https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/263/1892-05-02-The-Author-2-12.pdf 66130398c839d97aa3ca93afaefd9b51 PDF Text Text �������������������������������������������� 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 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) 1892-05-02 Volume 2 Issue 12 Pages Page range in volume 343–380 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18920502 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin TLhc B u t b o t\ (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vol. II.—No. 12.] MAY 2, 1892. [Prick Sixpence. For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are responsible. WARNINGS. Readers of the Author arc earnestly desired to make the following warnings as widely known as possible. They are based on the experience of seven years' work upon the dangers to which literary property is exposed :— (1.) Never sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, until you have proved the figures. (2.) Never enter into any correspondence with publishers, especially with those who advertise for MSS., who are not recom- mended by experienced friends or by this Society. (3.) Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. Never accept any proposal of royalty until you have ascertained exactly what the agreement gives to the author and what to the publisher. (5.) Never accept any pecuniary risk or respon- sibility whatever without advice. Never, when a MS. has l>een refused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises they may put forward, for the production of the work. (7.) Never sign away American rights. Keep them. Refuse to sign an agreement con- taining a clause which reserves them for the publisher. If the publisher insists, take away the MS. and offer it to another. (+•) (6.) (8.) Never sign a receipt which gives away copyright without advice. (9.) Keep control over the advertisements by clause in the agreement. Reserve a veto. If you are yourself ignorant of the subject, make the Society your agent. (10.) Never forget that publishing is a business, like any other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy, charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with business men. Society's Offices 4, Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. NOTICES. T HE Secretary will be much obliged if any members who have kept the Report for 1890 will kindly send their copies to him. All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether members of this Society or not, are invited to communicate to the Editor any points connected with their work which it would be advisable in the general interest to publish. Members and others who wish their MSS. read are requested not to send them to the Office without previously communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in which they are received. It must also be distinctly understood that, the Society does not, under any circumstances, under- take the publication of MSS. K f 2  ## p. 384 (#788) ############################################ 384 THE AUTHOR. The official directions for the securing of American copyright by English authors were given in the Author for June 1891. Members are earnestly entreated to take the trouble of reading those directions. Members are earnestly requested to forward agreements to the Society for inspection before they sign them. Once signed, the mischief is generally irreparable. Communications intended for the Authors' Syndi- cate should be addressed to W. Morris Colles, the Honorary Secretary. The Authors' Club, whose foundation has been so long delayed and obstructed by one accident after another, is now making a real start. It already numbers a very good roll of original members, and it is taking temporary premises in St. James's Place, St. James's Street. The position is rather more to the West than is desired for a permanent location. The Committee, however, have time to look about them, and it is best not to be in a hurry. Mean- time readers will please observe that the Club is .starting. It will be remembered that at the outset, every kind of prophecy was uttered about its certainty of failure, its impossibility of success. A trick of some importance has been brought before us on several occasions of late. A writer agrees with an editor to contribute papers to his magazine. He is perhaps a writer whose work is of more than ephemeral value. He has been accustomed to place his work subject to the con- dition that he sells serial right only. When the cheque arrives it is accompanied by a form of receipt which contains the words " for the copy- right," or words to that effect. He often signs without noticing the clause, and finds out too late what he has thrown away. Let, therefore, every one guard carefully against signing such a receipt, and let him, for better security, stipulate before- hand that it is the serial right alone which he assigns to his editor. There has been remonstrance. The editorial worm has turned. In the short space of three months one paper has borrowed from another to the following extent. Two important leading articles; three sketches of living characters; six- teen reviews of books; and various short notes. In each case the "conveyance" was accompanied by the words, "the — says." At last the proprietors of the paper have remonstrated, and the thing is slopped. The use of articles taken from other papers is a thing that concerns the Author, because so many of our members arc; journalists as well as authors. Surely some rules can be arrived at. It is very good in most cases, both for the contributor and the paper, to have articles quoted with due acknowledgment. On the other hand, it cannot be claimed that there is no copyright in the daily or the weekly paper. But in any case of reproduction it ought to lie made conspicuously clear where the article first appeared, and in common fairness the author of the article in question should receive some more substantial recognition than the honour of being reprinted in al) cases in which he has reserved his copyright. Perhaps the Institute of Journalists would see a way of takin<* up the matter. With the ratifications of the Literary Convention exchanged between Germany and the United States on the 15th ultimo, and President Harrison's proclamation extending the benefits of the Ameri- can copyright to Germany, German authors enter into the enjoyment of such advantages as they may be able to secure under the American statute. It is to be. feared, however, that the experiences of French authors will be repeated. The conditions of the American copyright requiring a foreign author to be simultaneously printed and published in his own country and in the States, have so far proved in a large number of cases practically prohibitive. In the result, American publishers are practically able to make their own terms, so that, so far as France, and, it is to be feared, Germany is concerned, with the exception of 11 favoured few, the American Copyright Act leaves matters much where it found them. There is a prevalent idea that the death of a holder of a pension on the Civil List creates a vacancy. That is not the case. The number of those on the List is not limited. A grant is made every year of £1,200. This is spent for the most part, as we all know, on persons for whom the grant is not made, and for whom the Reso- lution of 1837 was not passed. When any person on the List dies, that portion of the annual £'1,200 which he has received is no longer paid. But there- is no vacancy to fill up. The amount actually expended every year is about £27,000.  ## p. 385 (#789) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 385 The death of the Rev. Dr. Allon removes one who was a member of this Society from its very commencement, who cordially sympathised with its aims, and was most hopeful of its success. This alone should ensure his memory a grateful pre- servation among us all. But there was more. In his capacity as editor of the British Quarterly he conducted for many years a review which was a formidable rival—say, rather, an equal—to the Quarterly and the Edinburgh, lie was always eager to welcome good work. There are many— the writer of this note among others—who can bear testimony to his kindness and his sympathy. That he was also a Prince of Israel in his own Church, that he was a personal friend of all who were the wisest and the best in his own generation, to what- ever Christian community they belonged, are things which ltelong to the part of him outside literature. Another original member has passed away. Mr. Samuel Lee, M.A., Barrister-at-Law, of Lincoln's Inn, the translator of Virgil and Horace, with Professor Lonsdale, died suddenly on Thursday, April 14th. A constitutional indolence prevented him from doing justice to his own abilities. He did nothing but those two books. But with him has perished a wonderful mass of scholarship and information. He was, in addition to his classical attainments, a wide reader in Spanish, Italian, and French literature. Of a retiring disposition, he was seldom to be seen outside his two clubs, the Athenaeum and the United University. His col- laborateur, Professor Lonsdale, only survived him by a fortnight. Fiction and Egyptology have sustained a loss in Amelia B. Edwards. It is, however, several years since Miss Edwards wrote her last novel. It was with her Egyptian researches much more than her novels that Miss Edwards has been recently before the world. She was on the Civil List, but lived to enjoy her pension a very short time. It is not an uncommon thing in the case of disputed accounts or agreements taken up by the Society for the publishers to attempt to ignore the Secretary by writing to the author. The motive is evident. First, they wish to complicate the settlement of the question by dealing with one whom they have already found to be ignorant of the practical side of literature, or wanting in business capacity. Next, they would, if they could, bring about a division 1 Kit ween the Society and its members, In such a case the duty of the author is clear. He must not answer the letter, but send it on to the Secretary. In no case;—under no circum- stances— must he hold any independent correspon- dence with the publishers. Should he do so, the Society will return his papers at once, and refuse to take any further steps. Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether thev have paid their subscriptions for the year? If they will do this, and remit the amount or a banker's order, it will greatly assist the Secre- tary, and save him the trouble of sending out a reminder. The present number of the Author concludes the second volume. Readers are reminded that though the paper is sent to every member free of charge, every member is also free, if he pleases, to remit a year's subscription of 6s. bd., and that if every member would do so, the paper would cost nothing to the Society. Members are earnestly requested to forward any- thing that may be of interest or value to literature, whether news, comments, questions, or original contributions. The short space at the command of the editor forbids any attempt at reviewing, but books can always be noticed if they are sent up. Members are entreated to attend to the warning numbered (3). It is a most foolish and a most disastrous thing to bind yourself to anyone for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five years to come, whatever his conduct, whether In; was honest or dishonest? Of course they would not. Why then hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign themselves into bondage for three or live years? In the April number of the Author, the name of Sylvia Pens ([1.372) wrongly appeared as Sylvia Nein. THE AUTHOES' SYNDICATE. MR. Colles desires to inform readers of the Author as regards the Syndicate— 1. That he undertakes to work for none but members of the Society. 2. That his business is not to advise members of the Society, but to manage their affairs for them if they please to entrust them to him.  ## p. 386 (#790) ############################################ 386 THE AUTHOR. 3. That when ho has any work in hand he must have it entirely in his own hands; in other words, that authors must not ask him to place certain work, nnd then go about endeavouring to place it by themselves. 4. That when a MS. has been sent from pub- lisher to publisher, and from editor to editor, in vain, it is most likely impossible to place it. 5. That in the face of the present competition, authors will do well to moderate their expectations. To this it may be added, that where advice is sought, the Secretary of the Society, and not the Syndicate, must be consulted. On his behalf members are requested— 1. To place on paper briefly the points on which advice is asked. 2. To send up all the letters and papers con- nected with the case if it is a case of dispute. 3. Not to conceal or keep back any of the facts. ■— THE LOGROLLIAD. SOME months ago I wrote for the students' paper at St. Andrew's—College Echoes— part of a satire called the Logrolliad, supposed to be the work of an envious failure, named McStimey. The lines were preceded by a prose explanation, telling how McStimey had died of envy on reading a favourable review of someone else. By an accident at the printing office, or through the discretion of the undergraduate editors, the explanation did not appear in the College magazine. As the little paper has the very most limited circulation I thought the omission of no importance. I learn, however, that the verses have been published with my name attached to them, in one or two newspapers, and that they have been sent to the persons satirized by McStimey, one of whom was myself. Whether intentionally or not, the persons who published and circulated the lines have caused mis- apprehensions, which I now endeavour to remove. I did not suppose anyone capable of believing that I would make serious assaults on writers, some of whom are my personal friends, and to all of whom I owe gratitude for instruction and enter- tainment. Nor would my natural modesty urge me to remark with seriousness that I teach "by precept and example how to fail," as alleged by McStimey. A. Lang. "POETA NASCITUR, NON FIT; At niihi jam puero ccelcstia Sacra placebant: Inane suum furtira Musa trahebat opus. Sacpe pater dixit: "Studiura quid iuutile tentas? Moonides nullaa ipse reliquit opes." Motus eram dictis: totoque Helicone rclicto, Scriberc couabar verba soluta modis. Sponte sua carmen numcros veniebat ad aptos, Kt, quod tentabam scribere, versus erat. P. Ovidii Nasonis Trist., Lib. iv., El. 10. vv. 18-16. Me Harmony delighted from a boy As the Muse drew me on to her employ: "Why toil for nothing ?" oft my father cried, "Homer himself a very pauper died." His chiding! moved me: Poesy I left, And sought to write some words of song bereft. Put still ray lines flowed, apt to rhyme and scan, And as I wrote my thoughts, in verse they ran. J. M. Lely, [with apologies to P.O.N.]. LITERARY PROPERTY. I. Literary Theft. THE question of literary theft by means of reprinting newspaper articles, either in other newspapers or in books, now being brought into prominence by the Times is a very important one, ami it is to be hoped that it will not be allowed to drop without some practical remedy being discovered and applied. It is notorious that much valuable literature first appears in newspapers. Thackeray's "Snobs" first appeared in Punch; Sala's "Twice Round the Clock" in the Daily Telegraph; while Mr. Russell, Mr. Forbes, and other war correspon- dents innumerable have republished their letters in book form. For payment and without risk, the author (perhaps hitherto unknown) by this mode secures a publication which otherwise he might have to pay for and lose money by, and he also gains the advantage of being able to correct and revise after newspaper publication, and before re-issue, by the light of such criticism, and with the encouragement of such admirers, as newspaper readers may bring. The enormous and increasing output of literat ure in the present day gives every ground of expecta- tion that this mode of publication will become more and more general.  ## p. 387 (#791) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 387 The points of law to be borne in mind are three :— (1.) The copyright belongs to the newspaper proprietor, not the author, for 28 years if, and if only, the articles are written and paid for on the terms that the copyright shall belong to the newspaper proprietor. (2.) The newspaper proprietor cannot sue for breach of copyright without first " registering" his newsj>aper. (3.) To a certain extent, very difficult to define, copying is legitimate. By way of cure for these inconveniences to all concerned in the production of literature, it was proposed (amongst other things) by Lord Monks- well's Copyright Bill, which was read a second time in the House of Lords last session (on the curious condition, imposed by the Lord Chancellor, that it should not be further proceeded with), that— (1.) In the case of any article, essay, or other work whatsoever, being the subject of copyright, first published in and forming part of a collective work for the writing, composition, or making of which the original copyright owner shall have been paid, or shall be entitled to be paid, by the proprietor of the collective work, the copyright shall belong to the proprietor of the collective work for 3o years from publication. (2.) Except in the case of an Encyclopedia, the original copyright owuer shall have the right to republish the article in a separate form at any time after 3 years from the first publication. (3.) Copyright in respect of newspapers shall extend only to articles, paragraphs, communications, and other parts which are compositions of a literary character, and not to any articles, paragraphs, communications, or other parts which are designed only for the publication of news, or to advertise- ments. It is, we believe, a not uncommon practice for the proprietors of magazines to ask their contri- butors to sign receipts containing assignments of copyright as well as acknowledgments of payment. This we think the contributors should decline to do. The contract to assign the copyright can only be made when the article is arranged for. Any contract made after the article has been published is made " without consideration " and void. II. Mb. James Knowles. Two letters on this subject, written by Mr. James Knowles, editor of the Nineteenth Century, are published in the Times of April 29th and in the May number of Mr. Knowles's magazine. In the second letter Mr. Knowles defines what he considers legitimate criticism. He says—we hope that our own interest in the diffusion of these views will excuse our reproducing the lines— "I can of course make no objection at all to 'legitimate' criticism, supported by fair and moderate extracts of anything which is published in my review. "What I cannot recognise as 'legitimate' is extracting the substance of an article or quoting from it merely as a notice and apart from proper criticism of it. "That practice must be stopped by the pro- ducers and owners of literature, just as the practice of taking all the best cherries out of a basket without paying for them — under pretence of obtaining a sample—would be stopped by the law, if necessary, at the instance of the producers and owners of the cherries. "Your common sense and fairness will see the force of the distinction between criticism and pillage, and you will doubtless act accordingly without further pressure." III. Anthony Trollofe's Life. A correspondent writes: "I remember a case which very well illustrates the reckless way in which extracts are made. It is that of the post- humous 4 Recollections of Anthony Trollope.' The publishers were good enough to present me with a copy. For some reason, I had no time to look at it for three months after it appeared. I read during this interval the usual reviews and news- papers. When I at last cut the pages, I found that I knew every single thing of any interest. All had been picked out. What was left was rind and pulp." IV. "Baby" lifting extraordinary. The editor of Baby: the Mothers' Magazine calls attention to the following barefaced theft:— "Imitation is said to be the sincerest flattery; but when it takes the form of a gross piracy and wholesale robbery of ideas from a publication of which one is the originator, editor, and pro- prietor, it cannot be said to be acceptable to the person imitated. I may say that my feelings with regard to a new American publication, en- titled Baby: a Journal for Mothers, the first number of which was published in New York in January 1892, are of unqualified dissatisfaction and disgust at the colossal impudence of the proprietor and editor, whoever they may be. In  ## p. 388 (#792) ############################################ 388 THE AUTHOR. the words of my own prospectus, this magazine professes that its several departments are edited by "well-known writers, and articles will be obtained from the highest authorities on the bringing up of children." It would seem that no extraordinary expense will be incurred in carrying out this programme, as the editor evidently proposes to "annex" from my magazine all that may be required for the purpose. I have only seen the second number of this magnificent speculation as yet, but it is evident from this that the editor has had the four volumes of Baby: the Mo/hers' Magazine open during its preparation, although no acknowledgment is made of the fact. On p. 18, for example, there is a paragraph about the care of the eyes, which I wrote myself, and a hint about teething, taken from my third volume. On p. 19 is a drawing modified from one in my first volume; on p. 20 is the paragraph which forms the heading of my " Nursery Cookery" department; on p. 21, that from the heading of my "Parents' Parlia- ment"; and, on the same page, a whole article called "Hints about Teething," by Dr. T. L. Browne, stolen bodily from my fourth volume, p. 220. Such a production as this is a dishonour to journalism, and that it is possible to produce it is a disgrace to international law." V. American Piracy. There are two kinds of piracy: that, of new books and that of old books. A correspondent, a well-known novelist, writes that the New York Sunday Xeics has been presenting its readers with a complete story by himself, which was published in this country about five years ago. Another complete novel by another well-known writer is announced for the next week. The piracy of new books may be considered pretty well ended, but the piracy of old books will go on unchecked so long as the books which do not possess copyright continue to have any freshness. As regards Mr. Collier, whose correspondence and advertisements have attracted more attention, it is now stated that he has been "laying hands" as well on stories whose copyright is uncertain. A novel written for Tillotson and Son exclusively has very recently figured in three successive issues of the American Once a Week. We can only repeat our former caution. Do not entrust MSS. to any advertiser without careful business agree- ments beforehand and proper guarantees. . ■»-••♦ THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OP AUTHORS. AN important feature in this Society is the appointment of local secretaries in various centres of the country. Thus, at a meeting lately held at "Washington, a local auxiliary society was formed, at which Mrs. M. D. Lincoln was elected Vice-President. At the meeting certain plain truths were spoken. Mrs. Katherine Hodges, the general secretary, said :— "This is certainly one of the most vital subjects for consideration More the country to-day. It is a. question, not of war upon any man, or class of men, but it is one of principle, upon which the constitution of this Republic is founded—the principle of justice and fair dealing to all." Mr. George Smalley, of the iVeio York Tiibunc, was quoted in reference to the complete protection insured to authors by French law. "Why should we sit down contented with 11 position of inferiority to a nation whom we are not in the habit of thinking our superiors in civiliza- tion, or in that branch of it which consists in protecting the weak against the strong?" Mrs. Hodges also read a passage from a letter written by Mrs. Potter Palmer, President of the Board of Lady Managers of the Columbian Exposition, in which she said :— "I sincerely trust that the authors of this nation will be able to make such a showing of their wrongs, and of their inherent rights to the product of their own brains, and so arouse public sentiment on the subject, that the Columbian Exposition shall be recorded in history as the point beyond which such a robbery was made impossible." Continuing, Mrs. Hodges said: "Chaunccy M. Depew made a speech on the occasion of a celebration 011 the passage of the International Copyright Law, in which he said, as nearly as I can now quote it from memory: 'Piracy on the high seas has been abolished for a century, and burglary has been under control of the police for a hundred years, but it remained for a llepublican Congress to abolish the piracy and burglary of the human brain.' "But this has not been done," continued the lady, "as we can prove conclusively, and by unimpeachable testimony of prominent authors, who are victims of the piracy and burglary of human intellect now in full power in America. There is no limit to this practice of piracy, because there is no statute to forbid it under the present laws, and it is for the abolition of this wrong that the American Society of Authors has been orga- nized, confident that this enlightened Government and people will heed a demand for the protection of writers, which other civilized nations of the  ## p. 389 (#793) ############################################ THE AUTHOR 3% earth has already accorded to the authors of various countries. Every branch of trade and traffic has protection under our Government and laws except this one. And why should this form the sole exception?" "What plan do you propose to bring about the desired change? " Mrs. Hodges was asked. "Organization, as Mr. Smallcy suggests. An organization reaching from sea to sea, and through every part of the United States. We shall have at everv prominent point speakers on the topic, who will convey to the people the true situation as it has and does exist. At the Columbian Exposition, we shall have the world for an audience, as from every nation we mean to have those who will tell us the means employed for protection of their writers, and who will help us to perfect plans for the best method of protection here. Please be particular to observe that this movement is not a war on publishers as a class. Honest publishers express themselves as friendly to the cause. Such men have nothing to fear from the organization of authors for their own protection. It is purely a movement to establish the principle of just treatment to authors in this country, to protect them in their right of literary property in commerce, and to defend that right." "Docs not the International Copyright Act protect the American author?" "Abroad, perhaps, to an extent, but not here. The International Copyright Act does not yield the least protection to the native author against the native publisher. And it is quite as great a hard- ship to be robbed by a native as by a foreign publisher." ♦•»•♦ A&ENCIES. I. The Agency Bureau. INHERE is an institution called the "Agency Bureau." Apparently they—or he—advertise "for MSS. A certain lady sent them a paper, or a book, in MS. She received the following reply :— "Dear Madam, "I beg to acknowledge receipt of your favour enclosing MSS., and- should advise you, before proceeding further with them, to have a fair copy made of them on a typewriter, as our ex- perience has taught us that typewritten MSS. is greatly favoured by hard worked editors and publishers. Rejections are, without exception, eaused by MSS. being badly written. "Should you entertain this idea, I shall have great pleasure in having same executed in our vol. n. office at the low charge of 3s. (about 3,5oo words), including paper. "Should this fail to influence you, I will put your writings forward without further delay. Please state by return what you think a fair price for same. "Awaiting your favoured reply, "I am, Dear Madam, "D. Tomasin, "Secretary." The above shows resource. Even if a MS. cannot be placed, it may be typewritten. Fifty MSS. a week at 3s. would not be such very bad business. We have not seen the prospectus of the "Agency Bureau." When we do see " same "— to imitate the excellent style of the secretary—we may have a word or two to say to "same." Meantime, we shall be glad to learn what special powers this person has—what machinery—to place any MS. for anybody? Why will people persist in thinking that an agent can do for their MSS. what they cannot do by themselves? II. The Literary and Art Agency. (Before Mr. Ji/stice Grantham and a Common Jury.) Harington r. the Star Newspaper Company (Limited). This was an action for libel brought by the Rev. T. R. S. Harington, who was descril>cd as a Congregational minister and a journalist, and who for many years had been associated with various religious papers as chief and assistant editor, against the Star for publishing the following article. It was in the form of a letter, addressed by " An out- of-work journalist" to the editor of the Star, and headed, "The Literary Art, the Royal Road to Getting a Living in the Literary Line" :— "Yesterday morning, on the strength of a circular which has been pretty widely distributed, 1 called upon the Rev. T. R. S. Harington, at 2 2, Furnival Street, Holborn, W.C. The reverend gentleman calls himself the London Literary and Art Agency, and sends round an invitation to all and sundry, couched in the following terms :— 'Ladies and gentlemen seeking high-class appoint- ments as governesses, tutors, private secretaries, journalists, artists, &c, may have their names registered by paying a fee of 5*. For this fee they will not only l>e entitled to our services at all times, but will have their individual require- ments advertised in the Times, Mornitiy Post, Standard, Daily Xexcs, or some other influential G g  ## p. 390 (#794) ############################################ 39° THE AUTHOR. and suitable paper. . .' The Literary and Art Agency I found was a very small hack room, up two flights of stairs, and besides the Rev. T. R. S. Haring- ton boasted a desk and a couple of chairs. The rev. gentleman welcomed me sympathetically and listened with the shrewd air of a consulting philanthropist to my tele. ... I thanked him and regretted that it was not convenient for me at the moment to hand over the 5s. registration fee. Well, well, that did not matter. There was a half- crown fee, which entitled the applicant to some portion of solicitude of the London Literary and Art Agency. I regretted that it was not in my power to pay that small sum, hut said I would bring it round in the morning. . . The rev. gentleman in appearance is tall, sandy haired and sandy bearded ... It is to be hoped that the agency will proves of more use to private secretaries than to journalists; meanwhile it would perhaps be as well for 'gover- nesses, tutors, private secretaries, journalists, artists, &c.,' to suspend payment of their 5.?. until the rev. principal proves his bond fides and the practical usefulness of his agency." Mr. Lincoln Reed represented the plaintiff; Mr. Lankester the defendants. In the course of the case the plaintiff admitted he had not been a Congregational minister, but considered he had a right to call himself one, because he had been called to preach in a Baptist chapel in 1862 for two years. Since that date he had been sub-editor of the Christian World, but had given that up a short time ago, and had started this agency for the purpose of introducing people who wanted situations in the literary line to those who wanted to employ literary men and women. When asked by the judge if his scheme was of a philanthropic character, the plaintiff said of course he expected to be paid fees for his labour. He had received £i3 or £14 in fees of 5*. and is. 6d. each, but had only obtained two situations for people, one as tutor for three months, and the other as secretary to the Association for Preventing the Immigration of Destitute Aliens; and he had received 24s. in one case, and 3os. in the other as a commission on the salaries obtained. The plaintiff also said that the article in question had ruined his agency, which had only been started about a month, as his landlord had refused to let him continue the hire of his rooms. He did not remember the individual coming to him who purported to be the writer of the article. On a gentleman being asked to stand up, the plaintiff said he did not, remember the faces of ordinary-looking people; all he could say was, he looked and acted in such a way as to induce several Oxford and Cambridge men to pay him a fee. For the defence, it was submitted that the article in question was not published falsely or maliciously, that it was not libellous, was true in substance and in fact, and was a fair and bond fide comment on the plaintiff's conduct. The learned judge having summed up, the jury retired to consider their verdict, and after a long absence returned into court with a verdict for the defendants.— Times. III. The International Society. Here is another case of an unfortunate confusion of names by the " Society " with which the man Morgan, already exposed in these columns and elsewhere, is connected. (To the Editor of the Newcastle Daily Journal.) "Sir, I find that invitations are l>eing extensively sent to gentlemen resident in the North of England to join a society styling itself the International Society of Literature, Science, and Art, and I have received several letters making inquiries respecting its status. I should be obliged, therefore, if you would allow me to state through your columns that I neither have, nor desire to be supposed to have, any connexion with this society, and that the name printed among its honorary members, the « Rev. Canon Norman, M.A.' is not that of yours, &c, A. M. Norman, F.R.S., Hon. Canon, Durham Cathedral. Burnmoor Rectory, April 12, 1892." EDITING AND REVIEWING. 1. The Value of a Favourable Review. IT may be laid down as a general rule that it is not possible for an unfavourable review to kill a good book. It may retard its progress; it may inflict a heavy pecuniary loss upon it; but it cannot kill it. On the other hand, what can a favourable review do for a book? Here are two instances from the private history of a literary man :— Ten years ago he produced a book anonymously. For six weeks or so the book hung fire: no one noticed it; there was no demand for it. Then there appeared a notice, not. only favourable, bat highly laudatory, in the Saturday Review. Instantly the  ## p. 391 (#795) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 39i book sprang into popularity. Before many months there was a demand of something like i3,ooo copies. Again, the same writer produced a three-volume novel which has had as great a success as falls to the lot of most novels. For a time, however, it lay unregarded, the demand for it almost stagnant. Then there appeared a review in the Times—a long one-eolnmn, review—speaking of it in the highest terms, and then the demand began and continued, advancing daily, and the fortune of that book, as of the other, was made by that favourable review. II. About Reviewing. "To-morrow," says Mr. Phoebus in Lothair, "to-morrow the critics will begin. And who are the critics? Persons who have failed in literature and art." Dramatically, of course, this is very good. The criticised no doubt is the man to find out the weakest points in the armour of the critic. Nor is it without a germ of truth in itself, for the disap- pointed man is naturally more quick to find fault. But it is a little curious that some critics who have not themselves failed or are likely to fail write just as if they had. Who amongst us has not now and then suffered from the criticisms of such? The selection of the one misspelt word, or of the one line of poetry which will not scan, and complete silence about all the rest of a work, the crushing dctractation of a first effort in literature, the steady determination not to see the author's view; these and faults like these will not (infrequently be found in those who may themselves be; amongst the very favourites of fortune. And yet, perhaps, even such criticism is less really unjust than that of the lazy* penman who scarcely reads a line of a Iwok, but dismisses it with fluent generalities (whether of praise or blame) strung together to conceal his ignorance of it. On the other hand, many authors arc absurdly sensitive, thinking themselves ill-used if their reviewer deals out any blame at all, while here and there we find the man who has been so unduly puffed by his friends that a little undue scarification is positively welcome. Macaulay's celebrated review of Montgomery is a well- known case in point. Macaulay's name brings to my mind a bit of his biography well worth the notice of every critic. Into the hands of the great reviewer fell a friend's book, with, I think, a request from somebody or other that he would say some- thing good of it. He saw at once that it would not do, and declined to review it at all. Should not a reviewer always be anonymous? I rather think so. If solicited for a "notice," should he take it ill, and either review unfavour- ably or not review at all? Certainly neither. Soliciting is, of course, bad, but it may be after all a mere harmless form of bringing a book to an editor's recollection. Should an editor hand over a book written by one specialist, to be reviewed by another? I think yes, for the risk of unfairness and partiality of view is quite compensated by the certainty of knowledge of the subject. Should not all books which cannot be reviewed be returned? I know of a case where a book worth about ten pounds was courteously returned by one editor, and kept, but not even reviewed, by another editor. The cost of supplying copies for review is very great, and the sale of such copies, if sold (though I have heard that some editors destroy them), seems to compete somewhat unfairly with the sale of the ordinary copies. Why should not, at least review copies be machine cut, to help the reviewer, and why should not publishers always state the prices and dates of their books, and reviewers re{>eat this useful information for the benefit of the public? J. M. Lely. III. Magazines and Editors. In the early part of 1888, I wrote an article on "Dorothy Jordan," and sent it to the English Illustrated Magazine. About nine months later, proofs were forwarded to me, corrected and returned by me. Months passed, and the article did not appear. In February 1889 I applied for payment, and received £i3 iqs. Soon after, the magazine changed editors. In March 1890, I saw the new editor, and asked when would the paper be in- serted. He knew nothing of it, nor did his secretary. In 1891 I again made inquiries con- cerning the article, but received no satisfactory reply, nor did I bear of it again until I saw it in the April number just published. It was then reduced to about half its original size, and the private information regarding Mrs. Jordan's life and earnings, which 1 had obtained after much trouble, was left out. It was four years in the office of the magazine before being published. A story of mine appeared in another monthly. Three letters requesting payment received no answer, nor did a solicitor's letter. The proprietors were then sued for the amount, and the case was* set down for hearing on the 3ist of March. The day previously the debt was paid, and the solicitor's costs. FlTZCiERAI.l) MOLLOT. GK 2  ## p. 392 (#796) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 392 IV. Query. If an editor chooses to keep my MSS., sent for n magazine or weekly paper, and neither return it nor accept it, how can I enter into possession of it again so as to feel free to send a copy to a fresh editor? Would it be sufficient to send a stamped envelope for reply—" Sir—You have kept my MSS. a month (6 weeks). I have no news of it. I am going to try a fresh editor?" Peregrine. Does it not require an editor made wondrous kind by fellow feeling for young authors to get all tins literary property safe home to Us owners? Editor. V. Long kept and then returned. Under this heading in the last number of the A uthor a case was stated of a MS. kept for three years and a half. The contributor writes to say (l) with regard to his first statement that he was invited to write a paper on a definite subject, that the exact facts were these: "I submitted to Mr. A., at his own request, I having been introduced to him as a specialist by the secretory of a certain society, six short stories on approval." (2) That the editor has sent him a certain sum for compensation. This, as the Editor was not in the least obliged to do so, is extremely honourable in him. VI. VII. With no Name, With the complaint of " B " who has contributed "verse of a lyrical type to a certain high-class London journal," has been "most liberally and promptly" paid, but cannot get either his name or initials appended to his contributions, every author must fully sympathise. Only two possible reasons for the editor's refusal to print the name suggest themselves:—Either he fears that "B," when known by name, will be drawn away to rival prints, or that the poetry will go unread with an unknown name at the bottom of it. But whether his reason be good or bad or even none, he is of course within his legal rights. "B" however should forthwith insist on his name being printed under pain of his ceasing to contribute. SCRII'TOR IGNOTCS. From the Editor's I'oint of View. May an editor offer a few suggestions as to why the MSS. of young authors are occasionally absorbed by the Family Hearthrug, and other kindred publications? Reading the directions printed in the magazine is the last thing that appears to occur to contributors. A type-written MS. arrives with no stamps en- closed, no name or address written on it. Some time afterwards a letter arrives, asking why " my MS.," omitting the name of the paper, has not been returned? How is the editor to know which MS. is referred to? Stamps arrive separately, with apologies for having omitted to enclose them, but no mention as to the MS. for which they are intended. As for the number of the MSS. that appeared stamplcss, with requests for immediate publication and payment, these do not always come, from the young and inexperienced. The acrostic editor receives articles on the Rights of Woman; belated " lights " for the acrostics are thrown upon the chief editor, while the manager, under a nom de plume of some special department, is pestered with inquiries about serial stories. UNCUT LEAVES. AREMARKABLE association exists in Boston, U.S.A., whose members assemble at stated intervals for the purpose of hearing, not reading, new articles before their appearance in the magazines. Here is part of the programme for the season :— "The Boston Readings of Uncut Leaves, the imprinted magazine conducted by Mr. Lincoln, of the Deerfield School of History and Romance, will take place on the third Wednesday evenings of January, February, March, April, and May. Among the contributors will be Richard Henry Stoddard, Edmund Clarence Stedman, George W. Cable, Elizabeth Stoddard, Agnes Repplier, Mar- garet Deland, Sarah Orne Jewett, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Alice Wellington Rollins, Arlo Bates, Hamilton W. Mabie, Clyde Fitch, Annie Payson Call, Edwin D. Meade, and other well-known writers. "The magazine will not be published, and can only be heard at the readings. Many of the articles will be read by their authors. Nothing will be included which has been previously printed. The entire reading of any evening will not exceed two hours.  ## p. 393 (#797) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 393 "The first reading will begin promptly at 8 p.m., January 20th, at Dr. Chas. P. Putnam's, 63, Marlborough Street. No one will be allowed to enter during the reading of an article. Sub- scribers will pledge their good faith to observe entire secrecy as to the nature and contents of these magazines, in order to protect the rights of authors. No notes nor press reports can be permitted under any circumstances. "Subscription for the season, Five Dollars. "Three tickets for each reading, Ten Dollars. '' Names of subscribers must be submitted to Miss A. C. Putnam, 63, Marlborough Street, on or before January 16th. As the meetings will be in private parlours, only a limited number of names can be accepted." This is the nearest approach to a Private View Day in literature that has yet been made. There is a certain luxury in having one's articles read aloud, especially if they are articles in whose subject one is interested, and by writers whose; style has a charm for us. Mr. Lincoln, the Director of this society, suggests that we might find room for a similar organisation over here. This is doubtful. The difficulties, though not insuperable, would be grejit. For, first, it is a new thing, and editors and pro- prietors might think that such a reading would in jure the Side of the journal in which the paper after- wards appeared. The contrary would be the effect, just as a good novel is helped in its volume form by its serial form. Then, still because it is a new thing, the writers might object. These objections would, however, be removed in a very simple manner out of the subscriptions. The last objec- tion is the most serious. The essential for success is the inexorable observance of the clause pro- hibiting notes or reports of the pa[K?r. London is so vast a place, that there is no way at all of keeping out people who would disregard the most solemn promise of secrecy, and every lecture would be, somehow, fully reported in every paper. But, again, suppose the papers were not so anxious to anticipate the magazines, then this objection would not hold, and it must be confessed that, in the ease of most magazine articles, there is no such breathless eagerness to read them. The Contemporary and the Nineteenth Century, for instance, lie on the table awaiting their turn. How might such an association be formed and worked? Obviously, as a course of lectures is organised. The readings would be in the afternoon, from four to five. There should be no more than six in each of two sessions. They must be given by well-known writers, and the number of sub- scrilRTs must be sufficient to give a handsome honorarium to every reader. If, for instance, one guinea were the subscription for each course of six lectures, there should be enough subscribers to pay for the rooms and the service, and to leave two guineas at least for every reader. Should the Society follow the example of the Americans, and organise for the next winter one course, at least, of Uncut Leaves on the Literary Life from its various points of view? Will our meml>ers consider this suggestion? Of course, the proposed subscription may be very much smaller in case of a sufficient number of subscribers. THE LITERARY AGENT. ACORRESPONDENT writes about the lite- rary agent, evidently under a false impression as to the use and the nature of the services rendered by the literary agent. To one who has already succeeded, he says, a literary agent is of no use. His services are only required by one who has not succeeded. This creed is entertained by a good many people. They think that a literary agent is able to persuade publishers and editors to take work that they would otherwise refuse. Why should he? Is his opinion better than the opinion of the publisher's reader? But the agent does not, as a rule, read MSS.—he has not the time. Writers must learn for themselves—the earlier in their career they learn it the better—the truth that the only way to get on is to produce good work, or, at least, work that the world accepts as good work and reads and goes on reading. No agent, no private influence, can do any good at all to anyone. There is not, and there never has been in the history of literature, any case of a writer being perma- nently helped in this way. There has been perhaps log-rolling, but those few who seem to have been assisted by their friends have really done good work which by itself commanded success. They were, in faet, independent of log-rolling. It is when a man has reached a certain stage of success that his agent comes in. Then he takes over all the business arrangements of that writer, agrees with editors and publishers for him, places his work, and, in fact, relieves him of all trouble. To such a man a good agent is invaluable. But let the writer beware! He must not, on any consideration, go to the first man who offers. He must take advice. What, then, is the young writer to do? He should first get an opinion from one of the Society's readers as to the merits and chances of his book. It may be that certain points would be suggested for alteration. It may be that he finds himself recommended to put his MS. in the fire. He should then offer his MS. to a list of houses or of magazines recommended by the Society. There is  ## p. 394 (#798) ############################################ 394 THE AUTHOR. nothing else to be done. No one, we repent, can possibly help him. If those houses all refuse him it is not the least use trying others, and, if he is n wise man, he will refuse to pay for the production of his own work. If, however, as too often happens, he is not a wise man,but believes that he has written a great tiling, and is prepared to back his opinion to the extent of paying for his book, then let him place his work in the hands of tha Society, and it shall be arranged for him without greater loss than the actual cost of production. At least he will not be deluded by false hopes and promises which can end in nothing. ■ — ■ USEFUL BOOKS. I. DEAR Author,—I cull from my own Reference Library Catalogue the titles of just a dozen really useful books. When I have a little leisure I will send some more. I may mention that the " Sailor's Word Book " and " Old Sea Wings" will be found very valuable to maritime storytellers yearning to follow in the footsteps of Clark Russell; and I may further hint (at the risk of provoking the men of supercilious MSS.) that lady novelists might advantageously add to their shelf of reference books a "Newgate Calendar" (Knapp and Baldwin's), and an up-to-date edition of Blackstone's " Com- mentaries." The " Calendar " is full of intensely dramatic plots and characters; while occasional consultation of Blackstone would set the ladies right on many legal points, touching which, in their novels, they frequently blunder. G. A. Sala. M. Scheele De Veee, LL.D.—Americanisms: The English of the New World. (New York: C. Scribner and Co.) Mrs. Cowden Clarke.—The Complete Concord- ance to Shakspere. (London: Bickers.) Cruden's Concordance to the Holy Scriptures. (Any bookseller.) , Beeton's Great Book of Poetry. (Ward and Lock.) Smyth, W. H., Admiral.—The Sailor's Word Book: An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms. (London: Blackie and Son.) Leslie, Robert C.—Old Sea Wings and Words. (London: Chapman and Hall.) Jennings, G. H.—Anecdotal History of the British Parliament. (London: Horace Cox.) McCarthy, Justin, M.P.—A History of Our Own Times. 4 vols. (Chatto and Windus.) Lanciani, Rodoi.fo, Prof.—Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries. (Macmillan.") Phillips, Lawrence B.—Dictionary of Biogra- phical Reference: containing 100,000 names. (Sampson Low.) Wheatley and Cunningham.—London Past and Present. 3 vols. (Murray.) Heaton, J. Hennikek, M.P.—Australian Dic- tionary of Dates and Men of the Time. (G. Robertson, Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide.) II. Scientific. Quain's Human Anatomy. (Macmillan.) Young's General Astronomy. (Ginn and Co.) Sach's Text Book of Botany. Now published in three parts. (Clarendon.) Roscoe and Schorlemmer's Treatise on Chemistry. (Macmillan.) Foster and Balfour's Elements of Embryology. (Macmillan.) Geikie's Text Book of Geology. (Macmillan.) Giinther's Study of Fishes. (A. and C. Black.) Mill's Logic. (Longmans.) Lauder Brunton's Pharmacology. Therapeutics and Materia Medica. (Macmillan.) Darnell's Principles of Physics. (Macmillan.) Foster's Text Book of Physiology. (Macmillan.) Nicholson's Manual of Zoology. (Blackwood.) Bain's Mental and Moral Science. (Longmans.) Be van Lewis's Text Book of Nervous Diseases. (Griffen.) Herbert Spencer's First Principles, Principles of Biology, Psychology, and Sociology. (Wil- liams and Norgate.) Ueberweg's History of Philosophy. (Hodder.) Carpenter's Microscope. (Routledge.) Dictionaries. Smith's Latin. Spier's French. (De Baudry, Paris.) Grieb's German. (Sampson Low.) Baretti's Italian. (Dulau.) Quain's Medicine. (Smith Elder.) Heath's Surgery. (Smith Elder.) Fleming's Vocabulary of Philosophy. (Gritlin.) Men and Women of the Time. (Ca&sell.) Hazell's Annual. F. Howard Collins.  ## p. 395 (#799) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. AUTHOR AND PUBLISHER. With .some New Points for the Society of Authors and for an Eminent Publisher. (From tin; New York Tribune by permission.) J piHE report of the Executive Committee of I the Society of Authors has the following paragraph: "Among those members whose loss by death we deplore are (i) Lord Lytton, always one of our greatest supporters. He took the chair at one of our public meetings, and at all times showed the warmest interest in the work and success of the Society. (2) Mr. James Russell Lowell, not only the American who had endeared himself to all hearts, but very specially the friend of this Society, and the advocate of international copyright. Those who were present at the dinner of the Society in 1888, and heard his brilliant and eloquent address, since printed in the Author, will want no reminder of his interest in our work and in the well-being of literature on this side of the Atlantic." The report is signed by Mr. Walter Besnit, chairman of the Executive Committee. He does not say too much of Lowell's interest in the Society. Nothing that concerned literature could lie indifferent to Lowell. I can imagine that the great American author had in his long career known moments when the advice of such a Society would have been useful to him, and would have meant money to him, as it now means money to many others. Lowell was, in truth, careless about such matters, and had a childlike faith in men; even in publishers, and even in second-hand book- sellers. I used to think he took pleasure in being their victim, and his easy good-nature forbade him to seek redress even when he had found out that a —well, that a mistake had occurred. Lowell once bought a copy of a scarce book for which he paid, I need not say, a long price. When the book arrived at Elmwood, it proved to be an imperfect copy; a number of leaves missing. The bookseller had not thought it worth while to mention the defect. "Of course you returned the book," I said. "Well, no," answered Lowell, with n dry look in his eyes. "I know the l>ook is often imperfect." The fact that he had paid a perfect price for his imperfect copy made little or no impression on him. The book is now, I presume, in Harvard College Library, to which Lowell meant his treasures to go. Unless the missing leaves have been supplied, that rather miscellaneous col- lection of books has therefore one more miscellaneous copy. There is but one golden rule for the collector: either a perfect copy or none. It is interesting to hear that the Society of Authors is growing at a great pace. Never before, Mr. Besant says, has so much work poured into their hands. Authors are at last awake to the benefits offered them. "They are bringing their agreements before accepting them; they are also— a thing without precedent in the history of author- ship—actually asking what their agreements mean for either side." Then comes this characteristic and most sensible passage: "The passing of the International Copyright Acts makes it doubly important for writers of success and position to know how to protect their property. It is not too much to say that never until the Society began was it possible for writers to realize, as at last they are learning, (1) that they possess property over which they should be as careful as over fields and houses and (2) that the mere administration of this property really does not entitle the agents to take over all the rent to themselves." To the publishers this last proposition will seem startling indeed. To others than publishers it may seem startling that there should l>c need of stating such a proposition and of dwelling on it. But there still is. The publisher himself still looks askance at the Society of Authors. Not all pub- lishers, perhaps, but some. Look at the tone of the leading trade organ, the Publishers Circular. Always a sneer at the Society, and always the suggestion that the author and publisher would naturally constitute a happy family but for the interference of outsiders. Look at the seventh case in the Appendix to this Report, where an author, unable to get either money or answer to his letters from a certain publishing firm, put his claim in the hands of the Society. There was a colonial house and a London house. The London house was very dignified. The intervention of the Society was, in its opinion, uncalled for. Their friends abroad would certainly deal honourably with the author. Notions of honour anil honourable dealing vary. The publisher's notion in this case might be thought peculiar. The author had sent his MS. to the colonial house. Six mouths later came a letter saying: "We hoped to have sent you a copy of your book by this mail, but regret it is not quite ready. We propose to style the book ." The author replied that as no terms had been submitted for his signature, he should like to know what lie was to get. No answer; and then it was that the Society intervened in the way which to the publish- ing mind seemed so uncalled for, pointing out that the honourable colonial house had appropriated the author's work and had offered no terms. The honourable colonial house was as much surprised as the London house at hearing "from a Society  ## p. 396 (#800) ############################################ 396 THE AUTHOR. calling itself a Society of Authors." It had been "too busy" to write the author, though not too busy to print and publish his book. "Finally they proposed certain terms and, subject to changes made by the Society, these proposals were accepted." Eight or nine of these sample cases are given. "Can anyone doubt," asks the rei>ort, "that almost all these authors would have been robbed had it not been for the vigorous intervention of the Society?" Now let us listen to a voice, I will not say from the other side but from among the publishers, Mr. Frederick Macmillan. No house stands higher than his. He presided last week at the annual t radedinner of the Booksellers' Provident Institution, and made a speech in the course of which he quoted a remark, author of it apparently unknown, that "the interests of booksellers and authors are highly antagonistic." Bookseller here means publisher, as it used to in the last century; so that the remark seems an old one. Old or new, Mr. Macmillan thinks that he who made it has a great deal to answer for. Why? Because "the antagonism between author and publisher is a foolish and mis- chievous fancy." Such is the answer of an honourable and success- ful publisher; the best he can offer. "It would be as reasonable," adds he, " to talk about the natural antagonism between the man who builds an engine and he who drives it." He might have drawn his analogy closer. It would he as reasonable to talk about the natural antagonism between the man who builds an engine and he who buys it. That would be perfectly reasonable. There is a natural an- tagonism. The man who builds the engine wants to sell it as dear as he can ; he who buys wishes to buy as cheap as he can. It is the natural antagonism which exists the world over in all commercial transactions. The interests of the buyer and the interests of the seller are not the same; they are hostile. So are the interests of the author who has a book to sell and of the publisher who buys it. True, as Mr. Macmillan says, both wish it to be successful; so far their interests are common. But in the division of the profits of the successful book the interests of the author and publisher are no longer common; they are antagonistic. Each wants as large a share as he can get. Thus do we. come back to the old point, and to the real grievance which the publisher keeps steadily in the background, namely, that the pub- lisher is a man of business dealing with the author who is not. The publisher draws up the contract, imposes his own terms, fixes his own proportion of profits, renders no accounts or imperfect accounts, avails himself of a hundred advantages under the plausible title "the custom of the trade," all un- known to the author; does, in fact, as a rule, by help of his business advantages and of the want of them in the author, take the lion's share of the profits. Therefore it is that a Society of Authors is needed which shall protect the interests and property of the author just as the publisher protects his own. Let Mr. Macmillan read the commentary on his speech by the editor of the trade organ al>ove mentioned: "Whatever may have been the state of affairs in the remote past, it certainly is not true to-day that publishers drink champagne from the skulls of unhappy writers. In the present era only amateurs imagine that the publisher is a sort of ghoul who appeases a diabolical appetite with innocent and confiding men and women of genius. The interests of authors and publishers, as Mr. Macmillan pointed out, must be, and are, identical. In the nature of things there can be no antagonism between the man who writes a book and the man who publishes it. If there were, both would speedily go to the wall, the publisher probably going first." Such is the attitude of a publisher of whom I will say nothing except that he must know lx-tter. The rancorous tone of his comment on a good- tempcred speech from his own side is only too marked. Ho represents, like the London branch of the colonial house quoted a moment ago, the class of publisher who resents the interference of the Society of Authors, resents its existence, and would, if he could, restore the good old days when the publisher settled for the author as well as for himself the terms of the contract between them. But. those days are going, if not gone. The number of members of the Society has risen from 25o three years ago to 780; its business has in- creased in a still greater ratio. If an author now makes a bad or stupid bargain with a publisher, he has only himself to thank, for here is a society which, without pay, will be delighted to help him make a good and wise bargain. O. W. Smalley. ♦■»■♦ GENEROSITY, LIBERALITY, AND EQUITY. "TTIS liberality is highly praised; and though we do I I not know precisely why authors should expect liberality from publishers any more than designers expect it from builders, it is certain they do, and that publishers who fulfil the expectation are the publishers whom literature reckons as friends. The publisher who was also a patron is passing away; and perhaps it is better so, and that the publisher should be merely the author's collecting agent. Hut there was something gracious and fine about the old position."  ## p. 397 (#801) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 397 These lines are taken from a short note in the Spectator of April gth. It is in some respects a remarkable utterance, because it reveals a mind still leaning towards the old and cherished delusions, but forcibly attracted by the new ideas—say rather, the new discoveries,—and, against its will, recog- nising them. It is not, perhaps, disrespectful to regard the editor of the Spectator, who has im- pressed upon his paper in a very remarkable manner his own very remarkable personality, as no longer a very young man. He was brought up in the belief that the good publisher is " generous" and "liberal" towards authors; that the true patron of literature is the publisher—the public mean well, but the publisher is the only friend; that he, and he alone, is the stay and prop of those who write; that his life is wholly spent in advancing the higher interests of literature; that in publishing books he is guided solely by those higher interests, and in most cases loses his money on every book. And he now learns the new discovery and is dis- turbed. "There is something," he says, regretfully, "fine and gracious about the old position." Yes, the old position of his own imagination. Did it ever exist in actual fact? Was the publisher ever, at any time, "generous" and "liberal"? Was he ever, at any time, a patron of literature in the only true sense? Was he not always and always a man of business pure and simple? What is it that authors should expect from these pub- lishers? Liberality? Generosity? But theirs is the property—their own—their creation, as much as a desk, a picture, a piece of machinery. The publisher administers it. What is meant by "liberality" on the part of the agent who ad- ministers the property? And what kind of respect can ever lie paid to literature while the world per- sists in regarding the author as standing, hat in hand, before his publisher, crying, "Oh! sir. This is, indeed, generosity! This is liberality indeed! What? Another half-crown? Another? Oh! My children will bless thee! Oh! Princely — Kingly—Generosity!" Of course, as we now know, the real fact is that no publisher ever gave any man anything at all for unsaleable work, unless in those cases where he did not know his own business, or where it was for his own advertisement and his own advantage to publish an unsaleable book. At no time has the author of such work ever experienced any "generosity" from any publisher whatever. Why should he expect it? A cabinet maker does not expect to be paid for a piece of work so bad that no one will buy it—why should an author? Why should a publisher be praised for paying for bad work? It is folly; it is madness; unless on the assumption that in this or that case to do so serves his interests. But publishers have at different times paid large sums VOL. II. to successful authors. Certainly. But at no time have they allowed those authors to see their books. What "generosity" is that which says, "My friend, I will give you £200 for your book. But I am not going to tell you what I get for it." There may be "something gracious and fine" about the old position, but the graciousness loses a good deal of its beauty when we remember that it degraded men of letters, even the most successful, to the position of humble dependents on the "bounty" of their publishers. Of course it is a very gracious and fine" thing to pretend to be a patron of literature; it is very fine to be accepted as a patron. Therefore, they all claim to be the patrons of literature — every little impecunious clerk who starts as a publisher by persuading silly people to pay for production; they all put on the airs of the man who nobly throws away his thousands in the advancement of literature; they all pretend that they take fearful risks; they all make the terms they offer a favour instead of a right. By such shallow pretences the fraudulent gentry whom we have exposed have been enabled to carry on their tricks and their frauds. This is the mere jargon of the craft. We are beginning to scoff at it. In the course of time respectable people will be ashamed to use this jargon; it will be forgotten. We shall all agree that business t* business, and has to be conducted according to the rules of all business. Meantime, we rejoice that the editor of the Spectator thinks that the new order may be better than the old, and that the publisher should be "merely the author's collecting agent." But that " old position "—one returns to the question— that time when publishers were patrons of litera- ture—when did it flourish? It is like the age of chivalry; it is a thing dreamed of and written about, but it never existed. Those who dream of it still are for the most part the camp followers of literature—not critics—who sometimes produce books of their own, literary books, biographies of literary men, mild essays on literary subjects, which the world does not care for, and takes in minute quantities. For such a book, a ten pound note—and publication—seems to the author gene- rosity unparalleled. To them their publisher is a patron indeed. But, for the successful author— why—let us see the ledger; let us look into the printer's account; let us examine the cash book; let us ask what proportion the author should receive in equity. We will then decline to take doles in the name of "generosity" and will demand our rights. Generosity! Liberality! Do not the very words degrade and insult the man of letters? —■ H h  ## p. 398 (#802) ############################################ 398 THE AUTHOR. YOUNa AND OLD. WjlEN I WAS YOUXO. When I was young, tlie stars then told n tale Of love beyond the grave, and worlds to prove, When we have never longer cause to wait, But only to explore and love, and love. When 1 was young, my friends then seemed so true, I was a hero in their eyes, and could J)o nothing wrong. Like flowers steeped in dew, My hopes were fresh, my impulses all good. When I was young, I hail not doubts, but took Each smile as meant, and gave it back the same, The world spread out as open as a book, I then felt confident of wealth and fame. When I was young, gold seemed an idle toy, Not worth the striving for; a higher goal Lured my hopes on, a greater, god-like joy, A something worthier of man's deathless soul. When I was young, I thought each woman fair And like an angel sent to lift up lips To God j so like a knight 1 thought to wear My coat of mail and guard them in the strife. When I was young, to make a sacrifice Seemed great and noble, so I sought the field With tender thoughts of humid tender eyes Reaming upon me as my knight's best shield. When I was young, I thought if heroes died Fighting for duty, this was best of all; To leave behind them, with a people's pride, Some kindly hearts to weep their early fall. When I was young, this world was fair and pure, And sin was of another world, while I Might fall and perish, still my soul was sure To reach those stars, that glisten in the sky. Now I in Old. Now I am eld and have gone through the fight, How do I view this fresh'ning world of ours? The stars arc only glimmering sparks of light, The friends but like the fleeting, vanished hours. Each speculation is a doubt, each dream A gourd which withers; fame a breath, and gold The only thing of earth w hich does not seem A fallacy on earth, now I am old. Hume Nishkt. NOTES AND NEWS. IT would be astounding that a work by no less a person than our illustrious President should appear without a note in the pages of the Author. But "The Foresters" was played just too late for the April number, and during the interval there has been sueh a chorus of notices, reviews, criticisms, and appreciations that anything at this late hour would be superfluous. Let us only congratulate ourselves on the master touch which shows as yet no feebleness, the voice that shows no touch of age, the hand as true as ever, the ear as delicate. A disquieting rumour has come across the Atlantic. We have more than once referred to the American Authors' Society; the prospectus of (as we thought) the only American Authors' Society- has been published in this Journal. It now appears that Mr. Charles Burr-Todd wishes to be the founder of -an association called the "Society of American Authors," while Mrs. Katharine Hodges is already the Secretary of the "American Society of Authors," an association which contains 200 members already, and is daily increasing. As Mr. Todd uses my name, I may explain that I was in ignorance that a second—a rival—society was contemplated by Mr. Todd. I naturally thought that he was writing in support of the society already established. Nothing could be more fatal to the interests which we seek to defend, than the existence of two rival societies. Let us trust that the Americans, who have the reputat ion of clearness at least, and common sense in all their relations of business, will be swift to understand that either the second society must not be attempted, or that the two societies may be at once merged into one. The "tyranny of the novel" exercises a good many minds at the present moment. Everything takes the form of a novel. We are didactic in a novel; we are political in a novel; we expose our enemies in a novel; we show what certain theories mean in a novel; we even illustrate our own lives, our sorrows, and our disappointments in a novel. The last illustration of the " tyranny of the novel" is the interesting case of Mademoiselle Helene Vacaresco, the young lady who had to break off her engagement with the Crown Prince of Rou- mania. It is said that she has written a novel, in which she tells her unfortunate love story. Eight years ago the New York Critic published a list of forty "Immortals." Of these, fourteen have now passed away. Their names are as follows :— Richard Grant White, died 5th April 1885, aged 63. Edwin P. Whipple, died 16th June 1886, ae;ed 67. Henry Ward Beecher, died 8th March 1887, aged 73. John Q. Saxe, died 3ist March 1887, aged 76. Mark Hopkins, died 17th June 1887, aged 85.  ## p. 399 (#803) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 399 Asa Gray, died 3oth January 1888, aged 77. A. Bronson Alcott, died 4th March 1888, aged 88. James Freeman Clarke, died 8th June 1888, aged 78. Theodore D. Woolsey, died 1st July 1889, aged 87. George Bancroft, died 17 th January 1891, aged 90. Alexander Burchell, died 19th February 1891, aged 66. Jiiines Bussell Lowell, died 12th August 1891, aged 72. Noah Porter, died 3rd March 1892, aged 80. Walt "Whitman, died 26th March 1892, aged 72. Out of these fourteen, how many are there whose principal works could be enumerated by the average reader, or even by the student of litera- ture? Not that one would scoff at their Immor- tality. Such an English list would probably show as many blanks after eight years; the voice of the living is always listened to before the voice of the dead, and posterity will have its own favourites. Immortality, in fact, is limited, save for the very, very few. Happy is the man who can please or instruct his own generation; happy he who can make them listen to him; more happy still if he does not in the least trouble his head about posterity. "A week or two ago reference was made in these columns to two articles which appeared in a recent issue of the Forum on the grievances of authors and the sins of pub- lishers. Roth were written from the author's point of view, and the unhappy publishers had it hot and heavy. But they have found an unexpected champion. An American author comes gallantly to the rescue. Here is part of his testimony: ' I believe their methods are strictly honourable. Now, for example, in spite of the fact that my last book is not selling nearly so well as I think it ought to sell, I would not for a moment question the integrity of my publishers. As to the suggestion that publishers should open their books for the inspection of authors—it is absurd. If authors were permitted to look at the books they would not understand them. No; I am satisfied that our publishers are not only honest in their dealings with authors, but that they offer us a fair proportion of the returns from our books.'" The above is quoted from the Publishers' Circular of March 26th last. The editor in pub- lishing the extract surely credits the world with a very, very great deal of credulity. The American author who conies "gallantly" (!) to the rescue knows nothing, and pretends to know nothing, about the thing of which he writes. He believes —honest soul! He believes. That is all. He says that authors would not understand accounts. True. That is the reason why we send accountants for the purpose. He is "satisfied" that his publishers are honest, and fair, and virtuous, and holy. No doubt. We do not for a moment say that they are not. Only—let us treat each other in this, as in every other kind of business, openly and fairly, and above board. And—which is an axiom—a man who refuses to let his partner in any joint enterprise see the books must be—what? Let this confiding American letter-writer answer the question. I venture to express the universal good wishes of all who know Mr. George Augustus Sala, either personally or by his work, for the success of his new magazine. As these lines are written news comes of a second large edition. So far I have not been able to get it at any of the bookstalls— "waiting for more copies." Walter Besant. ♦■»■♦ FEUILLETON. The Wish of His Heart. I. THE young man sat in the suburban garden; it was a very little garden about i5 feet wide and 25 feet long; only a scrap of a garden behind a little semi-detached house in the suburb of Forest Gate. Like most houses of the kind, there was a kitchen, with a room over it, built out at the back; things were hanging out to dry in the little area between the kitchen and the garden wall; a Virginia creeper climbed over the house. In the garden were two or three lilacs, a strip of grass, a narrow bed of flowers, now gay with the blossoms of the annuals, and a garden seat, where this young man sat. He was about nineteen, and in his hands was a book. He held it before his short-sighted eyes; he seemed to be reading it; his cheek glowed; his eyes brightened; his hand trembled. If we could put down in lame, slow, halting words the thoughts that filled the mind of that young mar., there would be read a series of ejaculations. For instance, "Oh! It is splendid! It is wonderful! It is splendid! It is wonderful!" What was so splendid? What was it that glorified the world in the eyes of that young man? Nothing but a dream. He was dreaming that he had written the book in his hands. In his imagi- nation he was already a novelist, delighting the whole world, read by all the English-speaking people in this realm of ours; in the kingdom of Man; across the Western seas; in the Isles of the II h 2  ## p. 400 (#804) ############################################ 400 THE AUTHOR. East; in the Austral continent. He heard his own name shouted to the very end of the world; he heard the trumpet of Fame; he actually saw that lovely, benevolent, generous, kindly goddess Hying over his head—over that suburban little garden at Forest Gate; in one hand a scroll—the scroll of his achievements, and in the other a trumpet; and her lips parted while she proclaimed his name—his noble name—the name of the Im- mortal Author—the Darling of the Muses—the admiration of the world—the despair of his rivals— his own name— "Tommy," cried a voice from the open window of the house, " Come in to supper." II. Tommy, or Tom, Crump sat in his bedroom—the little room over the kitchen, generally assigned to "the girl." The other residents of the house were in bed and asleep. He sat up and wrote. Yes, he wrote, for that vision was always with him, and he had begun to do his utmost to make it real; he wrote at night, from ten o'clock till midnight, or even till one and two in the morning. Tommy was a clerk in the City; he received already £60 a year: he was in a big House, and might be considered as having made a very good start: he was steady, wrote a good hand, was intelligent, and gave satisfaction. What more can be desired of such a young man at the outset? He had no secret vices; he did not desire strong drink; he did not play billiards; he did not frequent music halls; he was quite a good young man. When he had time, he read all the books he could borrow; every evening he had this vision of himself as a great writer and of the wonderful Fame that he would achieve; every night he spent two hours in writing stories. He would be a novelist. There was no one to advise him as to the qualifications that go to make a novelist; he knew nothing about style, dramatic effect, or construction; he was entirely ignorant of the elementary requirements of the Art; he did not even know that it was an Art; had he known it would not have helped him. Therefore, he ap- proached the business in complete ignorance how it should be managed. As for other qualifications, such as the possession of materials, observation of life and manners, knowledge of the social machinery, knowledge of society itself—he had none. He was a little clerk who had been at a school where all the boys were intended to be little clerks; his people belonged to a little Nonconformist chapel; he lived in a very quiet little suburb; he went to the City every morning .and came home every evening. He knew nothing; V did not even know that he was ignorant. And this unfortunate boy, so ignorant, so ill-equipped, so poor, so helpless, proposed to himself to become a novelist! What could happen to such a boy? HI. It was just before his twenty-first year that his success came to him. A story was accepted; it was taken by a certain weekly; the editor sent him a guinea for it and told him to call. He called. The editor was a kindly person—his kindliness lasted just so long as his authors were ready to accept a guinea for a story of six columns. He received the blushing, stammering young clerk with a shake of the hand and invited him to sit down. "I have taken your story," he said, "because there is promise in it. I shall get it altered a little. You may, if you like, send me some more. Bui you must take more pains "—Alas! The thing had been written and rewritten half-a-dozen times —"and you must try not to be so amateurish. Here! Take this bundle of the paper—read the stories—analyse them—study them—see how they are written—observe particularly how the attention of the reader is fixed from the outset. Very well. That will show you what we want. If you are clever enough to understand we may do a good deal of business together." Tommy was clever enough to understand. The editor did a good bit of business with him. But Tommy was not, unfortunately, clever enough to understand that without bricks or stone or wood one cannot build a house, and he had neither bricks, nor stone, nor wood. IV. It is fifteen years later. Tommy Crump is now Mr. Lancelot Cory, a name which looks a great deal better upon a title page. He lives in the same house, of which he is now the tenant, vice his father, deceased. But he goes to the City no longer. Tommy is what he so ardently desired to become— a writer of stories. Nobody, I suppose, of five-and-thirty, has written so many stories. No novelist that ever lived has written so much as Mr. Lancelot Cory. He writes all day long and every day. He knows no Sabbath. He takes no rest. He hardly ever goes outside the house. He sees no society. He remains as ignorant of the world as when he first began to write. He sits in the little room over the kitchen where he has always written. He has a wife and four children, and for their sakes his pen keeps driving—driving—all day long. He keeps the wolf from the door—but with difficulty—by these labours unceasing.  ## p. 401 (#805) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 401 He is pule and thin. He has become prema- turely bald. His eyes, which now wear spectacles, are red and watery. That solace of the hard- worked hack, the gin bottle, is not unknown to him. He stops from time to time and grasps his right wrist with his left hand. Yes—it is coming. There are convulsive movements of the fingers; there are shooting pains up the arm. He knows, with a sinking of the heart, that writers' cramp is coming. Presently he gathers up his papers. Some writers linger over their work, correcting here and adding there. Mr. Lancelot Cory does not. He knows hetter. He puts them together, and numbers them, and rolls them up. Then he takes his hat and disappears. "Well, Mister," says his employer, a gentleman with a red face, and a certain something in his look that would have made all the Muses together shiver and shake and tremble— " It's take it or leave it. There's plenty who'd jump at my terms. It used to be three pound ten for thirty thousand words. It's gone down now to two pound ten. And here's the money." "But, good God, sir, how am I to live?" "Don't know, I'm sure. That's not my business. Look here, I can got novelettes by the dozen — thirty thousand words—for two pound ten apiece. What is it — thirty thousand words? About fifty of your pages. Only fifty pages. You're all so infernally lazy. And mind — prices are going down — I shouldn't be surprised, at the rate things are moving, if we don't get the price down before long to fifteen bob the thirty thousand words. Ah! and we will, too—with the help of the girls." Mr. Lancelot Cor)'—Tommy Crump—took the money meekly and crept away. It was the pay for a fortnight's hard work. The work was not worth anything to be sure, regarded as work, but it was all he could do. This is the end of that noble dream. He sees it no more. Fame, with her trumpet and her scroll, has changed into a Fury with a scourge, driving— driving—driving—his pen as fast as it can fly across the page. Soon will come writers' cramp in earnest. Soon the price of the penny novelette will go down, as the large-hearted proprietor foretold, to fifteen shillings the thirty thousand words. And then— then—alas! Poor Tommy! His brothers, who have remained clerks, are drawing their four, five, or even six pounds a week, while he—Alas! Poor dreamer! NOTES FROM PARIS. MR. Walter Besant invites me to give some more information on the financial side of the relations between French publishers and authors. I should say that not in more than one case out of a thousand does a French publisher purchase an author's copyright outright. If the author is unknown the publisher will not run the risk. If the author has any reputation, it is he who would not part with his property, which, thanks to the French custom of continuous republication, may be an unceasing source of revenue to him. The system adopted by authors and publishers is the royalty system, the royalties varying, according to the status of the author, from 25 cents, to 1 franc per volume. The French volume, published at 3 francs 5o cents., is generally sold at 2 francs 75 cents., though the country booksellers and some old-fashioned Parisian retailers refuse to allow any discount to the public. The bookseller earns 5d. per volume, leaving for cost of production and for author's and publisher's profits the sum of twelve-thirteenths of 2 francs 20 cents. Where a royalty of 1 franc per copy is given, the author's remuneration is higher than the publisher's profits, but such a royalty is very exceptional. Zola, Daudet, de Maupassant, and a few others get it. Many first-rate men have to content themselves with a royalty of 5d. Some get 7^d., but the vast majority of writers do not receive more than 3\d., which is a very favourite figure with the publishers. Absolute beginners receive i\d., anil than this there is no lower royalty. Ten pounds on account of royalties is considered liberal, entail- ing as it does the obligation on the publisher to sell from live hundred to a thousand copies. That is where royalties are from 5d. to 2\d. a copy. Four pounds is the best a poet can hope for on account of a volume, and thinks himself liberally treated. An edition in France is supposed to consist of 1,000 copies. But publishers here are not without guile, and to whip up a sale a book may be issued in editions of 5o copies, so that by the time 1,000 copies have been disposed of, the book is in its twen- tieth edition. This is considered, rightly, foul play, and one Paul Bonnetain- once niade a fuss about it. "If my book has reached such an edition, bona fides, you are swindling me," he wrote to his publishers, "for you have only accounted to me for so many copies. If the editions arc imaginary, then the public is being swindled, inasmuch as you lead people to believe in a success and a demand which do not exist. In either case I object to your conduct." vol. it.  ## p. 402 (#806) ############################################ 402 THE AUTHOR. On the other hand, in the caw of one or two very popular authors, the first edition usually con- sists of many more copies than the regulation 1,000. I am told that of the first editions of Zola's books, 20,000 copies are always issued. The second edition then appears as "Twenty-first thousandth." This is because everybody wants a first edition of Zola's books. Formerly his books were issued in first editions of 1,000 copies, and such copies are now worth from 3o to 100 francs a piece. I saw a first edition of "L'Assommoir" marked io5 francs in the window of a shop where only rare volumes are sold. Since "La Terre" however, owing to the new arrangement, such larger first editions have been issued, that no copies of first editions of any of his later books are quoted at a premium. In the case of men of small popu- larity, it is usual for a publisher not to issue more than 5oo copies of a book as a first, often last, edition. If he sells all the 5oo he is quite satisfied, and the author also. If I had a wishing-ring, I think that one of the first twenty wishes that I should express, would be to possess an album giving portraits of the faces of all the readers of a recent issue of the National Observer, as they perused Mallarme's article in French on "Vers et Musique en France," in that number. The face of him who has always prided himself on his knowledge of French, as he puzzled over that prose, would have been delightful to see. I showed the article to two leading French jour- nalists here, and asked them if it was comprehen- sible, and they both said that, with their heads on the block, they could not make sense of it. One said it was pure charabia (Anglice: Double Dutch). Such, however, is Mallarme's invariable style. I have seen and possess letters from him on trivial matters, which are couched in prose as precious and as obscure. As a talker, however, Mallarme, being comprehensible, is exquisite, and I know few rarer delights than to pass an hour or two at one of his Tuesday evening receptions in the dining room of his little fourth floor apartment in the Kue de Rome, and to listen to the master's discourses on literature and art. He stands leaning against the tiled stove, with his disciples closely packed sitting round the long table. Cigarettes are smoked and in the winter the host serves excellent rum grogs. Few speak except the master, though now and then a suggestion will be made or a question asked. Mallarme is here at his best, and it is a pity his words are not taken down for the delight of the -larger world outside the little room. It is •:ademy in a fourth floor back. But Mallarme' has \ a contempt for the larger world, by reason of the Philistines, and prints with great luxury for the very few. He will not publish. I thought his name was derived from words meaning "The Man of Poor Armour." That was the idea of a roman- tique. The master holds it that his name means "The Man of Sad Tears." If English authors, who having achieved some success in England, are anxious to have their works and their names introduced to the Freuch public, would follow the counsel of a Kempis and limit their desires, they would know peace. At least, they would save themselves from much disappoint- ment. As a general rule, the French public does not care for translations of English literature any more than it would care for English lxmnets. Sensational novels have the best chance here, as there is always a public for such fare. But the prices which are paid for French rights are always very small, and it may bo. well for English authors who think of attacking the Freuch publishers, to grasp this fact. Hachette, the great publisher, who does the most publishing or French trans- lations of English books, whenever he is asked, as he often is asked, some "long" price for French rights, will produce, as his answer, the receipt signed by Charles Dickens for the right of pub- lishing the translation of "David Copperfield." It is for £20. An English author who can persuade a French publisher to give him £10 for the French rights of a novel, may con- sider himself very lucky. But it is bringing coals to Newcastle to bring foreign fiction into the most glutted literary market in the world. I should say the chances an English author has of finding a French publisher to translate and publish his book are about one in one hundred. Notoriety is in England so much considered a pass to commercial success in authorship that if a man, who might never have tried his hand at lite- rature before, could manage to stand on his head on the point of Cleopatra's Needle, for, say, 24 consecutive hours, he would very probably be asked to write for some of the most important magazines, and as probably would receive offers from enter- prising publishers of books. In America, he would be asked to undertake a series of lectures. In France, however, the best he could hope for, would be an engagement either as a waiter in some brasserie or eafd, or as a "number" in the pro- gramme of the Folies-Bergeres. Literature is, in France, considered as much a metier, requiring training and apprenticeship, as the craft of the locksmith or of the jeweller.  ## p. 403 (#807) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 4°3 French publishers do little advertising, as a rule. Unknown authors are never advertised, except at their own cost, and do not seem to care to incur the expense. Christinas and New Year's books are advertised, but I do not know of any publisher who advertises all the year round. Some pub- lishers believe in the value of puffs or reclames, the prices of which vary from 4*. to 3os. a line. Xavier de Montepin has, perhaps, made more money out of literature than any living author in France, and though he has been twice ruined, is once again in an excellent situation of fortune. He never knew the hardships of the craft, for his first book, which he published at the age of 20, was a great success, and his good fortune has never since deserted him. He has produced considerably over 400 novels, and hopes, though an old man, to produce as many more. He lives in fine style in a mansion at Passy, which is filled with modern pic- tures, but otherwise decorated and fitted to recall the feudal days, for de Montepin attaches great importance to the fact of his being a count of old family. He is very proud of his riding, and prefers to talk on horses and horsemanship than on any other subject. He works steadily, producing one feuilleton instalment of about 1,600 words a day, never missing a day. His feuilletons are published in the most important Paris journals, though most frequently in the Petit Journal. Though im- mensely popular with a certain public, his confreres complain that once he begins a story in a paper, he carries it on to interminable lengths, and so reduces their opportunities of an innings. He receives a number of insulting anonymous letters weekly. It is in this way that the spiteful, having no reviews or journals—as in England—in which to vent their jealous rage, revenge themselves for his success and fortune. Emile Bichebourg, another feuilletonist of the same school and of almost equal success, lives at Bougival on the Seine, where he has a lovely villa called La Charmeuse. His income cannot be much less than £5,ooo a year. He lives and dresses simply, and his great delight in life is to arrange dances and fetes for the villagers in his district, in which fetes he always takes a very active part. He is as democratic as de Montepin is aristocratic in his ideas. This is how a novel by a successful writer in France is such a gold mine to its author. In the first instance, it is published as a feuilleton in a newspaper, for which the author may receive as much as £3,ooo. Then it is published in volume form. Then Bouff, or some other publisher of the same class, brings it out again in weekly penny parts, paying the author at least as much as was paid for the original serial rights. Such publishers spend immense suras on advertising their publi- cations, both by coloured posters all over France, and by displayed announcements and puffs in the papers. Later on it is republished in book form, the illustrated weekly parts being bound up into a cheap volume. Then after a while, the smaller Parisian journals, or provincial papers, whose proprietors cannot afford original feuilletons, arrange with the Society of Authors for the use of it, so that in ten years, the same serial may have appeared in fifty different papers in various parts of France. The author gets a large share of the "boodle " in each transaction, so that it will easily be understood why French people say that a successful novel is worth a good deal more than a farm in Beauec. Was not George Augustus Sala a little hard on the typewriter in one of his recent letters in the Sunday Times? As a pastmaster in the craft, all that Mr. Sala says is worthy of the closest consideration. Still, I hope that young writers will not be dissuaded from the use of the writing machine by his attack upon it. It may not be as suitable for the production of the higher grades of literary wares as the pen, but for turning out good medium qunlities, it is as good, and so much more rapid. And there is, I should say, more demand for good medium, or even medium wares, than for fine work, for it is a Brummagem age we live in. It is money in a man's pocket—if it be true that time is money—to use a typewriter in the manu- facture of copy, which it produces at at least three times the speed of the pen. Of course, if a man can command his own prices let him use a pen, or even a peacock's quill, like the divine Sarah, but in the case of the writer who stands towards the purchasers of literary wares as a simple producer, whose goods are judged by quantity and actuality, and not by brand, let his argument be to such as object to "machine-uiade copy," "My prices for this quality are so much, but for fine work so much more." "Them as wants titivating"— was not it Mrs. Gamp who said so ?—" must pay according." But even for the professional producer of fine work the typewriter is useful. I fancy that a good way of writing a novel would be to write it off, a jet continu, on the machine, and then to re-write it from this ebauche as often as need be with a  ## p. 404 (#808) ############################################ 404 THE AUTHOR. view to stylo. The MS. would then be once more put on the machine, and the final fair copy turned out. TurgeniefE used to suggest re-writing a book at least six times, but then Turgenioff had a large private income, and could afford to " titivate" his readers at his own expense. Personally, I find it easy to turn out from six to ten thousand words of marketable medium wares per diem on the typewriter. At a pitch, I have produced double that quantity. A typewriter will yield three thousand words an hour easily. By its help I was once able to furnish a publisher in three (lavs, and without interfering with my routine work, with a translation of a French book of over fifty thousand wonls, which the publisher hud hoped I could let him have in a mouth. For the production of "shockers " the typewriter is simply grand. And the machine is pleasant to use if you keep it clean, and give it an occasional drink of oil, and will gallop you over the fields of fancy like a rollicking Pegasus. In speaking to a French author of standing, you address him .as "maitre." In writing to him, you begin your letter, "Sir, and most highly honoured Muster." Actors address the author of a play they are rehearsing as "maitre" also. In both cases maitre means "postmaster" in his craft. Literature is a craft not a trade in France. A man may be a " maitre," and be addressed as such, although his sleeves are out of elbow, and he has not twopence to his credit at either the Society or the dramatic agents. Everybody calls Verlaine "maitre." Nobody would dream of calling certain writers, who earn in half-an-hour what poor Ver- laine earns in a year, by this title. In England, the doubloons earned, not the pastmastership, command respect. It is sickening to read para- graphs in so-called literary papers in which the incomes and earnings of men of letters are dis- cussed. Whose business is it? Such a thing would be considered in France an insult to the whole craft. "What shopkeepers we are! The <SV. James' Gazdtc criticises Mr. Besant's editing of the Author for allowing my note on Itenan's opinion of Zola's novels to pass. A reference to the first paragraph in this magazine, printed in italics, would have shown the St. James' Gazette that the responsibility of all signed articles which appear in the Author lies with their writers. It was therefore very unnecessary to drag Mr. Besant's name into a discussion as to the good or bad taste of one of my notes. As to this particular "•ote, its justification may be found in the very <ls of the St. James' Gazette, which describes itself as " awaiting with unholy impatience" Zola's answer to llenan. Argal, the note was to certain persons interesting and newsy. As to its being calculated to damage " good fellowship and good feeling" amongst the authors alluded to, Mr. Zola's DO' reply to the French interviewer on this note is the best refutation thereof. Zola delights in battle and is the first to desire to know who is his foeman in the arena of letters. My remarks on a certain class of British criticism have been extensively commented upon, and, as I think, unwisely. One journal represented ine as writing—apropos of the deed—that "because a critic says that so-and-so writes indifferent English he deserves to have his brains blown out." Another remarks that" In France, according to our authority, critics are civil because they fear the duel, and show themselves unjustly kind, not from charity, but from cowardice." Now it has been said that a few lines of a man's writing are always sufficient to hang him, that is, that anything one writes can always be misconstrued. How much easier to make it sufficient to cover him with ridicule. Of course, the critics I referred to are those who indulge in offensive personalities, personalities about the writer's character, appearance, habits, dress, and so on, a class which is daily becoming more numerous in England. A favourite form of impertinence with these individuals is to make pleasantries about a young author's name, by repeating it over and over again, provided it have the slightest ring of pretentiousness about it. Such persons are in France kept in check by a sense of direct personal responsibility, and I regretted, and still regret, that the same check does not exist in England. As to the critics who confine themselves to one's works, nobody has greater admiration for, and cause for greater gratitude to them than myself. KOBKKT H. SUERARD. Paris, 20th April, 1892. LITERATURE IN THE MAGAZINES. THE journals which are generally accepted as illustrating the opinions, expounding the theories, and explaining the work of our scholars and philosophers are the Quarterly, the Edinburgh, the Contemporary, the Nineteenth Century, the Fortnightly, the National, and Macmillan. (Their enumeration in this order means nothing.) During the years 1889-1891, there appeared in these journals about 800 articles. They are dissertations on every subject that  ## p. 405 (#809) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. occupied the attention of the world during that time; they cover the whole ground of human thought, human enterprise, human investigation; nothing that belongs to the time but is treated in these magazines. All sides of politics are discussed; all forms of religion; all branches of science; every philosophic school is represented; art, literature, medicine, and trade; the many difficulties and the ever varying questions which belong to a great empire; the prospects of the future; the tendencies of the present; the lesson of the past: for everything room is found by editors whose chief difficulty in this busy age, in which new forces are continually producing new changes, is selection in accordance with the needs and the inte- rests of the day. Of writers willing to discourse on every conceivable subject there is ample choice, the only difficulty being to find a man who at once understands his subject and knows how to set it forth in a striking and iiiterestin<i manner. Of such men there is no great plenty, and there never will be. If, therefore, we are to tabulate the articles according to subjects, we should perhaps arrive at some idea of the relative importance that the subjects treated seem, in the eyes of the editors, to obtain with the public. Should the subject most often treated be polities—finance— art—science—hygiene—the component parts of the Empire—trade disputes—the spread of socialism— the condition of the army? It is, in fact, none of these. An examination of these magazines, conducted for the Author, has revealed the very extraordinary faet that out of the 800 articles published during the last three years in these magazines, 32o—that is to say, two out of every five—are devoted to literature. Does, then, literature occupy the attention of the instructed class in the proportion of two fifths of their whole thinking and reasoning moments? It would seem so from these figures. Yet one certainly knows a great many people who must be called instructed and cultured who read books, both new and old, but most certainly do not give much atten- tion to the history of literatiu-e, to literary move- ments and to the criticism of dead or living literature. In the same way there is an immense number of people who read a certain proportion of new books—those which interest them—and care absolutely nothing for purely literary jmpers. For these people, both the cultured class who read the best books in their leisure hours and the class which reads only for amusement, these papers are not written. They are written for that small scholarly circle which interests itself especially in nil literary subjects, delights in fine criticism, if haply that can be found, reads with avidity monograms on poets and novelists, and loves to hear of great writers and their private lives. It is by this circle that the Browning societies, the Shakespeare societies, and such associations are founded, and from this circle that they are kept up. The increasing extent of that circle is proved by the fact that there are five monthly magazines and two quarterlies which devote two fifths of their space exclusively to the inhabitants of this circle. Considering, next, the subjects treated in these articles we find, first, that the following authors have been passed in review : Mad. D'Arblay, Matthew Arnold, Roger Bacon, Marie Bashkirtseff, Balzac, Baudelaire, Theodore De Banville, Charlotte Bronte, Boswell, Browning, Byron, Carlyle, Chesterfield, Chaucer, Coleridge, Crabb, Cowper, Wilkie Collins, Victor Cousin, Dante, Davenport, Donne, Disraeli, Defoe, Edward Fitzgerald, Farrar, Gifford, Gold- smith, Goethe, Baring Gould, Anthony Hamilton, Thomas Hardy, James Hogg, Heine, Victor Hugo, Thomas Hood, Lessing, Lecky, Dr. Johnson, Ibsen, Rudyard Kipling, Lowell, John Locke, Massinger, Mirabeau, Maeterlinck, Montaigne, Mickiewicz, Milton, Prosper Merimec, Sir Thomas More, Motley, Pepys, Norris, Oliphant, Pope, Prior, Richardson, Renan, Sir Walter Raleigh, Rousseau, Rossetti, Shakespeare, Stent, George Sand, Scott, Spenser, Stendhal, Stevenson, Swinburne, Sedg- wick, Thackeray, Theocritus, Tennyson, John Wesley, Wiclif, Edwin Waugh, William Watson, Wordsworth, George Wither, Henry Vaughan, Vcrlaine, and Zola. Some, of less interest, have been omitted from this list. Among the contri- butors to the long series of critical articles are many whose names are well known in other fields. There are novelists, poets, and historians among them as well as critics. Against the name of Ibsen there stand those of William Archer, Oswald Crawfurd, Edmund Gosse, C. J. Herford, E. Lord, and Philip Wicksteed. J. M. Barrie, himself a novelist, writes on Thomas Hardy, Baring Gould, and Rudyard Kipling. Andrew Lang and Swinburne write on Wilkie Collins. Grant Allen writes on William Watson, and William Watson writes on Edwin Waugh. J. Addington Symonds writes on Theodore Dc Banville, on Dantesque Ideals, Zola, and Theocritus. Swin- burne on Victor Hugo, Wilkie Collins, Massinger, James Shirley, and Scott's Journal. George Saintsbury on James Hogg, Tom Hood, Crabb, De Quincey, Leigh Hunt, and Anthony Hamilton. Professor Dowden on John Donne, Coleridge, and Goethe; Andrew Lang on Robert Browning and Wilkie Collins; Dr. Abbot on Newman; Julia Wedgwood Laurence Oliphant on Shakespeare, receives an astonishing amount of attention. We have papers on Shakespeare's spelling; on his travels; on his Venice; on certain characteristics; on detached plays; on Macbeth as a Celt; on his  ## p. 406 (#810) ############################################ 406 THE AUTHOR. Ghosts; on his Religion and Politics, and on his stage. No writer, one supposes, has ever received so much study and attention as Shakespeare. Turning to articles on subjects and not on names, of which there are about a hundred and twenty, we find about twenty devoted to the con- sideration of fiction under various aspects. Here are some of the subjects: "Idealism in French Fiction "; "King Plagiarism," a very unworthy personal attack; "American Fiction "; "The Modern French Novel "; "Realism in French Fiction "; "Penny Fiction"; the "Light Reading of our Ancestors"; "Romance Realisti- cized"; "English Realism and Romance"; "Morality in Fiction "; "Irish Novelists in Irish Peasants"; "Fiction, Plethoric and Anremie"; "New Watchwords of Fiction "; the "Abdication of Mrs. Grundy "; the "Naming of Novels "; "Candour in English Fiction," and so on. Criti- cism is considered in "Critics in Court "; "Critics and their Craft "; in " Criticism as a Trade "; in the " Literary Criticism of France." Authorship is treated in "The Trade of Author"; "Literature Then and Now "; various papers on American copyright; the Story of the first Society of British Authors. Lastly, such papers as those called, "Children and Modern Literature "; "Poets and Puritans "; "Humour "; the "Poetry of Common Sense "; the "Savage Club"; "Poetry by Men of the World "; " Influence of Democracy on Literature "; "Chapters from the History of the Bodleian "; " Our Dramatists and their Literature"; "Hopes and Fears for Literature "; the "Future of American Literature"; the "Literature and Language of the Age," show that there are men and women always watching the changes and chalices of modern literature, and that there are other men and women —thousands of them—who never tire of hearing about these changes and chances. To those who find the literature of the day trivial and feeble, we may at least point to this extraordinary production of papers by scholars and critics dealing for the most part with the writers of the day. They read — these scholars — the writers of the day; they read their trivial and feeble work, compare them, weigh them. In fact, it may be laid down as a general rule that those who sneer at contemporary literature are either the elder men who now read none of it, or the younger men who as yet know nothing of it. The great fact remains, that while in these seven magazines, considered as the leaders from the critical and cultivated point, two-fifths of the articles are purely literary, the greater part of this fraction of two- fifths is devoted to contemporary writers and contemporary subjects. But we have only taken seven magazines. There remain others. Blackwood contains some excel- lent literary papers; so does Temple Bar; so does the Cornhill and Longmans'. There are others. We must not forgot the New Revieic, a paper quite as good as the Contemporary—written for, in fact, by the same men who write for the larger journal. Nor must we forget such papers as the Saturday Review, the Spectator, the Athenceum, full of literary papers, admirably written, and for the most part full of suggestion and instruction. The seven which we have examined, however, sufficiently establish the important point, that literature, ancient and modern, is a subject which interests very largely—more largely than any other subject —a very large number of people. The increase in these magazines and the apparent fact that they all flourish, prove that this class is largely on the increase. Yet it is not a very considerable class. Are there one hundred thousand men and women, in all, in these Islands, who read these papers with pleasure? Probably not nearly so many. They are, however, a very important class. Among them are the journalists of the better class, the more cultivated of the professions, professors, lecturers, and schoolmasters, a sprinkling of the clergy, and the critics, historians, poets, and novelists themselves. The influence of these people stretches out in all directions; no one can tell where a paper in the Contemporary may not be felt. Here is an opinion: it teaches, as from a recognized centre of authority, those who teach others; so it is spread abroad. Go into a country house; you will hear opinions expressed on the latest novelist, the latest dramatist; and you will presently learn that they are taken bodily—with or without acknowledgment—from a magazine. One more question is suggested by this list. Who are the men and women who write these papers? Their number is necessarily limited. If the editor wants a paper on a French or English writer, there are not many men whom he can a*k. Let us see, then, from this list who are the living writers who during these three years contributed the papers on Authors living and dead, and on the literary subjects we have mentioned. Their names are as follows:— Edwin Abbott. Prof. Blaikie. Canon Ainger. Walter Besant. G. Aitkin. Henry Blackburn. Grant Allen. Karl Blind. William Archer. Mathilde Blind. Alfred Austin. Madame Blaize de J. M. Barrie. Bury. Wyke Bayliss. Rev. Stopford Augustine Birrell. Brooke.  ## p. 407 (#811) ############################################ THE A UTHOR. Hall Caine. Dean Church. E. Courtney. Oswald Crawfurd, Prof. Dowden. Austin Dobson. A. Conan Doyle. R. Dunlop. Archdeacon Farrar. Edmund Gosse. P. Greenwood. E. Dirk beck Hill. Prof. Knight. H. A. Kennedy. H. G. Keene. * Andrew Lang. A. H. Lecky. W. S. Lilly. Mrs. Lynn Linton. Mowbray Morris. Gabriel Monod. Prof. Minto. P. Myers. George Moore. Wilfrid Meynell. Justin McCarthy. Canon MacColl. Walter Pater. E. E. Prothero. Kennell Rodd. Prof. Romanes. E. S. Shuckburgh. William Sharpe. George Saintsbury. A. Swinburne. . J. A. Symonds. Paul Sylvester. Prof. Tyndal. H. D. Traill. Stanley Weyman. William Watson. Dean of Wells. Oscar Wilde. H. B. Wheatley. Rev. Philip H. Wicksteed. Julia Wedgwood. Helen Ziminern. may be taken as whose opinion is likely to be asked. The number is 64. Of course, this list is not proffered as complete. Few of the specialists are here. One misses such names as, in Art, Middleton and Monkhouse; in Archaeology, Budge, Sayce, Loftie; in Architecture, Hayter Lewis; in Philo- sophy, Herbert Spencer, Sir Frederick Pollock, James Sully; in Science, the names of all the leaders. But the list is representative. It a first rough list of those most considered, and most Omissions will be discovered, and will be supplied by anyone who reads the list. And if one were to extend the research, to include a few other magazines—such as the Church Quarterly, the Lata Quarterly, Blackwood, Longmans', &c— and to take the last ten years instead of the last three, we should arrive at a complete list of those who are considered by editors, and accepted by the world, as having a right to speak. Shall the Author extend this research? It is, if one comes to think of it, no mean thing to become one of these accepted speakers to the world—these men are the select preachers to the English-speaking race. They speak to a vast audience of a hundred millions; not that all are listening; most have got the rake in their hands and are raking with deaf ears; but they may listen if they please. And round the select preacher's pulpit is gathered a little throng of a few thousands. These listen and go away and tell others, further off, who could not hear what the preacher has said. And these again toll others, until at last even the man with the rake lifts his head and pricks up his cars. OBSERVATIONS ON "THE TALE-TELLING ART" IN SIR WALTER SCOTT'S INTRODUCTIONS TO THE "WAVERLEY NOVELS." III. A few passages in Sir Walter Scott's introduc- tions still remain which may claim the attention of the novelist, who will regret that they are but few. Respecting too many of the details of the art of fiction, Sir Walter Scott does not in his prefaces Bay a single word. No remarks of any kind are to be found about description of scenery, no remarks upon portraiture, no remarks upon con- trast of characters, nor upon a number of those other details of the "craft of romance writing," in which Sir Walter himself excelled, and upon which it is evident that he must have bestowed no ordinary care and thought. Two passages, however, occur bearing upon the study of character. The study of character is, of course, scarcely a detail of the art of fiction; it is rather the very soul of good story-telling; and all that Sir Walter Scott says in both of these places deserves close attention, not only on account of the great suggestiveness of his remarks, but also on account of the high importance to the novelist of any hints he can gather upon the treatment of character. The first of these passages will be found in the "Advertisement" preceding "The Antiquary." It treats of the great value in romance of characters drawn from those ranks of life in which the passions are least restrained by cultivation, and the feelings are most frequently expressed without reserve :— "I have in the two last narratives ['Guy Mannering,' and • The Antiquary '] sought my principal personages in the class of society who are the last to feel the influence of that general polish which assimilates to each other the manners of different nations. Among the same class I have placed some of the scenes, in which I have en- deavoured to illustrate the operations of the higher and more violent passions, both because the lower orders are less restrained by the habit of suppressing their feelings, and because . . . they seldom fail to express themselves in the strongest and most powerful language."  ## p. 408 (#812) ############################################ 408 THE AUTHOR. The second passage deals with a point no less important, but much more difficult: the choice of such characters as the general reader's conception of life will enable him easily to comprehend. This restriction will bo felt by every author to be a hard one, for it narrows the range of the novelist, reducing him to something resembling the dra- matist's small stock-in-trade of characters, whom everyone can immediately understand. Upon reflection, however, it will probably be admitted that Sir Walter Scott's contention is in the main justified by the fact that everything which is intended to entertiiin, or, indeed, to instruct, must of necessity be perfectly intelligible. It was Sir Walter Scott's opinion that in Sir Percie Shafton the Euphuist, in "The Monastery," he had presented a character which was not in- telligible; and why not intelligible he is at much pains to explain in a long passage in the " Intro- duction to ' The Monastery.'" The whole cannot be quoted here, and should be read in its proper context. The chief points, however, are these "The author had the vanity to think that a character, whose peculiarities should turn on ex- travagancies which were once universally fashionable, might be read in a fictitious story with a good chance of affording amusement to the existing generation, who, fond as they arc of looking back on the actions and manners of their ancestors, might be also supposed to be sensible of their absurdities . . . He was disappointed . . . The Euphuist, far from being accounted a well- drawn and humorous character . . . was con- demned as unnatural and absurd . . . The author has been led to suspect that . . . his subject was injudiciously chosen . . . The manners of a rude people are always founded on nature, and therefore the feelings of a more polished generation immediately sympathise with them . . . It does not follow that the . . . tastes, opinions, and follies of one civilised period should afford cither . . . interest or . . . amusement to . . another. Let us take . . . Shaks- peare himself . . . The mass of readers peruse without amusement the characters formed on the extravagance of a temporary fashion . . . The Euphuist Don Armado, the pedant Holophernes, even Nym and Pistol, are read with little pleasure by the mass of the public . . .In like manner, while the distresses of Romeo and Juliet continue to interest every bosom, Mercutio, drawn as an accurate representation of the finished fine gentle- man of the period, and, as such, received by the unanimous approbation of contemporaries, has so little to interest the present age, that stripped of his puns and quirks of verbal wit, he only retains a place in the scene in virtue of his fine and fanciful speech upon dreaming, which belongs to no particular age . . . The introduction of a. humorist acting, like Sir Percie Shafton, upon some, forgotten or obsolete mode of folly ... is rather likely to awake the disgust of the reader, as un- natural, than find him food for laughter . The formidable objection of iucredulits odi was applied to the Euphuist, as well as to the White Lady of Avenel; and the one was denounced as unnatural, while the other was rejected as im- possible." In the first chapter of "The Bride of Lammer- moor," in the imaginary conversation with Dick Tinto, Sir Walter Scott has something to say upon the use and abuse of dialogue in romance. "Your characters," be [Dick Tinto] said . . putter too much . . . there is nothing in whole pages but mere chat and dialogue." "The ancient philosopher," said I in rejily, "was wont to say, ' Speak, that I may know thee'; and how is it possible for an author to introduce his dramatis persona to his readers in a more inte- resting and effectual manner than by the dialogue in which each is represented as supporting his own appropriate character?" The dangers of an excess of dialogue, and the value of descriptive narrative are a few lines below thus happily expressed :— "Description," he said, "was to the author of a romance exactly what drawing and tinting were to a painter; words were his colours, and, if properly employed, they could not fail to place the scene which he wished to conjure up, as effectually before the mind's eye, as the tablet or canvas presents it to the bodily organ. The same rules . . . applied to both, and an exuberance of dialogue, in the former case, was a verbose and laborious mode of composition which went to confound the proper art of fictitious narrative with that of drama, a widely different species of composition, of which dialogue was the very essence. . . . But as nothing can be more dull than a long narrative written upon the plan of a drama, so where you have approached most near to that species of com- position, by indulging in prolonged scenes of mere conversation, the course of your story has become chill and constrained, and you have lost the power of arresting the attention and exciting the imagina- tion, in which upon other occasions you may be considered as having succeeded tolerably well." The words are supposed to be addressed to Sir Walter, who here is again criticising himself. They suggest several questions. Do readers of the present day find their attention more arrested by the narrative portions than by the dialogues in the "Waverley Novels "? Does not fiction tend to use  ## p. 409 (#813) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. dialogue more and more, and narrative less? Was dialogue one of Sir AValter Seott's strong points? These are questions which the reader must answer for himself. One remark alone Sir Walter makes on romance style :— "Every work designed for amusement must he expressed in language easily comprehended." (General Preface to the "Waverley Novels.") The astonishing speed at which Sir Walter Scott wrote his novels must be considered one of the marvels of those marvellous compositions. Like a good many other authors he was advised by people, who certainly knew a good deal less about novel- writing than he did, to write more slowly, and to bestow more care upon construction and composi- tion. By these means, so his counsellors assured him, certain portions of his work which they found inferior to the rest would be vastly improved. Few lines that he has written will be more interesting to authors than his reply :— "The works and passages in which I have succeeded have uniformly been written with the greatest rapidity . . . the parts in which I have come feebly off wen; by much the more laboured." (Introductory Epistle, Captain Clut- terbuck to the Rev. j)r. Dryasdust, preceding "The Fortunes of Nigel.") When the "Waverley Novels" were collected into a complete edition, Sir Walter Scott subjected them all to a careful revision. A comparison of the texts of the first editions with the texts offered as final, might afford some curious points. Many of the alterations would, no doubt, prove trivial, but it is hardly possible to doubt that others might be of interest. Sir Walter says of his emenda- tions :— "These consist in occasional pruning where the language is redundant, compression where the style is loose, infusion of vigour where it is languid, and exchange of less forcible for more appropriate epithets." ("Advertisement," preceding General Preface to "Waverley Novels.") A single subject remains, about which Sir Walter Scott has a good deal to say: the difficult enterprise of choosing a title. On the one hand, he admits— "It is of little consequence what the work is called, provided it catches public attention." (Introductory Epistle, Captain Clutterbuck to the Rev. Dr. Dryasdust, preceding "The Abbot.") On the other hand, he was not at all blind to the fact that the title itself might much assist to "catch the public attention," and was very careful about the names of his books, "a good name being very nearly of as much consequence in literature as in life." (Introduction to "Rob Roy.") At the same time he was very shy of "taking titles." Of these he speaks in three different places, and all that he says is deserving of the consideration of everyone thinking of publishing a book:— "The publisher and author, however much their general interests are the same, may be said to differ so far as title pages are concerned; and it is a secret of the tale-telling art . . . that a taking title . . . best answers the purpose of the book- seller, since it . . . sells an edition not unfrequently before the public have well seen it. But the author ought to seek more permanent fame. . . . Many of the best novelists have been anxious to give their works such titles as render it out of the reader's power to conjecture their contents until they should have an opportunity of reading them." (Introduction to the "Betrothed.") "What is called a taking title serves the direct interest of the bookseller. . . . But if the author permits an over-degree of attention to be drawn to his work ere it lias appeared, he places himself in the embarrassing condition of having excited a degree of expectation, which, if he proves unable to satisfy, is an error fatal to his literary reputation." (Introduction to " Ivanhoe.") "A taking title is a recipe for success much in favour with booksellers, but which authors will not always find efficacious. The cause is worth a moment's examination. A tale . . . sure by the very announcement to excite public curiosity to a considerable degree ... is of the last importance to the bookseller. . . . But it is a different case with the author, since it cannot be denied that we are apt to feel less satisfied with the work of which we have been induced ... to entertain exagge- rated expectations." (Introduction to "The Abbot.") Sir Walter Scott received very large sums for his copyrights, and was so conscious of the money value of his work, that when he found himself, by no fault of his own, ruined and responsible for a gigantic debt, he courageously resolved to earn with his pen the sum Decessary to pay it. No author ever wrote with a more direct, or more laudable intention of obtaining money, and so the following lines from the Introductory Epistle preceding the "Fortunes of Nigel," may perchance, more fitly than any others close these brief notes on observations on the "tide-telling art" in Sir Walter Scott's introductions to the "Waverley Novels":— "No work of imagination, proceeding from the mere consideration of a certain sum of copy money ever did, or ever will, succeed." Hexhy Crksswell. ■  ## p. 410 (#814) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. WALT WHITMAN. I. An Interview. IT was in September 1881 that I had a personal interview with Wnlt Whitman. Accompanied by a well-known Boston journalist, I called in the forenoon upon the old bard. We set awaiting his arrival for some minutes. Then the door opened, and there walked into the room, with simple mien and unconstrained air, as out of an Ossianic poem or some ancient bardic lay, a veritable Brehon. Tall and slightly stooped, leaning on a stick and walking slowly (the effect of a stroke of paralysis), Walt Whitman, the poet of the American democracy, struck me as a very remarkable picture. His hair white and long, his eye a light blue, bright, intelligent, and brilliant, strongly marked nose, slightly blunted, over a white moustache, and the countenance framed all around with a long white beard and whiskers. Sui generis in dress as in literature, Walt Whitman was every inch an ideal poet to gaze upon, the open Byronic collar and loose coat and waistcoat, surmounted by his massive and venerable head, making an interesting and impressive picture. Whitman in conversation was measured and thoughtful, liked to hear about English literature, especially poetry, and had made up his mind very strongly upon the merits of modern bards. He was then beginning to be understood in Boston, and was acutely sensible of the change of opinion which was gradually coming over the American literary world with regard to his work. He himself has declared that the proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it. He was fond of young men. "It does me good," he said to me, "to see the boys and young men, and to have them about me." The grandeur of his personal presence, the calm thought enthroned upon his brow, impressed one with the idea that he partook more of the seer and the sage than of the modern poet. I shall always carry with me a memory of Walt Whitman as the First Brehon of the American race. P. H. Bagenal. II. Walt Whitman's Last Room. When I described, on Nov. 29, a recent visit to Walt Whitman, I did not say half I thought of the squalor and wretchedness of his surroundings. It is a wonder to me that he did not die long ago from the effects of the unwholesome atmosphere of the place. Whitman was a man who loved and needed the sunlight and fresh air. In that wretched room he had neither. It faced the north, and the little light that might have shone upon him was kept out by dirty windows and closed shutters. I doubt if the room had ever been swept, much less thoroughly cleaned. The dirty carpet, the piles of old newspapers, the unmade bed, the rickety stove that gave out enough heat to dry up a much more vigorous body than that of the old poet, all had the most depressing effect upon me when I came into the place from the crisp, clear air of a bright October day. I have read descriptions of old misers who have been found dead amid their miserable surroundings, but Walt Whitman's bed- room gave me a far more vivid sense of what such dens must be than columns of mere description. The pathetic thing about it was his contentment. I am well taken care of," he said; "the people, here are very kind." The latter statement was probably true; but I do not call such care as he received good care. I would not have left a favourite dog to live in such a place. I have been told that his friends who visited him in his last illness were greatly annoyed by the unclean wretchedness of the place, but, seeing that he was too far gone to make expostulation advisable, they held their peace.—The New Yokk Critic. ■ FROM AMERICA. ICAN assure you that the condition of the author in America, so far as I am qualified to judge, is even more lamentable than his English brother. You say that " the sweating of authors— chiefly ladies and small authors—that goes on is really terrible." I think that in America, although all authors suffer, the case of the women writers, especially the young authors, is worse, because women, as a rule, are ignorant of business methods, and are especially timid about standing up for their just rights. I greatly desire to see a " Society for the Pro- tection of American Authors" established on the lines ably laid down in the Forum article, and to that end I should be most grateful if you would mail me any printed reports of your Society that you are willing to make public, and especially the two pamphlets mentioned: "The Cost of Production " and " Methods of Publishing," together with a few sample copies of your Author, which I am unable to get in Boston, or even to learn its subscription price. \  ## p. 411 (#815) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 411 I am an author myself ou a small scale, and a contributor to the American Press, but have suffered severely from the methods of payment employed by most publishers, and by all but a few of the largest magazines. Almost all American periodicals "pay on publication," and an author's MSS. are frequently detained, say five years, without any compensation. The syndicate method also works a great injustice to young authors. For instance, one of the largest syndicates in New York city pays at the rate of about 610 per column of 2,000 words for a timely, newsy article, generally not wishing more than a column and a half. This same article is sold perhaps to forty newspapers throughout the United States, and each editor pays for it at the rate of about $5 per column, some- times more, if the author is noted. The syndicate, therefore, takes in about $200 to the author's §10; if this is not a case of "sweating" I hardly know what is. Young authors often endure this in silence, for they hope that the wide circulation given to their article and their name may sometime come back to them in solid cash, but the expecta- tion is often disappointed. For instance, I sent an article of nearly two columns in length that had taken me some time in careful preparation to the above-named syndicate. In my letter to the editor I said that the work thereon was exhaustive, and that I "should like" $20 therefor. No reply was made, and I presumed my terms were accepted. Some weeks afterwards, when the article was published, and I was without redress, I 'received a curt note from the editor saying that the article was only worth Si2 to them, and they therefore sent me a check for that amount. On asking an editor-friend in Boston about the justice of the case, he assured me that I had no legal claim, because I had merely said " I should like," instead of saying plainly " The price is 320." Another syndicate to which I sent a carefully written article on a subject pertaining to women, detained my article of 4,000 words some four months, then offered me a beg- garly price for about 1,000 words: I declined it, and wrote requesting the editor to return me the article. After some weeks' delay he did so, but one-quarter of it, the portion he desired, was miss- ing. I could not get it until a newspaper editor and personal friend called and got it in person. Some weeks after, a friend from the West sent me a cutting, which contained the portion of my article which the syndicate had retained, and never paid for, almost verbatim. I had no redress that I could find out for this case of downright robbery. In a third case I sold a magazine article on a topic of interest to women to a certain magazine for §3o. It was to be paid for on publication, but the month before the article was to appear the magazine failed, and everything was put into the hands of a receiver. I wrote for my unpaid article, but received the reply that it was the property of the magazine, and was now in the editor's desk, which was sealed up, together with about thirty dollars worth of fine pen and ink sketches, the work of an artist friend, also unpaid for. I finally recovered the articles, but their timeliness was gone; I had to wait another year for a publisher, and the pen and ink sketches, although made to order, were detained for months, and finally returned unpaid for, resulting in a total loss to the artist, who had kindly offered to illustrate my work. In still another case I sold a series of letters upon European travel to a prominent New York weekly, giving them the copyright. They, how- ever assured me that if I wished to reprint the articles in book form I was at liberty to do so, if I gave them the credit. Before I had time to do as I had intended, a Boston international steamer agency, without communicating either with me or the editor to whom I sold the work, reprinted nearly the whole of it, issuing it in book form, as an advertisement. Just enough was omitted to make it safe to reprint a copyright work, and, though my name was given anil credit assigned to the paper from which the letters were taken, I did not make a penny by the transaction. When I heard that the book had been so popular that a second edition was to be brought out this season of 2,000 more copies, making 4,000 in tdl, I addressed a letter to the enterprising publisher, suggesting that I might make some additions to the book and corrections making it more valuable, for which I would charge only a nominal sum; the publisher then concluded that, on the whole, he woidd not bring out a second edition this season. I am now negotiating with a second publisher, but fear that owing to the first publication and gra- tuitous distribution of so many copies I have lost all chance of a sale. On another occasion I wrote a timely article for "Thanksgiving" on the "American Cranberry," giving a number of facts which I had been at some pains to obtain. It was sent in ample season, two months in advance, to one of the largest Boston Sunday papers, and I was told by the city editor, whom I knew slightly, that " it had passed the first acceptance." But the MS. had disappeared from the face of the earth; I have looked for it for three years in the paper, but it has never been published, and though I have called a dozen times for it at the newspaper office it has never been found. Although I valued it at $20, and, unfortunately, had no copy by which to replace it, no offer was ever made of payment, and I am told that I have no legal redress, as the article was not specially ordered, and the paper to which it was sent adver- tises "that unsolicited MSS. will not be returned."  ## p. 412 (#816) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. Still, previously that same paper had accepted and paid for a numl>er of my special articles, so I thought that I was safe in submitting this one. I met the loss of another article of equal value in a New York paper, and although I was assured several times that the New York .... always paid for an article if it lost it through its own fault, my modest little bill has remained totally unregarded. I know of a still worse case, where a well-known authoress of New York city sent a complete MS. of a child's book to a well-known Boston publishing house. The MS. was accepted; in some mysterious way between the time of acceptance and publica- tion the MS. disappeared. Although it contained about 8o,ood words, and represented the work of months, the poor author was forced to re-write it from beginning to end, without the offer of pay- ment of a single cent on the part of the. publishing house who lost the MS. Of course, apologies anil regrets were sent, but they did not pay for the loss of time and the double work. In the American newspaper work, especially, there is very sharp competition, and a special writer, like myself, not connected with any regular paper, often suffers severely, when he has an exclusive bit of news. For instance, some years ago, when I was less familiar with newspaper sharp practice than I am now, a new building of public importance was erected in Cambridge, near Harvard College, where I reside, I called ou the superintendent of this manual training school with a letter of introduction from a mutual friend, and he gave me an hour of his valuable time. I then prepared a very full and exhaustive report, of the new building, machinery, &c. The next morning early I called upon the managing editor of the largest paper in Boston, mentioned the fact that this building Was just completed, that no report of it had appeared, and that I had one prepared. The managing editor replied that they did not consider a single manual training school building of sufficient importance to warrant an extended notice; but that if I would visit all such schools in Boston and the neighbouring cities and make a general report they woidd probably accept it. I made my preparations to do so, but on returning for some additional data to the Cambridge school, I was told by the manager that early that morning, evidently directly after my visit in Boston, a special re[K>rter had been sent from the Boston Herald in hot haste to get all the facts, which the manager, knowing of my intention to write the article, out of courtesy to me, refused to give, so that only a maimed and unintelligent report appeared. I have taken the liberty to quote these personal cases to you, as there are thousands of a like kind, with which young writers are helplessly forced to grapple every day. You are at liberty to use these as you see fit, if you will not mention names. I am now a member of the New England Women's Press Association, which also includes a number of authors, and I should greatly like to get this association and the various authors' clubs throughout the country interested in the matter of a reform. E. T. — "AT THE AUTHOR'S HEAD." CITIES, as cities, rarely do honour to their citizens during their lifetime, even though such citizens may become world-famous ; but Bristol is about to break down the habit of letting men be only recognised as famous citizens after death, by acknowledging during his lifetime the valuable ethnographical work that Dr. John Beddoe has been enabled to accomplish, whilst acting also a.s a physician in the Bristol suburb, Clifton. A very representative committee, under Mr. Lewis Frv, M.P., as chairman, has been appointed to present Dr. Beddoe with a volume containing an address recognising his well known labours, that have made his name famous in the scientific world. Amongst the committee are the Earl of Ducie, Bishop Clifford, Canon Ainger, Canon "Wallace, Mr. Warren of Magdalene (a Bristolian); Pro- fessors Lloyd, Morgan, and Rowley of the Univer- sity College, Bristol; the headmaster of Clifton College, Mr. R. L. Leighton, head of the Grammar School, and certain members of the Town Council, in fact a representative, body. Mr. James Baker, acting as Hon. Secretary. The address is to be signed by all the official, literary, scientific, and artistic bodies in Bristol, and will be presented at a dinner during the month of May. Mr. Barry Pain's new volume, entitled " Stories and Interludes," will be published by Messrs. Henry and Co. and by Messrs. Harper & Bros, simul- taneously on May 3rd. Mr. Hall Cable's forthcoming storiette, entitled "Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon," which is to run in Lloyd's, will lie published al>out Midsummer by Mr. AVm. Heinemann. Mrs. George Augustus Sala's new volume, which bears the title " People I have met," has just been published by Messrs. Osgood, Macllvaine and Co. Mr. A. J. Balfour is to preside on the 29th anniversary of the Newspaper Press Fund, which is to be held at the Hotel Metroi>oIe on the 14th instant.  ## p. 413 (#817) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 4'3 Among the series of papers which will uppear in Scribucr's on the position of the great European cities is one by Mr. Walter Besant, dealing with the East London riverside. The parish chosen is that of St. James, Rateliff. Prize stories, with the notable exception of Mr. Goodman's " Only Witness," do not, it seems, catch on. It is reported that the Leadenhall Press have not made a success of their venture "Guess the Title." 10,000 copies were issued, and the Publisher's Circular reports that 9,000 still remain on hand. We are sorry that Mr. Tuer has not made a hit with this venture, but it is, perhaps, fortunate on the whole for the future of fiction that the dodge has not succeeded. We have the advertising fiend quite enough with us as it is, and the self-advertising story is an excrescence which we can very well afford to do without. Ben Brierley has a great popularity, both as a writer and as an entertainer, all over Lancashire, Cheshire, and Derbyshire, and has managed to main- tain himself in a frugal way up till within the last year or two. He was then attacked by illness which kept him confined to his bed for twelve months, and has left him partially paralysed, so that it is impos- sible for him to go on with his entertainments, upon which he mainly depended for a livelihood. A few Lancashire merchants proposed a tribute to him, and up to the present a sum of £25o has been collected in small sums. Among the subscribers were Lord Derby, Viscount Cranbourne, Sir W. H. Houldsworth, Mr. A. J. Balfour, Sir Ughtred Kay Shuttle\vorth,and other leading Lancashire men. It has now been arranged that the mayors of all Lancashire towns shall receive subscriptions for the fund, and it is hoped that it will attain suffi- cient proportions to enable Ben Brierley to be secure from want to the end of his life. If Mr. Gladstone attains to the somewhat doubt- ful honour of being "collected," his fondness for appearance in pamphlet form will lend an added interest to the hunt for complete sets of his works. The last addition to his brochures is a letter on Female Suffrage, addressed to Mr. Samuel Smith, the well-known Liverpool philanthropist, which has just been published by Mr. John Murray. Mr. C. F. Dowsett, F.S.I., has published (The Land Record Office) his promised work on " Land, its attractions and riches," by 57 writers. Principal Bond-deals with "Fruit Growing"; Mr. C. W. Heckethorn with "Investments "; Professor G. Henslow writes on "The Value of Botany to Country Residents"; the Rev. A. Styleman Herring on "Fresh Air for Poor London Chil- dren "; Professor Long on "Dairy Farming "; and the Rev. Compton Reade on "The Pleasures of a Country." Dr. B. W. Richardson deals with "Health in Relation to Land"; Professor A. H. Sayce with "Ancient Laws '*; and Professor R. Wallace with " Egyptian Lands." The death of John Hyslop at Kilmarnock, N.B., removes another of the true jwets of the people. Almost wholly self-educated, he left the machine- room to become a rural messenger something more than thirty years ago, and in the year of Burns' centenary became generally recognised by his tribute to the Ploughman Bard. We extract from the Pall Mall Gazette the concluding lines of his last poem, which was written on his death-bed for the Kilmarnock Standard— I hear the music in the upper rooms, My soul like pent hinl panteth to he free j When that has passed beyond life's prisoning bars, Then burn or bury, do what pleaseth thee With the worn cage that is no longer Me, l'"or I shall neither know, nor hear, nor see. ****** Sometimes, perchance, amid the hurrying years, With friends in shady nook or wooded glen, You'll say: "He coined his soul's best thoughts in words, And sent them rushing through his ready pen In songs of hope to cheer his fellow men." If any songs of all the songs I've sung Make any music where life's discord mars God's harmonies, and through the souls of men Goes echoing on to heal some hidden scars, Then I shall hear it from beyond the stars! The fifth and sixth volumes of Mr. C. G. Leland's translation of the works of Heinrich Heine, which have just been published by Mr. Win. Heinemann, contain the "Germany," the "Comments on Faust," the " Gods in Exile," and the " Goddess Diana." Mr. Leland claims that this is the first complete edition of Heine's "Germany," which, as he very justly contends, is a work of which no one can be ignorant who seeks sound or even superficial reading of modern literature. Mr. Hume Nisbet's new story, "The Bush- ranger's Sweetheart," has just been issued by Mr. F. V. White. M. Chedomil Mijatovich, formerly Servian Minister at the Court of St. James's, has issued an interesting book on the conquest of Constantinople by the Greeks, which embodies the result of great personal research. Messrs. Sampson Low anil Co. are the publishers. Hitherto, no single monograph on the conquest of Constantinople has existed in English, though as early as 1670 a tragedy entitled the "Siege of Constantinople" was published in London.  ## p. 414 (#818) ############################################ 414 THE AUTHOR. "Haunts of Nature," by H. W. S. Worsley- Benison, and illustrated by C. M. Worsley, is issued by Elliot Stock. Mr. Worsley-Benison is already very well known as the author of " Nature's Fairyland," and in his new book shows that he is not an unworthy successor even to Richard Jefferies. Mr. Edmund Downey (F. M. Allen) has ready a collection of Irish tales, which, under the title of "Green as Grass," will be published by Messrs. Chatto and Windus in a few days. Dr. S. P. Driver, the Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, has concluded a volume of sermons, entitled "Old Testament Criticisms." Messrs. Methuen are the publishers. Mr. Rudyard Kipling's " Barrack Room Ballads" —Japanese paper edition—was published on April 3oth by Messrs. Methuen. Mr. Arthur Symon's new volume of verse, which is to bear the title of " Silhouettes," will be published immediately by Messrs. Elkin Mathews and John Lime. There is to be yet another Metropolitan literary society, the Irish Literary Society, which is to be inaugurated next month under the presidency of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, K.C.M.G. The Rev. Stopford Brooke is to deliver the inaugural address. Mr. E. F. Knight, the author of the "Cruise of the Falcon," promises a book relating his adventures during the recent campaign in Hun/.a, in which he acted not only as special correspondent of the Times, but as a combatant. The Rev. Chas. Voysey has prepared, and Messrs. Williams and Norgate have published, a third edition of a Theistic Prayer Book, greatly enlarged, and containing new services and many new hymns. Mrs. Frank St. Clair Grimwood's story, "The Power of an Eye," is running in Winter's Weekly, and will Ik- published shortly by Mr. F. V. White. Mr. Mackenzie Bell contributes a poem on a religious theme to the Christian Leader. The May number of the Library Revieiv con- tains a further contribution by Stanley Little on "Current Fiction," in which he will deal with woman as a creator in fiction; an article entitled "Tennyson as Dramatist" by Cuming Walters; another by Graham Aylward on "Mr. Meredith and his Critics"; and one by Percy White on "Daudet and his Literary Methods." Mr. Eden Philpotts's new story "A Tiger's Cub" has just been issued by Messrs. Arrowsniith. "Mark Tillotson " is the title of the new novel by the author of " John Westacott," which appears this month. It is dedicated to the veteran poet, Frederick von Bodenstedt, the good friend of "George Eliot " during her Munich life. Mr. E. S. Purcell has written the authorised Life of Cardinal Manning. He has had not only the Cardinal's permission but also his assistance, with the right to read and use private diaries and letters. We learn from the New York Critic, that shortly after the appearance of "Vain Fortune," Charles Scribner's Sons made Mr. George Moore an offer for tho right of reprinting it in America. The author accepted, stipulating only that he should be allowed to re-write his novel. This he has done with such thoroughness that the first half of the narrative has been entirely changed, and the main interest transferred from the hero to the heroine. Messrs. Osgood, Mcllvaine, and Co. are to publish this month a book by Mr. Hamilton Aide, entitled " A Voyage of Discovery," a novel illustra- tive of American Society as Mr. Aide found it last year when travelling here with Mr. Stanley. Those readers whose attention has been attracted by the life story of Travers Madge, as told by the Rev. Dr. Brooke Herford in "A Protestant Poor Friar," will be interested to know that from this strangely pathetic life Mrs. Humphry Ward drew the idea of her Ancrum, the crippled minister in "David Grieve." In "The Gentleman Digger"—Sampson Low and Co.—the Comtesse de Bremont sets forth with a good deal of spirit and actuality pictures of Johannesburg life in 1889, that is to say, at about the period of the famine, the crisis, and the collapse of the feverish "boom"of 1888-89. The varied types of mankind—ill enough for the most part— tlie hideous scenes enacted daily and nightly at the great gold and diamond mining camps of South Africa; the unutterable squalor, glitter, drunken- ness, chicanery, and crime; all these things are displayed in a very realistic manner. As depicting true phases of life, as a very real warning, this book undoubtedly has a value. And it is to the author's credit that she has raised her voice against that vilest of all systems of murder, the poisoning of native races, body and soul, by the horrible drink traffic.  ## p. 415 (#819) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 4i5 FROM THE PAPERS. I. The Lowell Memorial. DEAN Bradley's refusal to find room for a memorial to Lowell in Westminster Abbey is an act of which no explanation is yet forthcoming. Want of space is no explanation, any more than when the bust of Matthew Arnold was hid away in an obscure corner where not one visitor in a thousand will ever see it. Lowell, of course, has no claim. No American has a claim, nor any Englishman either. It rests with the Dean of Westminster, for the time being, to grant or refuse admission to the Abbey. There is no appeal from his discretion, or indiscretion, except to public opinion, or to Parliament, where public opinion is sometimes crystallized into a concrete reform. It was Parliament which intervened to save the Abbey from the intrusion of Prince Louis Napoleon, whom Dean Stanley was resolved to admit. The present is no cause for invoking that supreme court of appeal. Nor do I know that Lowell's American friends need care much about the matter. It is Lowell's English friends who made the request to the Dean, which he somewhat churlishly, they think, has re- jected. Lowell, says one of them, is not thought good enough for the Abbey. Perhaps not. He was merely the foremost American man of letters of his time, long resident in England and beloved here; a representative who did invaluable service to his own country and to this; admittedly the first—it is the English who admit it—scholar of English literature. What has he to do with Westminster Abbey? That mausoleum of non- entities is dignified, no doubt, by the tombs and memorials of some great men, but the majority are no company for Lowell. To say that Lowell shall not find a place tliere is to say that no American shall in the future, and that the few now there had better come away; Longfellow first of all, who will hardly care to remain now that his friend is ex- cluded. If any Dean of Westminster of the future regrets the exclusion, he may chisel into some vacant stone the line in which the French Academy does penance for the absence of Moliere: "Nothing was wanting to his glory. He is wanting to ours." —New York Tribune. April 10, 1892. II. The Glorious Traditions of the Book Agent. Napoleon Bonaparte, when a poor lieutenant, took the agency for a work entitled " L'Histoire de la Revolution." In the foyer of the great palace of the Louvre can be seen to-day the great Emperor's canvassing outfit, with the long list of subscribers he secured. George Washington, when young, canvassed around Alexandria, Va., and sold over 200 copies of a work entitled " Bydell's American Savage." Mark Twain was a book agent. Longfellow sold books by subscription. Jay Gould, when shirting in life, was a canvasser. Daniel Webster paid his second term's tuition at Dartmouth by handling "De Tocqueville's America," in Merrimac County, New Hampshire. General U. S. Grant canvassed for "Irving's Columbus." Rutherford B. Hayes canvassed for "Baxter's Saints' Rest." James G. Blaine began life as a canvasser for a "Life of Henry Clay." Bismarck, when at Heidelberg, spent a vacation canvassing for one of Blumenbach's handbooks.— New York Critic. III. The Chief Use of the Society. I conceive the Society's most important function to be the establishment of that solidarity amongst literary folk, notoriously a race of units, which has hitherto been non-existent. It is a great thing that voting authors should be able to get advice and help from those who know better than themselves; but it is much more that the whole profession of literature should have a focus, a rallying point, a central representative body—call it what you will. And it seems to me that it is the plain duty of every author, of whatever posi- tion, to further the consolidation of the Society by joining it. Many of its members, of course, do not need help themselves; they should, there- fore, add their own strength to the weakness of their less fortunate brethren. And of its power of immediate usefulness, the best testimony is to be found in the list of the more important cases in which the Society has interfered during the past year. It is very interesting reading, and will certainly convince all sceptics of the real usefulness of the Society and the justness of the ideal relations between author and publisher which it holds up.— IVinter's Weekly. IV. American Fiction. American fiction has distinctly forsaken the expansive and the illimitable to run after the contracted and the limited. Instead of a national novel we now have a rapidly accumulating series of regional novels, or rather—so far as the sub- dividing and minimising process goes—of local tales, neighbourhood sketches, short stories confined to the author's Imck yard.— The New York Nation.  ## p. 416 (#820) ############################################ 416 THE AUTHOR. v. Newspaper Copyright. In the interesting discussion on newspaper copy- right now proceeding in the Times, no one has yet called attention to the very definite agreement on the subject embodied in the Berne Convention. Article VII. of that instrument runs as follows :—• "Articles from newspapers or periodicals pub- lished in any of the countries of the Union may be reproduced in original or in translation in the other countries of the Union, unless the authors or publishers have expressly forbidden it. For periodicals it is sufficient if the prohibition is made in a general manner at the beginning of each number of the periodical. This prohibition cannot in any case apply to articles of political discussion, or to the reproduction of news of the day or current topics." It will thus be seen that countries in the Copy- right Union have agreed, in so far as their relations with each other are concerned, to recognise no copyright under any circumstances in (i) articles of political discussion; (2) news of the day; or (3) current topics—a somewhat vague clause this last one.—Pall Mall Gazette. VI. From America. In New York City alone are nearly a dozen publishing "nouses of great wealth, and a score more in a highly prosperous condition. One rarely hears of a publisher failing, from the Cheap Johns and publishers of penny dreadfuls to those of a higher order. On the other hand, there can scarcely be pointed out an American author who is able to make even a decent living by his books. However, the vital question is: How can this state of things be remedied? A partial remedy could be found, no doubt, in the formation of an American Society of Authors similar to the Incor- porated Society of Authors of Great Britain, or the Societe des Gens de Lettres of France. The British Society is organised for the protection of literary property. It has been already of incalcul- able benefit to the British author. The organisa- tion of a similar society has been long mooted among American authors, and signs point to the present time as being ripe for it. The writer, in his inquiries among literary men, has found every- one in favour of it, and none opposed to it. Such a society should be organised on the most liberal basis. It should be open to everyone, young or old, male or female, who has written a book, whether published or not, and to recognised writers for the press. It should retain the best legal counsel; it should provide from its concentrated wisdom and experience a form of contract in which the author's right should be protected—such contracts having been hitherto drawn by the publisher for the pro- tection of his interests. It should have at least one executive officer, who should be an author of experience, and who should give information to all members applying for it, and take cognizance of all complaints, and who should have for counsel and assistance an advisory board composed of three of the ablest and most experienced members of the society. Finally, it should assume, and carry to the courts if need be, all clear cases of extortion and oppression of authors on the part of publishers. Such a society would save American authors thousands of dollars yearly, and chiefly to the young and inexperienced, who need help most.— Charles B. Todd in the Forum. VII. The Education op Opinion. Many publishers, especially the younger men, are gentlemen who have their clubs and their social positions. Social position is like marriage; the man who has it gives hostages to fortune. He cannot afford to have it said that in business trans- actions he systematically cheats. Cold looks greet him, club acquaintances avoid him; he finds the atmosphere of the club chilling. This has already happened in one or two instances; it is the first expression of public opinion in its infancy. What else can the Society attempt; I wish I could publish in these pages, in order to show its work, the letters of a single day. Agreements are sent up for examination, questions of difficulty about copyright in articles or books, questions as to cost, questions as to the trustworthiness of pub- lishers, questions of every kind. Our secretaries are supposed to know everything; hard by our offices are those of our solicitors, to whom are referred almost every day some points of difficulty. We keep authors out of the hands of dishonest publishers—this is a tremendous weapon. There are certain houses from which we have kept many thousands of pounds; we prevent authors from signing unfair agreements; we have readers to examine the manuscripts of young writers and to advise them. The newr American Copyright Law has introduced a whole sheaf of difficulties. In a word, we are the only body which has ever existed for the maintenance and defence of literary property for its creators and producers. What it has still to do. There remains before us one more service to literature. We desire above all things to formulate the broad principles upon which publishing should  ## p. 417 (#821) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 4i7 be conducted, so as to give the author the full share that belongs to him, and to recognise to their utmost the services of the publishers. I do not think that the problem will prove insoluable, once fairly tackled. I have myself a solution to offer, if I can only persuade other people to accept it. Whatever method is ndopted must depend entirely upon the success of a book, and therefore must be some form of royalty. Publisher and author must be interested in its success, each in his own fair proportion. In this place I can only point out the thing as one which must be attempted. For my own part I have seen, every day since the formation of the Society, fresh evidence of the necessity of such a corporation as our own.— Walter Bksant in the Forum. VIII. An Outside Opinion on the Society. Old and business-like authors gratefully acknow- ledge their gratitude? to this wonderful undertaking; but to the young and untried writers it is even more invaluable. It lias saved many youthful aspirants from ruin, by persuading them not to produce trash at their own risk, and has helped the more promising by kindly advice and suggestions in a way that has enabled authors to remodel a faulty MS. until it presented a readable and sale- able book. The Society has a monthly paper of its own, conducted by Mr. Besant, helped by many of our best writers, in which all means of publication, new methods, pitfalls to be avoided, &c, are fully discussed. The Authors' Club is an off-shoot of the Society, and bids fair to rival the Savilc. Unfortunately there are no lady members, so that the feminine part of the world of letters have to be content with the Albemarle or the Writers'. Nevertheless, the Society itself does not close its doors to women, who muster strongly among its members. There is an erroneous idea current that the Society acts as publishers. This is not so. It is practically an agent. It is also a lawyer, and al>ove all it is an able and willing adviser.—The Queen. ♦■»■♦ NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. Theology. Baxter, Ukv. M. Forty Coming Wonders from 1892 to 1901. Eightieth thousand. Christian Herald Office, Tudor Street, Salisbury Square, K.C. Bell, Captain Henry. Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther. Translated by. Cassell's National Library. Cloth, 6d. CaLTHROp, Ukv. Gordon. St. Paul: a Study. Addresses given in St. Paul's Cathedral. Paper covers, is. 61/. The Church in Walks. Full report of the debate on Mr. Samuel Smith's Resolution in the House of Commons on February 23, 1892. Paper covers (bd.). Also Speeches by Mr. Balfour and Sir E. Clarke on that occasion (it/, each). Church Defence Institution, Bridge Street, S.W. Corbktt, Kkv. F. St. John. Echoes of the Sanctuary. Skeffington and Son. Cornpord, Kkv. James. The Book of Common Prayer, with historical notes. Edited by. Eyre and Spottis- woodc. Griffith, Ralph T. H. The Hymns of the Rigveda. Translated, with a popular comment-try by. Vol. IV. (The previous volumes were published in 1889, 1890, and 1891.) E. J. Lazarus and Co., Benares. Gkimthokpk, Loud. A Review of Prebendary Sadler's "Church Doctrine—Bible Truth " anil of Mr. Gore's Theory of Our Lord's Ignorance. 6d. Protestant Churchmen's Alliance. Hill, Rowland, and Spurokox, C. II. Remarkable Sermons Preached from the same Text—" Christ Crucified." Passmore and Alabaster. Paper covers, 3d. Maurice, F. D. Sermons Preached in Lincoln's Inn Chapel. Sixth and last volume. New edition. Mac- niillan. 3j. id. Rawson, Sib Rawson W , K.C.M.G. The Gospel Narra- tive, or Life of Jesus Christ, collated from the Autho- rized Text of the Four Gospels, with Notes of all material changes in the Revised Version, and Epitome and Harmony of the Gospels. 5». net. Reynolds, H. B., D.D. Light and Peace. Sermons and addresses. "Preachers of the Age " Series. With portrait. Sampson Low. 3j. 6<f. Spurgkon, Rev. C. II. Sermons. "Contemporary Pulpit Library." Swan Sonuenschein. Voysey, Rev. Charles. The Theistic Prayer Book. Third edition. Williams and Norgate. Williams, Rowland, D.D. Psalms and Litanies: Coun- sels and Collects for Devout Persons. Edited by his willow. New edition. Fisher Cnwiu. ys. 6d. Wordsworth, Charlks, D.D., D.C.L. Primary Witness to the Truth of the Gospel, a series of discourses; also a charge on modern teaching on the canon of the Old Testament. Longiuaus. 73. 6d. History and Biography. AunoTT, Edwin A. The Anglican Career of Cardinal Newman. 2 vols. Macmillan. 2 5s. net. Beniiam, Charlks E. Colchester Worthies: a biographical index of Colchester. Simpkin, Marshall. Boask, Frederic. Modern English Biography, containing concise memoirs of persons who have died since 18 So. Vol. I., A to H. Truro: Netherton and Worth, for the author (25o copies only printed). 3o.«. net. Brighton, J. G., M.I). Admiral of the Fleet Sir Provo Wallis. A Memoir. With illustrations, charts, &c. Hutchinson. Butler, Arthur John. The Memoirs of Baron de Marbot, late Lieutenant General in the French Army. Translated from the French. 2 vols., with portrait and maps. Longmans. 32*. Chetwtnd-Stapylton, H. E. TheChetwynds of Ingestre: being a history of that family from a very early date. With illustrations by the author. Longmans. 14s.  ## p. 418 (#822) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. Conway, Ri'sset.t. H. Life of C. H. Spurgeon. Illustrated. A. T. Hubbard, Philadelphia. Foster, Joseph. Alumni Oxoniensis: The Members of the University of Oxford, their parentage, birthplace, and year of birth, with a record of their degrees, being the Matriculation Register of the University, alphabetically arranged, revised, and annotated. In two series—from i5oo to 1714 (five vols.), and from 17iS to 1886 (three vols.). Parker and Co. Fowler, VV. Warde. Julius Cajsar, and the Foundation of the Roman Imperial System. "Heroes of the Nations" Series. G. P. Putnam's Sons, Bedford Street, Strand. 5s. Heron-Allen, Edward. I)e Fidiculis Hibliographia: being the basis of the Bibliography of the Violin and all other instruments played with a bow in ancient and modern times. (Part II., Rook Sections and Extracts (continued) and Second Supplement.) Griffith, Far- ran. Paper covers, is. 6d. Holcroft, Thomas. The Life and Adventures of Raron Trcnck. Vol. I. Translated by. Cassell's " National Library." 6,/. Hutton, A. W. Cardinal Manning. With a Ribliography. Metbuen and Co. Lecky, W. E. H. A History of Eugland in the Eighteenth Century. Vol. IV. New edition. Longmans. 6s. Mijatovitch, Chrdomil. Constantino, the Last Emperor of the Greeks; or, The Conquest of Constantinople by the Turks (A.D. 1453), after the latest historical researches. Sampson Low. Musson, S. P., and Roxburgh, T. L. "The Handbook of Jamaica for 1892." Published by authority, com- prising Historical, Statistical, and General Information concerning the Island. Twelfth year of publication. Compiled from official and other reliable records. Edward Stanford. Pike, G. Holden. Charles Huddon Spurgeon. "The World's Workers " Series. Cassell. is. Ri eman, Dr. H. Catechism of Musical History. Second Part—History of Musical Forms. With biographical notices of the most illustrious composers. Translated from the German. Augencr and Co., Newgate Street, E.C. is. 6rf. (Paper covers, zs. net.) Sorel, Albert. Madame de Stael. With portrait. Great French Writers Series. Fisher Unwiu. 3s. 6d. Symonds, J. A., and Daughter Margaret. Our Life in the Swiss Highlands. A. and C. Black. Verney, Colonel Lloyd. A Description of the Parish Church of Llangurig, Montgomeryshire. G. Pnlman and Sons, Thayer Street, W. is. General Literature. Acland, A. H. D., and Smith, H. Llewellyn. Studies in Secondary Education. Edited by Arthur H. D. Acland, M.P., and H. Llewellyn Smith, M.A., B.Sc. With an Introduction by James Brycc, M.P. Percival and Co. 7s. 6d. Anderson, John. The Colonial Office List for 1891. Compiled from official records, by permission of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. 21st publication. Harrison and Sons, Pall Mall. ys. 6d. Ahcher, Frank. How to Write a Good Play. Sampson Low. Atkinson, Rev. J. C. Playhours and Half-Holidays, or Further Experiences of Two Schoolboys. Illustrated by Coleman. Macmillan. 3s. 6d. Atkinson, Rev. J. C. Walks, Talks, Travels, and Exploits of Two Schoolboys. A book for boys. New edition. Macmillan. 3s. 6d. "R" Brigadier-General. A General and his Duties. Gale and Polden, Amen Corner, E.C. is. 6d., post free. Reardmore, W. Lee. The Drainage of Habitable Build- ings. A reprint and revision of articles in the Plumber and Decorator and Journal of Gas and Sanitary Engineering. Whittaker, White Hart Street. Berry, James. My Experiences as an Executioner. By James Berry. Edited by H. Snowden Ward. Percy Lund, Memorial Hall, Ludgatc Circus, E.C. is. Booth, Charles. Pauperism—a Picture; and the Endow- ment of Old Age—an Argument. Macmillan and Co. Bottone, S. R. A Guide to Electric Lighting. Whittaker. Paper covers, is. Brody, G. M. Tennyson's " Queen Mary." A criticism. Simpkiu, Marshall. Paper covers, is. Butler, Samuel. The Humour of Homer. Metcalfe and Co., Cambridge. 6d. Chbal, J., F.R.H.S. Practical Fruit Culture. George Bell and Sons. Cheltnam, Charles S. The Dramatic Year Book and Stage Directory, 1892. Illustrated with portraits of popular actors and actresses. Edited by. Trischler and Co., New Bridge Street, E.C. Chilton, Young F. Work. An Illustrated Magazine of Practice and Theory. Edited by. From March 21, 1891, to March 12, 1892. Cassell. Clerke, Agnes M. Familiar Studies in Homer. Long- mans. 7s. id. Clouston, W. A. Literary Coincidences. A Bookstall Bargain and other Papers. Morison Brothers, Glasgow. Paper covers, is. Conder, Josiah. The Flowers of Japan and the Art of Floral Arrangement. With illustrations by Japanese artists. Sampson Low. Courtney, W. L. Studies at Leisure. Chapman and Hall. 6s. Distant, W. L. A Naturalist in the Transvaal. With coloured plates and illustrations. R. H. Porter, Prince's Street, W. 21s. Dowsett, C. F., F.S.I. Land. Its Attractions and Riches. By Fifty-seven Writers. Edited by. The "Land Roll " Office, 3, Lincoln's Inn Fields. Emiorants' Information Office Handbooks, 1892. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 2s. The Export Merchant Shippers; with their trading ports and class of goods shipped. Edited by a Custom House employ^, 1892-3. Dean and Son, Fleet Street. Fiskk, John. The Discovery of America. With some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Con- quests. Two vols. Macmillan. 18s. Forrest, G. W., B.A. The Administration of Warren Hast- ings, 1772-85. Reviewed and illustrated from original documents. (Government of India Record Office.) Office of the Superintendent of Indian Government Printing, Calcutta. Gates, E. Wilson. Hints to Emigrants. Self-Help Emigration Society, id. Gore-Browne, F., and Jordan, Wm. Joint Stock Com- panies: A handy book on their formation, manage- ment, and winding-up. 15th edition. Jordan and Sons, 120, Chancery Lane.  ## p. 419 (#823) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 419 Oork, Charles, M.A. Roman Catholic Claims. 4th edition, with new preface. Longmans. 3s. 6<l. Gowen, Rev. H. H. The Paradise of the Pacific. Sketches of Hawaiian Scenery and Life. Skeffington and Son, Piccadilly. Golf. A book for recording matches. Geo. Stuart and Co., Farriugdon Street and Edinburgh. Gullick, Thomas J. Oil Painting on Glass, including mirrors, windows, &c. With remarks upon the prin- ciples of painting and decorative art generally. Winsor and Newton, Rathbone Place, W. Paper covers, is. Hill, G. Birkbeck, D.C.L. Letters of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., collected and edited by. In two volumes. Vol. 1, Oct. 3o, 1731, to Dec. 21, 1776; vol. 2, Jan. i5, 1777, to Dec. 18, 1784. With a facsimile. Clarendon Press. 28s. Hubbell, Walter. Midnight Madness, Bingham Pub- lishing Company, Chicago. Paper covers, 25c. Hunter, Sin Wm. Wilson, K.C.I.K. Bombay, 188S to 1890: A Study in Indian Administration. Henry Frowde, Amen Corner, K.C. i5s. Irby, Lt.-Col. L. Howard. British Birds: Key List. 2nd edition. H. H. Porter, 18, Prince's Street, W. 25. 6d. Kelly's London Suburban Directory for 1892, with map engraved expressly for this work. Kelly and Co., Great Queen Street, W.C. 36s. Ksxnedy, E. S. A Tramp to Brighton. Simpkiu, Marshall, is. Kennedy, H. A. The Sunday Afternoon Song-Book: for "Pleasant Sunday Afternoons" and other gatherings. Compiled by. James Clarke and Co. zd. Knox-Little, W. J., M.A. Sketches in Sunshine and Storm, a collection of miscellaneous essays and notes of travels. Longmans. 7*. 6rf. Lanin, K. B. Russian Characteristics. Reprinted, with revisions from the Fortnighty Jicview. Chapman and Hall. 14s. Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by. Vol. XXX., Johnes-Kenneth. Smith Elder. Lurmolieff, Ivan. Italian Painters: Critical Studies of their Works. The Borghese and Doria-Pamfili Gal- leries in Rome. Translated from the German by Constauce Jocelyn Ffoulkes, with an introduction by Sir A. H. Layard, G.C.B., D.C.L. John Murray. i5s. "Mac and O'." The Parnell Leadership and Home Rule, from an historical, ethical, and ethnological point of view. Gill and Son, Dublin. Paper covers, 6d. Macdonell, A. A. Camping Out. George Bell and Sons. Mackenzie, W. M. The Poor Law Guardian; his powers and duties in the right execution of his office. Third edition. Shaw, Fetter Lane. The Making of Italy. By The O'Clery of the Middle Temple. Kegan Paul. The Medioal Register, 1892: and Tin: Dentists Re- gister. Spottiswoode, Gracechurch Street, E.C. Mivart, St. George. Essays and Criticisms. Two vols. Osgood, McIIvnine, and Co. 32s. Nansen, Fridtjo. The First Crossing of Greenland. Translated from the Norwegian by H. M. Gepp, B.A. A new edition, unabridged. With illustrations and map. Longmans. 7s. 6d. Nasmito, David, Q.C. Makers of Modern Thought; or, Five Hundred Years' Struggle (1200 a.d. to 1699 a.d.) between Science, Ignorance, and Superstition. Two vols. George Philip, Fleet Street. 12s. net. Noble, John. Facts for Politicians. A new and revised edition. Henry Good, Moorgate Street. Paper covers, is.; cloth, 2s. The Nursing Directory for 1892 (first annual issue). The Record Press, 376, Strand. 5s. Ormond, George W. T. The Barton House Conspiracy: a Tale of 1886. E. and S. Livingstone, Edinburgh. Cardboard covers, is. Ouseley, Rev. Sir G. The Compositions of the Rev. Sir F. A. Gore Ouseley, M.A., Mus. Doc. Compiled by John S. Bumpus. T. B. Bumpus, George Yard, Lombard Street. Paper covers, 2s. Owen, J. A. Within an Hour of London Town, among wild birds and their haunts. By "A Son of the Marshes." Edited by. Blackwood. Palgrave, R. H. I. Dictionary of Political Economy. Edited by. Second part, Beeke-Chamberlayne. Mac- niillan. Paper covers, 3s. 6d. net. Pascoe, Charles E. London of To-Day: an Illustrated Handbook for the Season. Eighth annual edition, revised and illustrated. Simpkin, Marshall. Payne, J. F. Lectures on the History of Education, with a Visit to German Schools. By the late Joseph Payne. Edited by his son. Vol. II. of the works of Joseph Payne. Longmans. 10s. 6d. The Popular Guide to the Second London County Council, with full particulars of the polls and portraits. Pall Malt Gazette Office. Paper covers, 6d. Powell, J. C. The American Siberia; or, Fourteen Years' Experience in a Southern Convict Camp. Gay and Bird, 27, King William Street, West Strand. 3s. 6d. Riding: The Use and Misuse of Reins and Stirrui-h. 15 illustrations. By a Horseman. Third edition. King, Booksellers' Row, Strand. Paper covers, id. Rimmer, Alfred. Rambles Round Rugby. With an introductory chapter by the Rev. W. H. Payne Smith, M.A. Illustrated by the author. Percival. Roma. Joys and Sorrows; or, Two of Life's Stories. Sutton, Drowley, and Co., 11, Ludgate Hill. is. Russell, W. An Invalid's Twelve Year's Experience in Search of Health. R. B. Marten, Sudbury. 10s. Saintsbury, George. Political Pamphlets. Edited by. Pocket Library of English Literature. Percival and Co. 3s. 6d. Salaman, M. C. Woman, through a Man's Eyeglass. With illustrations by Dudley Hardy. Heinemaun. 3s. 6d. Savile-Clarke, H. A Little Flutter: Stage, Story, and Stanza. (The Whitcfriars Library of Wit and Humour.) Henry and Co. 3s. 6d. Satce, George C. Twelve Times Round the World. By "A Globe Trotter." Arrowsmith. Schneider, George. The Book of Choice Ferns. Vol. 1. From Introduction to Athyrium. Illustrated. Upcott Gill, 170, Strand. Souvenir of Shakspeare's King Henry the Eighth. Presented at the Lyceum Theatre by Henry Irving, Jan. 5, 1892. Illustrated by J. Bernard Partridge, W. Telbiu, J. Harker, and Hawes Craven. Black and White Publishing Company, is.  ## p. 420 (#824) ############################################ 420 THE AUTHOR. Stables, Gordon-, M.I). Our Humble Friends ami Fellow Mortals. Vol. I. of Homestead and Farm. Vol. II. of Hearth and Home. Vol. III. In Wood and Field. With illustrations by Harrison Weir. Sinipkin, Marshall. — The Cruise of the Land Vaeht "Wanderer," or "Thirteen Hundred Miles in my Caravan." With illustrations. Popular edition. Hodder aud Stoughton. 55. Stanton, Albert J. Foot-and-Mouth Disease: Symptoms and Treatment and Outbreaks in Great Britain. K. W. Allen, Ave Maria Lane. Paper covers, bd. Stanton, Stephen ]!. The liehring Sea Controversy. Brcntano's, Agar Street, Strand. Stray Thoughts. From the Note Hooks of Rowland Williams, D.D. Edited by his widow. New edition. Fisher Unwin. 3s. bd. Stuart, J. S. S., and Stu.vkt, Charles, E. The Costume of the Clans, with observations upon the literature, arts, manufactures, and commerce of the Highlands and Western Isles during the Middle Ages, and on the influence of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries upon the present condition. With 37 full-page plates, illustrating the history, antiquities, and dress of the Highland clans, copied from authentic originals, and biographical introduction. John Grant, Edinburgh. ^ Bernard Quaritch, London.) Wallace, Alfred H. Island Life. Second and Revised edition. Macmillan. 6s. Whvmpkr, Edward. Travels Amongst the Great Andes of the Equator. With maps and illustrations. Also a supplementary appendix to the same, with contribu- tions from various sources. John Murray. Williamson, William. Horticultural Exhibitor's Hand- book. Revised by Malcolm Dunn, gardener to the Duke of Buccleueh. William Blackwood. Wright, William Alois. The Works of William Shake- speare. Edited by. In nine volumes. Volume VI. Macmillan. 10s. id. Wrightson, John. Live Stock. Agricultural Text-books series. Cassell. 2.1. bd. Fiction. A Covenant with thk Dead. A Novel. By the author of "A Harvest of Weeds." 3 vols. Griffith, Farran. 3is. bd. Aide, Hamilton. A Voyage of Discovery: a Novel of American Society, 2 vols. Osgood, M'llvuine, aud Co. 2 IS. Bangs, J. Kendrick. Tiddledywink Tales. Griffith, Farran, and Co. Black, William. In Silk Attire. New and revised edition. Sampson Low. is. 6d. Bi anch, J. Tempest. "Our Hands Have Met." 3s. bd. Colmork, G. A Valley of Shadows. 2 vols. Chatto and Winuus. Crawford, F. Marion. The Three Fates. 3 vols. Macmillan. 31s. bd. Curtis, George William. From the Easy Chair. Os- good, M'llvaine, and Co. 3s. bd. Daudet, Ali'Honsk. Rose and Ninette: a Story of the Morals and Manners of the Day. Translated by Mary J. Serrano. Fisher Unwin. Donovan, Dick. In the Grip of the Law. Chatto and Windus. GiLKisox, Elizabeth. The Story of a Struggle : a Ro- mance of the Grampians. A. and C. Black. Graveniiill, Guy. Horsley Grange. A sporting story. 2 vols. Chapman and Hall. Griffith, Durham. An Arctic Eden. A tale of Norway. Skelfington. Paper covers, is. Hatton, Joseph. The Princess Mazaroff: a Romance of the Day. Hutchinson. 3s. bd. Hennikkr, Florence. Bid me Good-bye. Bentley. Hope, Anthony. Mr. Witt's Widow. A Frivolous Tale. A. D. limes and Co., Bedford Street, W.C. 6s. Horni ng, F. W. Under Two Skies, a collection of stories. A. and C. Black. Humphreys, Jennett. Some Little Britons iuliritt'iny: a Seaside Story. Sampson Low. Huntingdon, E. M., and A. The Squire's Nieces. Samp- son Low. LachSzyrma, Rev. W. Under other Conditions. A Tale. A. and C. Black. Lindsay, Lady. The Philosopher's Window ami other Stories. A. and C. Black. Lovett-Cameron, Mrs. A Daughter's Heart. A Novel. F. V. White. Lowry, James W. The Doll's Garden Party. Illustrated by J. B. Clark. The Leadenhall Press, 2s. bd. Maartens, Maarten. A Question of Taste: a Novel. Heincmann. 5s. Phillpotts, Edkn. A Tiger's Cub. Arrowsmith. 3s. bd. Robinson, F. W. A Very Strange Family. Heincmann. Spence, Edward F. A Freak of Fate: a Novel. Henry and Co., Bouverie Street. Picture boards, 2s. V. Betsy. Osgood, M'llvuine and Co. 3s. bd. Villars, P. The Escapes of Casanova and Latude from Prison, edited, with an introduction. Illustrated Ad- venture Series. Fisher Unw in. 5s. White, Roma. Punchinello's Romance. A. D. Innes, Bedford Street, Strand. 6s. Wiggin, K. D. Timothy's Quest. Gay aud Bird. 3s. 6rf. Winter, John Strange. Only Human. A Novel. In 2 vols. F. V. White. Poetry and the Drama. Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The Foresters: Robin Hood and Maid Marian. Macmillan. 6s. Dennis, John. The Poetical Works of Sir Walter SeolU Edited, with memoir, by. In 5 vols. Volume IV. Aldine Edition. George Bell. DunouRG, A. W. Angelica: Romantic Drama in Four Acts. Bentley. Paper covers. French Poetry for Children. Selected by Francois Louis. Sixth edition. Franz Thimm, Brook Street, W. 2s. bd. Hall, J. Lesslie. Beowulf: an Anglo-Saxon epic poem. Translated from the Hevne-Socin text by. Heath, Boston, U.S.A. Kipling, Rudyard. Barrack Room Ballads. Methuen. Low, C. Rathbone. Cressy to Tel-el-Kebir. A narrative poem descriptive of the deeds of the British Army. Mitchell and Co., Craig's Court, S.W.  ## p. 421 (#825) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 421 Rosetti. Dante G. Dante and His Circle, with the Italian poets preceding him (t 100-1200-13ooV A collection of lyrics translated in the original metres by. A new edition, with preface by W. M. Rosetti. Ellis and Elvey. 6s. Smith, G. Barnett. Illustrated British Ballads—Old and New. Selected and edited by. Part I. To be com- pleted in 24. Cassell. Paper covers, yd. Stevenson, It. L. A Child's Garland of Song, gathered from a Child's Garden of Verses. Music by Dr. C. Yilliers Stanford. Longmans. Paper covers, zs. WILSON, James H. Zahnoxis, and other Poems. Elliot Stock. The Works of Hkinrich Heine, translated from the German by C. G. Lelaud (Hans Breitiuann). Volumes V. and VI. Germany. Heinemann. 5*. each. Educational. Arnoi.d-Forster, II. O. The Laws of Every-day Life, for the use of schools. Cassell. zs. Ashford, Constance M. Latin Dialogues for School Representation. Swann Sonnenschein. Atlas ok Physical Geography. New, revised, and enlarged edition. W. and A. K. Johnston. Gambaro, Professor 11. Lessons in Commerce: a text- book for students. Revised and edited by James Gatilt, of the Middle Temple. Crosby Loekwood. Hay, IV. Shorthand Simplified and Improved. Swann Sonnenschein. Hoylk, W. T. Mental Arithmetic Problems. Standards I. to VII. 2''. or 3d. a volume. Answers to the same, 4<i. W. H. Allen and Co. Lund, II. "A Practical and Easy Method of Learning the Danish and Norwegian Languages." Eighth improved edition. Corrected according to the new Danish and Norwegian orthography. Franz Thimm and Co. 4s. REGULATIONS FOR MUSKETRY INSTRUCTION, 1892. Lee- Metford Rifle. Eyre and Spottiswoode. It. Royal University of Ireland: Examination Papers, 1891. Longmans. Savill, Stanley. The Civil Service Coach. New edition, revised. Crosby Loekwood. Schofield, A. T. Physiology for Schools. Cassell. II. 9</. Shaler, N. S. The Story of our Continent, a reader in the Geography and Geology of Noith America, for the use of Schools. E. Arnold. 3*. bd. Sweet, Henry, M.A. A New English Grammar, Logical and Historical. Part I. Introduction, Phonology, and Accidence. Clarendon Press. io«. bd. Tatiiam, M. T. Homer for Beginners. Iliad. Hook III. Edited, with introduction and notes, by. Clarendon Press, is. bd. Tolman, H. C. A Grammar of the Old Persian Language. E. Arnold. 41. 6d. Law. The Future Water Supply of Birmingham. Second edition. Simpkin, Marshall, is. net. Hewitt, Thomas. A Treatise on the Law relating to Corporation Duty, or the Duty on the Income of the Proper.'y of Bodies Corporate and Uncorporate. Butterworth, Fleet Street. Heywood, Judge. Courts Practice, 1892. Two vols. 2 5s. Sweet and Maxwell. MacLachlan, David. A Treatise on the Law of Merchant Shipping. Fourth edition, zl. zs. Paterson, James. The Intoxicating Liquor Licensing Acts, 1872, 1874, with introduction, notes, and index. Ninth edition. Shaw and Sons, Fetter Lane. 10s. Pollock, Sir Frederick. Leading Cases done into English, aud other Diversions. MacmiUan. 3s. bd. Rickards, A. G., and Saunders, R. C. Locus Standi Reports: Cases decided by the Court of Referees on Private Bills in Parliament during the Sessions 1890 and 1851. (In continuation of Rickards and Michael's and Clifford and Riekards's reports.) Butterworth and Co., Fleet Street. Royal 8vo., 18s. Whitehead, Benjamin. Church Law. A concise dic- tionary of statutes, canons, regulations, and decided eases affecting the clergy and laity. Stevens and Sons. I os. bd. Williams, James, B.C.L. FCdueation; a Manual of Practical Law. Adam and Charles Black. Science. Curtis, Charles E., F.S.I. The Manifestation of Disease in Forest Trees; the Causes and Itemedies. Horace Cox, the Field Office, Bream's Buildings, F].C. i«. Greene, Professor DasCOM. Introduction to Spherical aud Practical Astronomy. E. Arnold. 7s. bd. Kneipp, Sebastian. My Water Cure, tested for more than 35 years, and published for the Cure of Diseases and the Preservation of Health. Translated from the 36th German edition. II. Grevel and Co., 33, King Street, Covent Garden. Neumann, L. G. A Treatise 011 the Parasites and Parasitic Diseases of the Domesticated Animals. Translated and edited by George Fleming, C.B., LL.D., F'.H.C.V.S., late principal veterinary surgeon of the British Army. Bailliere, Tindall, and Cox, King William Street, Strand. 2 5s. Semple, C. F". A. Elements of Materia Medica and Therapeutics. Longmans. 10s. bd. Wormell, Richard, D.Sc. Mensuration, Lectures or. Sound, and Lectures on Light ; elementary text-books for Students. ¥.. Arnold, is. each. Parliamentary Papers. Correspondence relating to the Relief of Agricultural Distress in India in 1891-92 (td.~). Copy of the Report of the Committee on Grants to University Colleges in Great Britain (id.). Descriptive List of Standards of Weight and Measure deposited with the Board of Trade and of the Instrumental Equipment of the Standards Oflice(2f/.). Return as to Canals and Navi- gations under the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888 (id). Return as to Shipments of Coal, Cinders, &c. (id.). Treasury Minute relating to Army Votes (.^(/.). Report on the "Abyssinia" F'ire (1 }</.). Ordinances by the Scottish Universities Commissioners as to the Graduation and Instruction of Women (irf.). And as  ## p. 422 (#826) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. to Assistants ami Lecturers (id.)- Emigrants' Infor- mation Circulars for Canada, Australasia, and South Africa j Reports to the Board of Agriculture on the Plague of Field Mice or Voles in the South of Scot- land. Telegraphic Correspondence respecting Seal Fishing in Behring Sen during the season of 1892 (2d.). Copy of a Despatch from Her Majesty's Minister at Washington, enclosing a Treaty between Great Britain and the United States for Arbitration concerning the Seal Fisheries in Behring Sea (id.). Minutes of Evidence taken before the Koyal Commis- sion on the Redemption of Tithe Rcntohaige in England and Wales (is. 6</.). Rule made by the Secretary of Stntc for the Dietaries of the Prisons in England and Wales (i<A). Copies of Reports by the Board of Trade upon the Birmingham Corporation and Swansea Corporation Water Bills (\d. each). Poor Relief, England and Wales, Amount expended during the half-year ended Lady-day, 1891 (3d.). Compara- tive Statement of Pauperism for January (ild). Rule by the Board of Trade under the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888 (3d.). Statement as to Sales and Leases of Foreshores by the Crown (2jd.). Annual Accounts of the Royal Army Clothing Factory for 1890-91 (9$d.). First Report from the Committee of Public Accounts (2id.). Irish Land Commission— Rules issued in August, 1891 (6d.). Annual Returns of the Volunteer Corps of Great Britain for 1891 (3\d,). Census of Ireland. Part I., Vol. III., Ulster, No. 6, Fermanagh, 6d. Declarations made by Great Britain with Belgium respecting North Sea Fisheries, and with France for the Regulation of the Telephonic Service; Treaty with Spain for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade; Protocol with Uruguay for the Mutual Extradition of Fugitive Criminals j Agreement with Tonga as to the Trial of British Subjects, and with Persia as to Telegraphic Communication between Europe and India (id. each). Agricultural Produce Statistics of Great Britain, 1891 (43d.). Return show- ing the working of the regulations made in 1886 for carrying out the Prosecution of Offences Acts, 1879 and 1884 (is.). Special Report from the Select Com- mittee on Railway Servants' Hours of Labour, with proceedings of the Committee and minutes of evidence, (is. ajd.). Further Correspondence respecting the Behring Sea Seal Fisheries (is. io|d.). Irish Land Commission, Return of proceedings during January (id.). Report of the Intermediate Education Board for Ireland for 1891 (4</.). Census of Ireland, Parti., Vol. III. Ulster, No. 3, Cavau (6d.). Naval Defence Act, 1889. Accounts, 1890-91 (li</.). Return as to Laws or Regulations affecting the Hours of Adult Labour in the Colonies, with particulars as to hours and wages in various industries (7'/.). Correspon- dence respecting Commercial Treaties and Tariffs 4s. id. Report of Mr. W. Bcattic Scott, Inspector of Mines for the South Staffordshire district under the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1887, the Metalliferous Mines Regulation Acts, 1872 and 1875, and the Slate Mines (Gunpowder) Act, 1882, for the year 1891 (3d.). Census of Ireland, 1891, Part I., area, houses, population, &c.; Vol. II., Province of Munster, No. 6. County and City of Waterford (7s.). Memorandum on the Proposed Grant for Higher Education (id.). Diplomatic and Consular Reports:—(1) Russia: Agriculture of the Consular District of Taganrog (id.). (2) France: The Trade of Bordeaux (23d.) j (3) Austria - Hungary: Vine Culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Jd.). Accounts relating to Trade and Navigation of the United Kingdom for March (6d.). Memorandum under the Naval Defence Act, 1889 (9d.). Account relating to National Debt Annuities ($d.V Seventh Report of the Trade and Treaties Committee, containing Translation of the French Customs Tariff Law of January 11, 1892, showing the duties now leviable under the new General and Minimum Tariffs of 1892 and those leviable under the Conventional Tariff of 1882 (6d.). Ninth Repoit of the Trade aud Treaties Committee, containing Translation of the Tariffs Annexed to the Treaties between Various Central European Powers, with a comparison between the old aud the new rates leviable on importations from the United Kingdom (7W.). Report from the Select Committee on the Plumbers' Registration Bill (id.). Pauperism (England and Wales) Return (A), Com- parative Statement (ijrf.). Diplomatic and Consular Reports on Trade and Finance:—(1) United States: the Trade of Baltimore and District in 1891 (ijd.); (2) Russia: the Trade of Riga in 1891 (2d.) j (3) The Netherlands: the Finances of Netherlands-India (1 3d.); (4) Paraguay: Finances and General State of the Republic (ijd.). Annual Accounts of the Ord- nance Factories for 1890-91, with Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon (is. %\d.). Irish Land Commission—Return of Proceedings during February (id.). Return of Proceedings under the Lord Chancellor's Augmentation Act from February si, 1890, to February 18, 1892 (\d.). Foreign Office Annual Series—Report for 1891 on the Agriculture of the Consular District of New Orleans (lod.). Diplo- matic and Consular Reports—(1) Finances of Turkey and the Administration of the Ottoman Public Debt (ijd.); (2) the Foreign Trade of Italy for 1891 (id.). Alien Immigration Return for March. Pier aud Harbour Provisional Orders. Monthly List of Parlia- mentary Papers. Correspondence respecting the Re- volution in Chili (2s. 35d.). Further Correspondence respecting the Condition of the Populations in Asiatic Turkey (9d.). National Debt (Savings Banks aud Friendly Societies) Accounts (2d.). Terms and Condi- tions of Service in the Army—Minutes of Evidence taken before Committee (5i. 6d.). Notes exchanged between England and France for the renewal of the Modus Vivendi in Newfoundland (4d.). Reports on the Cultivation of the Spanish Chestnut. Copy of the Annual Report of the Director of the National Gallery to the Treasury for the year 1891. Return of all Loans raised in England chargeable on the Revenues of India, outstanding at the commencement of the half- year ended March 3i, 1892. Return—County Courts Sittings (England and Wales) (is. 9:id.). Memorandum on the proposed Grant for Higher Education in Scot- land (id.). Government Insurances aud Annuities, Accounts made during the year ended December, 1891 (id.) Order of the Board of Trade creating the Milford Haven Sea Fisheries District (id.). Copy of the Report by Major Marindin on the Fatal Accident on October 16 at Weyhill Station, on the Midland and South-Western Junction Railway, uiul upon the Hours of Duty of the Company's Servants (34d.). Repoi t of Board of Trade Inquiry into Complaints against the Great Northern (Ireland) Railway (\d.). Return, Railways—Trams Passing over Single Lines (id.). Return as to Agra- rian Offences in Ireland in 1891 (lid.). Board of Trade Order creating the Devon Sea Fisheries District (ijd.). Report on Mines in West Scotland District (No. 2) for 1891 (9jd.). Foreign Office Anuual Scries—Report on the Financial Condition of the Argentine Republic (6d.)—Eyre and Spottiswoode.  ## p. 423 (#827) ############################################ ADVERTISEMENTS. 4 THE AUTHORS' SYNDICATE. THIS Association is established for the purpose of syndicating or selling the serial rights of authors in magazines, journals, and newspapers. It has now been at work for more than a year, and has transacted a very satisfactory amount of business during this period. It has also entered upon a great number of engagements for the future. The following points are submitted for consideration :— 1. The management is voluntary and unpaid. No one makes any profit out of the Syndicate, except the authors who use its services. 2. The commission charged on the amounts received covers the expenses of clerks, travellers, rent, and printing. As work increases this may be still further reduced. 3. Only the serial rights are sold for the author. He reserves his volume rights and copyright. 4. The Syndicate has an American agent. 5. The Syndicate will only work for members of the Society. 6. Its offices are on the same floor as those of the Society, and its assistance and advice are always at the service of the Society. 7. Authors are warned that no syndicating is possible for them until they have already attained a certain amount of popularity. 8. The Syndicate acts as agent in every kind of literary property. W. MORRIS COLLES. 4, Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields.  ## p. 424 (#828) ############################################ 424 ADVERTISEMENTS. Not Work, but Play. Leave the drudgery of the Pen-Soiled Fingers—Blotted and Obscure Manuscript, to those who prefer darkness to light. Quick, up-to-date writers use THE BAR-LOCK TYPE-WRITER. Why? Easiest Managed; Soonest Learned; Most Durable; Writing Always Visible; does best work, and never gets out of repair. Chosen, by Royal Warrant, Type-Writer to the Queen. Only gold medals--- Edinburgh (1890) and Jamaica (1891) Exhibitions; is used in principal Government Departments, and greatest number of English business houses, and by the Society of Authors. We send interesting supply of further information free. THE TYPE-WRITER COMPANY, LIMITED, 12 & 14, Queen Victoria Street, London, E.C.; 22, Renfield Street, Glasgow. Local Agents in all Districts, THE AUTHOR'S HAIRLESS PAPER-PAD. (THE LEADENHALL PRESS, LTD., E.C.) Contains hairless paper, over which the pen slips with perfect freedom. Sirpence each : 58. per dozen, ruled or plain. MISS R. V. GILL, TYPE-WRITING OFFICES, 6, Adam Street, Strand, W.C. MRS. GILL, TYPE-WRITING OFFICE, 35, LUDGATE HILL, E.C. (ESTABLISHED 1883.) Authors' MSS. carefully copied from is. per 1,000 words. Plays, &c., Is. 3d. per 1,000 words. Reference kindly permitted to Walter Besant, Esq. Stickphast Authors' and Dramatists' Work a Specialty. All kinds MISS PATTEN, of MSS. copied with care. Extra attention given to difficult TYPIST, haud-writing and to papers or lectures on scientific subjects. 44, Oakley Street Flats, Chelsea, s.W. Type-writing from dictatior. Shorthand Notes taken and transcribed. AUTHORS' MSS. CAREFULLY TRANSCRIBED. REFERENCES KINDLY PERMITTED TO George AUGUSTUS SALA, Esq. FURTHER PARTICULARS ON APPLICATIO.V. Particulars on Application. MES DAMES BRETT AND BOWSER, TYPISTS, Selborne Chambers, Bell Yard, Temple Bar. Authors' MSS. carefully and expeditiously copied, 18. per PASTE 1,000 words. Extra carbon copies half price. References for joining papers and sticking in scraps : kindly permitted to Augustine Birrell, Esq., M.P. Sixpence and One Shilling, with strong useful brush. THE AUTHORS' AGENCY. Established 1879. Proprietor, Mr. A. M. BURGHES, 1. Paternoster Row. The interests of Authois capably represented. Proposed agreements and estimates examined on behalf of Authors. MS. placed with Publishers. Transfers carefully conducted. Twenty-five years' practical experience in all kinds of publishing and book producing. Consultation free. Terms and testimonials from leading Authors on application to Mr. A. M. Burghes, Authors' Agent, 1, Paternoster Row. LONDON: Printed by EYRE and SPOTTISWOODE, Printers to the Queen's most Excellent Majesty. 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. 02 Issue 12 (May 1892) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 02 Issue 12 (May 1892) 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 1892-05-02-The-Author-2-12 publications The Author