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Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1890-09-15 Volume 1 Issue 5 Pages Page range in volume 105–128 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18900915 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin Vol. I.-- No. 5.]. SEPTEMBER 15, 1890. [Price, Sixpence. The Author. THE ORGAN OF THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS (INCORPORATED). CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Published for the Society Be ALEXANDER P. WATT, 2, PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON, E.C. 1890.  ## p. 102 (#134) ############################################ ADVERTISEMENTS. Why is “Vinolia" Soap FREE FROM THE EVILS OF OTHER TOILET SOAPS? wwwwwwwwwwwww After careful investigation, the highest authority on Soaps, Dr. ALDER WRIGHT, F.R.S., reports as follows:-- FIRST. INGREDIENTS PUREST. "The ingredients are of excellent quality for the manufacture of a first-class soap. SECOND. PATENT PROCESSES. “The process is carried out in such a way as to render the products wholly free from all surplus uncombined alkaline matter, and therefore incapable of acting on tender skins, in the injurious and objection- able fashion exhibited by most kinds of ordinary soap." THIRD. Extra CREAM. “A further amelioration is also effected by the incorporation with the soap of extra fatty matter, well calculated to soften the skin, and diminish the tendency to irritation sometimes caused in very tender subjects by even the Purest of Ordinary Soaps." FOURTH. DELICATE SCENT. " Vinolia' Soap is Delicately Scented, and wholly free from poisonous Metallic Colouring Matters.” An overwhelming Proof that it is without any rival whatever is this:-- o IT IS THE SOAP OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION. OF ALL CHEMISTS. SAMPLES FORWARDED POST FREE ON RECEIPT OF THREE PENNY STAMPS. PRICES:-VINOLIA SOAP, Floral, 6d. ; Medical (Balsamic), 8d.; and Toilet (Otto of Rose), rod. per Tablet. VINOLIA SHAVING SOAP, Is., IS. 6d., and zs. 6d. per Stick, and Flat Cakes in Porcelain-lined metal boxes, 2s. VINOLIA CREAM (a Plastic Emollient Cream for the Skin in Health and Disease ; for Itching, Eczema, Sunburn, Roughness, &c.), is, ed., 35. 6d., and 6s. per Box. VINOLIA POWDER (a Soothing, Soluble, Rose Dusting Powder, for the Toilet, Nursery, Skin Irritation, &c.), in Pink, White, and Cream, IS. 9d., 35. 6d. and 6s. per box. BLONDEAU ET CIE., RYLAND ROAD, LONDON, N.W.  ## p. 103 (#135) ############################################ The Society of Authors (Incorporated). PRESIDENT. THE Right Hon. THE LORD TENNYSON, D.C.L. SIR EDWIN ARNOLD, K.C.S.I. ALFRED AUSTIN. Robert BATEMAN. SIR HENRY BERGNE. WALTER BESANT. R. D. BLACKMORE. Rev, PROF. BONNEY, F.R.S. LORD BRABOURNE. JAMES BRYCE. P. W. CLAYDEN. J. COMYNS CARR. EDWARD CLODD. W. MARTIN CONWAY. MARION CRAWFORD. OSWALD CRAWFURD. THE EARL OF DESART. A. W. DUBOURG. ERIC ERICHSEN, F.R.S. ProF. MICHAEL FOSTER, F.R.S. HERBERT GARDNER, M.P. RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D. COUNCIL. EDMUND Gosse. H. RIDER HAGGARD. THOMAS HARDY. PROF. E. RAY LANKESTER, F.R.S. Rev. W. J. Lortie, F.S.A. GEORGE MEREDITH. HERMAN C. MERIVALE. J. C. PARKINSON. THE EARL OF PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY. SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK, BART., LL.D. WALTER Herries Pollock. A. G. Ross. GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. W. BAPTISTE SCOONES. G. R. Sims. J. J. STEVENSON. JAS. SULLY. WILLIAM Moy THOMAS. H. D. Traill, D.C.L. EDMUND YATES. Hon. Counsel-E. M. UNDERDOWN, Q.C. Auditor-Rev. C. H. MIDDLETON-WAKE, F.L.S. ROBERT BATEMAN. W. MARTIN CONWAY. COMMITTEE OF MANAGEMENT. Chairman-Walter BESANT. EDMUND Gosse. H. Rider HAGGARD. A. G. Ross. J. M. LELY. Sir FREDERICK POLLOCK. Solicitors. Messrs. FIELD, Roscoe, & Co., Lincoln's Inn Fields. Secretary–S. SQUIRE SPRIGGE. OFFICES. 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN's Inn Fields, W.C. VOL. I.  ## p. 104 (#136) ############################################ 104 ADVERTISEMENTS, 1. Bertan, Sept nyt 1878 Men. Marie, Todd & lo. Gentleman, - Thave seur me of your Reus, to have a paina mended through Men. Hochen, Leurs Ito. of Mencity. For may like to know that Shune had tri fen Cmitute formue han twenty years, rune the days of a book of men called" The Autorahas the Breckfact tere 1857-8 mute last Friday without retain and alway with herfect Dalesjacken I have written with is halfa dozen arimare volumes, a Tance neember of Enneps to auce reusands of letters. Tere bir as of an ole rence and I hohe yeu ance do the beat you can for it Though I have in the meci Hier bought austan of qui mate' corrugała? mashed C. - The net know whether que crue fire this testimonial, hor's feel as if the free which han Casies out to much of may throught and brought back To much in various forms in return was enlithed to this Carlisicut of hionnaha seccica Sau, Centhum Yorus terly Mica Wendell Hemed ILLUSTRATED Price List will be sent, free and post paid, on application to Mabie, Todd & BARD, 93, CHEAPSIDE, LONDON.  ## p. 105 (#137) ############################################ (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vol. I.—No. 5.] SEPTEMBER 15, 1890. [Price Sixpence. C O N T PAGE News and Notes ~ 105 The Poet's Seat: An Idyll of the Suburbs. By Austin Dobson ... 111 English Authors and the Colonial Book Market in A Hard Case, No. IV 114 A Society of Authors for America 115 An Author's Home "8 The Word " Slang." By Charles G. Leland 119 Go Slow. By H. G. Keene 110 NEWS AND NOTES. IHOPE that readers of The Author'will regard with favour the arrangement of last month's number, which contained nothing but the Report of the Dinner and the speeches pronounced on that occasion. For my own part I would gladly have a close season for magazines, journals, and new books of every kind. It would do the world every kind of good to rest from ephemerals during the months of August and September. There is plenty of old literature to read: no one can read anything like the number of good things that come out. If we would only rest! In a sense we do. The summer is the season for publishing in the magazines the papers which nobody cares to read. How if there were no publications at all ?• The Authors' Dinner I regard as chiefly valuable because it is the only function in which authors, as a body, have ever come together. It is difficult to manage; it causes little frictions of the moment; there is always the usual excuse from the man you want most to get. He who is best qualified to speak on this or that point is sure to be ill or absent. Yet with all these difficulties we have met for the third time, and we have met very successfully in increas- ing numbers. Would it be possible, or would it be better for us—in our own interests—to meet in any other way? A conference has been suggested, or a E N T S. PAGE Correspondence— I. A Club of Critics "i II. American Cookery "I III. The Society's Readers i« IV. Black Beauty m The Library of Toronto University "4 International Copyright - "4 At Work - "5 New Books and New Editions "5 Advertisements "7 conversazione, as a change from the dinner. As regards the former we should require certain very definite points of discussion, and there would have to be a very rigid chairman, and I think that reporters should be excluded. A conference of two days followed by a conversazione might be a change for the better in our annual programme. I shall be very glad to receive any communications on this subject. ♦ For reasons not wholly unconnected with laziness and a long holiday I have to defer the few observa- tions I wish to make on a certain Memorandum recently issued by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge until next month. However, two letters on the subject which appeared in the Daily News and in the Guardian early in August, have perhaps explained my views as to the value of that document and have prevented my silence being misconstrued. Meantime, let us note one thing very carefully. There is not in the minds either of the Publication Committee of that Society or in the minds of those who were persuaded to sign this precious Memorandum, the slightest perception; not the least glimmering of perception; that literary property now exists. Yet they make thousands every year by literary property. And they obsti- nately refuse to inquire, as to their methods of ac- quisition, whether they are honest and honourable, or the reverse. This prevailing ignorance of the existence of vol. 1. h 2  ## p. 106 (#138) ############################################ io6 THE AUTHOR. literary property and its rights has been also illus- trated in other ways. Thus, a man who has long been connected with literature writes to a journal that he has been more "generously " treated by the S.P.C.K. than byother publishers. More generously! But the question is not one of generosity, but of justice. When will the world understand this? Are authors to stand, hat in hand, the tears of grati- tude running down their hungry cheeks, when these high-minded Christiangentlemen bestow theirdoles? • The awakening, however, even of the religious mind is illustrated by a recent fact. A lady writes that another religious publishing society—noncon- formists, these—have sent her word, that although they bought certain books of hers outright, and she has no claim, in spite of their success, they recognise the equity of her case. They have therefore sent her a substantial cheque for past years and promise her a royalty in future. This, you see, concedes the first principle to be observed by all honest men in the acquisition of literary property, viz., that the price paid for it, or the rental for the use of it, must depend on the actual sale of the book and not upon the amount fixed by the avarice of a sweater or the necessities of an author. But this is a Society managed by humble nonconformists, not by high - minded Churchmen. And a second lady, herself one of the unfortunate victims of the S.P.C.K., writes that shehas just negotiated with another religious publish- ing house for the production of a book. She has received the same sum which she has been accus- tomed to get from the former liberal and honourable house, but accompanied by a very reasonable royalty in addition. We are waking up, after all. Why is it that religious societies are always doing things of which private firms would be ashamed? I have, still further, received the par- ticulars of a case which I set down as it was told to me. If I had time to investigate the case fully I would publish the name of the Society. The accountant of a certain society discovered that another officer, by an elaborate system of secret book-keeping, had turned the society into a firm trading for his own advantage! He proceeded to expose the whole business after an immense deal of trouble in unearthing the intricacies of the method. The result was that the committee, on the offender saying that he had now repented, with prayer and tears, and had turned over a new leaf, passed a vote of confirmed confidence—and dismissed the ac- countant! It seems incredible, and there may be another side to the story, but the documents, which I have received and read, appear to leave no doubt on the matter. Here, again, is another case which speaks for itself. It is an advertisement cut out of a paper. In this case the name of the truly conscientious Society is given at full, for the admiration of the world:— "Competition for Twenty Pounds. "The Junior Division Church of England Temperance Society offers the following prizes :-- "Ten Pounds for the best set of eight dialogues suitable for Church Bands of Hope, illus- trating respectively the eight lectures of the syllabus (health, wealth, and temperance) for the next year's examination. "Ten pounds for the best set of eight stories for tracts for children (not exceeding 1,000 words), illustrating, respectively, the eight lectures above mentioned. "The Society reserves the right to publish any competition, whether it gain the prize or not. "For further particulars apply to the Secretary, (Junior Division C.E.T.S.), 9, Bridge Street, Westminster, S.W." This Church of England Society calmly proposes, in fact, to keep for nothing all the things that are sent in to them. It " reserves the right to publish any competition, whether it gains the prize or not." Now if an enterprising butcher was to offer a prize of twenty pounds for the best pig, "reserving the right" of keeping and selling for himself all the competing pigs, whether they gained a prize or not, what would be said of that butcher's impudence? How would his brother butchers speak of the offer? In what light would it be regarded by the pro- prietors of pigs? Yet, because it is only literary property that is concerned, the respectable Com- mittee of the Junior Division of the Church of England Temperance Society does not scruple to imitate that enterprising butcher. The committees of religious societies always, I believe, begin with prayer. Would it be possible for the Archbishop to draw up a form of prayer suitable for those committees which have to do with publishing? Some kind person has sent me the prospectus of a Society which really does seem to meet that "long- felt want" which calls for every new association. One need not mention it by name, because an association with such benevolent aims cannot fail to make rapid way. It is, in fact, the much-desired Ghost Society. There has never been a time when people have more ardently desired dramatic success. There has also never been a time when so few people have possessed the first elements of dramatic success. They may now, however, by joining this Association, whose terms of membership ought to be very high, be able to gratify their laudable ambition.  ## p. 107 (#139) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. They can have their manuscript plays corrected, re- vised, and put into practical dramatic form for them —no doubt by Messrs. Sims, Pinero, Henry Jones, Petlitt, and other leading dramatists. The Society is also about to issue a monthly paper, "supported by tales of the Association," which is a very odd form of support. They are also going to find engagements for ladies and gentlemen who wish to go on the stage, and they will teach people to play the violin or the harp, to sing, to become eloquent, and to compose music; in short, a most excellent Ghost Society. One department is, no doubt only for the moment, omitted. They do not yet propose to correct literary work and make it fit for publication. But here is a very great field lying open for the first comer. If only those who are now so foolish as to spend their money in paying for their own productions, receiving in return nothing but a nasty, spiteful notice in the papers, would only lay out that money in buying MSS. worth printing and put their own names to them, how much better it would be for all parties! For the author would get properly paid, the person with the money would get the glory, and the public would be spared the trash that is now offered them. We look for the develop- ment of this new Society in the direction of litera- ture. Perhaps we might do a good turn to our own members by creating a new Branch—the Ghostly Branch—of the Society of Authors ; or it might seem better adapted—a more natural growth—to the S.P.C.K. —♦ An American paper, the Critic, has lately been preparing a list of the Forty living Immortals—the Academy—of the United States. Here they are, divided into the States or countries of their resi- dence :— Massachusetts. Aldrich, Brooks, Cable, Child, Fiske, Frothingham, Hall, Higginson, Holmes, Howells, Lowell, Norton, Parkman, Whittier. New York. Burroughs, Curtis, Dana, Gilder, Hawthorne, Stedman, Stoddard, Tylor, White. Connecticut. Clemens, Fisher, Lathrop, Mitchell, Porter, Warner, Whitney. New Jersey. Stockton, Whitman. Pennsylvania. Furness. England. Bret Harte, James. Columbia District. Bancroft. Michigan. Winchell. Georgia. Harris. Italy. Story. The same paper is about to prepare a new li*>t, containing the twenty who shall be considered the truest representatives of what is best in cultivated American womanhood. In a lecture entitled "Literature as a Profession," Col. T. W. Higginson has made some remarks which are quoted in the Critic of New York. Among them are the following :— "Here, as nowhere else, the author stands free and dignified in his profession, with no class above him. How does a literary man stand to-day in England? So long as he is not raised to the peerage, he takes rank below the meanest man who has been: and if, like Tennyson, he consents to join it, he has the extreme felicity of being followed in that body by a prosperous London brewer. The separation of set from set makes its mark in all the literature of England. Why is it that the American magazines have marched in solid column into England and displaced the English magazines? It is because the American magazine is a magazine. It is a place of compre- hension. It brings people together." Here are two interesting points. The first is the wonderful inability of the American mind to under- standj^'hat rank means. As regards precedence the best English poet, if he had no title, would have to walk behind the lowest birthday or jubilee knight. But what Englishman in his senses would rank the birthday knight above the poet? What does it matter to the author and his position whether a brewer or a brewer's clerk receive a title? His own position remains the same. It is that acquired by his reputation alone. The next point is more serious. The lecturer says that the American magazines have displaced the English magazines in their own land. Is this so? Does the statement approach the truth? If it is true, or nearly true, it is a very great reproach on English writers and a great blow and discouragement. Well, we have the Contemporary, the Nineteenth Century, the Fornightly, the National, the Universal, the New Review, Blaekwood's, Macmillan's, the Cornhill, Longman's, Temple Bar, and a dozen others, all of which are well known to be flourishing, more or less—some, exceedingly—all supposed to be good properties, and all taken in and read in every part of our great Empire. The American magazines have come over here. One or two have succeeded, and deservedly. But to the detriment of the English magazines? I be- lieve, not at all. If this had been the case, it would have been proved by a falling-off in prices paid to contributors, when the Society would have heard of it. But no such thing has happened. Some magazines there are which are in a bad way, and have been in a bad way for years, because, when a magazine -takes a turn for the worse, it seems unable to recover itself, but goes continually down till it reaches the point of extinction. O" the other hand, the success of one magazine  ## p. 108 (#140) ############################################ io8 THE AUTHOR. may create such a demand as will make room for half a dozen more, and this, I take it, is the reason of the English success of the American magazines. —♦ I wonder if it is too late to speak with admiration of a paper in an August magazine. The " Perilous Amour" of Mr. Weyman, in Temple Bar for that month, stood out, as regards interest, workmanship, and freshness, above and beyond everything else of that month—I mean, of course, everything else that I saw. In August we received a letter from Lord Monks- well, who has charge of our Copyright Bill, informing us that the great length of the Bill made it for various reasons inadvisable that it should - be in- troduced at so late a period in the Session. Both his lordship and others whom he kindly consulted on the matter, recommended that it should be held over until November. This little delay is quite unimportant; the more so when we remember the many long years through which authors have waited for some attempt at the remedial legislation, which is now only some three months away. Of course it is the attempt only, and not the legislation, which is so near. The ingenious hidalgo, Don Quixote de la Mancha, seems to have thought that there were cer- tain plights from which the extremest knight-errantry- could not extricate a man. At any rate he tilts no lance on the author's behalf, but commends him simply to God. The passage runs as follows:— "Tell me, your worship, print you this book upon your own charges, or have you sold the copyright to some publisher?" "I print it on my own account," said the author, "and think to gain a thousand crowns by the first impression, which will be of two thousand copies, which they will sell at six reales a piece in a brace of straws." "Your worship is mighty well up in the account. It is well seen that you know nothing of the ins and outs of publishers. I promise you that when you shall find you laden with the bodies of two thousand books, your own body shall be so wearied that it will affiright you, especially if the book be a little dull and is nothing piquant." "So then, your worship," said the author," would have me give my copyright for three maravedis to a publisher, who will think he does me a kindness in giving me so much? I do not print my books to achieve fame in the world, for I am already known by my works; I want profit, for without it fine fame is not worth a farthing." "God give your worship good fortune," said Pon Quixote, and passed on. "I cannot," says an eminent author and drama- tist (who surely wants a holiday badly), "use my own judgment in a literary contract without being pounced upon and bullied by a trades union of authors." Now this is meant for us, and is not fair. We have pounced upon nobody, we have bullied nobody, nor have we ever attempted to pounce or to bully. We have never set ourselves up as a tribunal to which authors, eminent or otherwise, should apply before acceding to a publisher's terms, unless they wish to do so. We may have excellent reasons for thinking that they would be very wise if they did come to us, but we leave it to them: and more and more come daily. As for this particular author, he has never applied to us for advice and has therefore never received any. But a trades' union, I believe, dictates to its members [hat they should accept certain terms only, upon cer- tain conditions only, and members cannot continue to belong to the union unless they do as they are told. We have never attempted or wished to take up this position. We simply say to all authors and to this our eminent member among them :—" Com- plaints have been made and are still being made by men of letters that they have not obtained fair terms for their work, that they have been led to sign contracts to which they never would have assented had the meaning of those con- tracts been apparent to them, and the ultimate division of profits foreshadowed; that in short in the business side of the literary profession they have been at a disadvantage. Therefore the Society offers to make clear to its members the meaning of any proposal submitted to them, so that they may be, perhaps for the first time, in a position to understand whether they should take an offer or leave it." That is not the same thing as preventing an author from using his own judgment about a literary contract. Let those who have judgment exercise it, but what is to become of those whose judicial faculties are small, or who from absence of technical knowledge, or data from which to make deduction, cannot tell a good bargain from a bad one, when its terms are submitted to them? Must such an one always go to the wall? ——♦ Mrs. Craik and Mr. Richard Jefferies are both to be honoured in the same way. There has lately been placed in Tewkesbury Abbey a medallion portrait of the author of "John Halifax, Gentleman." Tewkesbury was the home of John Halifax, and the last place visited by the author before her death. Salisbury Cathedral very fitly has been selected as the right place to do similar honour to the memory of Richard Jefferies, a Wiltshire man and  ## p. 109 (#141) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 109 the poet of the Wiltshire Downs. As regards the latter, subscriptions may be sent to myself, and I shall be very grateful to any who will help to erect this monument to the great naturalist and writer. The following seems to me a remarkable story of perseverance. A young author writes :— "My story,' ,' has only been rejected twice, as yet. My first story, published just three years ago, was rejected thirty-six times before it was finally accepted. Another story of mine was only taken after forty-two publishers had refused it. So, you see, I cannot despair about' .' Besides, she is the only child of my brain that I have left to see settled in the world, all my other MSS. having been accepted, with the exception of a four-act drama." One can only wish every success to the four-act drama. This author has worked his way to suc- cess against discouragement that would almost have dashed the ardour of the Bruce's spider. Probably he could have spared himself a good proportion of these refusals, if he had been advised earlier of the most suitable direction in which to seek for a publisher. At the Society, we are often asked to "recommend a publisher," and it is possible that a mere glance at these books would have enabled us to save this author at least two dozen refusals by pointing out the publishers to whom it would be useless or unwise to apply. We are glad to learn from their organ, The Journalist, that the Institute of Journalists thinks, like ourselves, on the matter of International Copy- right, and that the Committee of Management propose to take such steps towards its establish- ment as may seem expedient. The question was brought to their notice through a resolution, passed on the motion of Mr. James Baker, by the Bristol Branch of the Institute. The motion was to the effect that "this meeting pledges itself to do all in its power to hasten the passing of a just and equit- able copyright convention between this country and America, especially urging that in such a conven- tion no injustice be done to the printers and paper- makers of this country; and that copies of this resolution be sent to the Institute of Journalists and the Society of Authors." M. Chatrian is dead. Chatrian, of the Erckmann- Chatrian series-—Chatrian whom we have all loved since first we read him. As for me, I think I made the acquaintance of this godlike pair early in the sixties—the remote sixties. What popularity has been the lot of these twins! Who can say how much they have done towards the extinction of the idiotic thirst for glory that formerly filled every ardent Gaul? Not that it has disappeared, but it burns now with a dimmer force. The young men go out to war because they must, but they know that it is not d la gloire but aux abattoirs. They will fight no worse for the knowledge, but they will not fight unless they must. Chatrian is dead! And before he died he had quarrels with his partner! The latter is as bad to think of as the former. One thing is quite certain—when two men form a literary partnership, they construct by talk and confidence, by weaving and interweaving, by selection and by arrangement, between them a work of art. Treason to Art if one begins to count how many pages he has written more than his partner! Charles Gibbon, who died last month at Yar- mouth, while still a middle-aged man, was a most prolific novelist. He wrote over thirty novels, some of which, "For Lack of Gold," and "The Queen of the Meadow," for example, enjoyed considerable popularity. I find the following in the Athenaum;— "In the course of nearly thirty years' continuous literary work, I have had frequent occasion for protest against the dishonesty of American pub- lishers, but I think my latest experience supplies one of the most striking examples of unscrupulous- ness in piracy. "I am credited in a glowing advertisement with the authorship of a sensational romance called 'Tiger-Head; or, the Ghost of the Avalanche,' now being published in the New York Sunday Mercury. Now I never wrote a story called 'Tiger-Head; or, the Ghost of the Avalanche,' nor any story which could, by any possibility, be described by such a title, and 1 beg to protest most earnestly against this misuse of my name. In the words of the great Burke I may say, 'My errors, if any, are my own. I bear no man's proxy.' "Mary E. Maxwell, nee Braddon." At present in America, as everyone who enjoys any circulation in England knows, there is nothing to prevent the unauthorized publication of English books on the other side of the Atlantic. But it seems to me that Miss Braddon has, in this case, some chance of an indirect remedy, or has, at any rate, an opportunity of some sort for some sort of reprisal, though blood would hardly wash out the  ## p. 110 (#142) ############################################ I IO THE AUTHOR. insult of being publicly accused of having invented the title of "Tiger-Head; or, the Ghost of the Avalanche." Miss Braddon's enormous and well- deserved popularity with all classes makes her name very valuable to the go-ahead Editor of the Sunday Mercury, and it is her name and not the story that is selling the periodical. Would it not be possible to send out to America an earnestly-worded repudiation of the literary honours thrust upon her? If this were sent to The New York Tribune, and The New York Herald, and the Sunday papers, most of the other journals might be trusted to copy it, without being requested to do so. This might damage the boom of the Sunday Mercury. Charles Reade was victimized in the same way, and, if I mistake not, Wilkie Collins was also. Here is a very interesting communication, based entirely upon the question of "What is trade- custom?" Without expressing any opinion on the case, we cordially echo our correspondent's wish that the customs of the trade could be made comprehensible to the intelligence of the author. "A publisher makes the following agreement:— "Messrs. X. and Y. agree to pay a royalty of so much per copy on all copies sold after the sale of the first copies of the said work, the publishing price of which shall be so much. The royalty on copies sold in America shall be one-half." The figures are omitted in charity to the pub- lisher and pity for the author. "In a few years about 1,000 copies are sold in America, and the royalty is duly paid; but these copies are not allowed to be reckoned among 'the first '; so that the author has to wait till that number, plus the copies taken in America, are sold before he gets his royalty of ;i.e., the publisher, bypaying in advancethe stipulated royalty on the 1,000 copies sold in America, avoids the payment of the full royalty. Is this the 'custom of the trade'? It certainly seems an infraction of the agreement." "I found, too, by sad experience," continues the letter, "that it was the custom of the trade to distribute a large number of presentation copies, without consultation, and to advertise in such a way that in one year the cost of advertisements alone exceeded the receipts from the sale of the book. Having stopped this, I still had to submit to items like the following:—(The published price being, say, 3*. 6d.) 101 sold as 97, at 2s. 6d., less 5 per cent., trade allowance (besides, of course, publisher's commission); or 52 (America) sold as 48, at is. 4d. All this may be quite fair and necessary in a business way; but I think publishers should let authors know of these customs of the trade before the latter put a price on their book. Few new authors realize that in this way they can only expect (not counting adver- tisements), at most, one-half of the published price, and that six months after the whole year's account is made up." Our correspondent raises many questions in his letter, with all of which we hope at one time or another to deal. For the present I note only that this author has been made to sign an agree- ment, the nature of which he has not understood. For example, he is to receive nothing till the publisher has sold so many copies. How much will the publisher have made when the author's time begins? The author does not know. Yet he signed the agreement in the dark. When his time arrives, how much will the publisher make for his share? He knows very well, but the author does not. In this case the agreement was such, that the publisher would make, on a rough estimate, at least ^150 profit before the author got anything. He would afterwards make about twice as much as the author. There is given, later on, a resumi of an enquiry commenced last spring, into the position of the English author with reference to the Colonial book market. That this market is an ever-in- creasing one is plain. In the Colonies there are not only more people to read than formerly, but, in proportion, many more now who do read, and in both directions this increase will go on. The Society will do its best to deal with this problem. We shall probably first memorialize Government to enforce the existing protection, and shall then consider whether there is any direc- tion in which more protection could be obtained, and whether we have any chance of obtaining it. Local Copyright Acts might perhaps be procured in the interests of the English owners of the copy- rights, if the representations were made in the proper direction. At the present it may seem that great importance is being attached to a small matter, but our Colonial readers are no small matter, and it would be a thousand pities if, through supineness now, we lost' a splendid market in the future. In the meantime, let everybody see that his book is duly and promptly entered at Stationers' Hall. I beg to invite suggestions as to a future plan. Walter Besant.  ## p. 111 (#143) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 111 THE POET'S SEAT: AN IDYLL OF THE SUBURBS. "Ille terrarum mihi prater omnes Angulus RIDET."—Hor. ii, 6. IT was a towering tree of yore, A lordly elm, before they lopped it, And weighty, said those five who bore Its bulk across the lawn, and dropped it Not once or twice, before it lay, With two young pear trees to protect it, Safe where the Poet hoped some day The curious pilgrim would inspect it. He saw him with his Poet's eye, The tall Maori, turned from etching The ruin of St. Paul's, to try Some object better worth the sketching ;— He saw him, and it nerved his strength What time he hacked and hewed and scraped it, Until the monster grew at length The Master-piece to which he shaped it. To wit—a goodly garden-seat, And fit alike for Shah or Sophy, With shelf for cigarettes complete, And one, but lower down, for coffee; He planted pansies round its foot,— "Pansies for thoughts," and rose and arum; The Motto (that he meant to put) Was Ille angulus terrarum. But "Oh ! the change (as Milton sings)— The heavy change!" When May departed, When June with its "delightful things" Had come and gone, the rough bark started,— Began to lose its sylvan brown, Grew parched, and powdery, and spotted, And, though the Poet nailed it down, It still flapped up, and dropped, and rotted. Nor was this all. 'Twas next the scene Of vague (and viscous) vegetations; Queer fissures gaped, with oozings green, And moist, unsavoury exhalations,— Faint wafts of wood decayed and sick, Till, where he meant to carve his Motto, Strange leathery fungi sprouted thick, And made it like an oyster grotto. In short it grew a Seat of Scorn, Bare,—shameless,—till, for fresh disaster, From end to end, one April morn, 'Twas riddled like a pepper caster,— Drilled like a vellum of old time, And musing on this final mystery, The Poet left off scribbling rhyme And took to studying Natural History. This was the turning of the tide: His five-act-play is still unwritten; The dreams that now his soul divide Are more of Lubbock than of Lytton; "Ballades " are "verses vain " to him Whose first ambition is to lecture (So much is man the sport of whim !) On "Insects and their Architecture." Austin Dobson. * ENGLISH AUTHORS AND THE COLONIAL BOOK MARKET. IT may be remembered that at the end of last year we published a communication received by us from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, informing us that steps should be taken in accordance with our representations, to prevent the introduction of foreign reprints into the Straits Settlements. Shortly after this Mr. Rider Haggard sent to us a copy of his novel "Jess," which was circulating largely in an unauthorized edition in Africa, and pointed out the advisability of making an enquiry into the matter, with a view of finding out how far such practices were generally pre- valent in the Crown Colonies.* It is evident that our novelists have a large and ever-increasing market in the Colonies, and that some steps ought to be taken to prevent such robbery and secure the profits to them. At the same time it did not appear so very clear what those steps should be. We therefore addressed the following questions to prominent book-sellers in our various Colonies, in the hope that we should thus learn how much the author is at present injured by these reprints, which are mostly American, and how far anything could be done to prevent the injury :— "(i.) Are pirated editions imported freely into the colony? "(2.) Is there any legislation to prevent this importation? "(3.) Are such books openly exposed for sale? "(4.) To what extent in your opinion do pirated books and American reprints damage the books of the English trade? "(5.) What in your opinion would be the best steps to take for the protection of English and Colonial authors?" * The cost of this production was twenty cents, and it was the meanest Americanism we ever saw.  ## p. 112 (#144) ############################################ i 12 THE AUTHOR. The result of the answers we have received, as yet, is as follows :— Pirated editions are imported freely into Africa generally, into some parts of India, and into British Guiana, but not to any extent into Australia or New Zealand. In some colonies, what legal protection the law affords, is enforced, and in some it is not. For there is imperial legislation to meet the ppint. If the books are registered at Stationers' Hall, an import duty of 20 per cent, on the published price is collected by the Custom House for the good of the owner of the copyright. This, of course, is legislation for the regulation of the abuse, not for its prevention. It is very significant, however, that in Australia and New Zealand, where the Custom House officials levy the duty carefully, pirated editions are by no means rife. We are indebted to the courtesy of the Registrar of Canterbury College, Christchurch, N.Z., for the following information— "Lists of English copyright books are sent by the British Customs House to Wellington, and thence distributed to the collectors of customs at the different ports. I have this morning inspected the latest; it is dated May, 1889. The collector of Customs informs me that quite recently a quantity of music from America was destroyed under his directions, because of infringement of English copyright." From Auckland, New Zealand, we have received almost the same information, our correspondents believing that the existing law is sufficient if strictly carried out. Instances are given of the efficient working of the law. A correspondent writes from Dunedin to the same effect, adding that no bookseller worthy of the name would import reprints to the prejudice of the publishers of the old country. In Adelaide the law is enforced. The Principal Librarian of the Free Public Library at Sydney considers that the protection extended to authors and publishers by the Custom House is adequate. He has not received in seven years of office fifty such unauthorized books. In Melbourne we are informed that pirated editions are but seldom seen, and our correspondent is of opinion that the Eng- lish owners of the copyright have sustained no damage from them. In Brisbane the Act seems to be a sufficient protection, for but few American reprints have been seen there, and the fact that they are prohibited seems to be distinctly under- stood. In India, we hear from Calcutta that pirated editions are sometimes extensively imported. Our correspondent also casually throws out a horrible suggestion. He thinks that copyright books are sometimes printed in secrecy in India. This, of course, is quite beside the question, but it is a matter for grave apprehension. The Honorary Secretary of the Library at Simla Station informs us that pirated editions are freely imported into India, and that such legislation as exists to prevent this is not put in force. We learn from Bombay that the Custom House is very strict in preventing the import of pirated books, and that hardly any such editions find their way into British possessions. In Madras pirated editions are imported, but only rarely. They are always cheap American reprints. But in Madras the law is recognised, for one of our correspondents points out that the importation into British India of pirated editions, which infringe any law in force in the territory, can be punished by forfeiture and fine. Neither in Australia, New Zealand, or India, are these books openly exposed for sale, and the damage done to authors in the first two colonies by their sale is, of course, very slight. In Africa the tale is different; we print the following letter from the biggest book-seller at Cape Town, as it so clearly sets out the points at issue :—■ "As the question of the prevention of Ameri- can reprints is an important one and damaging to a honest book-selling establishment, we beg- to reply to your queries, at the same time assuring you that you will have our heartiest co- operation. We may, however, tell you that we tried some two years ago this very same question, and we, as the largest publishers and importers of books into the Cape Colony, would have petitioned Government, but wanted the assistance of the London publishers. We were already in corres- pondence with the firms of Macmillan & Co., Hurst & Blackett & Co., but we are sorry to say the matter has been allowed to drop. We have no doubt that, with the assistance of your Society, this evil will now be remedied, and those authors, whose works are stolen, will be protected from the American's avarice, which is allowed free play simply and only through the absence of an Inter- national Copyright Act. We, in the Cape Colony, are somewhat similarly placed to the injured authors with respect to the neighbouring States; for in- stance, books we publish are being sold in the Orange Free State and the South African Republic with impunity, without our being able to stop it, also for the want of an International Copyright Act  ## p. 113 (#145) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. "(i.) Pirated editions are imported into the Colony in places like Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, as long as they pay the 20 per cent. Customs duty. These reprints, we learn, are imported direct from America. "(2.) There is no legislation to prevent this importation as long as they pay the duty. "(3.) Such books openly exposed for sale: it was not so very long ago there was a book-seller in Cape Town who had his windows simply swamped with these pirated American books, exhibiting books of authors like Rider Haggard s, Edna Lyall's, Mrs. Wood's, George Macdonald's, Ruskin's works, and others, selling them at is. 6d. per vol., whereas we had, of course, only the honest English edition at 6s., as the cheapest to sell. "(4.) The extent to which the pirated books and American reprints damage the books of the English trade is made evident by reading the fore- going paragraph. Moreover, this illicit trade is specially damaging in the Cape, where the majority of the population are not' reading people,' and may be induced to buy a book for cheapness sake, when they would not purchase it otherwise." At Cape Town, therefore,-in which town, by-the- bye, it was that the pirated copy of "Jess" was bought, the English author's property is greatly damaged by these illicit editions, and the law, even when enforced, is found powerless to check the evil. From Natal we have much the same story. From British Guiana we learn that the Custom House exacts on American editions, which are freely imported, the duty of 20 per cent, on the pub- lished price of all registered books. Here the penalty does not, in any way, stop the abuse. The impost is cheerfully paid, and the sale goes on to the detriment of the owners of the copyright. From the Straits Settlements we leam that the American reprint has been rife there. The Chap- lain of Penang, who is also honorary librarian of the Public Library, informs us that there were few books, except the pirated editions, to be bought on the Island, and that the question of purchasing these volumes for the use of the Library had been frequently before him. But from Singapore we have the following significant letter:— "We beg to acknowledge receipt of your favour of the 29th ult., and in reply beg to inform you that pirated editions are not sold in Singapore at all. All the firms here have agreed, in response to an appeal from the Colonial Government, not to keep them in stock." We say significant, for our attention was first called to this matter in reference to the Straits Settlements, so that before making this inquiry into the prevalence of the abuse in the Colonies generally, we were able to direct the attention of the Colonial Office to Singapore in particular: and the fact that action in Singapore has been so suc- cessful is encouraging to future effort. We invited, in our letter, suggestions for the remedy of the evil where it existed, and, with great unanimity, the Colonial book-sellers point out that the most certain remedy imaginable would be to issue cheap authorised editions for the Colonial market A Colonial edition of more expensive books is already issued by several publishers, and the plan has proved successful. One book-seller tells us that he could have sold perhaps 100 copies of Stanley's "Darkest Africa " at the English price of 42s., whereas he is confident that he will dispose of over 2,000 copies of the i6.r. edition, which has been prepared for Colonial use. It is suggested by most of our correspondents that this plan should be tried for cheaper books, that, in fact, the 3J. 6d., 5s. and 6s. novel, as each appears in England, should be accompanied by a is., is. 6d., 2s., paper-covered edition for the Colonies. It is too much to expect that people will give the large sums asked for the English edition, when they can buy the American copies for 25 cents. In New Zealand and Australia present legislation seems sufficient, and the English author does not appear to have been really damaged in India, but in Africa something must be done. Either the law is not enforced, or else the demand for these books is so large that, after the 20 per cent, has been paid to the Custom House officers, a hand- some profit can be made by their sale of them. The present law is not too neat in its working. The lists supplied to the Custom House are often a year old and more, which means that the pirate has a year's clear run before an official notice reaches the colony that the book is a registered property, and that a duty of 20 per cent, is due to the owner of its copyright. Now the edge is taken off the sale of a novel in a year. Again, the lists are made up from the registrations at Stationers' Hall, but very few authors trouble themselves to find out if their books are duly registered. They generally do get registered, but often not at the moment of publication, so that, during the first rush for the work, the book will often be unprotected in the Colonies, even though the Custom House officials should happen to be furnished with the latest lists. Lastly, if all goes well, the pecuniary return is a pitiful one. It was from this source that Charles  ## p. 114 (#146) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. Reade received i6.f. 4J. as the result of two years' sale of " Never too late to Mend." There is no doubt that English authors ought to secure a better hold on this enormous market. The result of this inquiry will be laid before our Committee at once, and a sub-Committee formed to decide upon the best course. We know from experience that we can depend upon the courteous co-operation of the Colonial Office. * A HARD CASE. No. IV. AN author, already favourably known to a good if small public, wrote a story and took it to a literary gentleman, who had offered him friendly assistance in his search for a publisher. This gentleman approved of the story, and, on his recommendation, a publisher offered to bring the book out on the half-profit system. The agreement was a perfectly informal document, drawn by the intermediary on a sheet of writing paper. Under it the author gave up all his rights in the book in return for a half share in future profits. Let us stop here and consider what that means. The author gives up his work entirely to another person, a joint-adventurer, on the understanding that all profits shall be shared between them, and from the moment that he does so he ceases to have any voice in the management of the transaction, and any control over the expenditure. He is con- sidered to have done his share of the task. His has been the simple and easy part, the writing of the book. Why it is a thing, some people say, that any educated gentleman can do, if he can get credit for pens and paper; and a thing, moreover, which is constantly done by people of no education what- ever. The author is at no expense. It is true that the work may occupy all his leisure time for a year. It is true that if he had devoted that time, to (say) digging, he would have earned perhaps fifty pounds, and that there are still more people who can dig than spell. Indeed we do not ourselves think that writing even a very bad book is so simple a matter, but let it be conceded that the author's lot's a very happy one, and let us suppose that he has just written a book. He expects to be repaid in money and in increased reputation. If he does get money so much the better, but if he only gets fame from any one venture, that will mean money from his next venture. Now comes in the daring publisher and proceeds to take the risk. He can take it how he likes, either fighting—like Colonel Quaggs—or with sugar—as Orpheus C. Kerr took the oath—but how he takes it is a matter for his own private consideration. And this is the fact with which we find fault. The publisher can pro- duce so small an edition that if the whole sold, there would still be a loss on the book. Then, one may say, where are his own profits to come from? There won't be any for him, but that is a most unchristian, as well as an empty sort of satisfaction for his partner. He can produce so large an edition that it never can sell, so that the results of all the sales that do take place do not cover the printer's bill. He can advertise once a month in a circular privately sent out to a few customers, or daily in The Times, and take a column of it. He can bind the book in any- thing. There is or was a book in a well-known local library, bound in the skin of the Red Barn murderer; between anything so expensive and unique as this and a paper wrapper, there is a large choice for the publisher to whom the total manage- ment of details is left, and the chance of there being a profit depends greatly on the publisher's choice. It was in this way that the entire management of the book in question fell into the publisher's hands; he could produce it entirely as he pleased, all the details of publishing were left to his discretion. But alas! he appears to have had no discretion. He employed good artists and first-class printers, and he ordered an enormous first edition of this costly book, an edition he would hardly have been justified in ordering, if the book had been written by one of the most popular writers of fiction. Doubtless he relied on the splendid work put into the production to largely assist in the sale, for, in spite of the expense incurred over illustration, the book was announced at a popular price. The fact that the name of his firm was and is one honoured in book-land, would also be a great help to the author. Then came a series of delays in the publication, quite incomprehensible to the author, for neither the publisher nor the common friend gave him a hint that there was any definite reason for these delays. The book was announced for this month and for that month; now it was to stimulate the wear)' palate of August, now to satisfy the hungry cravings of Christmas, but still it never appeared. But at last an explanation of some sort or another leaked out. The publisher was at variance with his partners, who repudiated, as a firm, this and other contracts, into which he had entered in their name. Certainly this one partner had signed the agreement, given all the orders and effected all communications with the author, but the idea that, when doing so, he wasnot in a position to speak for his firm never occurred to the author. The  ## p. 115 (#147) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. legal side of this question was never discussed. It is possible and even probable, that the firm would have been obliged to carry out the undertaking, but the author was advised to try and get away from his original arrangements and find a fresh publisher. The position now was this. An enormous and splendidly illustrated stock lay in sheets at the printers, and an enormous bill had to be paid for it, before the printer would let it out of his hands, and the copyright of the work had been assigned—at any rate, for this enormous number of copies—to a man who could not meet the bill himself, and whose firm repudiated their liability. This was awkward, but further complica- tions were yet to follow. The publisher's creditors proceeded against him, and chose to consider this luckless novel one of his most valuable assets. So much money had already been spent upon it in the way of illustra- tion, and the chance that it would achieve a large sale seemed so good, that they were probably right in so appreciating it. But that meant that the aulhor could not get his book from the printer without much trouble and legal formality. For if the copyright was undoubtedly partly the author's, it was un- doubtedly partly the publisher's, and if the author redeemed his stock and sold it for his own benefit, he might be held to have injured the publisher's estate. On the other hand, the author had many grounds upon which to base a large pecuniary claim against the publisher, and some to substan- tiate a breach of contract. Their joint property had been damaged by the continual delay; large orders which had been given for the book were not, of course, executed, and perhaps would not be repeated later, while many advertisements, some representing a tolerable sum of money, were lost for good. This was a side of the question which, we are happy to allow, the publisher's re- presentatives saw most clearly. Their behaviour throughout to the author was very considerate, and a definite understanding was at last arrived at, that no obstacle would be put in the way of the author if he chose to treat directly with the printer for the stock. Now things began to look smoother, when there appeared on the scene another claimant to rights over the unfortunate book. It appeared that i/ie publisher had assigned the copyright of the work for this enormous first edition to another publisher at the actual cost price of the work! Of course he had no power whatever thus to assign a copyright, which was not unconditionally his, to a third person, who was unknown to the author, and to do so without the author's sanction: but, setting this point aside, consider his interpretation of his agreement. He was to give the author half-profits. Avowedly to effect this, he took the book, gave nothing for it, but promised "as remuneration," to give the author one-half of any receipts over and above his disburse- ments. Then he sells the book for the exact sum he had disbursed, or, at any rate, for the exact sum he is stated to have disbursed. This assignment was set aside by the author, who was advised that he need not be bound by such an arrangement, and the hard case had a happy termination. With the co-operation of the first publisher's solicitors, the author recovered his stock from the printers, and came to an arrangement with the second publisher (who had already advertised the book and taken orders for it), to publish it for him. The book has been so far a success. * A SOCIETY OF AUTHORS FOR AMERICA. I. [Reprinted from the Xciv York Tribune.] London, July igth. WHY is there no Society of Authors in the United States? I shall, perhaps, be told there is one, but is there one answer- ing to the Society of Men of Letters in France, or to that which exists in England? The work this Society has done here is most useful, and it would be hard to praise it too highly, if you consider that it has been done by authors who are themselves both busy and successful. They give many hours a week to the cause of Literature, and to the interests of their fellow-authors. They have made the Society what it is; a body with purely practical aims, using practical methods to attain them. It takes a long time for the English—and, perhaps, sometimes for others than English—to grasp a new fact, or comprehend the real object of a new enter- prise. There are people, as 7'he Author tells us, who look on the Society as one which exists for the purpose of patching up, or even of creating quarrels and grievances with publishers. It is nothing of the kind. The Society has no quarrel with pub- lishers as such, and never had any: that it exists mainly for the purpose of maintaining the rights, the sacredness, and the reality of Literary Property. With the honest publisher the Society has no quarrel; with the dishonest publisher it has, and it makes no secret of its desire and intention to keep the author out of the clutches of the dis- honest publisher. As success in that laudable  ## p. 116 (#148) ############################################ u6 THE AUTHOR. effort will increase the business of the honest pub- lisher, they and the Society ought to be on good terms. The honest publisher, like the author, owes, or will owe, a debt of gratitude to all who are concerned with it. It has some 600 members, with Lord Tennyson as President. On its Council are—besides Mr. Besant —Sir Edwin Arnold, Mr. Bryce, Sir Frederick Pollock, Mr. Rider Haggard, Mr. Marion Craw- ford, Mr. George Meredith, Prof. Michael Foster, and many more men of leading and light in the world of letters. It has offices in Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. It has legal counsel, solici- tors, a committee of management, and a monthly organ. And it has principles. These have just been restated in a brief and convenient form, and I cannot do better than quote them:— 1. Literary property is created by the author, and belongs, at the outset, to him. 2. Literary property must be held as sacred as any other kind of property. 3. Literary property is ruled by the demand for a book, just as colliery property means the sale of the output. And as the value of a colliery depends first on the output in tons and their price, so the value of a book can only be estimated with reference to the number of copies sold. 4. The author must not part with his property without due consideration, nor without understanding exactly what possibilities, as well as what certainties, he gives and what he receives. 5. What the author is entitled to is, after pay- ment of the cost of production and the pub- lisher's agency and labour, all the remaining proceeds. This proportion of the returns is the property which he has to sell for a lump sum down, or to receive year by year. 6. The publisher has to be remunerated for his agency and labour out of the returns of the book in a certain proportion which should be a fixed proportion recognized by both contracting parties and understood by both. To some of these the publisher may demur, but they are principles which the French Society of Men of Letters have established in France. There is, I apprehend, no country in the world where the rights of Literature are better understood or settled on a more practical basis than in France. The English Society of Authors is, in fact, an imitator of the French, and will perhaps end by doing for the English author what has been done for the French, Both in England and America a public opinion on this subject has yet to be created. Recent events have shown that in America there is a great body of opinion which is hostile to the whole idea of literary property. Mr. Payson of Illinois and Mr. Mills of Texas seem to deny its existence. That they repre- sent the majority of the American people I do not believe. It is enough for them to have carried with with them a majority of the House of Represen- tatives. They and their majority have brought such discredit and disgrace upon the American name as many years of honesty and honourable dealing will not altogether efface. Judge Shipman, of the United States Circuit Court, has done something to efface it—all honour to him, strange as it still seems to be proclaiming honour to a Judge because he will not admit it to be legal to steal. The question of copyright, domestic or inter- national, may seem aside from the main subject, but all questions of literary property are inextricably in- terwoven and cannot be separated. They all have the Eighth Commandment for their basis. Until the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" case, it had been supposed that the American Pirate put forth no pretension to rob any other than the foreign author. It was then seen that he claimed the right to rob the native author also; the American man of letters was to be his spoil just as much as the British. There can be—outside of the courts, and the courts are always a last resort—no complete remedy for such a state of things, and no redress of grievances, otherwise than by the creation of a sound public opinion, and that is one of the aims of the Society of Authors. Very different, I may re- mark, is the handling of the copyright business in the Society's Journal from that of Mr. Wemyss Reid, whose heavy-handed invective attracted some notice at the time. Mr. Wemyss Reid would fain hold all America responsible for Mr. Payson and Mr. Mills. The Society urges, on the other hand, a recognition of the noble efforts in behalf of copy- right made by the leading men, the men of culture, in the Eastern States. These men, it tells its British readers, include all the authors of America, all the honourable publishers and a great number of editors. The opponents of the Bill were Western farmers, who knew nothing about literature, literary property, authors' rights or anything else except their own local interests. And The Author boldly says that the views of the British world, with respect to literary property, are not much more enlightened than those of the ignorant Western farmer. Education, however, and most of all the educa tion of public opinion, is a slow process, and the Society of Authors meanwhile busies itself with the most practical and pressing necessities of its clients. Any respectable author may join it on payment of a yearly subscription of 85. Once a member, he becomes a client, and may have his business transacted for him without further charge.  ## p. 117 (#149) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 117 It is the cheapest advice anywhere to be had, and it is also the best. The relations between author and publisher undergo a change at once. It is no longer the case of a business man dealing with one who, as a rule, is not a man of business, and knows nothing of the mysteries of manufacturing and publishing printed books. The Society does know, and knows how to make its knowledge useful to the author. He has only to send to the Committee the form of contract prepared for him by the publisher. He will be told whether it is a fair one or not, and, if not, in what particulars it is unfair. He will be told what it costs to manufacture his book if he is himself to bear, or to share, the cost of publication. If he is to be paid by a royalty, he will be advised what percentage upon the selling price of the book he ought to receive. He will be warned, if need be, against the dis- honest publisher. If the publisher he has selected be honest, his negotiation with him is still a matter of business, and he needs all the help he can get toward looking after his own end of the bargain. Legal advice is of little or no use. Few lawyers have taken the trouble to master the intricacies of publishing, or are aware of the pitfalls and traps in which some of these pub- lishers' forms of contract abound. The author who goes to this Society may or may not be able to command good terms. But at least he will know whether they are good or bad, and know exactly what the contract is which he is asked to sign. A case came to my knowledge the other day. An author submitted two contracts to his solicitor: one of the few who are supposed really to under- stand the subject. He approved of both, and advised his client to sign both, with, in one case, a trivial technical alteration. Not quite satisfied, the author sent them to the Society; with this sur- prising result, that he was advised to object to many of the clauses, and did object. The pub- lishers in both cases were among the best, and assented readily enough to the modifications pro- posed. The effect of them was that in both cases the agreement ultimately signed was far more beneficial to the author than those first submitted to him and sanctioned by his solicitor. The organ of the Society gives singular instances of the adventures which have befallen the authors in quest of publicity. The latest case is the most extreme,—that of a lady who handed her manu- script to a publisher, and was told that the cost of printing a specified number of copies would be $600. A friend sent it direct to a printer, who offered to print and bind that number of copies for $80! Perhaps this publisher was one of that firm, elsewhere described in The Author, as one "of which all the worst things ever alleged against the publishing trade may be alleged with the greatest truth." The paper adds: "We have for a long time kept work out of their hands, and we intend to go on doing so until they mend their ways." An earlier statement shows that the dishonest publisher is not such a rarity that the author need not beware of him. There are, according to this estimate, not more than a dozen publishers in all London with whom publishing is anything but a system of robbery. If the condition of things in America be in any degree analogous to this, the foundation of a Society of American Authors is a pressing need. And even if the American be, as we are bound to suppose, vastly more virtuous than his British brother, there are other reasons which make the need for such a Society hardly less imperative. I have touched on but few of them, and it is for the American at home to consider the whole subject for himself. But I may repeat what I have said before, that, perhaps evenmorethan the author, the honourable publisher has an interest in suppressing his dishonourable rival. G. W. S. II. {Reprintedfrom the Brooklyn Times.) Mrs. Katherine Hodges, the authoress, of this city, has a grievance against her publishers of long standing and grave nature. To ventilate that grievance a meeting of authors took place yester- day afternoon in the green room of Historical Hall. Dr. Ingersoll, who was voted to the chair, said that the gathering had been called to assist those who seemed to have been wronged and to prevent others from falling into the same trouble. He then called on Mrs. Hodges to recite the story of the wrong that she had suffered at the hands of her publishers. The authoress said: "In the urgent need for an Authors' Protective Union or for some means by which this class of bread-winners may be protected in their rights, as are all other wage-workers save the author, perhaps the best argument I could offer would be some experiences of my own in dealing with publications. The book, 'Fifty Years a Queen,' was published on my account by Belford, Clarke & Co., New York and Chicago, in the last days of April, 1887. A few days after it appeared, Mr. Robert Belford, manager of the New York branch, told me in his office, 386, Broadway, that he had on that morning received an order for 100 of the books from one house and  ## p. 118 (#150) ############################################ n8 THE AUTHOR. had the morning before had an order from another house for 200. When the publisher's first state- ment was rendered in September, 1887 (four months after this conversation), I was astonished to see that the total receipts up to that date were given as §101.88! I remembered the sale of 300 books mentioned by Mr. Belford in the first days of May, the price of which alone would aggregate more than the whole sum of money stated, and that four months had passed since that time, from May to September, these months including the Jubilee celebration, when the book had a good sale. My surprise was followed by doubts. This statement of September, 1887, also gave the issue of the book as one edition of 1,000, which seemed to me to be as doubtful as was the statement of money said to have been received by the pub- lishers. "In this dilemma, and in order to explain, if possible, the seeming discrepancy between facts and figures, I made an appeal for information and learned from an undoubted authority that instead of 1,000 copies of the book being made Belford, Clarke & Co. had issued no less than 3,000. "On February 1, 1888, a further statement was furnished by the publishers, in which the receipts were stated as $101.88, and the number of books as 1,000, as in the first account. In February, 1888, however, as I have since learned and can conclu- sively prove, these publishers (without my know- ledge), surreptitiously issued the book in paper covers under the title of 'Great Britain under Queen Victoria,' and altered my name as author." Mrs. Hodges here produced the two issues of the book to illustrate her remarks. (The alteration was thus: In the genuine edition the proper name of the authoress is given—Mrs. Katherine Hodges; in the paper covered and spurious edition the book is stated to be by " Mrs. K. Hodge.") "Of this paper covered edition," resumed the speaker, " they put out an edition of at least 4,000 copies at 50 cents a book at retail, and in May, 1888, they issued (as Mr. Belford now acknowledges) 4,000 more in paper covers, cheaper form, &c, which were sold to Butler Brothers, also under the altered title, obviously with fraudulent intent. In all I have traced nearly 20,000 copies of my book issued by the firm in question, and I believe that they have issued a great many more. They have not paid me one dollar. They have appropriated the whole work, and in the present defenceless condition of authors, who are without any protection whatever, the chance of gaining redress which people who labour in other channels may resort to for remedy in cases of spoliation does not exist. This case, it seems to me—and I know of other cases similar to mine—proves the necessity for immediate action for the protection of authors, and adequate action at that. That there are honourable publishers, honest men who would scorn to rob persons so entirely at their mercy as the authors, no one can doubt. To such men the protection to authors would be welcome and gratifying, while in cases of the unscrupulous classes of publishers who make it a practice to pilfer when they can, the author would have his safeguard as others have, and even those men in whom morality must be at low ebb would be made better, higher and more human by the utilization of this portion of the Lord's Prayer: 'Lead us not into temptation.'" * AN AUTHOR'S HOME. AREFUGE for brain workers in need has been started within the last year by Miss Fisher, of Brooklyn, New York. This lady owns a large house, and having only an invalid father occupying it with her, she con- ceived the idea of sharing it with some authors who are in need. Miss Fisher wisely thinks it more humane to help the author before he quite breaks down, rather than subscribe to a monument to him after he has been starved to death. About half a century ago, Mr. N. P. Willis tried to establish such a home. The terrible sufferings of Edgar Poe and his wife made such an impression on him, that he appealed to several of his contemporaries to help him in found- ing a refuge where literary workers and others of refinement, whose pursuits had been of an intellec- tual character, might find a temporary home and rest, to help them to "tide " over a season of diffi- culty or illness, without any publicity. He did not succeed. Now, in its infancy, Miss Fisher's Home Hotel, it is hoped, will fulfil this mission. The object is to afford the guests of the Home a retreat until able to resume their labours, or to find a permanent home (for those who are unable to work) for the rest of their lives. This home is free to those who cannot pay; to others a merely nominal charge is made. It has been asked in busy America, " How can gifted people come to such terrible want?" And yet it is said that Edgar Poe worked hard as a newspaper slave from morning until midnight, while his devoted wife lay dying on a bed of straw with his only coat covering her shivering body. The poem which has made his fame, "The Raven," brought him only ten dollars—about two guineas. A case was lately cited of dire poverty of an author in a wealthy city like New York, which seems almost too horrible to tell. An aged pro-  ## p. 119 (#151) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 119 fessor and his wife, dreading the poor-house, com- mitted suicide together, bequeathing to Columbia College (N.Y.) his valuable writings, notes, and researches, the study of a lifetime. A writer in the Woman's Cycle (from whom I collate these facts) tells me that an aged and well-known author whose books are read by every youth in America, has said that the future was appalling to him. "After a lifetime devoted to authorship, I see nothing for my old age but want and privation." These cannot all be divided into Mr. Gosse's helpable and unhelpable folks. As we know, in the terrible contradictions of society, there are scoundrels who pay their tradespeople, so also do those, whose experience outruns popular " saws," understand that there are practically honourable people who are breaking their hearts because they cannot do so. Miss Fisher's home is supported by many patrons, but those who have helped it most generously with money are, Mrs. Chauncey M. Depew, Mrs. Russell Sage, and Mrs. Whittlow Reid, wife of the American Minister to Paris. In Paris, an author's home has been founded by the publisher, Galignani. He left a sum sufficient to build a home for those who bad been less fortunate than himself, without depriving them of their independence or self-respect. This home shelters one hundred people of both sexes, who have each a sleeping room and a dining room. Fifty of this number are to pay one hundred dollars a year for lodging and board, the remaining fifty pay nothing, but they must belong to the literary or artistic profession. Ten must have been publishers, twenty savants, and twenty literary men or artists. Once inmates of the house they are as free as if at an hotel; they come and go as they like. Ralph Waldo Emerson calls the scholar and thinker one beloved of God; with a few Miss Fishers and Galignanis we may come to think him not ignored of men. * THE WORD "SLANG." IT would seem as if by some strange law of de- velopment, or non-development, all men, but especially philologists, are incapable of understanding that a word may be derived from several sources. The fewer words a man possesses, the more meanings he makes them carry—as it is said in Egypt that the poorer the peasant the more water jars must his wife bear. In jargons and slangs with limited vocabularies such as Chinook, pidgin English and English Gypsy, a single word has vol. 1. very frequently from ten to twelve or more meanings, which is natural enough, when the whole language or dialect contains less than five hundred words all told. Thus in English Gypsy a dozen Hindi terms with entirely different meanings, become one word, e.g., shukdr, which means dry, sweet, gently, forcibly, loud, &c.; that is to say, it is derived from words which separately mean dry, gentle, and so forth. So it would be difficult to decide whether bully, boss, the master of a house of vile character, comes entirely from bully and boss (Dutch bas, master), or whether it does not owe something by association, to the Yiddisch baal-habos, which means precisely the same thing (bal, master, bas, house) and which is very widely disseminated in foreign slangs. This is all curiously enough illustrated by the word slang itself. According to Skeat, in his Etymological Dictionary, slang is of Norse or Northern origin, and meant originally to revile or abuse. And so far as abuse goes, I see no reason to differ from him. In popular parlance, when one man "slangs" another, he "gives him a bit of his mind," in the gypsy sense in which to give means to hit a hard blow. And it therefore "follows perforce as a matter of course," that this is the sole source and origin of the word! So in my boyhood, having learned that the Mississippi came from a small rivulet which ran out of Turtle Pond, I speculated on the dire consequences which would ensue—such as the desolate dessica- tion of the entire valley of the Mississippi— should any small Indian boy take it into his head to dam the rivulet. For to return to slang, it has other meanings besides abuse. One of these, and the one most familiar to Alltheworld, as well as Mrs. Alltheworld, his wife, is that of vulgar, or at least unlicensed, synonyme. Some of these plebians in quarantine rise eventually to the pratique of aristocracy (excuse mixed metaphors) but I speak of those which are— like the good knight in the old German tale, ascensionem expectans—waiting to be hanged and to rise to heaven. Now, to abuse a man is one thing, but to call him by a fond nick-name which may be highly complimentary—as, for instance, a gom—is quite another, both being however "slanguage" of the most decided description. Now, it is worth noting that slang, in the sense of vulgar synonyme, has long been popularly regarded as a gypsy word, and that the gypsies themselves claim it. And though they be no philologists, the accuracy with which these people distinguish between words which belong to their own tongue, and those which do not, is very remarkable. Having taken down as they came, by chance here and there, about four thousand 1  ## p. 120 (#152) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. English gypsy words, chiefly from old people, I have been astonished to find what a vast proportion of these, especially those now obsolete, are Hindi- Persian, especially the former, and how very few really English slang words have crept into Romany. One especially gypsy use of the word slang is its application to all matters connected with the stage, or with "shows," requiringtheatrical language, which they in common with the vulgar regard as "a way of talk" quite different from that of common life. Hence, being "on the slangs" in common parlance means connected with exhibitions, and also licensed to hold forth in any way whatever. In this sense, Mr. Henry Irving, Miss Ellen Terry, or the Rev. Mr. Spurgeon (I am not so sure as to his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury), are all "on the slangs" —and long may they wave there as credits to them- selves and their country 1 Now, be it noted that the word "swdngi" means in India just what slangi (the old form) does in gypsy—all which is of the shows, showy, and of theatres, theatrical. As for the conversion of W to L, it took place innumerable times in India, just as it takes place now, ever and anon, in England, when it comes easier. The better philologer a man is, and the more familiar with strictly correct language, the more foreign and forced does the change from swangi to slangi seem, but to a gypsy it is the most natural thing in the world. It is within the memory of man that at one time there were few side or small shows, or even large theatres in which gypsies were not to be found, and the terms current among actors, such as cully, gorger, and mash, indicate their influence. By the way I have been reproved in print, for extravagance in declaiming that mask is gypsy, but I earnestly reply with the exquisite logic of the American darkey, "I wish I had as many dollars as I can prove dat to be true." It maybe remarked—"to top of faith"—that slang of yore meant abuse, and that its connection with things theatrical, and as a canting jargon, is subse- quent to the incoming of Gypsyness to England. And for a supernaculum to the topping-off, that the fact that slang is in these senses possibly not known to Continental gypsies, goes for little, considering that English Gypsy has retained a vast number of Indian words—such as Kushte and Koshko (good), which are rarely, if ever, heard out of England. Charles G. Leland. GO SLOW. ALL here, give ear, to whom I sing, Whatever your degree; Don't go to fast in anything, However fast you be. If people try to give you tips Because "they love you so," Don't let your heart approach your lips— Go slow, my friends, go slow. If girls with curls above their brow, And roses on their cheek, Smile innocently when you bow, Or listen when you speak; If one of them, in times of grief, Desires to share your woe, Avoid the dangerous relief— Go slow, my friends, go slow. If folks that hoax should call on you To stand for Parliament, And ask you for an I.O.U. For cash they say they've spent; Or talk to you of "bulls and bears," Like people "in the know," And undertake to get you shares— Go slow, my friends, go slow. If men, again, pronounce your verse Too precious to be lost, And try to dip into your purse "To meet production's cost "j However pleasant they appear In Paternoster Row, That whistle will be bought too dear— Then, most of all, go slow. H. G. Keene. * INSCRIPTION FOR A MEMORIAL BUST OF FIELDING. [From The Atlantic Monthly, August, 1890.] He looked on naked Nature unashamed, And saw the Sphinx, now bestial, now divine, In change and rechange; he nor praised nor blamed, But drew her as he saw with fearless line. Did he good service? God must judge, not we; Manly he was, and generous and sincere; English in all, of genius blithely free: Who loves a Man may see his image here. James Russell Lowell.  ## p. 121 (#153) ############################################ THE A UTHOR. CORRESPONDENCE. I. A Club of Critics. Can it be that a 'plan for the foundation of a club of critics is really and seriously under con- sideration, or has the suggestion merely been thrown out by an enterprising daily paper on the chance of eliciting an interesting correspondence? I have now read this statement in half-a-dozen different places. The much-maligned critic, who is generally a very good fellow, and, in letters at any rate, almost always knows what he is about, has three or four good clubs open to him already; he has to share them with his victims but, if they do not mind, it is difficult to see why he should. It seems to me, also, that it would be very hard to define the qualifications for membership, for the critic of to-day is the criticised of to-morrow. Again, is the expert in Greek art or German music to compete for a vacancy with the man who can appreciate the qualities of a prize-fighter or the legs of an horse? Mr. Robert Buchanan says that his night is made hideous by journalistic birds of prey, and begs that a Trades' Union of critics may boycott the slanderer and blackmailer. If a slanderer is to be blackballed at the critics' club, and if everybody who falls foul of an author's work is to be held to have slandered that author, where are the members of the club to come from, and how is the Com- mittee, who elect, to be constituted? That the blackmailer exists is a serious sugges- tion (has Mr. Robert Buchanan made it seriously?), but I am unwilling to believe in the venal critic. I remember that Mr. Lang, in his very humorous lecture, " How to fail in Literature," pointed out that the writers who affected to believe that the critic had gone out of his way to slander them, in spite of their poor opinion of his manners and his morals, never approached him with gifts. A. B. II. American Cookery. August "jth, 1890. I think that my experience of cookery at the hands of the Americans caps that of Mr. Rider Haggard and "A. R. H. M." The recipe is as as follows, the cook being one "Smith, D.D. " :— Take the whole of Clodd's Childhood of the World, garble all the passages which tell against vol. 1. the doctrine of man's total depravity (which doc- trine the aforesaid Smith's act is designed to further establish), add thereto a few chapters from Cox's Gods and Herons; strain all the juice therefrom; pour in some pious reflections on the fall of man, and on echoes of the Hebrew revelation in Greek mythology; mix well together, so as not to know "t'other from which," and serve up cold under the title of "Myths and Herons; or, the Childhood of the World." Edited by Rev. S. F. Smith, D.D. This is how they served up Sir George W. Cox and Your obedient servant, Edward Clodd. III. The Society's Readers. I have read "Leaflet No. Ill" on the subject of "Paying for Publication," which appeared in the last issue of The Author, with interest and with some amusement. After describing the process —too familiar to all writers—of the rejection of a MS. by successive publishers, and the subsequent determination of the author to pay for its produc- tion himself, you condemn the conduct of such an author as foolish, and suggest the proper course for him to follow. You say, "If a MS. is offered to all the respectable houses in vain, it is refused because all the respectable houses are agreed that the public will have none of it." You tell the poor author to ask himself these questions, "If this public should refuse to buy this MS. if pub- lished—say, by or of what other publisher would they buy it? and for what reason?" In short you imply that a MS. is always rejected by respect- able publishers because it is worthless, and you con- sequently suggest to the author that instead, after such rejection, of rushing recklessly into print at his own expense, he should revise his MS. and submit it some third person—"say one of the readers for this Society, for an independent opinion as to the cause of these repeated failures." Now, sir, it is this last sentence which tickled my fancy in an especial degree for reasons which I shall now mention. Some little time ago I had ready for publication the materials of a book! I submitted them to various well-known publishers, with the usual result—they were declined with thanks. I then, instead of determining to pay for the production of them, adopted precisely the course you recommend. I took the MS. to the Incorporated Society of Authors, of which I have the honour to be a mem- ber, and requested to have the opinion of " one of 1 a  ## p. 122 (#154) ############################################ 122 THE AUTHOR. your readers." In due course the opinion was given to the effect that it would be unwise to pub- lish the book, as it was not likely to have a sale. Thereupon, I suppose, I ought to have concluded that, in your own words, my work "lacked at least commercial value, if not literary merit," and should have thrown it behind the fire. However, with the folly which characterises the race of scribblers, I had one more try and found in Messrs. a firm willing to produce my book at their own risk. Subsequently at my request they permitted me to alter my arrangement with them and pay for the production of the book myself, but this change, though advantageous to me, does not affect the question with which I am dealing. Now what has been the result? The first edition of 1,000 copies was exhausted in less than three weeks, and the demand for the second edition is most encouraging. In a word, the book, which your reader condemned, is a success—and your reader has proved himself just as fallible as the majority of publishers' readers; and no wonder, as the sequel will show. Calling a few days ago at the office of the Society, I could not resist the temptation to draw the attention of the courteous Secretary to the passages in " Leaflet No. Ill," on which I am commenting, and to point the moral. This gentleman said he could not understand how my book had been misjudged, for he had sub- mitted it to one of Messrs. 's most ex- perienced readers. He could only suppose that the reader in question, being a seriously minded man, had been misled by the title—" Four years in Parliament with Hard Labour "—and finding the contents not so grave as he had been led to expect therefrom, had condemned the work in conse- quence of the inconsistency between the inside and the outside. I own that I was not much impressed with this suggested explanation, but I certainly was struck with the discovery that the readers for the Society should be none other than the very same publishers' readers to whom in the ordinary course and with- out the intervention of the Society, the work would be submitted by the author. Surely when you advise an author who has had his MS. returned by publishers to submit it "to some third person—say one of the readers for this Society—for an independent opinion as to the cause of these repeated failures," no one would suppose that these independent third persons would be of the very class of men, possibly the very men themselves, by whom the MS. had already been examined and rejected! It is clear that if the Society desire to set up, what I think might be a useful tribunal, namely, a Court of Appeal from the judgment of publishers' readers, which may gain and retain the confidence of authors, such a Court will have to be composed of persons other than than those who at present seem to constitute it. Do not suppose, however, because I have given a quite recent instance of a case in which the advice of the Society, if followed, would have pre- vented the publication of a successful book, that therefore I can see no good in the existence of the Society. On the contrary I acknowledge that the Society has by its disclosures of the practices of dishonest publishers done an excellent work—a work which will benefit authors and improve and strengthen the position of respectable publishers. If it proceed on these lines and receive the support to which it will then be entitled, it will become not merely a prosperous but also a powerful body—a body able to make good terms for authors because it will be able to say how the constant output of new literary work on which publishers in a great measure subsist shall be divided among them. I am, Sir, Your obedient Servant, C. W. Radcliffe Cooke. House of Commons, August 6lh, 1890. Editor's Note.—We think Mr. Radcliffe Cooke expects too much of us, although we appreciate the compliment. Our readers are not infallible, nor have we made any such claim for them. We think also that the reader for a pub- lisher is in a position to give the surest prognosis that can be given as to the future of a book. This was our meaning when we invited authors, after continued rejection, to submit their MSS. for an "indepen- dent" opinion. From a good publisher, such an author receives, as a rule, only a few words regretting the inability of the firm to undertake 'the work. Sometimes the answer comes back so promptly that the author cannot believe his claims have been properly considered. From others he receives invitations to provide the expense of production. From some he receives a letter of high commendation by return of post, with an effusive offer to publish at once on the half-profit system, if the author will pay—say £<)0—in three instalments. Whom is he to believe! What is he to do? We try to tell him. But we are not infallible. In this case our reader's opinion proved completely wrong. We are, however, quite certain that this reader has kept from publica- tion, at the author's risk and expense, a mass of stuff which would never repay the author, and would only have swollen the mass of worthless literature. IV. Black Beauty. There are cases so strong that any comment weakens them. Permit me, therefore, to tell the story of "Black Beauty," and to leave you and the British public to admire it. This book, written  ## p. 123 (#155) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. by Miss Anna Sewell and published by a reputable English firm, made its way to this country early in the current year, was placed on the shelves of the public and private circulating libraries, and made a reputation for itself and accomplished a good work among young equestrians, and among the owners of costly horses. In time, its influence would doubtless have been felt among the teams- ters and the drivers of public conveyances, but, early in April, Mr. George T. Angell, the Presi- dent of the American Humane Society, published an edition of his own, and boldly announced that he should give away several hundred copies, and should sell the remainder of the 10,000 issued at twelve cents a copy. He added the words, "The 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' of the Horse," to the English author's title-page, and he wrote a beauti- ful preface, running over with benevolence, and stating, in substance, that this was the book he long had sought, and mourned because he found it not, and he kindly italicized certain passages which he considered were not strong enough in plain Roman type. The importers, booksellers, and librarians shrugged their shoulders, but wisely saved their breath, about the only thing which the present state of the law has left them to save. A Mortified Yankee. Boston, May 2.2nd, 1890. We were unaware that " Black Beauty" was so valuable a property, but the manner in which the possessor of the copyright has been treated is deeply remarkable. For here we have not a story of the doings of the pirate-publisher, but of the practical philanthropist, yet we doubt if the late Mr. Charles Reade, in his wonderful store-house of notes, possessed a more bare-faced example of robbery. Here is a really valuable property—of some- body's—appropriated by a man who has not the slightest claim to it, and sold at such a ridiculous price that no legitimate edition can possibly live in the market with it. "It is highly improbable," says the Boston Herald, "that 'An Uncle Tom's Cabin' of the horse will be written, or even at- tempted, in the country now, since the publication of the American edition of 'Black Beauty.' The proper price of the book should be 50 cents, and even in the present ludicrous condition of the book trade would be at least 25 cents for the im- ported edition. This would remunerate the author, the publisher and the bookseller; but the American edition being frankly stolen, pays nobody, and inspires the person who buys it for 12 cents, for the good of the horse, with a disinclination to pay more than 12 cents for any other similar book. Twelve cents from the purchaser means 12 mills for the author, or $12 a thousand, and American authors, not being donkeys, do not write books for that price, even for the good of the horse. If 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' had been sold for next to nothing, does anybody suppose that the hundreds of later anti-slavery novels which powerfully affected public opinion would ever have seen the light? Would even 'Dred' have been written, had not its author expected a fair recompense?" It is impossible to attribute any but the very best and highest intentions to the publishers of the American edition, but to do evil that good may come is invariably unwise. "The ten command- ments will not budge," as Mr. Lowell says, and giving away conveyed copies of "Black Beauty" destroys the chance that an American will write a better book in behalf of the horse. True, it is possible that there is a combination of saint and clever writer somewhere in the country, and that he may be willing to work for nothing, and to bear all manner of abuse by way of compensation, but few will believe in his existence until he actually appears. Here is Mr. George T. Angell's logical reply :— "To the Editor of the Herald .—In the Herald's review of 'Black Beauty,' the book which the American Humane Society is distributing free of charge, the statement is made that the author re- ceives no remuneration. I answer: "(1) The authoress died unmarried shortly after the publication of the book. "(2) Her mother, a widow, died soon after. "(3) So far as we are aware no one but the English publisher gets a sixpence from it. "(4) He has already sold 103,000 copies in England. "(5) Its immense advertisement and circulation in the United States will give it a large sale in Upper and Lower Canada, where his copyright holds good, and will attract increased attention and sale both in Great Britain and all British colonies. "(6) The publisher can better afford to make a present to the American Humane Education Society than the American Humane Education Society can afford to make a present to him. "Boston, May -]th, 1890." Was there ever such a condition of hopeless mental confusion, for it is fair to suppose that his action has been entirely dictated by a confused idea that good would follow his evil deed. The Society of Authors, in spite of its actions and printed disclaimers, has often been accused in the press 01 cherishing savagely unjust views concerning pub- lishers, but Mr. Angell—in his own argdt—" goes us one better." Stealing does not matter a cent, says President Angell, for we are only robbing a  ## p. 124 (#156) ############################################ 124 THE AUTHOR. publisher. This is the doctrine of "'eave 'arf a brick at him " with a vengeance. Mr. Angell holds out to the publisher, as though perhaps to show that he was acting for the the best all round, the immense sale that his work will have in certain Crown colonies where the copy- right restrictions hold good. In view of the letters whose substance has been reproduced later in this number of The Author, we are doubtful if any of our colonies are very safe from American enterprise, but certainly we cannot believe that there will be much demand for this book at its proper price north of the American frontier line, while it is being given away with a pound of tea on the southern side. * information, and trust that all willing to contribute will communicate with the Executive at 13, King's Bench Walk, Temple, London, E.C. The Marquis of Lorne {Chairman of the Executive Committee), Alex. Staveley Hill, Esq., Q.C., M.P. {Hon. Treasurer), Sir George Baden-Powell, M.P. {Hon. Secretary). There has been gathered together a Committee, chiefly consisting of lords and noblemen, to collect books. Among them appears the name of James Bryce, as almost the solitary man of letters, though science is well represented. In any other country such a Committee would have contained none but men of letters and of science. THE LIBRARY OF TORONTO UNIVERSITY. E have great pleasure in giving publicity to the following communication, which has been received at the office:— The loss which the University of Toronto has sustained in the destruction by fire of its valuable Library, has aroused a widespread feeling of sym- pathy in the Mother Country. In order to give practical effect to this feeling a Committee has now been formed in order to collect and forward to Toronto gifts of books. The Committee will also gladly receive any con- tributions in money to be expended in the purchase of suitable books. Many possessors of books will be willing to con- tribute. The Committee are happy to state that the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, the British Museum, and other public bodies, as well as many private firms and individuals, have already offered to contribute books. The Com- mittee are also happy to state that the Allan and Dominion Steamship Lines and the Canadian Railways have generously offered to carry the books free of charge. It will be a convenience if those willing to con- tribute would, first of all, send to the Executive Committee a list of such books as they may be willing to give, with a view to the avoidance of the unnecessary multiplication of copies of the same book. A plate will be prepared for insertion in each volume, upon which will appear the name of the contributor of the books or of the money expended upon the purchase. The Committee will be glad to afford every * INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. ON July 29th, Samuel Gompers, President of the Federation of Labour, addressed the following letter to Speaker Reed :— Dear Sir,—By direction of the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labour, it becomes my duty to inform you, and I take pleasure in so doing, that the organised working men of this country feel a deep interest in the enactment of an International Copyright Law by the Congress of the United States. In favouring such a law, however, we do so pro- vided it contains a clause which shall protect the compositors and all other wage-workers in the printer's trade, as well as the authors and manu- facturers, and believe that House Bill 10,254, introduced by Mr. Win. E. Simonds, representing the First District of Connecticut, covers all the points in interest. Seldom if ever have all the interests in an in- dustry been so thoroughly united in the advocacy of a measure as represented in the Bill referred to. No injury is contemplated, or can occur, to any of the people of our country. It can be followed with but one, and that a good, effect upon all. We earnestly ask you to give the Bill such assistance as will bring it before the House, and secure its passage, and that I may hear from you to that effect.  ## p. 125 (#157) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 125 AT WORK. This column is reserved entirely for Members of the Society, who are invited to keep the Editor acquainted with their work and engagements. THE first volume of Mr. York Powell's new series, "Scottish History from Contemporary Writers," has appeared. It is entitled "The Days of James IV," and is edited by Mr. Gregory Smith, and published by Nutt. The object of this series is to send the reader to the best original authorities for information. Mr. Walter Besant's novel "Armorel of Lyonnesse," which ran in the Illustrated London Nenus from January to July of this year, will be published by Chatto and Windus in October. "Fantasia," by Matilda Serrao, is to be translated from the Italian by Sir. H. Harland (Sidney Luska) for the "International Library," edited by Mr. Edmund Gosse, and published by Mr. Heinemann. Professor J. S. Nicholson's romance "Thoth," which is now in a third edition, has been translated into German, and will shortly appear in the Berlin National Zeitung. A new serial story by Mr. Marion Crawford will begin in an early number of the English Illustrated Magazine. Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will publish "A Cigarette Maker's Romance," by the same author, this autumn. Mr. C. F. Keary's novel in letters, "A Mariage de Cove- nance," is to appear shortly in cheap form in Mr. Fisher Unwin's novel series. Dr. W. H. Russell has finished his book on "A Visit to Chile and the Nitrate Fields of Tarapaca, &c.,"and it will be published shortly by Messrs. Virtue and Co. Mr. Melton Prior has furnished some sixty illustrations. "Mademoiselle," a 1 vol. story by Miss Peard, will shortly be published (Walter Smith and Innes). Mrs. Oliphant's story, " Kirstein," was concluded in last month's number of Macmillan's Magazine. Mr. Leland's " Memory and Thought" is now appearing in a series of six manuals in New York. The publisher is T. P. Downs. Dr. Goodchild has in the press a sequel to his clever and fanciful little book, "Chats at Sant Ampelio." The poems of Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton) form the latest volume in the Canterbury series issued by Walter Scott. The selection is preceded by an introduction by M. Bethane Edwards. "Esme Stuart's" novel is continued through The New- bery House Magazine. Messrs. Chatto and Windus have again commissioned Mr. T. W. Speight, author of " The Mysteries of Heron Dyke," &c, to write 714* Gentleman's Annual for Christmas next. This will make the sixth consecutive year that the Annual in question has been from Mr. Speight's pen. The same writer has a three-volume novel well under way, which he hopes to have finished by the beginning of the new year. A paper on " Binary Stars of Short Period," by Mr. J. E. Gore, F.K.A.S., appears in the August numl>er of Kno-Mledgc. The paper is illustrated by drawings of the apparent orbits of some remarkable binary stars. These have been drawn to scale and reduced by photography. "John Strange Winter" has three different novels running as serials at the present time in London periodicals, viz., "Other People's Children," in The Gentlewoman, "He Went for a Soldier," in Tit-Bits, and "The Other Man's Wife," in The Weekly Times and in Tinslcy Magazine, and numerous provincial and colonial newspapers. These three novels have been written during this year. The Rev. Frederick Langbridge has nearly completed a volume relating for children the lives of Samuel, Saul, and David. The Ixjok will form a number of the "Stepping Stones " Series, published by the R.T.S. The same Society will also issue immediately the Fourth Part of "What to Read," edited by Mr. Langbridge. Mr. Langbridge has just completed a story called, "I Bide My Time," which will run as a serial in the Church Monthly during the first half of 1891. In conjunction with Mrs. Lysaght, Mr. Langbridge has written a somewhat sensational story, called "The Burden of Cassandra," which, previously to its issue in volume form, will appear as a feuilleton in the Bristol Observer. * NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. Allingham, William (The Late). Thought and Word, and Ashby Manor. Reeves and Turner. I vol. Archer, William. Prose Dramas of Henrik Ibsen. Authorized English Edition. Edited by. Vol. I—III. Scott. Austin, Alfred. English Lyrics. Edited by William Watson. Crown 8vo. ys. 6d. Macmillan and Co. Black, William. The New Prince Fortunatus. Cr. 8vo., cloth. Sampson Low. Blind, Mathilde. The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff. Translated, with Introduction by. Cassell and Co. Burnett, Frances Hodgson. Louisiana; and That Lass o' Lowrie's. I vol. Crown 8vo. y. 6d. Macmillan and Co. Campbell, Lady Colin. Darell Blake. 1 vol. Trischler and Co. Clodd, Edward. Story of Creation: A Plain Account of Evolution. I vol. Longmans and Co. Cobb, Thomas. For Value Received. 3 vols. Ward and Downey. Conway, W. M. Climber's Guide to the Central Pennine Alps. Fisher Unwin. Crommelin, May. Midge. 1 vol. Trischler and Co. Dickens (Charles) and Collins (Wilkie). The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices; No Thoroughfare; The Perils of Certain English Prisoners. Crown 8vo. I vol. Chapman and Hall. *#* These stories are now reprinted in complete form for the first time. Dobson, Austin. Selected Poems of Matthew Prior. Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trubner and Co. Esler, E. Rentoul. The Way of Transgressors. 3 vols. 31*. 6d. Sampson Low and Co. Farrar, F. W., D.D. The Passion Play at Oberammergau, 1890. 4to., cloth. I vol. William Heinemann. Frazf.r, J. G. The Golden Bough: A Study in Compara- tive Religion. Macmillan and Co. 2 vols. Harley, Ethel B. (Mrs. Alex. Tweedie). A Girl's Ride in Iceland. Crown 8vo. 1 vol. Ss- Griffith and F arran. Hethbrington, Helen, and Burton, Rfv. H. Darwin. Paul Nugent, Materialist. 2 vols. 2If. Griffith and Farran. Hume, Fergus. The Man with a Secret. F. V. White. 3 vols. The Gentleman who Vanished. F. V. White. James. Henry. The Tragic Muse. 3 vols. Crown 8vo. 31 j. 6d. Macmillan and Co.  ## p. 126 (#158) ############################################ 126 THE AUTHOR. Kirh'.T,, R';dtarj>. In Black and White. Demy 8vo., c/vers. Saropvjn Low. Rain Tales from the Hills. Third edition. I voL Crown tn<i. (a. Macmillan and Co. Lyw*» Lywto*, Mrs. E. Sowing the Wind. Chattoand Wrryius. I rol. 3/. <*/. Lrrrojt, Earl op. Poem*. ivoL Walter Scott. Marty*, EkwarMSirius). Morgante the Lesser. Swan .Sonnensthein and Co. I vol. 6s. Mekciek, Dk. Chaei.es. Sanity and Insanity. 1 vol. Walter Scott. Mo*KHOL'»E, Cosmo. The Earlier English Water-colour Painter n. Illustrated. Seeley and Co. Corn and Poppies. Elkin Mathews. Murray, Christie, and Herman, Hesry. Wild Darrie: A Novel. New and cheaper edition. Crown 8vo. I vol. 21/. Longmans, Green and Co. Nicholson, J. Shield. Toxar: A Romance. Longman and Co. 8vo. 6s. "Nomad." A Railway Foundling. 3 vols. Trischler and Co. Oliphant, Mrs. The Mystery of Mrs. Blencarrow. 1 vol. Spencer lilackett. Parry, E. A. Letters from Dorothy Oslx>rne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54. New edition. 6s. Griffith and larran. I'ATEKson, Arthur. The Better Man. 1 vol. Ward and Downey. I'ayn, Ja.mf.s. Mystery of Mirlvidge. 12 mo. 2s., bds. — Notes from the "News." Chatto and Windus. Crown 8vo. is. Pollock, Sir Frederick. An Introduction to the History of the Science of Politics. I vol. 2s. 6d. Macmillan and Co. I'ooi.e, Stanley Lane. Story of the Nations. The liarlary Corsairs. Fisher Unwin. Praed, Mrs. CamI'HELL. The Romance of a Station. 2 vols. Trischler and Co. Kohinson, Mahk.i.. The Plan of Campaign. Crown 8vo. I vol. Mclhuen and Co. Rohinson, F. W. A Very Strange Family. Crown 8vo. I vol. 3/. 6d. William Ileinemann. The Keeper of the Keys. Hurst and lilackett. 3 vols. SlDGWICK, Henry. The Methods of Ethics. Fourth edition. 8vo. 14/. Macmillan and Co. Sims, GkorckK. The Case of George Candlemas. Chatto and Windus. 1 vol. is. Stevenson, Roiiert Louis. Father Damien: an Open I-etlcr to the Rev. Dr. Hyde. 1 vol. Chatto and Windus. is. Symonds, John AddINCTON. Essays, Speculative and Suggestive. Crown 8vo. 2 vols. Chapman and Hall. Toynhrk, William. Lays of Common Life. Remington and Co. Tyti.kr, Sarah. French Janet. Smith, Elder and Co. 1 vol, 2r. Wariikn, Florence. City and Surhurban. F. V. White. Westai.l, W. Two Pinches of Snuff. I vol. Crown 8vo. 2f., hoards. Whistler, J. M'Neii.l. The Gentle Art of Making Enemies. 410. 1 vol. William Ileinemann. Large- Taper Edition, numbered and signed, £2 2s. Winter, John Strange." "Dinna Forget. 1 vol. Trischler and Co. OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. 1. Trie maintenance, definition, and defence of literary property. 2. The consolidation and amendment of the laws of Domestic Copyright 3. The promotion of International Copyright. The first of these objects requires explanation. In order to defend Literary Property, the Society acts as follows :— a. It aims at defining and establishing the principles which should rule the methods of publishing. /3. It examines agreements submitted to authors, and points out to them the clauses which are injurious to their in- terests. ! 7. It advises authors as to the best publishers for their purpose, and keeps them out of the hands of unscrupulous traders. £. It publishes from time to time, books, papers, &c, on the subjects which fall within its province. e. In every other way possible the Society protects, warns, and informs its members as to the pecuniary interest of their works. * WARNINGS. Authors are most earnestly warned— (1) Not to sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an in- tegral part unless an opportunity of proving the correctness of the figures is given them. (2) Not to enter into any correspondence with publishers, who are not recommended by experienced friends, or by this Society. (3) Never, on any account whatever, to bind themselves down to any one firm of pub- lishers. (4) Not to accept any proposal of royalty without consultation with the Society. (5) Not to accept any offer of money for MSS., without previously taking advice of the Society. (6) Not to accept any pecuniary risk or res- ponsibility without advice. (7) Not, under ordinary circumstances, when a MS. has been refused by the well-known houses, to pay small houses for the pro- duction of the work,  ## p. 127 (#159) ############################################ AD VER TISEMENTS. 127 "THE LITERARY HAflDJKAID OF THE CHURCH-" HENRY GLAISHER, 95, STRAND. Price ONE SHILLING. NOW READY. This pamphlet is a reply to the invitation issued by the Publication Committee of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge in their Report of last year, for any suggestions, which they "will gladly receive," on the best way of making "the Venerable Society the most efficient literary handmaid of the Church of England throughout the world." The suggestions offered in these pages contain, first, some of the elementary principles which guide honourable men in the administration of literary property. The writer next advances three cases, as illustrating the methods adopted by the Society. A copy of this pamphlet will be sent to any member of * the Society by application to the Office, including two postage stamps. THE METHODS OF PUBLICATION, BY S. S. SPRIGGE, B.A. READY IN OCTOBER. This book, compiled mainly from documents in the office of the Society of Authors, is intended to show a complete conspectus of all the various methods of publication with the meaning of each; that is to say, the exact concessions to publishers and the reservation of the owner and author of the work. The different frauds which arise out of these methods form a necessary part of the book. Nothing is advanced which has not been proved by the experience of the Society.  ## p. 128 (#160) ############################################ 128 AD VER TISEMENTS. TYPE-WRITING! CHARM CROSS TYPE-WRITING ASSOCIATION, h| 447, STRAND *• (Directly opposite Charing Cross Station). Managers - Miss ROUSE & Mrs. URQUHART. Authors' MSS. copied with accuracy and despatch. Specifications. Law copying. Translations from and into all foreign languages. Shorthand Writers always in attendance. MISS GILL, TYPE-WRITING OFFICES, 6, ADAM STREET, HARRISON & SONS, $)rtntrnr in Ortfnarn to $?er fHajeltg, GIVE SPECIAL ATTENTION TO ARTISTIC AND OLD STYLE PRINTING, ALSO TO THE ACCURATE PRODUCTION OF SCIENTIFIC AND MATHEMATICAL WORKS, AND PRINTING IN ORIENTAL TYPES. 45, 46, & 47, 8t. Martin's Lane; 14,15,16, & 20, Great May's Buildings; 59, Pall Mall; 10, Tower Street, LONDON. MISS ETHEL DICKENS, TYPE-WRITING OFFICE, 26, WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND (Over tie Office of " Alt tie Year Round"). MSS. copied. Price List on application. TYPE-WRITING OFFICE, ST. PAUL'S CHAMBERS, 19, LDDGATE HILL, E.C. Authors' MSS. carefully copied from i/- per 1,000 words. One additional copy (carbon) supplied free of charge. References kindly permitted to many well-known Authors and Publishers. Further particulars on application. SECOND-HAND AND SCARCE BOOKS. HARRISON & SONS have special facilities for the supply of Second-Hand and Scarce Books. All orders entrusted to them will receive immediate and careful attention. No charge is made until successful in procuring the work desired. Price, Condition of Binding, Plates, &C, will be reported before securing. Address— HARRISON & SONS, NEW & SECOND-HAND BOOKSELLERS, 59, PALL JWALL, LONDON, S.W. ESTABLISHED 1851. SOUTHAMPTON BUILDINGS, CHANCERY LANE. THREE per CENT. INTEREST allowed on DEPOSITS, repayable on demand. TWO per CENT. INTEREST on CURRENT ACCOUNTS when not drawn below £100. STOCKS, SHARES, and ANNUITIES purchased and sold. DEPARTMEHTT. For the encouragement of Thrift the Bank receives small sums on deposit, and allows interest, at the rate of THREE per CENT, per Annum, on each completed £l. The Interest is added to the principal on the 31st March annually. FRANCIS RAVENSCROFT, Manager. HOW TO PURCHASE A HOUSE FOR TWO GUINEAS PER MONTH, OR A PLOT OF LAND FOR FIVE SHILLINGS PER MONTH, with immediate possession. Apply at Office of the Eirkbeck Freehold Land .Society. THE BIRKBECK ALMANACK, with full particulars post free on application. FRANCIS RAVENSCROFT, Manager.  ## p. 128 (#161) ############################################ A D VER TISEMEN TS. Hi. THE BAR-LOCK TYPE-WRITER saves the eyesight. THE BAR-LOCK TYPE-WRITER prevents writer's cramp. THE BAR-LOCK TYPE-WRITER prevents round shoulders. THE BAR-LOCK TYPE-WRITER enables you to keep pace with your thoughts, the operation requires less mental effort than the use of a pen, allowing you to concentrate your mind more fully on the matter you are writing on. The writing of the BAR-LOCK TYPE-WRITER is equal to a printed proof, and can be used as such for corrections, thus saving large printer's charges which are sufficient in many books to defray the cost of a Bar-Lock. Supplied for Cash, or on Our Easy Payment System by Twelve Monthly Payments of £1 19s., or on Hire at £2 2s. per Month. CORRESPONDENCE AND INSPECTION INVITED. THE TYPE-WRITER COMPANY, Limited, 12 & 14, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. 40, North John Street, Liverpool; 22, Renfleld Street, Glasgow; 25, Market Street, Manchester; Exchange Building, Cardiff; 385, Little Collins Street, Melbourne. Type- Writing Taught by Experts. Author s MSS. Copied at is. jif. per 1,000 Words at all Our Offices. PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 1. The Annual Report. That for January, 1890, can be had on application to the Secretary. 2. The Author. A Monthly Journal devoted especially to the protection and maintenance of Literary Property. Issued to all members. 3. The Grievances of Authors. (Field & Tuer.} 2*. The Report of three Meetings on the general subject of Literature and its defence, held at Willis's Rooms, March, 1887. 4. Literature and the Pension List. By W. Morris Colle=, Barrister-at-Law. (Henry (llaisher, 95, Strand, W.C.) 4*. 6d. 5. The History of the Society des Gens de Lettres. By S. Squire Sprigge, Secretary to the Society, is. 6. The Cost of Production. In this work specimens are given of the most important forms of type, size of page, &c, with estimates showing what it costs to produce the more common kinds of books. The work is printed for members of the Society only. 2s. 6d. (A new Edition preparing.) 7. The Various Methods of Publication. By S. Squire Sprigge. In this work, compiled from the papers in the Society's offices, the various kinds of agreements proposed by Publishers to Authors are examined, and their meaning carefully explained, with an account of the various kinds of fraud which have been made possible by the different clauses in their agreements. The book is nearly ready, and will be issued as soon as possible. Other works bearing on the Literary Profession willfollow. THIS VIEW IS REFHOOUCH) HtOM APHOTDGRAPH OFAN OPERATOR* oarlock TYPEWRITER ^TlMES THE SPEED OF A PEN. Till: TYPK WRITER CO., I^d., 12, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, LONDON. 40. North Jnim St.-Liverpool; Guardian Bide., Ilinebeater; ja. \\--\- \ St., jci- chautfc Uliife'., Cardiff; ?83. Little ColIlUB St.. aielboume.  ## p. 128 (#162) ############################################ iv. ADVERTISEMENTS. NEW MODEL REMINGTON STANDARD TYPEWRITER. Sim For Fifteen Years the Standard, and to-day the most perfect development of the writing machine, embodying the latest and highest achievements of inventive and mechanical skill. We add to the Remington every improve- ment that study and capital can secure. WYCKOFF, SEAMANS & BENEDICT, Principal Office- LONDON: 100, GRACECHURCH STREET, E.C. (CORNER OF LEADENHALL STREET). Branch Offices- LIVERPOOL: CENTRAL BUILDINGS, NORTH JOHN STREET. BIRMINGHAM : 88, COLMORE ROW. MANCHESTER : 8, MOULT STREET. 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 Cit of Westminster. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 01 Issue 05 (September 1890) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 01 Issue 05 (September 1890) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031017927&amp;view=1up&amp;seq=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031017927</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1890-09-15-The-Author-1-5 publications The Author