere trade, in an age wherein<br />
change and excitement have corrupted the power of pure<br />
enjoyment."<br />
♦<br />
Let us add a few words of question and of ■<br />
comment. Mr. Harrison not only watches the<br />
ceaseless flow of this miscellaneous torrent, but he<br />
carefully examines the bulk of the books which<br />
form the torrent. He reads masses of modern<br />
fiction. He must, else how can he speak with<br />
so much authority and precision on the subject?<br />
Unless, that is, he has evolved from his own brain<br />
the " lurid and irregular streaks of imagination " and<br />
nil the rest of it. Most of us do not read all the<br />
fiction, and therefore we must accept his judgment<br />
ho far. He complains, however, that he does not<br />
know whence it conies or whither it goes. Let<br />
us tell him. Three-fourths of the "torrent"<br />
consists of feeble, harmless, and imitative stories,<br />
the production of which is paid for by the<br />
writers in the vain hope of getting money out<br />
of them. Very few copies arc printed, still fewer<br />
are bought; they would be absolutely unheard of<br />
if the reviewers did not notice them; they die<br />
as soon as they are born. As regards the<br />
remaining fourth part, I suppose I may be allowed<br />
an opinion as a humble follower of the art, and<br />
I maintain that as regards that fourth part, the<br />
art of fiction never stood on a higher level than it<br />
stands to-day. It is not only ridiculously false—it<br />
is ridiculously foolish—to speak of the works that<br />
are now produced every year as a " sewage outfall."<br />
There is no Thackeray now living, but there are<br />
writers of fiction among us who would adorn any<br />
age. I say that the names of Black, Blackmore,<br />
Rider Haggard, Hardy, Howells, James, Litton,<br />
Meredith, Murray, Norris, Oliphant, Payn, Steven-<br />
son—which I write down not as exhaustive but as<br />
occurring to me at the moment—are names of<br />
writers who have advanced and are advancing the<br />
Art of Fiction. If anyone will take the trouble to<br />
read the novels of fifty years ago—it has been my<br />
lot to read a good many—he must acknowledge<br />
VOL. 1.<br />
that the art is far better understood now than<br />
then, that the style is infinitely better, that the<br />
work is more dramatic, cleaner, and clearer,<br />
better finished—in a word, that the modern work<br />
far surpasses the older work. Yet there is among<br />
us no living Thackeray, Dickens, Scott, or<br />
Fielding.<br />
♦<br />
This adviser on the Choice of Books further<br />
informs us gloomily that the Art is exhausted; that<br />
it is followed by men and women as a trade, and<br />
that the age has lost the power of pure enjoyment.<br />
Now let us consider this statement—so wide and so<br />
sweeping. First, how can an Art ever be ex-<br />
hausted? It is the first quality, the chief quality, of<br />
all Art, that it is as inexhaustible as the whole range<br />
of human emotion; nay, that for every new gener-<br />
ation Art shall be young, strong, and immortal.<br />
It is only when one is old, when there is no<br />
longer anything to hope, that Art appears decrepit<br />
or exhausted. The Art of Fiction can no more<br />
be exhausted than the Art of Painting. As to<br />
the trade of it, novelists have always, like painters,<br />
followed their art as a trade. If Mr. Harrison<br />
means that modern novelists turn out their work<br />
with no care or thought of Art, why—there is<br />
nothing to reply but a flat denial. I suppose that<br />
Dickens and Thackeray scorned to sell their books<br />
or to turn them out as a trade! What futile<br />
rubbish is this!<br />
4<br />
Lastly the age . . the age . . Alas! when was<br />
there ever an age which was not corrupt, ruined,<br />
hopeless? The present time is more especially lost<br />
and hopeless on account of the fin de sifrle. Let<br />
me protest against this fin de stick cry. It means<br />
that because the century is coming to an end, art,<br />
thought, invention, science—everything is senile<br />
too, in sympathy with the dying century. Let us<br />
consider again. For literary purposes there are<br />
only four centuries to think of. First, the sixteenth.<br />
Where is the fin de sikle in the last decade of that<br />
century? Shakespeare wrote fifteen of his plays in<br />
that decade; Ben Jonson began; Kit Marlow ran<br />
his brief course; Raleigh, Peele, Greene, Spenser,<br />
Lyly, Drayton, Harrington, Stow, Cervantes, Tasso,<br />
Montaigne, Du Bartas, Malherbe, all adorn this<br />
last decade. Where is the fin de si'ede here? Let<br />
us pass on to the years 1690-1700. What do we<br />
find? Any weariness, any decay, any senility?<br />
Not so—Dryden, Wycherly, Congreve, Steele,<br />
Dennis, Price, Swift, Burnet, Defoe, Bentley, Tom<br />
Brown and Ned Ward (a savoury pair), Garth,<br />
k 2<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 132 (#168) ############################################<br />
<br />
132<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
Philips, Rovve, Buxton, John Locke, Tillotson,<br />
Jeremy Taylor, Colley Gibber, Tom D'Urfey,<br />
Boileau, Racine, Calderon, Bossuet, Fenelon, La<br />
Fontaine, Fontenelle—all adorned the last years of<br />
the seventeenth century. Pass on to the years<br />
1790-1800. Was there here any decay, any<br />
senility? Burns, Wordsworth, Crabbe, Bloomfield,<br />
Coleridge, Southey, Scott, Cooper, Priestley, Paley,<br />
Cumberland, Dibdin, Sheridan, Ferguson, Monk<br />
Lewis, Mary Godwin, William Godwin, White of<br />
Selborne, Ritson, Thomas Percy, Gifford, Erasmus<br />
Darwin, Anne Seward, Dugald Stewart, Jeremy<br />
Bentham, Hannah More, Frances Burney, John<br />
Aikin, Letitia Burbauld, Roscoe, Sir Joshua Rey-<br />
nolds, Porson, Edmund Burke, Boswell, Campbell,<br />
Rogers, Mrs. Inchbald, Malone, D'Israeli, Sir<br />
James Mackintosh, Charles Lamb, Landor,<br />
Schiller, Goethe, and a whole crowd of French<br />
writers wrote; why, so far from being a time of<br />
decay the last decade of each century has proved<br />
a period of great intellectual vigour—a time of<br />
youth and spring, as every time should be. Let<br />
us have done with the fin de sikle rubbish. There<br />
is no more connection between Art or Science<br />
and the age of the century, than there is between<br />
the news of this hour's post and the clouds in the<br />
sky.<br />
Last month I asked a foolish question. It was<br />
foolish because the wise man should not, speaking<br />
generally, ask a question to which there is no answer.<br />
In this case, perhaps, one was justified; one put,<br />
wisely, a foolish question. I asked why religious<br />
societies allow themselves to do things which indi<br />
viduals with any self-respect would not dare to do.<br />
I now ask another foolish question. Why is it that<br />
men professionally connected with religion are<br />
generally so extremely irreligious? There is no<br />
answer to this question. But I will illustrate it by a<br />
case in point. There is a certain religious publisher<br />
—from whose clutches may the Lord preserve us!<br />
—who found a lady with a MS.—they areas plenti-<br />
ful as blackberries. This MS., however, was a<br />
saleable MS. He consented to publish it, and 10<br />
give her half the profits. Further, he agreed that<br />
a fresh arrangement was to be made for a second<br />
edition. The man, however, was too foxy to set<br />
down this in writing. He allowed the lady to<br />
make a note of the agreement, and forgot to send<br />
it to her in writing. Two or three years after-<br />
wards the author discovered that there had been<br />
a new edition published without reference to her-<br />
self and without sending her any accounts. She<br />
wrote and got no reply. The religious person took<br />
no notice of her letter. She wrote again and got at<br />
last a letter and a statement of accounts. It was<br />
as follows :—<br />
Cost of production ...<br />
By Sales<br />
Deficiency<br />
£<br />
s.<br />
d.<br />
in<br />
16<br />
6<br />
£<br />
s.<br />
d.<br />
80<br />
II<br />
9<br />
31<br />
4<br />
9<br />
in<br />
16<br />
6<br />
The letter deplored the heavy loss of the firm on<br />
the book, said nothingabout breaking the agreement,<br />
and offered the lady ten guineas to finish up the<br />
business. She accepted the offer, and the book is<br />
now running triumphantly in its seventh or eighth<br />
edition. It may be argued, of course, that she<br />
need not have taken the offer, considering the<br />
nature of the account rendered. I think she was<br />
right to get anything she could. I have had an<br />
estimate made of the cost of the book. It comes<br />
out as follows :- Pubjishers'<br />
bill.<br />
£ s. d. £ s. d.<br />
Cost of production 67 3 4 ... 111 16 6<br />
Supposing the other items of engraving and<br />
advertising to be correct, we reduce the cost of<br />
production from £\\i i6y. 6d. to £67 3.C 4*/., a<br />
difference of £42 11s. ?>d.! And yet they talk<br />
of the heavy loss to the firm.<br />
Mr. Radclyffe Cooke's letter in our last number<br />
has very naturally called forth a reply from the<br />
reader concerned. He says, "May I be permitted<br />
to say that while I certainly claim no infallibility, I<br />
think Mr. Cooke has a little mistaken the gist of my<br />
'opinion.' I said that if certain alterations were<br />
made I thought the book, especially if got up in<br />
an attractive style, 'would be accepted, and would<br />
obtain a sale. I am glad that it has obtained a<br />
success greater than I looked for."<br />
Mr. Radclyffe Cooke himself writes :—<br />
"The Editorial Comment does not meet my<br />
point, which is, that if you invite authors whose<br />
MSS. have been rejected by publishers' readers to<br />
submit them for an independent opinion to one of<br />
the readers of the Society, that opinion cannot be<br />
independent if the readers of the Society and the<br />
readers of the publishers are identically the same<br />
persons."<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 133 (#169) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
06<br />
What is an independent opinion? A. B. receives<br />
a MS. from a publisher. He is asked to give an<br />
opinion on the MS., especially as to its commercial<br />
value. He does so. He does not give a long critical<br />
opinion for the author, but merely a note for the<br />
publisher. The author receives in polite language<br />
a plain No. Suppose—which is possible, but not<br />
likely—the same reader received afterwards the<br />
same MS. from the same author, he wou;d state<br />
at length his opinion of the faults in style, the errors<br />
of taste and judgment, and the other defects which<br />
—-always in his opinion—might militate against the<br />
woik, either from a literary or a commercial point<br />
of view. He would give, in fact, such an opinion<br />
as might be of assistance to the writer.<br />
-Publishers, in fact, do not give authors a critical<br />
opinion on the MSS. submitted. Considering that<br />
they have to refuse ninety-nine per cent, of MSS.<br />
offered, it can hardly be expected thattheycan act as<br />
teachers and coachesintheartofliterarycomposition.<br />
The author receives his MS. back with a courteous<br />
letter giving no reason, or perhaps only general<br />
reasons. This is the practice. I have seen one or<br />
two carefully drawn readers' opinions, calculated to<br />
help the aspirant, but these are rare. What the<br />
Society gives is such an opinion. The reader is<br />
asked to consider a MS. partly as a schoolmaster<br />
considers a set of Latin verses, and partly as a<br />
publisher would consider it, namely, from the<br />
commercial point of view. He is asked to give<br />
his opinion partly on the artistic, dramatic, and<br />
literary worth or demerits of the work, and partly<br />
on its chances as a saleable article. As a writer<br />
or a critic of experience he can do the former; as a<br />
publisher's reader he can do the latter. This part<br />
of our work, therefore, if it is properly carried out,<br />
may be very useful indeed, and in many cases has<br />
proved very useful; for instance, a recent work was<br />
altered in accordance with the suggestions of the<br />
very reader quoted above, and has proved a very<br />
considerable success owing to these very alterations.<br />
And many young writers in consequence of the<br />
"opinion" they received, have either abandoned<br />
further effort in a hopeless direction, or are working<br />
intelligently and earnestly in the right direction.<br />
Needless to add, that these opinions have kept<br />
many young writers out of the hands of the<br />
gentry whose readers never fail to "report so<br />
favourably that they are prepared to offer the<br />
following liberal terms."<br />
Our friends, the knavish publisher and the<br />
sweating publisher, are never weary of procuring<br />
misrepresentations of the Society and its objects<br />
and actions. I saw the other day an apparently<br />
harmless paragraph, beginning about a certain<br />
literary man of eminence, but ending with the<br />
slander which was the sole reason of its existence.<br />
It was inferred, not actually stated, that the Society<br />
advocated the breaking of agreements, and regarded<br />
keeping them as "the basest way of evading a moral<br />
obligation." A similar slander was admitted some<br />
months ago into a monthly magazine, and I<br />
daresay, will be admitted in a good many other<br />
papers whenever a tool, or a fool, or a busybody<br />
can be found. Let our friends meet such charges<br />
with the assurance that the Society has always pro-<br />
claimed the necessity of keeping agreements—<br />
indeed, the law takes care of that. But that, if<br />
the Society has any influence at all, it is persistently<br />
directed to encourage the examination of agree-<br />
ments; to awaken jealousy and suspicion as to<br />
literary, as well as any other kind of property; and<br />
to make writers insist upon knowing what they<br />
concede to their agent, as well as what he proposes<br />
to give them. It is this persistence, not any<br />
exhortations to break agreements, which makes<br />
certain tools and busybodies active, and it is a<br />
sure and most satisfactory sign of influence* that<br />
they are active. It is not until the wasps' nest<br />
is disturbed that the wasps try to sting.<br />
I have received from a Victim certain papers<br />
connected with a now defunct "Association." It<br />
perished perhaps under the weight of its own<br />
vast labours, which were concerned with the<br />
advancement of literature, art, science, music, the<br />
drama, and "&c." As regards the literary depart-<br />
ment, which was managed by a gentleman calling<br />
himself the Hon. Sec, it undertook for the small<br />
sum of one guinea a year: 1. To reply by return of<br />
post to questions of all kinds; 2. To read and report<br />
on MSS.; 3. To publish works at the expense of<br />
the Association; 4. To offer MSS. for sale; and 5.<br />
To give commissions to members. Here were in-<br />
ducements for young, and even for experienced<br />
writers. The Association would publish their work<br />
at its own expense, all out of the yearly guineas! If<br />
the work was not good enough for the Association,<br />
it would be sold to publishers, w-ho, it is very well<br />
known, are content with the leavings of such a<br />
Society, and deeply grateful for getting them; and<br />
it would, besides, give commissions—what writer<br />
would not leap at the chance of getting commis-<br />
sions? A benevolent Association, truly. In one<br />
case mentioned in the prospectus, a writer whose<br />
work had been refused by seven publishers in<br />
succession, got, through the instrumentality of the<br />
Association, the sum of ^157 io.y., cash down, for<br />
it! The oddness of the amount carries convic-<br />
tion with it. The commission offered to members<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 134 (#170) ############################################<br />
<br />
134<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
was noble. It could be obtained in this way: the<br />
Association ran a sixpenny monthly magazine,<br />
which was written entirely by members. Now, any<br />
member who should procure twenty new subscribers<br />
to the magazine might receive twenty copies of the<br />
magazine for £4 a year, which of course he would<br />
sell for sixpence a copy, to his twenty subscribers,<br />
pocketing £2 a year by the transaction. His<br />
yearly subscription was also remitted to such an<br />
active worker. Never was such a disinterested<br />
Association!<br />
»<br />
The Victim was a young writer who hoped to<br />
obtain in this Association the opening which up<br />
to that time he had failed to find. He became a<br />
member—he sent up a guinea for membership, and<br />
six and sixpence for subscription to the magazine;<br />
he also sent a MS. This was immediately read by<br />
the official reader of the Society, and as an acknow-<br />
ledgment of its worth, the writer was promoted<br />
from a simple member to a "staff member," that is,<br />
"one whose contributions can be accepted and paid<br />
for immediately proofs are passed by the Editor."<br />
Here was .success! and after the nasty envious<br />
editors of the other magazines had all with one<br />
consent refused this writer's works! He submitted<br />
accordingly more MSS. He was informed that<br />
one was accepted for the magazine, and would be<br />
shortly published and paid for; that another was<br />
under consideration; and that they were "sparing<br />
no efforts to place " a third, but as yet, unsuccess-<br />
fully. The result may be foreseen. He lost his<br />
money, his time, and his MSS. Nothing was<br />
placed, nothing was published; and in course of<br />
time the "Association" disappeared.<br />
There have been several other associations or<br />
societies of a similar character during the last few<br />
years. Considering the comparative safety of the<br />
enterprise, one is astonished that there are not more.<br />
One of them called itself the City of London Pub-<br />
lishing Company. Among other little dodges of this<br />
concern they proposed to publish a volume of poetry,<br />
a copy of which was to be bought byevery contributor<br />
of a one page poem for half-a-guinea. The aim of<br />
the projectors was, of course, to make unknown<br />
poets known to the public. I never heard anything<br />
more of this volume. The Company succeeded<br />
the Charing Cross Publishing Company, and took<br />
over, I believe, the valuable business of that<br />
eminent house. The Literary Guild started in<br />
the same year, and with the same address as the<br />
City of London Publishing Company, but I know<br />
not if the two were the same concern. The<br />
objects of the Guild were to afford to amateur<br />
and non-professional authors the same advantages<br />
of popularity and price enjoyed by established<br />
writers. The prospectus promised to "introduce<br />
them"—one does not know how—"to the reading<br />
public," and "to open to the inexperienced the road<br />
to one of the most agreeable and remunerative of<br />
the professions." Through the agency of the<br />
Guild, members, we are told, might publish on<br />
exceptional terms—and so on. The Guild, in fact,<br />
was an agency, whether connected or unconnected<br />
with the City of London Publishing Company does<br />
not appear. I do not know if the Guild still<br />
exists. Its members were entitled to affix the<br />
letters M.L.G. after their names. That, indeed,<br />
was a most valuable privilege. But the Company<br />
during its existence succeeded in pursuading a<br />
good many to believe in them, and published no<br />
fewer than a hundred and fifty books, and not<br />
one in the whole list that anybody ever heard of!<br />
The London Literary Society was the longest<br />
lived of these bogus publishers. It lasted for<br />
eight or nine years. The manager of this Society,<br />
in fact, the chairman and the committee, and the<br />
secretary, all in one, was a gentleman, now' un-<br />
fortunately bankrupt. He had some genius, as<br />
shown in the invention of a certain clause in the<br />
letter which he invariably sent on the receipt of a<br />
MS.<br />
He said, "Sir or Madam,—Our reader has<br />
reported so favourably on your MS. that we are<br />
prepared to offer you the following terms. We are<br />
willing to produce the work shortly .... and meet<br />
all demands for sales, through the trade, up to io,oco<br />
copies, at the publishing price of provided you<br />
pay us j£ "(generally double the actual cost of<br />
production), "and give us one-half the profits."<br />
The notion of modestlylimiting his liability to 10,000<br />
copies caught the flats right and left, because they<br />
immediately sat down and calculated how much<br />
they would get on a sale of 10,000 copies at least.<br />
The London Literary Society (Manager, Playster<br />
Steeds) is now defunct, but a business of the same<br />
kind, including the favourable report of the reader,<br />
the offer to meet all sales up to so many thousand,<br />
and the proviso of the cheque down, is still carried<br />
on by a firm called Digby and Long. We have in<br />
the office a letter signed J. Baptiste Long for J.<br />
Playster Steeds. That gentleman when passing<br />
his examination in the Bankruptcy Court, stated<br />
that Long had been his clerk. Messrs. Digby and<br />
Long wrote to the Publishers' Circular, on Novem-<br />
ber 15th, 1888, protesting that their firm had never<br />
had anything to do with the Literary Society.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 135 (#171) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
i35<br />
Lastly, we have a little legal document connected<br />
with Digby and Long, in which the Christian<br />
name of Long is given as J. Baptiste Long, so<br />
that, after all, there would seem to be a kind of a<br />
sort of a succession or connection, apart from the<br />
similarity in the conduct of the business.<br />
To make an end of these so-called companies,<br />
there was the Amateur Authors' Association, hailing<br />
from Windsor. The "manager " of this precious<br />
concern vanished with all the MSS. There was<br />
another man called Bentley who advertised for<br />
MSS. Many were taken in, thinking of the well<br />
known firm in New Burlington Street. This person<br />
also vanished with all the MSS. There was quite<br />
lately one McGuire, who vanished under circum-<br />
stances detailed in the first number of The Author.<br />
There are doubtless others contemplating the same<br />
career. Let us be on the watch for them.<br />
One thing is truly astonishing, that respectable<br />
people—people of decent position—should befound<br />
to give their names in support of these schemes.<br />
Thus the Literary Society had quite a long list of<br />
apparently respectable people who were called<br />
patrons. They thought, I suppose, that to figure<br />
on such a list, gave them a position in the literary<br />
world. As regards authors, it is quite certain,<br />
that credulity will never cease. It is as lasting<br />
and as full of life as the roguery which feeds and<br />
thrives upon it.<br />
It seemscruel to disturb the innocent faith of a<br />
guileless world, but really one is jealous! Why<br />
should publishers, alone of all trades, professions,<br />
and callings, bear upon their front the seal of<br />
perfect sincerity and honesty? We are always<br />
exhorting everybody to extend to this class of<br />
community exactly the same confidence—that,<br />
and no more—that is offered to every other trade<br />
or calling. Yet no sooner does a man call him-<br />
self publisher than the simple folk rush into the<br />
trap that he has spread for them. The other day<br />
an advertisement appeared in one of the morning<br />
papers to the effect that a "literary firm" was<br />
ready to give clerical work to ladies in their own<br />
homes. Applicants were instructed to write to<br />
"Publisher "—the advertiser knew the saintliness<br />
which clings to that venerated name—and to<br />
enclose a stamp for reply. In two days 1,100<br />
letters reached the address. The advertiser, un-<br />
luckily, did not apply for them. His courage<br />
failed. One or two of the letters were opened.<br />
Finally they were all opened by the Post Office<br />
and sent back to their writers. Now here is a case<br />
in which an active detective should have rooted out<br />
the whole business. The man should be caught<br />
and prosecuted. To call himself a publisher, in-<br />
deed! To trade on the character for disinterested-<br />
ness and generosity which belongs to that body!<br />
It was a touch of genius, however. I would advise<br />
him next time to "go one better." He should<br />
advertise the address of the "S.P.C.K." He would<br />
then get a million answers, so great is the admira-<br />
tion of the world for that venerable Society and<br />
its publishing department.<br />
I have read in one or two papers that I am<br />
endeavouring to establish an Authors' Club. This<br />
is news to me. I am endeavouring no such thing.<br />
It is true that an Authors' Club has been spoken<br />
of, and that it may be attempted in friendly union<br />
with the Society, not as a part of it nor in oppo-<br />
sition to it. The Society exists for the purpose of<br />
advancing and protecting authors' material interests,<br />
pot for social purposes, and if authors will only be<br />
good enough all to belong to it—at present we<br />
number only 600 instead of 1,000 at least—there<br />
can be no doubt of efficient safeguarding. One<br />
difficulty in forming such a club would seem to be<br />
the fact that a club implies a certain uniformity of<br />
social level. Now authors belong to a great many<br />
social levels, and though there can be no reason<br />
why they should not, as members of the same<br />
profession, meet together in friendliness, we do not<br />
see that other professions do so. There is a Law<br />
Institute which is a kind of club, but it is really a<br />
society for protecting the material interests of<br />
solicitors. There are military clubs, but then all<br />
military men are supposed to be on the same social<br />
level. At the same time, for country or suburban<br />
members—even for town members—it would be a<br />
very useful thing if the Society could have near it<br />
a set of rooms with a library of reference, conve-<br />
nience for writing, facilities for getting lunch or<br />
afternoon tea, and so forth; in fact, a house of call<br />
and convenience. And this has certainly been<br />
suggested a rid advocated by several persons.<br />
►—<br />
Mr. Brander Mathews has sent me the little book<br />
of the Authors' Club in New York. The objects<br />
of the club are stated in the prospectus to be for<br />
"literary and library purposes, and the promotion<br />
of social intercourse among authors." It is to<br />
consist of not more than 300 men—no ladies. All<br />
the members are to be actual authors; the sub-<br />
scription is four pounds a year and five pounds<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 136 (#172) ############################################<br />
<br />
136<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
entrance; the club is to assemble fortnightly; the<br />
committee elect; the fortnightly meeting means, I<br />
believe, a dinner; and there are about 250 mem-<br />
bers. I understand that the club rooms are generally<br />
empty except at the fortnightly meeting. This<br />
seems as if American authors were not exactly<br />
clubable among each other. Whether we have an<br />
Authors' Club or not, what we want most is a<br />
Members' House of Call—and perhaps some day<br />
we may get it, though our annual guinea sub-<br />
scription would not go very far towards supporting<br />
it.<br />
♦<br />
An interesting experiment in publishing is about<br />
to be tried, which we shall follow with great<br />
curiosity. It will, if successfully carried out, as<br />
there seems every hope that it will be, reveal<br />
practically what we have advanced and maintained<br />
from estimates and the piecing together of infor-<br />
mation, namely, the need of exact information as<br />
to the proportion of publishers' profits on successful<br />
works compared with author's. I would suggest to<br />
the inventor of this scheme that the greater reticence<br />
he observes about it for the present, the better it will<br />
be for the scheme. Once successful, all the world<br />
may know and follow the example. Once divulged,<br />
every kind of opposition, hindrance, and secret<br />
spokes will be set for it.<br />
An entirely new profession has lately come into<br />
existence, and though in these days every honest<br />
way of making money is immediately thronged,<br />
and this way will certainly prove no exception, it<br />
is in these columns freely offered and given away.<br />
There are as yet only two ways of practising it, but<br />
of course the wit of man will speedily multiply<br />
those ways. First, you write to as many well-known<br />
men as you can; you ask them, as if you were<br />
thirsting for knowledge, for an opinion on any<br />
point that happens to be under discussion at the<br />
time. When you have got answers from most of<br />
them, advertise autograph letters from W. E. G.,<br />
or anybody else, containing his opinion on such<br />
and such a subject. Price of this unique autograph<br />
letter—two guineas. An industrious man who<br />
knows how to choose and to change the subject<br />
may do very well indeed on this lay.<br />
The second method is simpler. You write for<br />
an autograph, you keep on writing to everybody<br />
until you have got quite a nice collection, because<br />
it is surprising how many people will grant your<br />
simple prayer. You then advertise your collection<br />
for sale. One young gentleman of sixteen who has<br />
already begun to practise this business, confidently<br />
hopes to pay his expenses through Oxford out of<br />
the proceeds.<br />
The following lines seem to show that the<br />
practice is of great antiquity. We may yet chance<br />
somewhere upon a collection with the autographs<br />
of Cicero, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid.<br />
Nomina facta manu venatur odora viri vis;<br />
En, sibi vir prcedam destinat ille suam;<br />
Nescit ut accipiter flecti, miserescere tigris,<br />
Sic quoque venator solvere nescit iter.<br />
Et licet aufugiens se victima torqueat usque,<br />
Haud mora; mox proprio sanguine tincta jacet<br />
Turn spolia assiduus retulit venator opima,<br />
Collectasque novo nomine ditat opes.<br />
To which the following is tendered as an imi-<br />
tation :—<br />
The autograph hunters are keen on the scent,<br />
The autograph hunters have singled their prey;<br />
As a hawk cannot swerve, or a tiger relent,<br />
So these never turn them nor stop on their way.<br />
And though he may wriggle and though he may<br />
run,<br />
The quarry will presently lie in his gore;<br />
And the autograph hunter, his victory won,<br />
With exult o'er the fallen with one name the<br />
more.<br />
*<br />
A scrap-book library is being formed in the<br />
Brooklyn Library to utilise the material relating<br />
to topics of interest which would be lost in the<br />
files of the daily papers. Its nucleus was the<br />
gathering of a large number of excerpts from the<br />
newspapers by one Wilcox, a war correspondent.<br />
The librarian, Mr. Bardwell, got his assistants to sort<br />
the scraps, and they were arranged by subjects and<br />
pasted on sheets of uniform size. They are not<br />
bound, but are on heavy manilla paper, and additions<br />
can be made at any time. Those relating to any<br />
particular subject are put together in a box, which is<br />
properly labelled, and the subjects are arranged in<br />
alphabetical order. For some subjects several<br />
boxes are needed, as biography, for instance. It is<br />
as easy to find any particular topic in the boxes as<br />
in an encyclopaedia or dictionary. Besides 50<br />
volumes already made up, with about 350 clippings<br />
in each, there are three times as many not yet<br />
pasted and prepared for use, making a total of over<br />
75,000 clippings. This seems a thing to be<br />
imitated.<br />
Mr. Howells made an onslaught in the August<br />
number of Harpers on the literary critic, and<br />
especially on the anonymous critic of the news-<br />
papers. The Boston Herald has taken up the<br />
case. Here the writer declares that so far as<br />
America is concerned there are not more than<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 137 (#173) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
137<br />
half-a-dozen journals whose critical judgments of<br />
current literature carry weight and credit for more<br />
than book-advertising. "Literary criticism in the<br />
United States was never at so low as ebb. Mr.<br />
Howells is justifiedin what he saysof the anonymous<br />
American critic. He is dreadful in his blunders,<br />
in his bad manners, and in the venom which is<br />
too often characteristic of his work. This is due<br />
to the fact that but little attention is paid to critical<br />
writing. It is thrown out of the magazines, it has<br />
but a precarious existence in the weekly papers, it<br />
lacks authority in the purely literary journals, and<br />
very few of the principal dailies employ critical<br />
writers who are competent for their task."<br />
♦<br />
What about our own criticisms? In the matter<br />
of literary criticism there are two or three pro-<br />
vincial papers a long way ahead of the London<br />
dailies, which have mostly got into the unholy<br />
habit of lumping all the books together, and dis-<br />
missing each with a few lines. Of the weeklies it<br />
cannot be said that they have in any way lost their<br />
authority. A good review in the Saturday, the<br />
Spectator, or the Guardian, is still excellent for<br />
stimulating the demand. Unfortunately the Spec-<br />
tator's notices are too often belated. I recall the<br />
case of a certain book which appeared in a certain<br />
month of May. By the month of November it<br />
had had a great run; but the first rush after it was<br />
over, the libraries could do without more copies,<br />
and people were borrowing copies instead of buy-<br />
ing them. At this time appeared a notice of the<br />
book—long and laudatory—in the Spectator. It<br />
was too late—the world had already pronounced<br />
(verdict, and the book had practically had its run.<br />
Another point in which authors veniure to disagree<br />
with the Saturday, the Spectator, the Athemcum,<br />
and the Academy, is the lumping of all the novels,<br />
all the theological books, or indeed, all the books<br />
of any one class, into one article, and reviewing<br />
them each with half-a-dozen lines. Now if a novel<br />
is worth reviewing at all, it is worth reviewing<br />
seriously, and as a work of art. Certainly there<br />
is not an average of two novels a week which are<br />
worth reviewing seriously. Again, ;t cannot but be<br />
known to the editors that three-fourths of the novels<br />
are paid for by the authors—that can always be<br />
told by the name of the publisher: that these<br />
things are always the sorry rubbish refused by the<br />
better houses; that nobody ever buys them, and<br />
that to review them is labour, time, temper, and<br />
space absolutely thrown away. Does one review<br />
all the trash and daubs that hang on the walls of<br />
the Royal Institute or the Grosvenor among and<br />
between the good pictures?<br />
An unadorned marble cross has been set up over<br />
the grave of Wilkie Collins in Kensal Green<br />
Cemetery with the words, "Author of 'The<br />
Woman in White' and other works of Fiction"<br />
placed underneath the name and usual dates. A<br />
few yards away lies Sydney Smith, and not much<br />
farther distant, Leigh Hunt.<br />
On May 7th of this year a MS. was sent to a<br />
certain journal for the editor's consideration.<br />
On June 5th, exactly four weeks later, the editor<br />
says that he thinks he can shortly use it. On this<br />
understanding the author allows the MS. to remain<br />
until September 28th, when he sends a reminder<br />
on September 26th. The editor writes that he<br />
may be able to use it for a Christmas number.<br />
Again on this understanding the author allows the<br />
MS. to remain.<br />
On October 2nd the editor instructs a secretary<br />
to write that he will not be able "for some time"<br />
to give "any further information " about the subject.<br />
He therefore sends back the MS.<br />
This is five months after receiving it. Is there<br />
any other business in the world where the common<br />
courtesies of civilized life are so little regarded as<br />
in literary matters? Here is an author—not un-<br />
known or obscure—kept cooling his heels on the<br />
kerbstone for five months while the editor makes<br />
up his mind. Four months after promising to use<br />
the MS. he sends it back.<br />
A writer in Life is responsible for the following<br />
story. It would not be printed here but for the<br />
fact that similar cases have been brought before<br />
the Society by victims. And it is a pity that the<br />
exact accounts in this case are not given, because<br />
it would seem as if the case might be really worse<br />
than the editor thinks. He says that in receiving<br />
the arcounts for a certain work, written either by<br />
himself or by some friend, he made the discovery<br />
that 25 per cent, had been fraudulently charged on<br />
all the accounts, which showed a profit of ^7 ioj.<br />
Also he says that the book had run through three<br />
editions. Now, I do not know what kind of book<br />
that is of which three editions—3,000 copies—could<br />
be sold to produce a profit of only £1 10s., even<br />
making allowance for the fraudulent 25 per cent.,<br />
or by what kind of agreement the result was arrived<br />
at. The author, on discovering the fraud, called<br />
upon that publisher and demanded a cheque for<br />
the whole amount, with interest. And he got it.<br />
This strong-armed person has now taken up the<br />
case of two ladies, who have given him a power of<br />
attorney to act for them, Let us await the result.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 138 (#174) ############################################<br />
<br />
138<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
We have to deplore the death of one who has<br />
been a steady friend of the Society from its founda-<br />
tion, the Rev. Henry White. He published little,<br />
but his sympathies with literature and with those<br />
who make the literature of the day were deep.<br />
His loss will be widely deplored. The Church has<br />
few clergymen who can quite fill the place he<br />
occupied in public esteem and affection.<br />
Walter Besant. *<br />
"THE METHODS OF PUBLISHING."*<br />
THIS book may be regarded as a sequel to the<br />
"Cost of Production." In that work, which<br />
was issued for the use of members only,<br />
men of letters learned for the first time what is the<br />
actual cost of composing, printing, paper, and bind-<br />
ing, for the production of books of various kinds.<br />
The little book was the result of a great deal of<br />
trouble, investigation, comparison of estimates and<br />
consultation with printers. Even when finished it<br />
has been found incomplete in parts, and a new<br />
edition is under preparation.<br />
Meantime, there has been accumulating in the<br />
offices of the Society since its foundation a great<br />
quantity of "cases," generally of complaint arid<br />
grievance. Nearly every one of these cases contains<br />
among its papers and letters an agreement signed by<br />
the publisher and the author. In this way the<br />
Society has been enabled to peruse agreements<br />
from nearly every publishing house in the country.<br />
In the same way it has also been enabled to learn<br />
the tricks and frauds which these agreements may<br />
be designed to cover in the hands of unscru-<br />
pulous men. Now a signed agreement can only,<br />
as a rule, even when it can be clearly proved to be<br />
one-sided, unjust, and procured by misrepresenta-<br />
tion, be broken and set aside by a costly and<br />
doubtful action in the High Court of Justice. Con-<br />
sequently, in many of the cases brought to the<br />
Society in which highly unjust agreements had<br />
been carried out to the letter, no redress could be<br />
obtained. When a man signs a document which<br />
he does not understand, he has only himself to<br />
blame if the agreement places him, bound hand and<br />
foot, in the hands of a robber. It is therefore ap-<br />
parent that prevention is better than attempt to<br />
cure.<br />
This conclusion is the raison d'etre of the book.<br />
Mr. Sprigge designs, by classifying agreements,<br />
quoting examples, explaining the meaning of ciauses,<br />
* " The Mclhoils of Publishing," by S. Squire .Sprigge.<br />
(Jlaiiher, Strand. Trice 4s. t>d.<br />
and exposing the frauds and tricks that are carried<br />
on under cover of agreements, to educate his readers<br />
into a becoming jealousy of their property, whether<br />
it lies in fields or in written pages.<br />
We have long lifted up a warning voice and<br />
cautioned authors against signing any agreement<br />
whatever, underany pretence or after any representa-<br />
tions, without advice—and that, not from their<br />
own solicitors, or from any lawyer lhat offers, but<br />
from the Society whose business it is to protect<br />
them. We are now in a position to explain and<br />
justify this admonition. Authors may now read for<br />
themselves and learn in detail what is actually and<br />
daily practised, and what is the meaning of the<br />
various clauses by which they sign away, and part<br />
with, valuable property.<br />
In other words—Let no writer sign any agree-<br />
ment until he has teamed what the publisher reserves<br />
for himself, and what he proposes to give the author.<br />
In no other transaction affecting property would<br />
one party dare to present an agreement designedly<br />
drawn up so that the other party should understand<br />
nothing of what it means.<br />
The book is very earnestly recommended to the<br />
attention of every person engaged in literature. It<br />
is designed as the most serious contribution to the<br />
defence of the author ever yet offered—most serious<br />
because it is the only paper which rests, not on<br />
argument, but on facts and figures. These facts<br />
cannot be denied, nor can these figures be dis-<br />
proved. They are all in the archives of the<br />
Society, and can, if necessary, be published at<br />
length with the names of the publishers con-<br />
cerned. Probably, however, they will not be<br />
anxious for this kind of publicity. The position of<br />
the Society in respect to this kind of information is<br />
absolutely unique. No publishers have it; no<br />
single individual possesses this knowledge; no other<br />
body possesses it; and the whole of it has been<br />
placed in Mr. Sprigge's hands.<br />
The book is divided into eleven chapters. The<br />
first two of these are devoted to the general<br />
consideration of literary property. The next four to<br />
the four methods under which all kinds of pub-<br />
lishing may be classed, viz., the Half Profit System,<br />
the Royalty System, Sale Outright or Limited, and<br />
Publishing on Commission. Agreements of all<br />
kinds will be found set forth at length and<br />
analyzed in these chapters. The remaining five<br />
deal chiefly with certain common ways of trickery,<br />
with the statement of such safeguards as may<br />
protect the author.<br />
One quotation only shall be made here. It is a<br />
short summing up as to the laxity with which<br />
literary property is generally treated :—<br />
"At present it would seem that too often the<br />
author does not, and the publisher cannot, rea''~e<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 139 (#175) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
139<br />
that literary property has an existence and a<br />
value.<br />
"If a man believed his book was an actual<br />
property he would not deal with it by methods so<br />
vague, unsatisfactory, and unbusinesslike, under<br />
agreements teeming with clauses he does not<br />
understand.<br />
"He would not dispose of his right over it<br />
without the formality of a written agreement. He<br />
certainly would not airily hand over to the publisher<br />
his rights in other property of a similar kind whose<br />
value he does not yet know, and for an indefinite<br />
number of years, simply on request.<br />
"He would insist upon alleged expenditure<br />
being proved to him, before his account was<br />
debited with it.<br />
"He would insist upon having accounts rendered<br />
at the right times, and his executors at his death<br />
would similarly insist.<br />
"lastly, if a man thought his MS. was a<br />
property in the sense that his watch is a property,<br />
what would he do if he found that, in spite of his<br />
letters, he could not get it returned to him by the<br />
tradesman who had it for inspection?"<br />
*<br />
"THE LITERARY HANDMAID OF<br />
THE CHURCH."<br />
I.<br />
Memorandum on the S.P.C.K.'s relations to<br />
Authors, drawn up by the ^ijb-Committee<br />
appointed to consider the Charges made<br />
in Mr Besant's Pamphlet.<br />
I.—The principles on which the Society's publishing<br />
business is conducted.<br />
THE Society for Promoting Christian Know-<br />
ledge is not a General Publishing Agency.<br />
The sole purpose of its publishing enterprise<br />
is to produce and circulate as widely as possible a<br />
wholesome literature, both religious and secular.<br />
This purpose is realised by putting on its publications<br />
as low a price as is consistent with giving a fair re-<br />
muneration to Authors, and securing such a margin<br />
of profit as will protect the Society against a finan-<br />
cial loss. The average yearly profit of its entire<br />
business has for many years been about ^6,000,<br />
and is not a larger percentage on the capital<br />
employed than the vicissitudes of a very large<br />
publishing business require for its stability. More-<br />
over, this profit is not really profit accruing to the<br />
Society through purchases by the public, inasmuch<br />
as the Society annually gives away in Grants of<br />
Books several thousand pounds more than the<br />
profit, and in the ledgers of the Publishing Depart<br />
ment credit is taken for all these grants, averaging<br />
some ^12,000 a year. It will be thus seen that<br />
the sales and grants of books, taken together, so<br />
far from bringing in a revenue applicable to other<br />
purposes, take several thousand pounds annually<br />
out of the Society's income.<br />
II. —Dealings with Authors.<br />
1. Royalties (varying from one-tenth to one-sixth<br />
of the published price) are in ordinary circumstances<br />
paid to writers who are recognized as specialists in<br />
any particular subject, or whose names, inserted on<br />
the title-page of a book, would give it a distinctly<br />
greater commercial value than the book would<br />
have if published by the Society without fuch<br />
name. Some writers who would naturally fall into<br />
this class prefer a sum down in place of a royalty.<br />
2. Commissions for most of the chief works of<br />
fiction, published every autumn, are given before-<br />
hand to writers of whose competence the Com-<br />
mittee is satisfied, on the following conditions :—<br />
"If the work be accepted by the Society, the sum of<br />
£ will I>e paid you for the copyright, which<br />
will then be the property of the Society. The Society will<br />
reserve to itself the right to use the author's name. If the<br />
Committee for any reason do not accept the work on behalf<br />
of the Society, one-half of the sum offered for the copyright<br />
will be paid to you; and you will have in addition the offer<br />
of the use of the standing type with a view to your making<br />
other arrangements for the publication of your work."<br />
The payments made in this manner are certainly<br />
as high as, and probably higher than, those offered<br />
by other publishers for the same class of litera-<br />
ture.<br />
3. Besides these commissioned works, the<br />
Society receives unsought, every year, thousands<br />
of MSS. of small stories, which are offered without<br />
condition for the Society's approval and for publi-<br />
cation. Such of these MSS. as the Committee may<br />
approve are paid for according to the Committee's<br />
view of their merit, but generally somewhat lower<br />
than the scale adopted in the case of commissioned<br />
works. The Society has had no reason to suppose<br />
that these payments have been disappointing to<br />
the writers who have contributed works to the<br />
Society.<br />
III. —Royalties v. Copyright.<br />
It has sometimes been suggested, and the<br />
suggestion is endorsed by Mr. Besant, that it<br />
would be better that all writers for the Society<br />
should be paid by royalty, but it is not difficult to<br />
show that the indiscriminate giving of royalties by<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 140 (#176) ############################################<br />
<br />
140<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
the Society would be inequitable, and even im-<br />
practicable. With respect to the stories and small<br />
works of fiction published with the advantage of<br />
the Society's imprimatur, it has to be remembered<br />
—whether the fact be satisfactory or not—that in<br />
most cases the circulation of such books depends<br />
at least as much upon the manner in which they<br />
are printed, bound, and illustrated—arrangements<br />
with which the writer has little or nothing to do—<br />
as upon the merit of the writer himself. The fact<br />
that this is so throws upon the Society's Com-<br />
mittees a very grave responsibility for the character<br />
of what is thus circulated by their agency, and at<br />
the same time it materially affects the question of<br />
the equitable mode of remunerating the authors of<br />
these little works. Vast quantities of such books<br />
are annually given away by the Society, or sold at<br />
a reduced rate, thus swelling the apparent sales far<br />
beyond the real purchases by the public. In fact,<br />
if royalties were given on the small works of fiction,<br />
which, by means of its peculiar organization and<br />
connections, the Society is enabled to circulate by<br />
thousands, not only would the price of the books<br />
be materially raised, and the sales proportionately<br />
diminished, but the anomaly would arise that a<br />
writer of little training and capability would, from<br />
a book costing a few days' labour, receive a far<br />
larger sum than could be obtained either by<br />
royalties or otherwise by the most distinguished<br />
writers on the Society's list. Thus, a narrative<br />
Tract of four pages, which is circulated by grants<br />
to the extent of hundreds of thousands, would<br />
bring to the writer, by any appreciable royalty, a<br />
sum out of all proportion to the literary work<br />
involved, and a similar principle applies in its<br />
degree to many of the Society's larger publications.<br />
IV.—Mr. Besanfs Specific Charges.<br />
Much of Mr. Besant's pamphlet forms part of a<br />
controversy in which the author has been long<br />
engaged respecting the general system of pub-<br />
lishing adopted both in England and abroad, and<br />
into the merits of that controversy it is not<br />
necessary here to enter.<br />
With respect to his charges against the Society,<br />
the author asked, through the Guardian of<br />
January 23rd, 1889, for information from writers<br />
for the Society as to their treatment. Three of<br />
the answers he received seemed to him to call for<br />
notice, and on these his specific charges rest.<br />
1. The first and principal case is that of a writer<br />
from whom only one book has been accepted by<br />
the Society. This book was published—not, as<br />
alleged, "two or three years ago "—but thirteen<br />
years ago. The author received a small sum for<br />
the copyright of the work (,£12 12.C), because<br />
the Committee of the time did not see their way<br />
to estimate it at a higher figure. Probably the<br />
Committee were unwise in yielding to the writer's<br />
urgency to accept it at all. As the Committee<br />
truly foresaw, it has not proved a commercial suc-<br />
cess. During the long lapse of thirteen years the<br />
apparent circulation has gradually mounted up to<br />
5,520 copies, but a very large proportion of these<br />
have not been purchased by the public, but have<br />
been issued by the Society in grants for lending<br />
libraries, &c, at home and in the Colonies. Even<br />
crediting the bookselling account with the value of<br />
all the copies both sold and given away, the total<br />
apparent profit up to date is ,£57 8s. \od.—a very<br />
small percentage on the money sunk on it for<br />
thirteen years. No promise of future payments<br />
was made to the author; but, in reply to his<br />
inquiries, he was informed that the Society did<br />
then (what it continues to do now) give, in the<br />
shape of a gratuity, and not in any way as a con-<br />
dition of purchase of copyright, occasional pay-<br />
ments in cases where books turned out exceptionally<br />
successful.<br />
It appears evident that whatever strength may<br />
seem to be afforded by this case to the charges<br />
levelled against the Society is derived from a mis-<br />
conception of the facts.<br />
2. The second case is that of a writer who has<br />
been contributing to the Society's list since 1861,<br />
and who has, within the last three months, been<br />
paid for a book which will appear next October.<br />
During this time she has supplied some twenty<br />
works to the Society, ranging from little tales at 2d.<br />
and 3d. each, to books of three or four hundred<br />
pages. The writer has received in all for these<br />
twenty books ^716 2s. That she has voluntarily<br />
continued to write during all these years for the<br />
Society would seem to indicate that she has had<br />
no serious cause of complaint, especially as she<br />
has, it is understood, been also publishing books<br />
through ether agencies, and has thus been able to<br />
weigh the relative terms offered to her. As to the<br />
allegation, which is made in general terms, that she<br />
received more in times past for her books than at<br />
present, the evidence, speaking in the same general<br />
way, seems to point to an opposite conclusion. In<br />
1871 she received ^25 for a book of 50,000 words,<br />
in 1876 ^40 for a volume of 75,000 words, and<br />
in 1886 £50 for a book of 57,000 words. The<br />
varying quality of her books must also be taken<br />
into consideration, as well as the fact that some of<br />
them had been previously published elsewhere.<br />
3. The remaining case is that of a writer who<br />
also continues to write for the Society. He has<br />
written in all for the Society since 1873 twelve<br />
small books, for which he has received .£060.<br />
He says that for his first work for the Society he<br />
received ,£30, and seven months afterwards for<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 141 (#177) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
the same book an unsolicited cheque for £20.<br />
The memory of this gentleman seems to have<br />
misled him, as the Society's ledgers show no trace<br />
of such a cheque, and the inference drawn from<br />
its supposed payment must therefore be allowed to<br />
fall to the ground. The additional .£30 paid in<br />
1882 was not a gratuity; it was payment for<br />
bringing a new edition up to date. The charge<br />
that " half the sums expended in founding Bishop-<br />
rics belong in all equity to needy authors " is of<br />
the same baseless character, as will be seen from<br />
the statement given above. Further comment on<br />
this writer's letter seems needless.<br />
Such are the grounds on which the author of<br />
the pamphlet bases his somewhat sensational<br />
indictment, and they appear signally insufficient.<br />
So far as can be ascertained, the Society holds a<br />
prominent position among publishers for its fair<br />
dealing with authors, and enjoys their esteem and<br />
even gratitude. That works of all kinds are<br />
pressed on its acceptance by thousands of writers,<br />
and that out of the many hundreds of whose<br />
services use has been made, only three seem to<br />
have responded to the invitation to state a<br />
grievance, are facts which afford strong evidence<br />
of the injustice of Mr. Besant's accusations.<br />
Nathanaei. Powell,<br />
H. C. Daubeney,<br />
H. Wace, Principal of King's College,<br />
Treasurers of S. P. C%K.<br />
Randall T. Davidson, Dean of Windsor.<br />
William Sinclair, Archdeacon of London.<br />
Brownlow Maitland.<br />
W. II. Clay.<br />
C. J. Bun yon.<br />
July 25, 1890. _<br />
II.<br />
The Reply to the Memorandum.<br />
I.—The Principles of the S.P.C.K.<br />
This is the document which is tendered as a<br />
reply to my pamphlet. It contains a false state-<br />
ment on its very title. I made no charges in that<br />
pamphlet. I called the attention of the Publica-<br />
tion Committee of the S.P.C.K. to certain well-<br />
known and recognized principles in the acquisition<br />
and the administration of literary property. I enu-<br />
merated certain classes of publishers. I then<br />
detailed certain cases selected from a great many<br />
in my hands; and I asked the Committee to which<br />
class they themselves belong. It is to this question<br />
that we seek an answer in the Memorandum. But<br />
we seek in vain.<br />
The "Memorandum" contains four sections.<br />
Let us take each in order. The first is called<br />
"The Principles on which the Society's publishing<br />
is conducted."<br />
Principles? But there are none.<br />
The S.P.C.K. is "not a General Publishing<br />
Agency." Well, they publish, for as much profit as<br />
they can get, every kind of book. If that is not a<br />
"General Publishing Agency," what is it?<br />
"Its sole purpose is to produce wholesome<br />
literature." And make no profit? That can I not<br />
believe. If so, why was not that ^7,660 profit,<br />
made last year, divided among the sweated authors?<br />
"This purpose is realised by putting on its pub-<br />
lications as low a price .as is consistent with a fair<br />
remuneration to authors." What is "fair"? On<br />
what principles is this justice to authors? This is<br />
the gist of the whole question: what do they mean<br />
by "fair"? There is no reply. There is no<br />
attempt to reply. The signatories are so careless<br />
as to their words, so blind to the real point, or<br />
so determined to evade the real issue, that they<br />
refuse so much as to state the principles by which<br />
they are guided in deciding what is fair. Now we<br />
might very well lay the paper down at this point<br />
and refuse to read any more.<br />
But there is much more to be noted, if only to<br />
show the condition of mind to which a body of<br />
apparently intelligent men may be reduced when<br />
they are bidden to sign such a paper as this.<br />
"The average profits (we are told) amount to<br />
about ^6,000." Well, but last year they were put<br />
at £7,660.<br />
This seems, at first sight, a straightforward state-<br />
ment. But there is no such thing as a straight-<br />
forward statement in the whole paper.<br />
"An average profit of ^6,000."<br />
What is " profit"? The tradesman buys a thing<br />
for a shilling and sells it for eighteen pence. The<br />
sixpence over is his profit. The sixpence is his<br />
pay for storing and distributing, buying and selling.<br />
This a law universal in every kind of trade. In the<br />
publishing trade, if a book costs twopence to pro-<br />
duce and twopence for the author, and sells for<br />
sixpence, the twopence is the publisher's profit.<br />
Out of this he has to keep up his establishment<br />
and make his own income.*<br />
* Since they may attempt to deny this, I subjoin two<br />
publishers' accounts. They are the accounts of honourable<br />
men. One is that of the sale of one volume of Gibbon's<br />
"Decline and Kail"; the other is an account of this year,<br />
also rendered by an honourable publisher. The practice of<br />
reckoning profit on this difference is, it will be remarked, the<br />
same to-day as a hundred years ago.<br />
"State of the Account of Mr. Gibbon's ' Roman Empire."'<br />
Third Edition. Eirst Vol. Number printed, 1,000.<br />
April 30, 1777.<br />
£ s. J.<br />
Printing 90 sheets, at .£1 6s., with notes at the<br />
lx>ttom of the page ... ... ... ... 117 o o<br />
180 reams of paper, at lgs. ... ... ... 171 o o<br />
Paid the Corrector, extra 5 5 0<br />
Advertisements and incidental expenses ... 16 15 o<br />
° °<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 142 (#178) ############################################<br />
<br />
142<br />
THE A U Til OR.<br />
The ingenious gentlemen of the S.P.C.K. have<br />
invented a new kind of profit. What they call<br />
profit is the remainder after tlu zvliole expenses of<br />
their establishment are met. Thus a partner in a<br />
house of business would say, "I have kept a whole<br />
army of clerks. I have kept up my country house<br />
and my carriages. I have paid for the boys at<br />
Cambridge and Rugby. There remain £6,000.<br />
These are the profits of my business for the year."<br />
In this case the Secretaries represent the partners.<br />
What remained over is not the profit, but the<br />
saving, of the year.<br />
Thus they made last year by selling books,<br />
.£85,013. (Report for 1889, pp. 92, 93.)<br />
They had to spend ,£22,812 in buying books to<br />
sell again, chiefly Bibles and Prayer Books.<br />
They spent on producing books, £38,375.<br />
They paid editors and authors—poor authors !—<br />
,£2,988 altogether for the whole year.<br />
Let us deduct the money spent in buying books.<br />
^85,013<br />
22,812<br />
There remains ,£62,201<br />
They spent on producing books... •••.£38,375<br />
There remains ,£23,826<br />
l,00O books, at i6j.<br />
Deduct as above ...<br />
£ s.<br />
800 0<br />
• 3>° 0<br />
d.<br />
0<br />
0<br />
Profit on the Edition<br />
£49° 0<br />
0<br />
Mr. Gibbon's two-thirds is<br />
£ s.<br />
... 326 13<br />
d.<br />
4<br />
S<br />
Messrs. Strahan and Cadcll's third is ...<br />
... 163 6<br />
The next, an account of the present day, is ns follows.<br />
The figures are not necessary, and for obvious reasons are<br />
£400 0<br />
0<br />
suppressed :— £ s. </.<br />
Composing — sheets, at £—<br />
Machining ... ... ... ... ... ...<br />
Paper<br />
Corrections<br />
Binding<br />
Advertising '..<br />
Total cost ...<br />
■ ■£<br />
By sale of— copies, producing<br />
£ '■<br />
d.<br />
Less cost of production<br />
Profit<br />
■■■£<br />
Of which Author's two-thirds<br />
£ s.<br />
d.<br />
Publisher's one-third<br />
/<br />
as the real profit for the year on the sale of the<br />
books. On the half-profit system the authors<br />
would have had £11,913. What did they get?<br />
Less than £3,000 1<br />
But, they say, large quantities of books are given<br />
away, "amounting to an average of £12,000 a year,"<br />
so that there is a loss on the publishing business of<br />
many thousands.<br />
Observe that if they lost a hundred thousand a<br />
year by giving books away it would not affect tha<br />
question in the least. The grant of books belongs<br />
to another department. Whatever expenditure is<br />
made under this head is made out of the general<br />
funds of the Society, and from the income derived<br />
from all sources.<br />
However, let us look into the allegation. What<br />
do they give away? Chiefly Bibles and Prayer<br />
Books, as appears from the Report. They issued<br />
during the year 561,869 Bibles and Prayer Books.<br />
The greater part of the annual grant consists of<br />
Bibles and Prayer Books. Now if they had not<br />
been given away they would not have been bought.<br />
Therefore the amount expended in giving Bibles and<br />
Prayer Books must be deductedfrom both sides. Did<br />
the Committee of Inquiry inquire into the meaning<br />
of their own assertion before they set it down? If<br />
they did and discovered what it means, what are we<br />
to think of them? If they did not, but signed the<br />
Memorandum without examination, what, again,<br />
can we think of them?<br />
Suppose, for instance, ,£5,000 worth of Bibles<br />
and Prayer Books and other books bought by the<br />
Society were included in the ,£8,562 set down for<br />
grants in 1889, that amount would have to be taken<br />
from the £22,812 spent in buying books. Where<br />
then is the loss of " many thousands "?<br />
♦<br />
II.—On Dealings with Authors.<br />
We are told that "royalties varying from one-<br />
tenth to one-sixth of the published price are {Jven<br />
to writers who are recognized as specialists, or<br />
whose names on the title-page of a book give it a<br />
greater commercial value, &c."<br />
Did the Committee examine this statement before<br />
they made it?<br />
Do they know how to examine into the truth of<br />
such a statement?<br />
I will tell them.<br />
They shouid first learn what is meant by a<br />
royalty of one-tenth, one-sixth, &c, that is to say,<br />
what it gives the author and what it leaves the<br />
publisher. They must, of course, bear in mind at<br />
the same time the legitimate gains of the publisher,<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 143 (#179) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
143<br />
else they have no standard of right and wrong.<br />
Next, they should inquire into the reasons of the<br />
difference—why a tenth here and a sixth there?<br />
They should then demand an exact list of the<br />
books published on royalties, and ascertain what<br />
considerations the royalty fixed in each case, what<br />
the publisher made by the transaction, counting<br />
the publisher's profit legitimately in excess of<br />
receipt over expenditure, not after "establishment<br />
charges " are made.<br />
I should like very much to see this list.<br />
The variation of the royalty, without cau se assigned,<br />
is accepted by the Committee of Inquiry without<br />
the least question. Why should there be variation<br />
in a royalty? The system of royalties means an<br />
admission that the work of an author is to be<br />
remunerated in proportion to the saleable nature of<br />
the book. The money value of a property—which<br />
is a separate thing from its artistic value—means<br />
plainly what it will fetch. Further, the price of a<br />
book is always regulated by the cost of production.<br />
Thus we have (1) price; (2) cost of production;<br />
(3) difference between these two. The royalty<br />
means that propottion of the difference which should<br />
be justly divided between author and publisher:<br />
why, then, should there be any variation? As an<br />
abstract proposition there should be none. But<br />
one can quite understand a house declining to<br />
publish certain books whose sale will be small unless<br />
so small a royalty is granted to the author as will<br />
leave the masters a remunerative profit.<br />
But "recognised specialists." Take the excellent<br />
short histories issued' by the Society, for instance—<br />
Roman-Britain, Saxon-Britain, Norman-Britain—<br />
all by specialists. Did they get a royalty? Not so.<br />
They got ^50 each for the copyright. So that<br />
this statement must be received with reservations.<br />
We then come to works of fiction. They con-<br />
fess that in these books their method is to pay "a<br />
sum " down for the copyright. They do not dare<br />
to allege that in their decision as to the amount<br />
offered there is any regard whatever paid to the<br />
profits which they mean to make on the book. The<br />
most they venture to plead is an allegation that<br />
their payments are "as high as, and probably higher<br />
than," those offered by other publishers.<br />
Can anything be weaker or more unworthy of a<br />
great religious Society than such a plea?<br />
Weak, because it is evidently signed without the<br />
least investigation. Into what publishers' books<br />
did the Committee look before they put their<br />
names to this assertion? What publishers have<br />
given them information as to their treatment of<br />
novelists? I can assure them, from my own know-<br />
ledge, and most earnestly and truthfully—that the<br />
only publishers whose prices can compare with<br />
their own are the lowest class sweating publishers.<br />
I declare deliberately, and with a full knowledge of<br />
what is done in every house in London, that none<br />
but the sweating publishers can be ranked or<br />
compared with the Literary Handmaid of the<br />
Church. I have given the prices paid to one<br />
writer. I have before me those paid to a great<br />
many others. It is the same dreary tale—from<br />
£20 to ^50 for the whole copyright—sweater's<br />
prices. In my pamphlet I mentioned three<br />
authors only. They were meant to be represen-<br />
tative, and the Memorandum impudently pretends<br />
that they were all I could get! They do represent,<br />
in fact, the great bulk of the unfortunate writers<br />
who have fallen into the clutches of this religious<br />
Society. What do they prove? This. That the<br />
Society habitually and deliberately pay the lowest<br />
price that will be taken, without any reference to<br />
the profit that they know will certainly be made.<br />
Once more—He who buys a piece of work for the<br />
lowest sum which the necessities of the producer will<br />
allow him to take—knowing that he will make twice,<br />
three times, fifty times that sum for his own profit—<br />
is a Sweater.<br />
Will the Committee of Inquiry deny this propo-<br />
sition?<br />
Now, in the case even of untried and unknown<br />
writers, the Publication Committee know by ex-<br />
perience that there is a certain minimum sale on<br />
which they can confidently reckon, provided that<br />
reasonable care has been exercised in the refusal of<br />
absolute rubbish. In the case of a popular writer<br />
they can reckon on a sale of many thousands. Will<br />
the Committee enquire into the case of those few<br />
popular authors whose works have been published<br />
by the Society, and ascertain what royalties have<br />
been paid to those authors, if any.<br />
The section winds up with the allegation that<br />
the Society's authors are satisfied with their pay.<br />
That is not my experience. That is not what I<br />
learn from the dozens of letters I have received.<br />
The writers of these letters hate the Society. They<br />
loathe the Society. They say that they only write<br />
for the Society because they must. They tell me<br />
so in confidence, but they implore me not to let the<br />
Committee guess that they have done so—lest they<br />
feel the vengeance of that Committee—the Com-<br />
mittee of the Literary Handmaid of the Church!<br />
But even if all the authors in the world are con-<br />
tented with their pay, that would not make an in-<br />
justice become just.<br />
III.—On Royalties.<br />
Here follows a very muddled passage. I gather<br />
from it, if it means anything, the following remark-<br />
able statements and opinions :—<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 144 (#180) ############################################<br />
<br />
144<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
1. The sale of books depends partly on their<br />
get-up and appearance.<br />
This is perfectly true. The fact belongs to all<br />
books, not especially those published by the<br />
S.P.C.K. It is the part of the publisher's business<br />
to put out his books handsomely. He is paid for<br />
looking after this part of the work.<br />
Therefore, says the Memorandum, an author<br />
must not have a royalty.<br />
The connection of thought is difficult to follow.<br />
2. "Vast quantities of books are given away."<br />
I have already considered the giants. They<br />
belong to another department, and cannot be<br />
considered in connection with the Publishing<br />
Department. "Vast quantities," however, is a<br />
vague -statement. Last year books to the amount<br />
of ^8,562 were given away. If ^5,000 represents<br />
Bibles given, and ,£17,000 represents Bibles sold,<br />
we have it that about 6 per cent, of the books sold<br />
are bought by the General Department to be used<br />
in accordance with the objects of the Society.<br />
Tlurefore, says the Memorandum, the author must<br />
not expect a royalty.<br />
3. If royalties were given, the price of the books<br />
would be raised.<br />
Indeed! Then how is it that in other houses<br />
where royalties are given the price of the books is<br />
not raised? In fact, the royalty system depends<br />
upon a proportion, not a price. It applies equally<br />
to a shilling book and to a six-shilling book.<br />
4. If royalties are allowed, an author, by a few<br />
days' labour, would present the "anomaly" of<br />
obtaining—what ?—the produce of his own labour!<br />
Here is, indeed, an anomaly. Here is a muddle<br />
of thought.<br />
If with a few days' labour an author can produce<br />
a work which commands a large and continued<br />
sale—why not? It is his production—his book—<br />
his property. The "anomaly " is that the Society<br />
■—a religious Society—should want to take away<br />
his property. That a body of Christian men should<br />
say, "You shall have none of this income. It is<br />
true that it is of your own making. We will take<br />
it. All shall be ours." Is it possible that the<br />
Committee of Inquiry should not understand the<br />
immorality of such a contention?<br />
5. There seems to underlie this section a feeling<br />
that because the S.P.C.K. has exceptional powers<br />
of selling books—which I recognize fully—the<br />
books should belong to them. In other words,<br />
because the administration of property can be<br />
carried on advantageously, the property belongs to<br />
them. Or, again, because it can be sold for very-<br />
large sums, it should be bought for very small<br />
sums.<br />
I do not suppose that this view would be<br />
seriously advanced. But let us clear away the fogs,<br />
and show it in its nakedness. He who acquires<br />
property must pay for it in proportion to its value.<br />
Otherwise he is a sweater, or a thief, or both. He<br />
who administrates property must be paid in pro-<br />
portion to the extent and value of that property.<br />
Thus, an honest publisher who administers a<br />
successful book is rewarded according to the extent<br />
of his sales. The book does not belong to him<br />
because he sells a great many; but he reaps the<br />
advantage by the proportion equitably allotted to<br />
him. As a matter of fact, the larger and more<br />
important is the house, the better, we commonly<br />
find, are the terms which a successful author<br />
receives.<br />
6. There is another very odd confusion of<br />
thought lying on the mind of the writer of this<br />
Memorandum. It is one of contempt for authors.<br />
He cannot bear to think that a little story—a<br />
simple little thing—the delicacy, artistic finish,<br />
and simplicity of which he cannot for the life of<br />
him understand—should be able to bring in for the<br />
author an income for years. That it does bring in<br />
to the Society an income for years he knows very<br />
well—has he not bought it for a ten-pound note,<br />
out and out, of the trembling gentlewoman who<br />
wrote it? But that she should have the proceeds<br />
of her own labour—that she, whom he has<br />
sweated with impunity—should get rich, is beyond<br />
him. He cannot understand it. The thing cannot<br />
be right. Why, he has bought a whole six-months'<br />
work of her for thirty pounds over and over again!<br />
IV.—Specific Charges.<br />
We come next to what are called "Specific<br />
Charges." Again, I repeat, there have been no<br />
specific charges. A few facts, out of many, were<br />
advanced, and the S.P.C.K. were invited to give<br />
their own opinion on them.<br />
1. As to the first case—not the most important,<br />
as they pretend, but the most obvious and glaring<br />
case—they acknowledge the sale of 5,200 copies.<br />
It does not matter to us whether the other depart-<br />
ment bought them or the general public. The<br />
book is now priced at 2s. I think, but am not<br />
sure, that it was formerly 2s. 6d. This means a<br />
trade price of is. 2d. very nearly. But the ready-<br />
money sales (about one-fifth of the whole, see<br />
Report, p. 93) are at i*. 6d. each.<br />
The cost of production is about 5^. a copy.<br />
By sales—<br />
£ s. d.<br />
4,400 at is. 2d. a copy ... 256 13 4<br />
i, 100 at is. 6d. a copy ... 82 10 o<br />
^339 3 4<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 145 (#181) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
M5<br />
Hence:—<br />
5,520 at sd.<br />
Paid to Author<br />
Advertising, say<br />
Profit of the Society<br />
£ s. d.<br />
. 115 0 o<br />
12 12 O<br />
5 0O<br />
206 II 4<br />
£2,2,9 3 4<br />
And this profit, £206—that is, seventeen times<br />
that of the author !—they call "not a commercial<br />
success "1<br />
If these figures are wrong let us have the right<br />
ones, only let us refuse to have dust thrown into our<br />
eyes by taking savings for profit.<br />
2. "No promise of future payments was made<br />
to the author."<br />
My client says there was. On whose authority<br />
does this Committee of Inquiry rest their asser-<br />
tion? My client insists that there was. By what<br />
right, or after what investigation, does the Com-<br />
mittee dare to deny the truth of this positive<br />
assertion? Is it on the word of one man? Why<br />
is he to be believed more than the author? Now<br />
there is one simple way of testing this fact. Have<br />
the Committee tried this way?<br />
3. "The total profit"—we have seen the real<br />
profit above—"is ^57 8*. iod., a very small per-<br />
centage on (he money sunk in it for 13 years."<br />
The italics are my own. This sentence actually<br />
belongs to the Memorandum.<br />
Can it be possible that intelligent men should<br />
have been deluded into a statement so ridiculous?<br />
Consider. The book began with 3,000 copies,<br />
say, and subsequently another 3,000 have been<br />
printed.<br />
Thirteen years ago the sum of £70, or so, was<br />
expended in producing the book and paying the<br />
author that noble—that princely—honorarium of<br />
twelve guineas.<br />
The sale of 1,200 copies, which was certainly<br />
reached within a year, paid back this £70.<br />
Observe, therefore, that £70 was sunk in the book<br />
for the period of one year only. The interest, at<br />
3^ per cent., on that sum for that period was<br />
Jj2 gs. exactly. That would take a few more<br />
copies. Then the ^70 was back again in the<br />
Committee's hands to be invested in some other<br />
book. It has been used over and over again in<br />
the thirteen years. It has been sunk over and over<br />
again, invested, recovered, and re-invested in twenty<br />
books.<br />
Yet the Committee of Inquiry actually advance<br />
the claim that this £70, paid off—returned to the<br />
investors—twelve years ago, should be still paying<br />
interest!<br />
In other words. A lends B ,£70. At the end<br />
VOL. I.<br />
of a year B repays the amount with interest.<br />
According to these gentlemen, B ought to be pay-<br />
ing interest to this day.<br />
4. The second case, one of a great number, is<br />
met by the statement that the lady has received in<br />
all ^716.<br />
5. The third case is met in the same way. The<br />
author has received in all £660.<br />
What has that to do with the question? The<br />
sweated needlewoman's pay of n^d. a-day, spread<br />
over twenty years, mounts up to the prodigious<br />
sum of ^300, and yet she is discontented.<br />
Let us make a little estimate, taking a book by the<br />
third writer, who is a capital writer for boys—and<br />
very popular. I take a 35. book by him. It is a<br />
very rough estimate, but the figures, I know by<br />
experience, are not far wrong.<br />
Sale of 5,000—<br />
£ s. d.<br />
4,000 at if. gd. ... ... 350 o o<br />
1,000 at 2s. 3d. ... ... 112 10 o<br />
^462 10 o<br />
Cost of an edition of 5,000—<br />
At 8d. a copy, say<br />
Author, say...<br />
Advertising, say<br />
Profit to S.P.C.K<br />
£ s.<br />
170 o<br />
45 0<br />
*5 °<br />
232 10<br />
d.<br />
o<br />
o<br />
o<br />
o<br />
^462 10 o<br />
If these figures are wrong let us have the right<br />
figures.<br />
The Committee of Inquiry affect to believe that<br />
I have three cases, and three cases only, of injustice<br />
and cruelty to allege against the S.P.C.K.<br />
In the first place, before I wrote a line, I had<br />
satisfied myself that the practice of buying their<br />
books at a miserable sweater's price, without the<br />
least regard to the profits which would accrue, is<br />
only departed from when the Committee find that<br />
they must—that they cannot get a book without<br />
some show of fair treatment.<br />
The lady, whose case I brought forward, is<br />
typical of I know not how many others. Grasping<br />
in all their dealings, the Publishing Committee<br />
make even success an excuse for lowering<br />
their terms. I will show how. A lady wrote a<br />
book and submitted the MS. They accepted<br />
it, offered her ^30, and published it. Probably<br />
they sold five or six thousand copies and cleared<br />
seven hundred. It was so successful that they in-<br />
vited her to do some work for them.<br />
She completed a second work. She took the<br />
MS. to the office and left it with the Editor, or his<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 146 (#182) ############################################<br />
<br />
146<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
representative, explaining clearly that if they wanted<br />
it they must make an offer. What did they do?<br />
They seized the MS. Having appropriated this<br />
lady's property, without her consent, they set up<br />
the copy in type, and they sent her the proof with<br />
£,■20. Her success had actually lowered her price!<br />
And they seized on her property without her con-<br />
sent. Perhaps they measured her manuscript with<br />
a tape and found it a few pages shorter than the<br />
last. One would like to know, in both cases, viz.,<br />
the first and the second book, what the Society<br />
made by the transaction. Meantime, it is quite<br />
certain that no private publisher would dare so to<br />
treat the property of other people.<br />
There is another lady who has done a good deal<br />
for the Society. Her work is very fine, delicate,<br />
dainty, and of high tone. She is deservedly<br />
popular. What have her prices been? I have<br />
a list before me. She averages ^25 to £do.<br />
Let us consider. I take one of her books, pub-<br />
lished at 2S. 6d. Let us suppose an edition of<br />
5,000, all sold.<br />
Sold— £ s. d.<br />
4,000, at is. 6d.... ... ... 300 o o<br />
1,000, at is. gd.... ... ... 87 10 o<br />
£387 1° o<br />
£ s. d.<br />
Cost of production, say 8d. a copy ... 166 13 4<br />
Author, say ... ... ... ... 40 o o<br />
Profit of the Society 180 16 8<br />
£387 10 0<br />
Now, from an honourable house, that lady would<br />
have received at least a royalty of one-sixth, or 5*/.<br />
on every copy. She would have made over a<br />
hundred pounds, and the publisher would have<br />
made rather more.<br />
Are these enormous profits denied? Then here<br />
is a case which cannot be denied. It is a very<br />
pretty story, and, I daresay, has been placed in the<br />
hands of the President and the Vice-President by<br />
this time.<br />
A. B. wrote for the Society four books. For the<br />
first book he received a royalty, which gave the Society<br />
only double what he himself obtained; for the<br />
second he received a royalty which gave the Society<br />
three times what they gave him. Let me explain<br />
that these amounts were, on their own showing,<br />
after deducting establishment charges—the true<br />
publishers' profit was very much greater.<br />
Then there came the next two books.<br />
The author was persuaded to leave the royalty to<br />
the Society, on the ground that a fixed sum ham-<br />
pered them.<br />
Presently he became very much dissatisfied with<br />
the result.<br />
As he could get no satisfaction from them, he<br />
very properly brought an action, at the same time<br />
offering to submit the thing to arbitration.<br />
They doubtless believed that he would not dare<br />
to go into court against so powerful a corporation.<br />
But he did dare. The case was set down for<br />
hearing before Lord Coleridge.<br />
At the last moment they backed out. They<br />
consented to an arbitration.<br />
The arbitrator ordered the production of the<br />
accounts. You shall now understand how far greed<br />
can be carried by a body of Christian gentlemen.<br />
The first of the two books showed, after the<br />
precaution of knocking off establishment expenses,<br />
a profit of ^633 to the Society, and £62 to the<br />
author, a proportion of 10 : 1.<br />
The other book showed the same proportion, a<br />
profit of £1,246 to the Society, against .£130 to<br />
the author.*<br />
The arbitrator awarded a lump sum to be paid<br />
by the Society, together with all the costs of the<br />
action.<br />
This is a very pretty case. It shows that the<br />
Publication Committee simply grasp at the highest<br />
profit they can screw out of the poor unfortunate<br />
author. If this case is denied or questioned the<br />
author is willing to publish his name.<br />
Again, one of the ladies who has been writing<br />
largely for the S.P.C.K. has recently taken her work<br />
to another religious society. She receives from<br />
them the same amount which the S.P.C.K. gave,<br />
but, coupled with a royalty from the beginning.<br />
Will the Church of England be too proud to<br />
learn from the Dissenters? A writer for a Noncon-<br />
formist Society recently addressed the Secretary on<br />
the subject of the pay awarded her for the copy-<br />
right of a certain book. Remember that she had<br />
no claim; she had sold her rights. The Society,<br />
however, reconsidered her case; they said that her<br />
work had proved a far greater success than when<br />
they bought it; they sent her a large cheque, and,<br />
in addition, placed the book upon a royalty system.<br />
Again, in illustration of the unscrupulous manner<br />
in which they appropriate other people's property,<br />
here is a case :—<br />
A.B. offered to prepare a book of a special charac-<br />
ter for S.P.C.K. In reply, the Secretary wrote that<br />
he did not think that it would be a commercial suc-<br />
cess, but he would consider anything submitted. As<br />
this alone would not justify the preparation of such a<br />
* Taking the figures of the balance sheet, the establishment<br />
expenses amount to 27 per cent, of the whole profit. There-<br />
fore the whole profit on this last book would be about £2,000<br />
against £130 to the author. Are these figures wrong? Then<br />
let them be set right.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 147 (#183) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
147<br />
work, A. B. sent two articles which he had written,<br />
merely as specimens of the manner in which he<br />
would treat the subject. This he was careful to<br />
explain. He received a printed acknowledgment,<br />
which was all that he did receive for three months.<br />
Then to his amazement his MSS. were sent to him<br />
with proofs, but not a word of explanation, beyond<br />
a note on the MSS. probably for the printer, "Set up<br />
for Dawn of Day." Dawn of Day is a halfpenny<br />
monthly of S.P.C.K., against which A. B. has not<br />
a word to say, but that he had not the most remote<br />
intention that his articles should appear in it. As<br />
the matter had gone so far, he did not like to seem<br />
ungracious and withdraw. The articles came out<br />
in driblets, with the connection of the subject<br />
broken, and without illustrations. When the first<br />
instalment appearedheventured to askforacheque—<br />
he had parted with his MSS. for more than six<br />
months—adding a gentle hint which he thought that<br />
S.P.C.A'. would esteem, viz., that anything that he<br />
could earn with his- pen was devoted to a religious<br />
purpose. He had to wait, however, four months<br />
more, and then received the magnificent sum of<br />
three guineas for the two articles, and not a word<br />
of apology for their misappropriation.<br />
For the shilling books which the Society issues it<br />
appears that they pay £10 or jQ\2 down, and the<br />
authors have no means whatever of ascertaining<br />
their own success. There are no dates and no<br />
numbered editions. Some of them are selling<br />
for many years. Now to one who knows the large<br />
sums made by shilling books, this dealing seems to<br />
require the strongest and the plainest language.<br />
A shilling book is generally produced at 2d. or<br />
2\d.<br />
Consider the figures—<br />
Sale of 10,000 at 6|</. ... j£21° 'fa- &d.<br />
£ s. d.<br />
10,000 at 2\d., cost 104 3 4<br />
Author ... ... 10 o o<br />
Advertising ... 15 o o<br />
Society's profit ... 141 13 4<br />
^270 16 8<br />
The Committee of Inquiry state that the prices<br />
f aid compare with those paid by other publishers.<br />
Well, I have myself written two or three shilling<br />
books which have had a good sale. Now, had they<br />
sold only io,oco copies each I should have received<br />
royalties for each over ^, 80, and my publisher would<br />
have made nearly as much. There are, perhaps,<br />
sweating publishers who give even less than the<br />
S.P.C.K. I know of one firm where the rule is to<br />
give^5 for a shilling book,,£8 for an eigliteenpenny<br />
book, and so on. But even this is equalled by the<br />
vol.. 1.<br />
S.P.C.K. when they gave £\2 \2S. for a two shil-<br />
ling book of which they sold nearly 6,000 copies.<br />
Enough of cases. We have seen enough also of<br />
the Committee of Inquiry.<br />
In illustration of the concluding paragraph, I<br />
add one or two extracts from letters from authors<br />
who have written for this noble Society. One lady<br />
writes to say that she prays the Lord to awaken<br />
their conscience—words used not flippantly, but<br />
in deep, sad seriousness. Another—nay, a dozen<br />
others—sends her case and implores me not to let<br />
the Society know that she has done so. Clergymen<br />
have written to me begging me to persevere in<br />
throwing light—and yet more light—into this dark<br />
place! Author after author has written, all to tell<br />
the same tale of wretched pay and immense sales.<br />
Nay, in some cases, the greater the success the less<br />
is the pay. Witness the case already quoted.<br />
In token of the esteem in which the Society is<br />
held by its writers, let me add a few words taken<br />
from a letter written by one of the most charming<br />
authors of the age. She says, advising a young<br />
writer about the S.P.C.K. :—<br />
"The Society, as a rule, makes books from<br />
copyrights bought outright. It pays them best<br />
"If the work is not very good, their clientele is so<br />
large that, with a smart binding, they can command<br />
sufficient sale to save them from loss. If they are<br />
fortunate enough to have caught a young genius,<br />
their profits are very large. The profit of their<br />
book trade is enormous "—we have seen what it is.<br />
"Their publications have not, however, stood high<br />
as literature, which has led them to make great<br />
efforts to secure writers of reputation, and as these will<br />
not part with copyright, they, have to pay a royalty.<br />
Your friend's fate depends entirely on what she<br />
can command. They are notoriously close-fisted,<br />
and will not give her one farthing more than they can<br />
help"—no question of justice and honesty, then?<br />
"And if they cannot afford to part with her, they<br />
will give her anything she wants. If she thinks<br />
her book likely to continue to sell for years, 1<br />
advise her to try for the royalty system, but if not,<br />
they have so many dodges for squeezing you at all<br />
corners, and it is so difficult to get behind the<br />
scenes, that I should think it better to struggle for<br />
a good sum down."<br />
This is very pleasant reading. This is an ap-<br />
preciation of the S.P.C.K.—to the "Literary<br />
Handmaid of the Church "—by a woman of the<br />
very highest character. I will not, in this place,<br />
give her name.<br />
Well, is there more to be said?<br />
I pointed out in my pamphlet—and I repeat<br />
here—that the sweater is one who, knov\ing before-<br />
hand that he will make a great profit, pays only<br />
what he must. The S.P.C.K., which nteci never<br />
l 2<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 148 (#184) ############################################<br />
<br />
148<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
lose by a book—and knows beforehand, within<br />
a few copies, the minimum of its sales—is proved<br />
by the cases I have alleged and by the admissions<br />
of the so-called Committee of Inquiry, to do<br />
exactly for authors what the other sweater does<br />
for needlewomen.<br />
I pointed out in the pamphlet certain plain<br />
broad principles of honest publishing. They are<br />
not my invention. They are acted upon by every<br />
honourable house; they are reduced to a system<br />
in France. The Committee refuse so much as to<br />
consider them. They say that "part of the pam-<br />
phlet" is part of a controversy in which I have<br />
long been engaged. It is not part of a contro-<br />
versy. These principles have never formed part<br />
of any controversy, because no honourable pub-<br />
lisher has ever disputed them.<br />
I pointed out that the S.P.C.K. frequently<br />
followed the plan adopted by all sweating pub-<br />
lishers, of carefully concealing the date of the book<br />
and the number of the edition, so that the author<br />
shall not learn his own popularity. No notice is<br />
taken of this point.<br />
I pointed out very carefully that the eighth Com-<br />
mandment must be read with reference to literary<br />
property. It must, by all honest men. The<br />
Committee of Inquiry pass over this point. Why?<br />
Can that also be part of a controversy with English<br />
clergymen and gentlemen of honour?<br />
I pointed out that their list of authors does not<br />
include half-a-dozen authors of repute. I asked<br />
why the best authors never go near the S.P.C.K.<br />
The Committee of Inquiry give no answer. There<br />
is no answer to give, except the answer that I sub-<br />
mit, viz., that none who can escape the sweater's<br />
yoke submit to it of their own accord.<br />
Had the Committee of Inquiry inquired at all,<br />
they wouldhave foundoutthesecases for themselves.<br />
But they have not. To inquire means taking<br />
trouble; it also looks suspicious; and it needs a<br />
clear head because of the dust that would be<br />
thrown in their eyes. Such an inquiry would<br />
reveal very startling things to those who understand<br />
what is meant by honourable publishing.<br />
So to all the real questions at issue, no answer.<br />
What is an equitable division of profit between<br />
author and publisher? No answer.<br />
On what principles are their authors paid? No<br />
answer.<br />
How much his the Society made—profit, not<br />
savings—out of the lady whose case was advanced?<br />
No answer.<br />
Why do the foremost living authors refuse to<br />
enter their walls? No answer.<br />
Why do the clergy themselves—those who are<br />
leaders in literature—never go to the S.P.C.K.?<br />
No answer.<br />
Why do not the Bishops themselves—let me add<br />
—go to the Society of which they are Vice-Presi-<br />
dents? To this question also there will be no<br />
answer.<br />
Now, if the Publication Committee dare to brave<br />
a real inquiry, which (hey will not do unless it is<br />
forced upon t/iem, I will tell the inquirers how to<br />
set to work.<br />
They must send in outside accountants—pro-<br />
fessional accountants—who must be instructed to<br />
proceed after a uniform method. This will be<br />
quite simple.<br />
They must construct a table as follows, and<br />
fill it in.<br />
first<br />
itions<br />
bpies<br />
T3<br />
6<br />
1<br />
aid to<br />
the<br />
er.<br />
ook.<br />
s<br />
1<br />
v<br />
e<br />
m<br />
0<br />
"o .<br />
O<br />
N<br />
&<br />
J<br />
unt p<br />
thor.<br />
ox<br />
V<br />
0 a<br />
Title<br />
Date<br />
9<br />
dl<br />
JM<br />
s<br />
|J<br />
0<br />
! Profi<br />
Pu<br />
iss<br />
d Q.<br />
><br />
6<<br />
<<br />
*<br />
<<br />
The profit will be the difference between the cost<br />
of production (including the author) and the sales.<br />
That is publisher's profit.<br />
When this table is constructed, and not till then<br />
will the true nature of the transactions of the<br />
S.P.C.K. stand out revealed to the world. We<br />
shall then understand to its full extent what can be<br />
accomplished behind the shield of religion and<br />
under the secrecy of books undated, editions un-<br />
numbered, and accounts concealed.<br />
W. B.<br />
*<br />
AMERICAN LITERATURE IN<br />
AMERICA.<br />
IF we were to take any four consecutive numbers<br />
of the Athenceum or Academy, and classify the<br />
books reviewed, noticed, or announced in<br />
those numbers, we should arrive at a pretty<br />
accurate idea of the books published during these<br />
four or five weeks. In the same way, if we take<br />
four consecutive numbers of the Critic of New<br />
York, we shall arrive at the books published in the<br />
States during the same period. There are now<br />
before us the numbers of that paper from August<br />
16th to September 13th, but that for September<br />
6th has somehow been mislaid. Let us see what<br />
books are reviewed in these four numbers. The<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 149 (#185) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
149<br />
titles are written in the order of the reviews and<br />
notices as they come, and without any attempt at<br />
classification.<br />
Kipling's Plain Tales of the Hills. Macmillan.<br />
M. Conway Hawthorne. Great Writer Series. Walter<br />
Scott. Lovell and Co.<br />
Canadian and Australian Verse. Lovell and Co.<br />
Cassell.<br />
FitzGerald's Omar Khayyam. Macmillan.<br />
Mrs. McGahan's Xenia Repnina. Routledge.<br />
George Ohnet's Pytre's Soul. Cassell.<br />
The Blind Men and the Devil. Lee and Shepard.<br />
50 cents.<br />
Smitten and Slain. Nelson and Co.<br />
Blind Musician. Stepniak and Westall. Lovell and<br />
Co.<br />
Aline. Greville. Appleton. 50 cents.<br />
A Smuggler's Secret. Frank Barrett. Lovell and Co.<br />
Ida. Mabel Collins. Lovell and Co.<br />
Boston Unitarianism. Nottingham. G. P. Putnam<br />
and Sons.<br />
Defoe's Complcat Gentleman, David Nutt.<br />
Northern Studies. Edmund Gosse. Walter Scott.<br />
Lovell and Co.<br />
Hanley's Views and Reviews. Scribner.<br />
fava, the Pearl of the East. Houghton, Mifflin and<br />
Co.<br />
Drury's Journal in Madagascar. Macmillan.<br />
Sister Saint Sulpia. Valdes. Lovell and Co.<br />
Guy de Maupassant. New Stories. Minerva Pub-<br />
lishing Co.<br />
Guy de Maupassant. Pierre et Jean. Routledge.<br />
Stanley. In Darkest Africa. Sampson Low. Scribner.<br />
Underwood's Corean Dictionary. Randolph and Co.<br />
Molee's Pure Saxon English. Rand, McNalty and Co.<br />
Hearne's Youma. Harper and Bros.<br />
Italian Characters. Martenengo Cesaresco. Scribner<br />
and Welford.<br />
Hall's Society in the Elizabethan Age. Macmillan.<br />
Harland's Two Women or One. Cassell.<br />
Bjomson's In God's Way. Gosse. Lovell and Co.<br />
An Artist's Heaven. Octave Feuillet. Cassell.<br />
Written in Red. Cassell.<br />
Were they Sinners? Authors' Publishing Co.<br />
Vivien. Cassell.<br />
Annie Edwardes' Pearl Poivder. Lippincott.<br />
Mad. de Mauriscamp. O. Feuillet. Lippincott.<br />
7ss Americains chez Eux. Paris Librairie de la Nouvelle<br />
Reveu.<br />
Fascimiles of MSS. relating to America. London.<br />
Stevens.<br />
Poetry. Three English and Three American Poets,<br />
Foster's Studies in Theology. Hunt and Eaton.<br />
Kipling's Phantom Rickshaw. Lovell.<br />
Payn's Burnt Million. Harper and Bros.<br />
Throctmcnton. Seawell. Appleton.<br />
Stead's Passion Play. Merrill and Co.<br />
Three novels from the French.<br />
Here are forty-five books reviewed and noticed;<br />
of these nine are French or translated from the<br />
French, nine are American, the rest are all English.<br />
Now it may be that at this time of year there are<br />
fewer books of native production than earlier or<br />
later. But what should we think were we to find<br />
in an English review twenty-six books written by<br />
Americans to nine written by Britons—a proportion<br />
of one hundred to thirty-six, or nearly three to one?<br />
This, then, is one result of the present system, and<br />
a result which everybody can understand. The<br />
American author is ousted and starved to make<br />
room for the Englishman, who, poor wretch, is<br />
starved although he is received.<br />
*<br />
AN OLD MAN'S REJOINDER.<br />
IN the domain of literature loftily considered<br />
(an accomplished and veteran critic in his<br />
just out work* now says), "the kingdom of<br />
the Father has passed; the kingdom of the Son is<br />
passing; the kingdom of the Spirit begins."<br />
Leaving the reader to chew on and extract the<br />
juice and meaning ot this, I will proceed to say in<br />
melanged form what I have had brought out by the<br />
English author's essay (he discusses the poetic<br />
art mostly) on my own, real, or by him supposed,<br />
views and purports. If I give any answers to him,<br />
or explanations of what my books intend, they will<br />
be not direct but indirect and derivative. Of course<br />
this brief jotting is personal. Something very like<br />
querulous egotism and growling may break through<br />
the narrative (for I have been and am rejected by<br />
all the great magazines, carry now my 72nd<br />
annual burden, and have been a paralytic for 18<br />
years).<br />
No great poem or other literary or artistic work<br />
of any scope, old or new, can be essentially con-<br />
sidered without weighing first the age, politics (or<br />
want of politics) and aim, visible forms, unseen<br />
soul, and current times, out of the midst of which<br />
it rises and is formulated: as the Bible canticles<br />
and their days and spirit—as the Homeric, or<br />
Dante's utterance, or Shakespeare's, or the old<br />
Scotch or Irish ballads, or Ossian, or Omar<br />
Khayyam. So I have conceived and launched,<br />
and worked for years at, my "Leaves of Grass"<br />
—personal emanations only at best, but with<br />
specialty of emergence and background — the<br />
ripening of the nineteenth century, the thought and<br />
fact and radiation individuality, of America, the<br />
Secession war, and showing the democratic condi-<br />
tions supplanting everything that insults them or<br />
impedes their aggregate way. Doubtless my poems<br />
illustrate (one of novel thousands to come for a<br />
* Two new volumes, "Essays Speculative and Suggestive,"<br />
by John Addington Symonds. One of the Essays is on<br />
"Democratic Art," in which I and my books are largely<br />
alluded to and cited ai d dissected. It is this part ot the<br />
vols, that has caused the off-hand lines above—(first thank-<br />
ing Mr. S. for his invariable courtesy of personal treatment).<br />
The Essays are remarkably tine specimens of type, paper,<br />
and press work—Chapman & Hall their English publishers<br />
—and jobbed here by Scribners, New York.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 150 (#186) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
long period) those conditions; but "democratic<br />
art " will have to wait long before it is satisfactorily<br />
formulated and defined—if it ever is.<br />
I will now for one indicative moment lock horns<br />
with what many think the greatest thing, the ques-<br />
tion of art, so-called. I have not seen without<br />
learning something therefrom, how, with hardly an<br />
exception, the poets of this age devote themselves,<br />
always mainly, sometimes altogether, to fine rhyme,<br />
spicy verbalism, the fabric and cut of the garment,<br />
jewelry, concetti, style, art. To-day these adjuncts<br />
are certainly the effort, beyond all else. Yet the<br />
lesson of Nature undoubtedly is, to proceed with<br />
single purpose toward the result necessitated and<br />
for which the time has arrived, utterly regardless<br />
of the outputs of shape, appearance or criticism,<br />
which are always left to settle themselves. T have<br />
not only not bothered much about style, form, art,<br />
etc., but confess to more or less apathy (I believe<br />
I have sometimes caught myself in decided aver-<br />
sion) toward them throughout, asking nothing of<br />
them but negative advantages—that they should<br />
never impede me, and never under any circum-<br />
stances, or for their own purposes only, assume any<br />
mastery over me.<br />
From the beginning I have watched the sharp<br />
and sometimes heavy and deep-penetrating objec-<br />
tions and reviews against my work, and I hope<br />
entertained and audited them (for I have probably<br />
had an advantage in constructing from a central<br />
and unitary principle since the first, but at long<br />
intervals and stages—sometimes lapses of five or<br />
six years, or peace or war). Ruskin, the English-<br />
man, charges as a fearful and serious lack that my<br />
poems have no humour. A profound German<br />
critic complains that, compared with the luxuriant<br />
and well-accepted songs of the world, there is about<br />
my verse a certain coldness, severity, absence of<br />
spice, polish, or of consecutive meaning and plot.<br />
(The book is autobiographic at bottom, and maybe<br />
I do not exhibit and make ado about stock pas-<br />
sions: I am partly of Quaker stock.) Then E. C.<br />
Steadman finds (or found) marked fault with me<br />
because while celebrating the common people en<br />
masse, I do not allow enough heroism and moral<br />
merit and good intentions to the choicer classes,<br />
the college-bred, the etat-major. It is quite<br />
probable that S. is right in the matter. In the<br />
main I myself look, and'have from the first looked,<br />
to the bulky democratic torso of the United States<br />
even for esthetic and moral attributes of serious<br />
account—and refused to aim at or accept anything<br />
less. If America is only for the rule and fashion<br />
and small typicality of other lands (the rule of the<br />
etat-major), it is not the land I take it for, and<br />
should to-day feel that my literary aim and theory<br />
had been blanks and misdirections. Strictly<br />
judged, most modern poems are but larger or<br />
smaller lumps of sugar, or slices of toothsome<br />
sweetcake—even the banqueters dwelling on those<br />
glucose flavours as a main part of the dish. Which<br />
perhaps leads to something: to have great heroic<br />
poetry we need great readers—a heroic appetite and<br />
audience. Have we at present any such?<br />
Then the thought at the centre, never too often<br />
repeated. Boundless material wealth, free politi-<br />
cal organization, immense geographic area, and<br />
unprecedented "business" and products—even<br />
the most active intellect and "culture "—-will not<br />
place this Commonwealth of ours on the topmost<br />
range of history and humanity—or any eminence<br />
of " democratic art "—to say nothing of its pinnacle.<br />
Only the production (and on the most copious<br />
scale) of loftiest moral, spiritual and heroic<br />
personal illustrations—a great native Literature<br />
headed with a Poetry stronger and sweeter than<br />
any yet. If there can be any such thing as a<br />
kosmic modern and original song, America needs<br />
it and is worthy of it.<br />
In my opinion to-day what is meant through<br />
civilized nations everywhere by the great words<br />
Literature, Art, Religion, &c, with their conven-<br />
tional administerers, stand squarely in the way of<br />
what the vitalities of those great words signify,<br />
more than they really prepare the soil for them, or<br />
plant the seeds, or cultivate or garner the crop.<br />
My own opinion has long been, that for New<br />
World service our ideas of beauty (inherited from<br />
the Greeks, and so on to Shakespeare—query—■<br />
perverted from them?) need to be radically<br />
changed, and made anew for to-day's purposes and<br />
finer standards. But if so, it will all come in due<br />
time—the real change will be an autochthonic,<br />
interior, constitutional, even local one, from which<br />
our notions of beauty (lines and colours are won-<br />
drous lovely, but character is lovelier) will branch<br />
or offshoot.<br />
So much have I now rattled off (old age's<br />
garrulity), that there is not space for explaining the<br />
most important and pregnant principle of all, viz.:<br />
that Art is one, is not partial, but includes all<br />
times and forms and sorts—is not exclusively<br />
aristocratic or democratic, or oriental or occi-<br />
dental. My favourite symbol would be a good<br />
font of type, where the impeccable long-primer<br />
rejects nothing. Or the old Dutch flour-miller who<br />
said, "I never bother myself what road the folks<br />
come—I only want good wheat and rye."<br />
The font is about the same forever. Democratic<br />
art results of the democratic development from<br />
tinge, true nationality, belief, in the one setting up<br />
from it.<br />
Walt Whitman.<br />
{In the New York Critic.)<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 151 (#187) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
LEAFLET No. IV.<br />
The Quarrels of Authors.<br />
IT has been the melancholy privilege of authors,<br />
for two hundred years at least, that everything<br />
which fortune brings to them, whether good<br />
or bad, shall sooner or later become known to<br />
all the world This exclusive privilege will, there<br />
is reason to believe, shortly be withdrawn from<br />
them, partly because they have become too<br />
numerous for its general exercise, and partly<br />
because other people are beginning to think that<br />
their own lives are quite as interesting as those<br />
of authors. Hitherto people who are not authors<br />
have been contented to sit down and endure in<br />
silence. Think of what we know concerning<br />
judges compared with what we know concerning<br />
poets. Compare the personal interest attached<br />
to the names of Erskine, Mansfield, VVedderburn,<br />
with that which belongs to Pope, Dryden, Gold-<br />
smith. Who wants to know how a Q.C. lives,<br />
what letters he writes, what friendships and<br />
enimities he makes? Who, again, cares for a<br />
life of the ordinary physician? Yet quite small<br />
authors find their biographers, and even when one<br />
cannot reach the level which demands a special<br />
biography, there are countless volumes of re-<br />
miniscences, autobiographies, and memoirs which<br />
serve to rescue the small fry from oblivion, and<br />
set them once more talking and acting, writing,<br />
feasting, and drinking for the admiration of pos-<br />
terity.<br />
The world, I believe, first began to like memoirs<br />
of authors because they were the only articulate<br />
creatures, and they naturally liked to talk about<br />
themselves. Therefore the only memoirs were<br />
those written by literary men. Then they have<br />
always been such unlucky creatures—born with a<br />
most splendid birthright, a noble inheritance, which<br />
has always been snatched away from them. Their<br />
very misfortunes have lent interest to their lives.<br />
For another reason, their lives used to contain quan-<br />
tities of letters, and there is no reading in the<br />
world more delightful than the reading of letters.<br />
Consider the tons of books written about authors,<br />
the masses of recollections and memoirs of persons<br />
connected with literature. The world reads all; it<br />
makes little distinction; it receives the auto-<br />
biography of Leigh Hunt with as much joy as<br />
if it had been that of Shelley, and it devours<br />
the Recollections of a Jerdan with as much avidity<br />
as the Confessions of Rousseau.<br />
The literary calling, chiefly owing to this readi-<br />
ness of authors to talk and of the world to listen,<br />
has been so fully illustrated that there seems<br />
nothing new to be said about it. Within the<br />
memory of man, however, a great change has<br />
come over the profession. The Bohemian has<br />
well-nigh disappeared; the author has become re-<br />
spectable. He no longer thinks it due to the<br />
profession that he should behave, even while he<br />
is in the twenties, after the manner depicted by<br />
Henri Miirger, or, when he is past the twenties,<br />
like certain gentlemen of the pen in Thackeray<br />
He is even, gradually and slowly, becoming a<br />
man of business; He actually demands the audit<br />
of his accounts, and he has begun to refuse<br />
signing agreements unless he knows what they<br />
mean. There are also signs that he is beginning<br />
to give up his old bad habit of quarrelling with<br />
his brother author. The last is a great step in<br />
advance. When an author is no longer ready to<br />
fall upon a rival writer; to overwhelm him with<br />
contempt: to sting him with epigram, and be-<br />
labour him with abuse, there will be the greater<br />
hope of his rising to the level of acting with his<br />
brother as one member of a profession acts with<br />
another—for mutual protection and advantage.<br />
Hitherto, it may fairly be said that in no other<br />
profession has there ever been witnessed or allowed<br />
such unbridled license, such unrestrained insolence<br />
of speech, as has been claimed and practised by<br />
literary men towards each other. No one can<br />
even think of a barrister speaking of another<br />
barrister in such terms as are still sometimes<br />
used by one author speaking of another. Can we<br />
understand the Law Times opening its columns to<br />
a young barrister who desires to call his seniors<br />
quacks in law and humbugs in oratory? Does<br />
one physician charge another in the Lancet with<br />
ignorance? Does one architect, in the organs of<br />
that calling, accuse another of theft? No. He is<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 152 (#188) ############################################<br />
<br />
152<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
restrained, first by the unwritten law of the pro-<br />
fession, which enjoins the outward signs of respect;<br />
and next by the simple laws of good breeding,<br />
which do not allow men always to tell each other<br />
what they think. Why, some of the very best<br />
things recorded of the "wits" are things which<br />
in any other class would not be tolerated for a<br />
moment. There is, one acknowledges with grati-<br />
tude, a marked improvement of late years; yet<br />
even now, every editor is quite ready to admit from<br />
one literary man an attack upon another. It is not<br />
many months ago that there appeared, in a monthly<br />
magazine of high standing, an attack upon a living<br />
author by another, so scurrilous, so virulent, so full<br />
of rage and malice, that it ought to have been<br />
brought into a High Court of Justice. But I<br />
suppose it never occurred, either to the editor who<br />
admitted this article, or to the man who wrote it,<br />
that in no other profession would such an article<br />
by one follower of the craft concerning another<br />
have been admitted, and that a barrister would be<br />
disbarred if he dared to write such a paper on<br />
the professional character of another barrister.<br />
In the old days literary men rejoiced and gloried<br />
in giving pain; they killed each other if they could,<br />
with abuse and contempt. They loved to dance<br />
and jump upon another man simply because he<br />
belonged to their own trade. The first reception<br />
of Keats, Byron, and Tennyson is well known.<br />
The savage ferocity of Macaulay remains gibbeted<br />
in that volume of essays which every schoolboy<br />
still gets for a prize. Nay, the old spirit is not yet<br />
dead; it is only growing gradually disreputable.<br />
Within the last twenty years we have seen actions<br />
brought for libel by Charles Reade, George Augustus<br />
Sala, Hepworth Dixon, Gilbert, Robert Buchanan,<br />
Keith Johnston, William Black, and Whistler—<br />
there have probably been others. Mostly, the<br />
libels which formed the cause of action were written<br />
by literary men, and in some cases by well-known<br />
literary men. Why? It is difficult to understand<br />
the pleasure or the profit of inventing deliberately,<br />
and then publishing, a malignant falsehood, con-<br />
cerning a man who is not an enemy. Is it envy,<br />
or is it sheer stupidity, or is it recklessness? Does<br />
the writer desire to pose as a champion of virtue?<br />
Possibly this desire has been generally the ruling<br />
motive. Vanity is also probably a factor. It is<br />
always grand to attack somebody ever so much<br />
bigger than yourself. Thus, this Society is accus-<br />
tomed to misrepresentation whenever the knavish<br />
publisher or the sweater can find an agent. But it<br />
was an author who wrote an article in the Contem-<br />
porary, indignantly charging the Society with ad-<br />
vocating the breaking of agreements—actually, the<br />
breaking of agreements! What did he do it for?<br />
Probably because it made him feel grand.<br />
Are we to have no criticism, then? There is<br />
plenty of room for real criticism: it exists already,<br />
though, to be sure, not in large quantities. The<br />
true critic—he also exists, but in small quantities—<br />
does not call names; he does not suggest motives;<br />
he does not recklessly accuse of plagiarism; he<br />
does not account for success by any but the real<br />
reasons—especially that the author deserves success;<br />
he neither down-cries, nor depreciates, nor mis-<br />
represents. These arts he leaves for the baser sort.<br />
One does not find the larger men playing the<br />
part of defendants in libel suits brought by authors.<br />
Can we imagine a case of Dickens v. Thackeray?<br />
This is how it might be reported.<br />
"The defendant, a well known man of letters, has<br />
recently written an anonymous critique, the author-<br />
ship of which is not denied, on a certain work<br />
by the plaintiff called Martin Chuzzlewit. In<br />
this review he spoke of the writer as a creature<br />
of low humour—rather of no humour at all;<br />
he said that the characters are dragged out of the<br />
gutter; that their language, their action, and their<br />
manners are entirely in accordance with their<br />
station in life, to which the author himself probably<br />
belongs; that some of the scenes, especially<br />
those in which a monthly nurse figures, are of a<br />
revolting indecency; that the book is throughout<br />
destitute of principle or honour; that the hero<br />
is nothing but a penniless adventurer: that the<br />
author laughs with wickedness and at morality; that<br />
he goes so far as to deride, in the person of a<br />
respectable undertaker, the solemnity and the awful-<br />
ness of Death. . . . Counsel for the plaintiff, after<br />
reading tiie reviewand dwelling on certain extractson<br />
which his client based his case, pointed out that the<br />
defendant was a rival of the plaintiff and jealous of<br />
his superior fame. For the defence it was argued<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 153 (#189) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
>53<br />
that authors are notoriously a highly sensitive set of<br />
people; that they naturally hate and suspect each<br />
other; and that the review was in every particular<br />
justified in the interests of religion, morals, and<br />
literature. The Judge summed up. . . . The<br />
Jury, without leaving the box, accorded damages<br />
of ,£10,000. The defendant, a tall man with a<br />
broken nose, appeared astonished at the verdict,<br />
and left the court promising to make mincemeat of<br />
his rival in spite of all the Courts in Christendom."<br />
The case reads prettily—but one feels that<br />
Thackeray could not have been the defendant. It<br />
is not every author, however, who tries to conduct<br />
himself according to the laws of good breeding. Nor<br />
is it every barrister—yet the barrister must, or else<br />
the Benchers will speak seriously to him. Cannot<br />
authors create a Bar of Opinion equally potent,<br />
though it has no power to expel from a profession<br />
which any may enter at any time or leave at any<br />
time without asking permission? Can we not beg<br />
them, while they are in it, to respect themselves<br />
in respecting their fellow-workers?<br />
*<br />
EXAMINATION IN VANITY FAIR.<br />
1. What do you know of Mary Box, of Mr.<br />
Chopper (state his Christian name), of the Rev.<br />
Silas Hornblower? Have you any later informa-<br />
tion about this gentleman and his wife?<br />
2. Where did Mr. James Crawley reside on the<br />
first night of his arrival at Brighton? What favourite<br />
accompanied him thither?<br />
3. Who laid the odds, and what odds, against<br />
Kangaroo? What charge of unsportsmanlike con-<br />
duct was brought against Captain Rawdon Crawley?<br />
4. State the second title in Lord Southdown's<br />
family.<br />
5. Give the circumstances of Mrs. MajorO'Dowd's<br />
education. What was her favourite consolatory<br />
reading?<br />
6. Discuss the relations of Sir Pitt Crawley and<br />
his tenantry, and state the results of Dr. Squills'<br />
conversation with Mr. Clump.<br />
7. What did Miss Sharp call her maternal stock<br />
before they were Montmorencys?<br />
Andrew Lang {The Sign of the Ship).<br />
Overheard outside the Senate House. "Scan-<br />
dalous! Disgraceful! Couldn't answer a single<br />
question. We shall all be plucked. Like to set<br />
the examiner to answer his own paper."<br />
A MODEL AGREEMENT.<br />
WE have received from a member of the<br />
Society one of the most delightful agree-<br />
ments ever submitted to an author. We<br />
hasten to submit it to our readers with a few words<br />
of explanation. Here it is in brief:—<br />
Book. A demy 8vo. volume of 300 pages. Price,<br />
1 of. 6d. Edition of 500 copies.<br />
Author to give. (1) Whole copyright; i.e., to<br />
part absolutely with his property. (2) Also to con-<br />
tribute £60 towards publishing. Certainly more<br />
than enough to cover the whole necessary cost of<br />
production.<br />
Publisher to give. Royalty of 2/. 6d. a copy up<br />
to 250, and 3-f. a copy afterwards.<br />
What under the most favourable terms can the<br />
author get?<br />
Here is his account, supposing that all the copies<br />
are sold :— jQ s d.<br />
250 copies at 2s. 6d. ... 3150<br />
194 » >, 3* 29 2 o<br />
Press, 5° "I _<br />
Author, 6 J<br />
£60 7 o<br />
So that for all his labour the author may, on the<br />
most favourable circumstances, get a profit of 7*.!<br />
What does the publisher get also under the most<br />
favourable circumstances?<br />
Here is the account:—<br />
£ s- d.<br />
Paid by author ... ... 60 o o<br />
444 copies at 6s. a copy ... 133 4 o<br />
£i93 4 o<br />
Whole cost of production, £ s. d.<br />
including advertising, say 60 o o<br />
Royalties to author... ... 60 7 o<br />
Profit to publisher ... ... 7217 o<br />
£i93 4 o<br />
So that if the book sells 500 copies, the publisher<br />
will make a profit of j£j2s. to 7*., or a proportion<br />
of more than 200 : 1!!!!<br />
But, it will be urged, he is taking a great risk;<br />
he does not know how many he will sell. Why, it<br />
is all profit to him, whether he sells few or many.<br />
Let us suppose that he only sells 250. How<br />
does the account stand then? It will be found<br />
that the publisher has made a profit of £41 odd<br />
to the author's loss of £28 15^. Corrections are<br />
here neglected, because there is a clause by which<br />
the author is to be liable for all corrections above a<br />
certain amount.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 154 (#190) ############################################<br />
<br />
154<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
A HARD CASE.<br />
V.<br />
Through a Literary Agent.<br />
IN this hard case an author agreed to publish<br />
a novel upon the following "advantageous"<br />
terms :—<br />
a. The publisher was to take "all " the risk.<br />
(3. The author was to pay him the trifling sum<br />
of £50 to help him support the same.<br />
7. The author was to pay .£21 as a reader's<br />
honorarium! Happy reader!<br />
8. The clear profits were to be divided into<br />
three equal shares, one of which was to accrue to<br />
the author and the other two to the publisher.<br />
c. The publisher was to take the copyright.<br />
A literary agent, who also had to be paid by<br />
somebody, introduced the author to the publisher.<br />
Then the bill came in. Every item was ex-<br />
cessive. The total cost of production as rendered<br />
was .£181 us. nd., inclusive of the enormous<br />
reader's fee, and an independent estimate shows<br />
that 3,000 copies of the book could have been<br />
produced and advertised for under £100. The<br />
work was stereotyped. About 800 copies seem to<br />
have been sold, and these are set down as having<br />
realized £44 14^. 1 id., or 125a'. a copy. The sum<br />
is arrived at in this way. The book was published<br />
at 2s., but copies are accdunted for at trade price (in<br />
accordance with the agreement), but 15 per cent,<br />
of all receipts has been deducted by the publisher,<br />
to justify which there is not a word in the agree-<br />
ment.<br />
The probability is that at this period matters<br />
stood thus. The publisher had spent dn the pro-<br />
duction of the book; if he produced 3,000 copies,<br />
from £90 to j£loo. If he printed a smaller<br />
edition, it would have cost rriuch less He had<br />
received from the author £50 towards the cost of<br />
production, and from the public ^52 odd by sales.<br />
He certainly was already not out of pocket. The<br />
author was ,£50 to the bad, and his chance of<br />
obtaining his share of the clear profits is made<br />
smaller by the fact that although the sales have<br />
realized £52, the publisher has pocketed 15 per<br />
cent, of this unlawfully. The account, as rendered,<br />
shows a loss on the transaction of £86 17*., and<br />
probably there has been really a gain of £10.<br />
It must be noted that if the whole edition<br />
of 3,000 copies were sold at the ordinary trade<br />
terms of 13 as 12 less 10 per cent, and the pub-<br />
lisher then deducted 15 per cent, from the result,<br />
there would only be about ^142 to place to the<br />
credit of the book. Allowing that the book really<br />
cost ,£100 to produce, there would then only be<br />
£42 to divide between author and publisher. This<br />
profit, according to the astounding terms of the<br />
agreement, would be divided in the proportion<br />
of three to one, the author taking the smaller share.<br />
The most then that the author could possibly gain is<br />
one-third of £42—or £14, if the whole edition sold.<br />
Yet he is asked to pay £50, any or all of which he<br />
may lose.<br />
This seems to us a particularly hard case, because<br />
the author, so far from being careless, seems to have<br />
made a very proper attempt to get good advice.<br />
Feeling himself unable to understand the business<br />
side of the transaction he employed an agent. But<br />
what are we to say of the agent?<br />
Imagine a man, whose business it is to know<br />
what a publishing transaction really means, sanction-<br />
ing for his client such downright enormities.<br />
First, he allows the author to get one-third only<br />
of the profits—that is disgraceful. Secondly, he<br />
makes him risk jQ^o on the chance of winning<br />
£14, which is surely odds that no one expects a<br />
comparatively unknown novelist to lay on<br />
himself. Thirdly, he has so little idea of the proper<br />
way to word an agreement that he allows the pub-<br />
lisher to appropriate percentages to which he has no<br />
shadow of right. Fourthly, he sanctions the swelling<br />
of the cost of production by a monstrous fee of<br />
twenty guineas, as a reader's honorarium. Fifthly,<br />
he is so satisfied with his handiwork that he assigns<br />
the copyright to the publisher, so that in case the<br />
book should be a success the wretched position<br />
of the author throughout the first edition might<br />
be maintained during the whole period of sale.<br />
This is not the first occasion on which it has<br />
been forcibly brought home to us that a literary<br />
agent is not always the author's best friend. Some-<br />
times we think the agent has simply been an ass,<br />
which is bad: but sometimes we think that he has<br />
deliberately handed over the author for slaughter,<br />
which is very bad indeed, seeing that he is occupy-<br />
ing in the author's mind the position of guide and<br />
counsellor. Let authors understand that just as<br />
there are doctors and doctors, lawyers and lawyers,<br />
honest men and knaves, wise men and fools, com-<br />
petent men and incompetent, so there may be<br />
literary agents and literary agents—some competent<br />
and some incompetent, some honest men and some<br />
knaves. In the search for a Literary Agent it may<br />
save some trouble to ask counsel of the Society.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 155 (#191) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
155<br />
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.<br />
WHATEVER may be the fate of the<br />
Copyright Bill in Congress, it is plain<br />
that the copyright cause has gained<br />
greatly by the discussion of the last year. The<br />
essential question was never so generally and<br />
so well understood as now, and in its recent dis-<br />
cussion there has been a refreshing persistence.<br />
The old argument—the most ancient, if not the<br />
most honourable veteran in a bad cause—that<br />
there can be no property in an idea, has been<br />
effectually disposed of. He appeared in Congress<br />
with his familiar air of conclusiveness and the what-<br />
do-you-say-to-that aspect with which he has bullied<br />
his way through the debate for many a year. But<br />
he has been neatly tripped and floored by Judge<br />
Shipman, and will be henceforth only a crippled<br />
pensioner upon good nature.<br />
Nobody can say whether there can be property<br />
in an idea; but whether there can be or not, an<br />
idea can be made available only in a way in which<br />
there can be property. The good cause has never<br />
alleged any other kind of property, and that is the<br />
form which the law concedes. Whether the law<br />
concedes it as fairly and fully as it should is a<br />
question, but there is rio question that it concedes<br />
it.<br />
The American law having granted to Americans<br />
that kind of right, the right is not weakened or lost<br />
by mixing it with different things. My diamond<br />
does not cease to be mine and valuable to me<br />
because you throw it among a heap of pebbles that<br />
may be common property. The law says that the<br />
form which I give an idea is my property, and it<br />
does not cease to be so because the law does not<br />
say that something else is property. It may in-<br />
evitably follow that by acknowledging my right,<br />
the law logically concedes that right in general.<br />
But whether this follows or not, the law protects<br />
my property in the form of my idea, and lays its<br />
hand upon you if you do not respect my right.<br />
You cannot take my diamond and make it yours<br />
by placing it between two pebbles which the law<br />
ought to say, but does not say, belongs to Others.<br />
Even if the law gives you a pound of flesh, it gives<br />
you no more and no less. Above all, not a single<br />
drop of blood. Judge Shipman came evidently<br />
from the School of Bellario. My diamond is mine,<br />
says the law; and whoever takes it without my<br />
permission is a-—conveyor, says the law, and the<br />
judgment of the law is ratified in the higher court<br />
of conscience and common sense.<br />
The great present gain of the cause is that it has<br />
been transferred to that higher court whose juris-<br />
diction takes cognizance of moral convictions. A<br />
moral right exists independent of law. Such, also,<br />
is the quality of what is called natural rights.<br />
Alexander Hamilton was the chief of pur practical<br />
statesmen. But it was Hamilton who said that the<br />
rights of human nature are written as with a sun-<br />
beam on human consciousness. Among all lovers<br />
of justice those rights exist, whether with law or<br />
without it, and those lovers do not justify an evi-<br />
dent wrong by the plea that no law forbids it. But<br />
in truth the highest law forbids it. The absence<br />
of good laws from the statute-book is as sig-<br />
nificant as the presence of bad laws. Good sir,<br />
do you justify the King of the Cannibal Islands for<br />
dining upon your lamented grandfather because<br />
there was no law of the islands that forbade it?<br />
G. W. Curtis {Harpers)<br />
*<br />
"SING A SONG FOR SIXPENCE."<br />
THE jackal sat up in a garret bare<br />
And wrote in the midnight cold;<br />
Undaunted though hunger and sickness<br />
were<br />
Sapping his spirit bold.<br />
He penn'd for libeity, knowledge, and right<br />
A song that will live for aye,<br />
To be to the world a beacon of light<br />
Until the perfect day.<br />
The lion reclined in his easy chair,<br />
And drain'd a bumper of wine,<br />
As he read with cautious critical air<br />
Each bright and burning line.<br />
He read and shouted " A triumph I see!<br />
I can easily make it go;<br />
The fellow's starving; he'll sell it to me<br />
For an odd pound or so."<br />
The poem came forth and the people read,<br />
By thousands editions ran,<br />
Till the hearts of all were stirr'd, and they said,<br />
"Tell us who is this man;<br />
Where dwelleth the poet that we may crown<br />
With a world's honour his head,<br />
The people's idol from monarch to clown?"<br />
Leo replied, " He is dead."<br />
W. R. Colles.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 156 (#192) ############################################<br />
<br />
156<br />
THE AUTHOR<br />
CORRESPONDENCE.<br />
I<br />
The following is from a well-known American<br />
woman of letters. Her name is not appended<br />
because she has not given permission to use it.<br />
For the same reason the title of her work is sup-<br />
pressed :—<br />
"I have just finished reading a sketch of your<br />
Society of Authors, and I feel such a deep and per-<br />
sonal interest in it that I must write to you at once.<br />
"I have tried in vain to arouse our women to<br />
action in the very line which you have so success-<br />
fully adopted. Three years since, we proposed<br />
an Authors' Club of Women, similar to the one my<br />
life-long friend, Dr. Holmes, has presided over,<br />
but the women did not respond with enthusiasm.<br />
I have worked for years quietly and almost alone,<br />
hoping some day to have leisure to do what you<br />
have done. I have been defrauded and insulted<br />
by publishers, and calmly told that they had made<br />
thousands of dollars out of my work, and it is in<br />
constant demand. Last Christmas a Boston firm<br />
published a book with my name on the ewer with-<br />
out my knowledge or consent. It was sold far and<br />
wide to my own friends, and liberally advertised with<br />
my name. When I called upon them for redress<br />
they denied having injured me, and I had no money<br />
with which to bring a suit.<br />
"Other publishers said it was shameful, 'but the<br />
firm was rich, and would fight me cruelly if I at-<br />
tempted to obtain justice.' You can never under-<br />
stand the burning indignation with which I listened<br />
to the robber who said, 'Oh! yes, I used your<br />
name because it was the strongest to carry the<br />
book, you know.' Had I belonged to a Society,<br />
then, which would stand behind me, he would not<br />
have dared so to insult and to rob me."<br />
No—he certainly would not. In this country<br />
things pretty bad are attempted, and very often<br />
carried out, but to advertise a book as by a certain<br />
well-known author, and to sell it anywhere with<br />
that pretence, would be very soon set right. But<br />
why does not the Authors' Club of New York take<br />
up a thing of this kind? Is there no sense of<br />
justice in the States at all? Will honourable men<br />
sit down and suffer such a thing to be done? This<br />
rascally firm of liars and robbers would fight the<br />
poor lady " cruelly " if she dared to bring an action.<br />
Are there no good men and true who will band<br />
together and fight the firm "cruelly"? We are<br />
accustomed to be robbed in the States; we are<br />
aliens there; we have no rights; but here is an<br />
American lady —she is foully injured by having a<br />
Thing labelled with her name and sold as her work,<br />
and she can get no redress!<br />
II<br />
An Authors' Club.<br />
Sir,—<br />
In your September number the question is asked<br />
whether it would be possible for us or better for us<br />
to meet in any other way than at an annual dinner.<br />
As one of your original members, who has attended<br />
all its functions, may I be permitted to remark that<br />
they are not satisfying—at least to the soul?<br />
Like Oliver Twist, one feels a desperate desire to<br />
get up and "ask for more." And, sir, I doubt<br />
whether a conversazione would satisfy this craving<br />
for professional companionship. These occasions<br />
would, no doubt, be useful, from a disciplinary<br />
point of view, but so far as my experience of<br />
gatherings of the kind extends, one always finds<br />
those one wanted to meet, "unavoidably absent."<br />
A proposal was made in your pages some time ago<br />
of founding an "Authors' Club," and I hope that it<br />
will not be allowed to drop, for it seems to me that<br />
it would meet the want which is admitted to exist.<br />
VVill it be believed, that in days when we hear<br />
so much of "Literary London," there is not a<br />
single institution which encourages social inter-<br />
course between men and women of letters? There<br />
are more or less literary clubs enough and to spare,<br />
but I am not aware that ladies are admitted to<br />
any of these. Considerable financial difficulties are<br />
generally encountered in starting a club on tra-<br />
ditional lines, but if we began modestly with only<br />
a few rooms, it would be better than nothing, and<br />
would give people who only meet at " crushes " and<br />
"functions " an opportunity of seeing one another<br />
informally and of exchanging ideas. If such an<br />
attempt met with a reasonable amount of support<br />
it would be a comparatively simple matter to develop<br />
it to any extent.<br />
A Member.<br />
*<br />
QUERIES.<br />
"I find among certain books which have come<br />
into my possession one entitled 'The Life and<br />
Entertaining Adventures of Mr. Cleveland, Natural<br />
Son of Oliver Cromwell, written by himself.'<br />
My copy is the second edition in three volumes,<br />
printed for T. Astley at the Rose in St. I'aul's<br />
Churchyard, 1741. The first edition, as stajgd<br />
on the title-page, was in five volumes. Can anyone<br />
tell me whether there is any foundation in fact for<br />
this work? Was there a natural son of Oliver<br />
Cromwell?"<br />
"The Author is not a mathematical paper, but<br />
I venture to send it a kind of mathematical<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 157 (#193) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
157<br />
question. It was suggested by a remark in the<br />
Saturday Review. How did they carry on the<br />
processes of multiplication, division, addition, and<br />
subtraction with Roman numerals? For instance,<br />
how did they multiply mdcccxc by lvh? And<br />
how did they divide mcxlviii by vm?"<br />
"Can you tell me who wrote [the following<br />
lines, and where the rest of the poem may be<br />
found? My husband has had the lines in his<br />
possession for nearly fifty years. He believes them<br />
to be modern Latin—<br />
"Siderum claros imitata vultus<br />
Quid lates dudum, Rosa? Delicatum<br />
Effer e terris caput, O tepentis<br />
Filia cceli!"<br />
The same lady suggests that in cases where a<br />
lady is a Professor, a Doctor, or any other profes-<br />
sion, the German termination—inn—might save a<br />
good deal of awkwardness. For instance, instead<br />
of saying Mrs. Doctor Garratt Anderson, we should<br />
say Doctorinn Garratt Anderson. Perhaps the<br />
suggestion is worth taking up.<br />
"Was Browning's Poem, 'How they brought the<br />
good news to Ghent,' inspired by Turpin's Ride?<br />
"Browning once told me in conversation that he<br />
frequently received letters asking him on what<br />
incident or event in Flemish History the Ride was<br />
founded, and declared that it was not based on<br />
any."<br />
"A monk made a bargain with the Devil.<br />
The latter was to pay all the former's debts,<br />
in return for which he was to have the monk's<br />
soul. The Devil duly fulfilled his part of the<br />
bargain, paid off every liability to the last far-<br />
thing, and came to claim the other part. 'Not so<br />
fast,' said the monk. 'You were first to pay off<br />
all my debts. You now say that I owe you my<br />
soul. I cannot allow your claim, because, if I am<br />
indebted to you for my soul, I am not yet clear<br />
from debt, and you have no claim.'" Where does<br />
this story occur?<br />
<br />
DREAMS AND THE IMAGINATION.<br />
THE following questions have been drawn up<br />
by Mr. James Sully (author of "Pes-<br />
simism," "Outlines of Psychology,"<br />
"Illusions," &c, &c.) and sent by him to writers,<br />
especially those who deal with imaginative and<br />
creative work. The collection of trustworthy infor-<br />
mation on this subject is of the greatest import-<br />
ance, and therefore all our members are invited to<br />
reply to the circular, even though they have not<br />
received one from Mr. Sully direct. His address<br />
is East Heath Road, Hampstead. All the replies<br />
will be received and treated as confidential; they<br />
will, however, be used as materials by him in the<br />
scientific work in which he is engaged.<br />
1. Do you frequently dream?<br />
2. How would you describe your dreams? Are<br />
they distinct and elaborate, or shadowy and<br />
incohate? Do visual imagery and language<br />
(whether heard merely or spoken) play an equally<br />
prominent part in your dreams? Are they in<br />
general characterized by some particular emotional<br />
effect, as terrifying, romantically lovely, humorous,<br />
&c?<br />
3. Are you able to exert any volitional control<br />
over your dreams? More particularly can you<br />
prolong a dream when you wish to do so, and can<br />
you afterwards pick up the thread of a dream and<br />
continue it?<br />
4. Besides dreams proper during sleep (com-<br />
plete or partial) are you in the habit of developing<br />
visions in your waking hours by gazing into the fire,<br />
closing your eyes, or otherwise?<br />
5. Have you for longer or for shorter periods<br />
been subject to illusions of sight or of hearing?<br />
If so, can you point out the circumstances which<br />
appear to favour their appearance?<br />
6. When intently occupied with imaginative<br />
work, are you aware of a muffling of the senses as<br />
during the visionary state? Do the pictures that<br />
come before you at such a time resemble in their<br />
distinctness, vividness, and suddenness of presenta-<br />
tion, dreams and visions?<br />
7. Can you trace in your case any connection<br />
between the process of dreaming and that of<br />
artistic creation? For example—(a) Do you find<br />
that you dream more (or less) when busily occupied<br />
in some imaginative work? (fi) Has the habit of<br />
dreaming increased since you took to fiction?<br />
(c) Did the faculty of weaving stories grow out of<br />
the childish habit of conjuring up faces in the fire<br />
or other form of day-dreaming? (d) Have you<br />
made any use of dreams or visions in inventing<br />
your stories?<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 158 (#194) ############################################<br />
<br />
153<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
"THE AUTHORS' MANUAL."*<br />
THIS book is noticed here in order to em-<br />
phasize the fact that the Society has had<br />
nothing to do with it. Let our readers<br />
make a note of this fact. Let them next make a<br />
note of the fact that, although there is in this<br />
small volume information—various and mostly use-<br />
less—concerning musical criticism, Volupuk (sic),<br />
the comic papers, Appuleins (sic), deipnosophy, and<br />
the works of Mr. John Dawson, there is nothing in<br />
it discoverable that seems likely to be of any real<br />
service to authors. Indeed, it seems that the book<br />
might as well have been called a manual for wire-<br />
drawers, or arch-dukes, so little practical good cap<br />
it be to the real author.<br />
To Mr. Percy Russell, who, it must be added, is<br />
the author of "King Alfred," "After this Life,"<br />
"A Journey to Lake Taupo," "Australian Tales<br />
and Sketches," and of "A Manual of Litera-<br />
ture," published by the defunct London Literary<br />
Society, "it has always seemed that the whole<br />
art of right reviewing lies in this little formula—<br />
find out what the book says and how it says it."<br />
Now his book, like the walrus, talks of many<br />
things. In it the reporter is encouraged to attempt<br />
to master "a reportorial style," which "cannot be<br />
acquired in a few months"; the paragraphist is<br />
exhorted to his own self to be true; and an<br />
example of style and truth is given in a paragraph<br />
from the pen of Mr. Percy Russell, which appeared<br />
in, and was paid for by The North Times, and was<br />
derived from Whittaker's Almanac and an Ency-<br />
clopedia.<br />
The aspirant to leader-writing obtains more<br />
practical aid, for he is presented, presumably from<br />
the author's Commonplace Book, with some pithy<br />
sayings with which to begin his leader. And here<br />
they are, "As Lucian says in one of his famous<br />
dialogues—The beginning is indeed half of the<br />
whole." "Voltaire in one of his most satirical<br />
moods asserts," and "Sydney Smith has a story."<br />
An aspirant thus armed with apt reference to the<br />
classics, to French, and to Sydney Smith ought,<br />
certainly, to go far.<br />
The Editor and the Sub-Editor, who receive<br />
counsel, as well as the journalist and the author,<br />
arc urged to make their copy fit their columns, a<br />
thing which it is obvious was not likely to have<br />
occurred to them, until they saw its convenience<br />
recommended in a Manual. Mr. Percy Russell<br />
calls attention to "the complete parallelism that<br />
* "The Authors' Manual," a complete and practical guide<br />
to all branches of literary work, by Percy Russell. London,<br />
Digby and Long, Publishers, l8, Bouverie Street, Fleet<br />
Street, E.C.<br />
exists between the advice given," in his Manuali<br />
"and the things to be done." This appears to<br />
mean that when he has presented the reader with<br />
a precept, he will follow it with an example. Here<br />
is the example, given by him for the use of editors,<br />
to illustrate the right way to make copy fit. The<br />
original sentence runs thus :—" There are poems<br />
which the world will not willingly let die, and which<br />
will endure long after the dismal caterwaulings of<br />
the 'life-not-worth-living' school are buried in<br />
oblivion." This, we are told, should, if necessary,<br />
and exasperating<br />
V .'<br />
be edited into "long after the dismal ^ caterwaul-<br />
palpably insincere and childish<br />
1 ,'<br />
ings of the X 'life-not-worth-living' school of<br />
contemporary pessimist well-merited<br />
> , 1 1 ^ 1<br />
X are buried in oblivion." When Mr.<br />
Russell says this is not a very good example, no<br />
one is likely to contradict him.<br />
The second part of "The Authors' Manual " is<br />
concerned with book-literature, and tells us of<br />
ballads ("not to be confounded with ballades")<br />
of blank verse, as distinguished from poetry and<br />
the " Iliad," of punctuation, and of making a name<br />
in Literature. This last heading seems to make it<br />
clear that for "The Authors' Manual "we should<br />
read "The Aspirants' Manual," and in a chapter<br />
on "Proof-reading" we find a really sensible piece<br />
of advice to the aspirant. It is " If you want to be<br />
paid, say so." It only remains for Mr. Russell to<br />
inform the aspirant what he is to do when he has<br />
said it, and when he cannot get the money. Of<br />
course authors who are no longer aspirants con-<br />
tinue on the rare occasions where they take money<br />
for their works, to warn these publishers before-<br />
hand. Many people used to say it to the "London<br />
Literary Society" constantly, with the result that<br />
they don't get it, and they keep on saying it with<br />
the same result to those upon whom the mantle of<br />
Mr. Playster Steeds has fallen.<br />
S. S. Sprigge.<br />
AT WORK.<br />
This column is reserved entirely for Members of the Society,<br />
who are invited to ktvp the Editor acquainted with their<br />
work and engagements.<br />
MISS ESME STUART'S novel, "Kestell of Grey-<br />
stone," 3 vols., which has been running through<br />
All the YearHound, will be published immediately<br />
by Hurst and Blackett.<br />
Professor Max Miiller is preparing a new and completely<br />
revised edition of his "Lectures on the Science of Language.'<br />
This new edition, the fifteenth in England, will have a new<br />
title, " Science of Language, founded on Lectures delivered<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 159 (#195) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
159<br />
at the Royal Institution in 1861 and 1863." The stereotype<br />
plates from which the later editions were printed have been<br />
broken up. Large portions have been omitted, new chapters<br />
have been added, and much has been rewritten. The new<br />
work will contain 400 pages more than the last edition of<br />
the Lectures. A German translation of it will be published<br />
by Engelmann, at Leipzig.<br />
The editor of Ruskin's poems is Mr. W. G. Collinwood.<br />
It is expected that the poems, which include a great many<br />
hitherto unpublished, will take three volumes.<br />
"Thoth," Prof. Nicholson's romance, the predecessor of<br />
"Toxar," has been translated into German.<br />
The authorised life of Ibsen, by Henrik Jager, will ap])ear<br />
shortly in an English version. The poetical quotations have<br />
been translated from the Norwegian by Mr. Edmund<br />
Gosse.<br />
Mr. Douglas Sladen, having spent six months in Japan, is<br />
contributing a series of illustrated articles on that country to<br />
the San Francisco Chronicle.<br />
One of our members, who modestly hides himself under<br />
the initials of X. L.—perhaps a certain story called Aiit<br />
Diabolus aul nullus may be renienbered in Blackivood with<br />
these letters appended—has written a one act comedy drama,<br />
which he calls " It was a Dream." It was originally written<br />
in French, and under the name of " La Fin du Bonheur" was<br />
actually accepted by the Comtdie Francaisc. It has been<br />
produced with great success by Mr. Kendal at Birmingham,<br />
and is intended for his strongest piece in his American tour.<br />
Dr. W. H. Besant has in the press a new edition—the fifth—<br />
of "Hydromechanics," Part I, and also solutions of the<br />
examples in his "Elementary Hydrostatics." These books<br />
will be ready about the end of the year.<br />
Mr. Hume Nisbet will publish shortly, " The Black Drop"<br />
(Trischler and Co.), "A Colonial Tramp" (Ward and<br />
Downey), and "Bail up; a Romance of Bushrangers and<br />
Blacks " (Chatto and Windus). The second of these works<br />
is illustrated by the author.<br />
Mr. P. H. Emerson, author of " Pictures of East Anglian<br />
Life," "English Idyls," " Idyls of the Norfolk Broads," &c,<br />
&c, announces "Wild Life on a Tidal Water" (Messrs.<br />
Sampson Low and Co.), with 30 Photo-Etchings by the<br />
author and T. F. Goodall, joint authors of "Life and<br />
Landscape on the Norfolk Broads." The price to Sub<br />
scribers of the Edition de Luxe will be £2 12s. 6d., and<br />
after publication the price will be raised to £i y. The<br />
ordinary edition is limited to 1,000 num!>ered opies for<br />
Great Britain, and 250 for America. The price to sub-<br />
scribers will be ,£ I is., and after publication the price will<br />
be raised to £1 $s.<br />
Mrs. Lovett Cameron's new novel, entitled "Jack's Secret,"<br />
which has been running as a serial in Belgrama, will l>e pub-<br />
lished early in November. The same author announces to<br />
appear soon, one of the short-long stories which form the<br />
principal feature of Lifpincott's Magazine.<br />
A new volume by Mr. J. E. Gore, F.R.A.S., entitled<br />
"Astronomical Lessons, or Chapters on the Elementary<br />
Principles and Facts of Astronomy," is in the Press, and will<br />
shortly be published by Messrs. Roper and Drowley, of II,<br />
Ludgate Hill.<br />
Mrs. E. M. Edmonds will contribute an English edition<br />
of the "Autobiography of Kolokotrenes," with an historical<br />
introduction on the Klephts for Mr. Fisher Unwin's "Adven-<br />
ture Series." A biography of Rhigas, the Protomartyr of<br />
Greece (Longman), has already shown the author's know-<br />
ledge of kindred subjects. [We regret that when this book<br />
was first announced the title should have been misprinted.]<br />
I. H. Leney has just issued "Shadowland in Elian Vannin;<br />
or, Folk Tales of the Isle of Man."<br />
Professor Skeat has completed his shilling edition of<br />
Chaucer's "Prologue to the Canterbury Tales" for the<br />
Clarendon Press.<br />
The second volume of Professor Skeat's "Principles of<br />
English Etymology " is far advanced, and will shortly appear.<br />
It deals with the "foreign element" of English, especially<br />
with words of Anglo-French origin, and such as are borrow ed<br />
from various modern languages.<br />
*<br />
NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS.<br />
Allen, Grant. This Mortal Coil: A Novel. New Edi-<br />
tion. 2S.<br />
Besant, Walter. The Demoniac. Arrowsmith. is.<br />
Immediately.<br />
Birrell, Augustine, M. P. Obiter Dicta. Third Edition.<br />
1 vol. $s.<br />
Cresswell, Henry. Sliding Sands. 3 vols. 31.1. 6d.<br />
Green, Anna Katharine. A Matter of Millions. 2s.<br />
Haggard, H. Rider. Dawn. 1 vol. y. 6d.<br />
Hardy, Thomas. A Laodicean; or, the Castle of the De<br />
Stancys: A Story. New Edition. I vol. 2s. 6d.<br />
Hoey, Mrs. Cashel. Falsely True: A Novel. 1 vol.<br />
fir.<br />
Hume, Fergus. The Gentleman who Vanished, is. and<br />
is. 6d.<br />
Karsland, Veva and Collis. The Witness-box ; or, The<br />
Murder of Mr. A. B. C. I vol. Is.<br />
Kipling, Rudyard. Departmental Ditties. Fifth Edition.<br />
I vol. i6mo. 5*. In Black and White. IS.<br />
Linton, E. Lynn. The True History of Joshua Davidson,<br />
Christian and Communist. Tenth Edition, is.<br />
Momerie, Rev. A. W., D.D. Preaching and Hearing.<br />
Third Edition. I vol. y.<br />
Murray, D. Christie. John Vale's Guardian: A Novel.<br />
1 vol. y. 6d.<br />
Murray, David Christie and Henry Herman. One<br />
Traveller Returns: A Novel. New Edition. 2s.<br />
Pollock, Sir Frederick. An Introduction to the History<br />
of the Science of Politics. 2s. td.<br />
"Rita." Edelweiss: A Romance. I vol. is.<br />
Rohin'Son, F. W. A Very Strange Family: A Novel.<br />
Second Edition, y 6d.<br />
SlME, William. The Rajah and the Rosebud: A Novel.<br />
is. and is. 6d.<br />
Sims, G. R. The Case of George Candlemas: A Novel.<br />
is. and is. 6d.<br />
Stevenson, R. L. Father Damien: An Open Letter to<br />
the Reverend Doctor Hyde, of Honolulu, from. u.<br />
Tytler, Sarah. A Voung Oxford Maid in the Days of<br />
the King and the Parliament. Illustrated, y. 6d.<br />
Warden, Florence. City and Surburban: A Novel.<br />
is. and is. 6d.<br />
Nurse Revel s Mistake: A Novel. Fifth Edition, is.<br />
Westall, William. Two Pinches of Snuff: A Novel<br />
New Edition. 2s. and 2s. td.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 160 (#196) ############################################<br />
<br />
]6o<br />
AD VERTISEMENTS.<br />
"THE LITERARY HAJYDJHAID OF THE<br />
CHURCH-"<br />
HENRY GLAISHER, 95, STRAND. Price ONE SHILLING.<br />
NOW READY.<br />
This pamphlet is a reply to the invitation issued by the Publication Committee of the Society for<br />
the Promotion of Christian Knowledge in their Report of last year, for any suggestions, which they "will<br />
gladly receive," on the best way of making "the Venerable Society the most efficient literary handmaid<br />
of the Church of England throughout the world."<br />
The suggestions offered in these pages contain, first, some of the elementary principles which guide<br />
honourable men in the administration of literary property. The writer next advances three cases, as<br />
illustrating the methods adopted by the Society. A copy of this pamphlet will be sent to any member of<br />
the Society by application to the Office, including two postage stamps.<br />
THE METHODS OF PUBLICATION.<br />
BY S. S. SPRIGGE, B.A.<br />
NOW READY.<br />
This book, compiled mainly from documents in the office of the Society of Authors, is intended to<br />
show a complete conspectus of all the various methods of publication with the meaning of each; that is to<br />
say, the exact concessions to publishers and the reservation of the owner and author of the work. The<br />
different frauds which arise out of these methods form a necessary part of the book. Nothing is advanced<br />
which has not been proved by the experience of the Society.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 161 (#197) ############################################<br />
<br />
The Society of Authors (Jncorporated).<br />
PRESIDENT<br />
The Right Ilon. THE LORD TENNYSON, D.C.L.<br />
SIR EDWIN ARNOLD, K.C.S.I.<br />
ALFRED AUSTIN,<br />
ROBERT BATEMAN.<br />
SIR HENRY BERGNE.<br />
WALTER BESANT.<br />
R. D. BLACKMORE.<br />
Rev. Prof. BONNEY, F.R.S.<br />
LORD BRABOURNE.<br />
JAMES BRYCE.<br />
P. W. CLAYDEN.<br />
J. Comexs Carr.<br />
EDWARD CLODD.<br />
W. MARTIN CONWAY.<br />
MARION CRAWFORD.<br />
Oswald CRAWFURD.<br />
THE EARL OF DESART.<br />
A. W. DUBOURG.<br />
ERIC ERICHSEN, F.R.S.<br />
Prof. MICHAEL Foster, F.R.S.<br />
HERBERT Gardner, M.P.<br />
Richard GARNETT, LL.D.<br />
COUNCIL.<br />
EDMUND GOSSE.<br />
H. RIDER HAGGARD.<br />
THOMAS HARDY.<br />
PROF. E. RAY LANKESTER, F.R.S.<br />
Rev. W. J. LOFTIE, F.S.A.<br />
GEORGE MEREDITH.<br />
HERMAN C. MERIVALE.<br />
1. C. PARKINSON.<br />
The EARL OF PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY.<br />
Sir FREDERICK POLLOCK, Bart., LL.D.<br />
WALTER HERRIES POLLOCK.<br />
A. G. Ross.<br />
George AUGUSTUS Sala.<br />
W. BAPTISTE SCOONES.<br />
G. R. Sims.<br />
J. J. STEVENSON.<br />
JAS. SULLY.<br />
William MoY THOMAS.<br />
H. D. TRAILL, D.C.L.<br />
EDMUND YATES.<br />
Hon. Counsel-E. M. UNDERDOWN, Q.C.<br />
Auditor-Rev. C. H. MIDDLETON-Wake, F.L.S.<br />
COMMITTEE OF MANAGEMENT.<br />
Robert BATEMAN.<br />
W. MARTIN CONWAY.<br />
I EL MUND GO<br />
Chairman-WALTER BESANT.<br />
EDMUND Gosse.<br />
H. RIDER HAGGARD.<br />
A. G. Ross.<br />
J. M. Lely.<br />
SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK.<br />
Solicitors.<br />
Messrs. Field, Roscoe & Co., Lincoln's Inn Fields.<br />
Secretary--S. SQUIRE SPRIGGE.<br />
OFFICES.<br />
4, Portugal Street, LINCOLN's Inn Fields, W.C.<br />
VOL. I.<br />
M<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 162 (#198) ############################################<br />
<br />
162<br />
ADVERTISEMENTS.<br />
TYPE-WRITING.<br />
MISS ETHEL DICKENS,<br />
TYPE-WRITING OFFICE,<br />
AUTHORS' MSS. CAREFULLY TRANSCRIBED.<br />
26, WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND<br />
Writings by Post receive prompt attention.<br />
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TYPE-WRITING OFFICE,<br />
13, DORSET STREET, PORTMAN SQUARE, W. ST. PAUL'S CHAMBERS, 19, LUDGATE HILL, E.C.<br />
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References kindly permitted to many<br />
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Now is the time to subscribe.<br />
| AUTHORS MANUSCRIPTS, &c., prepared for the<br />
A New Vol. commenced<br />
Publisher.<br />
4th April, 1890.<br />
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<br />
## p. 162 (#199) ############################################<br />
<br />
ADVERTISEMENTS.<br />
<br />
THIS VIEW IS REPRODUCED FROM A PHOTOGRAPH OFAN OPERATOR &<br />
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PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY.<br />
1. The Annual Report. That for January, 1890, can be had on application to the Secretary.<br />
2. The Author. A Monthly Journal devoted especially to the protection and maintenance of<br />
Literary Property. Issued to all members.<br />
3. The Grievances of Authors. (Field & Tuer.) 25. The Report of three Meetings on the<br />
general subject of Literature and its defence, held at Willis's Rooms, March, 1887.<br />
4. Literature and the Pension List. By W. MORRIS COLLES, Barrister-at-Law. (Henry<br />
Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C.) 45. 6d.<br />
5. The History of the Société des Gens de Lettres. By S. SQUIRE Sprigge, Secretary to the<br />
Society. 15.<br />
6. The Cost of Production. In this work specimens are given of the most important forms of<br />
type, size of page, &c., with estimates showing what it costs to produce the more common kinds<br />
of books. The work is printed for members of the Society only. 25. 6d. (A new Edition<br />
preparing.)<br />
7. The Various Methods of Publication. By S. SQUIRE SPRIGGE. In this work, compiled<br />
from the papers in the Society's offices, the various kinds of agreements proposed by Publishers<br />
to Authors are examined, and their meaning carefully explained, with an account of the various<br />
kinds of fraud which have been made possible by the different clauses in their agreements. The<br />
book is nearly ready, and will be issued as soon as possible.<br />
Other works bearing on the Literary Profession will follow.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 162 (#200) ############################################<br />
<br />
iv.<br />
ADVERTISEMENTS.<br />
NEW MODEL REMINGTON<br />
STANDARD TYPEWRITER.<br />
<br />
<br />
MA<br />
III<br />
<br />
For Fifteen Years the Standard, and<br />
to-day the most perfect development<br />
of the writing machine, embodying the<br />
latest and highest achievements of<br />
inventive and mechanical skill. We<br />
add to the Remington every improve-<br />
ment that study and capital can secure.<br />
I<br />
WYCKOFF, SEAMANS & BENEDICT,<br />
Principal Office-<br />
LONDON: 100, GRACECHURCH STREET, E.C.<br />
(CORNER OF LEADENHALL STREET).<br />
Branch Offices--<br />
LIVERPOOL: CENTRAL BUILDINGS, NORTH JOHN STREET.<br />
BIRMINGHAM: 88, COLMORE ROW.<br />
MANCHESTER : 8, MOULT STREET.<br />
Printed for the Society, by HARRISON & SONS, 45, 46, and 47, St. Martin's Lane, in the Parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, in the City<br />
of Westeninster, | https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/244/1890-10-15-The-Author-1-6.pdf | publications, The Author |