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Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1895-07-01 Volume 6 Issue 2 Pages Page range in volume 29–52 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18950701 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin C be El u t b or, (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) C O N DU CTED BY W.A. L TER BES A N T. VoI. VI.-No. 2.] JULY 1, 1895. [PRICE SIXPENCE. For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are responsible. None of the papers or para- graphs must be taken as eaſpressing the collective opinions of the committee unless they are officially signed by G. Herbert Thring, Sec. HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and requests that all members not receiving an answer to important communications within two days will write to him without delay. All remittances show.ld be crossed Union Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered letter only. Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub- jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS. e- “ - WARNINGS AND ADWICE, I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.—It is not generally understood that the author, as the vendor, has the absolute right of drafting the agreement upon whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out. Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In every form of business, this among others, the right of drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or has the control of the property. 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.—In selling Serial Rights remember that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you object to this, insert a clause to that effect. 3. STAMP You R AGREEMENTS. – Readers are most URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected for two weeks, a fine of £Io must be paid before the agree- ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The author may be assured that the other party to the agree- ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society, to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of members stamped for them at no ea pense to themselves eaccept the cost of the stamp. 4. AscERTAIN what A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES TO BOTH SLDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi- ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party WOL. VI. refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he reserved for himself. 5. LITERARY AGENTs.—Be very careful. Yow cannot be too careful as to the person whom you appoint as your agent. Remember that you place your property almost un- reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alome. 6. CoST OF PRODUCTION.--Never sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, until you have proved the figures. 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.–Never enter into any cor- respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad- vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced friends or by this Society. r 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. IO. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a M.S. has been re- fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises they may put forward, for the production of the work. II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the publisher, unless for a substantial consideration. 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper, either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright, without advice. I3. ADVERTISEMENTS. —- Keep some control over the advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in the agreement. I4. 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. Be yourself a business man. Society’s Offices :- 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN's INN FIELDs. *- -** - * ~s HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY. I. VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub. lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his business or the administration of his property. If the advice sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the case is such that Counsel’s opinion is desirable, the Com- mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this without any cost to the member. 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright and publisher's agreements do not generally fall within the experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple D 2  ## p. (#384) ################################################ 3O THE AUTHOR. to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually engaged upon such questions for us. 3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree- ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor- mation thus obtained may prove invaluable. 4. If the examination of your previous business trans- actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should take advice as to a change of publishers. 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro- posed document to the Society for examination. 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish- ing firm in the country. 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen- dence of the writer. 8. Send to the Editor of the Author notes of everything important to literature that you may hear or meet with. 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of members’ agreements and their preservation in a fireproof safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con- fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:—(1) To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments due according to agreements. *- - --> THE AUTHORS' SYNDICATE, EMBERS are informed : I. That the Authors’ Syndicate takes charge of the business of members of the Society. That it submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree- ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene- rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business details. 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured will be forwarded upon detailed application. 3. That the Authors' Syndicate works only for those members of the Society whose work possesses a market value. 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia- tions are placed eaclusively in its hands, and that all communications relating thereto are referred to it. 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days’ notice should be given. . 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi- cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent to defray postage. 7. That the Authors' Syndicate does not invite MSS. without previous correspondence ; does not hold itself responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray postage. 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for lectures by some of the leading members of the Society; that it has a “Transfer Department’’ for the sale and purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register of Wants and Wanted * is open. Members are invited to communicate their requirements to the Manager. There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in the Syndicate. *~ * ==* -*. NOTICES. HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the Society that, although the paper is sent to them free of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest 6s. 6d. subscription for the year. The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and communications on all subjects connected with literature from members and others. Nothing can do more good to the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive, and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this work send their names and the special subjects on which they are willing to write P Communications for the Author should reach the Editor not later than the 21st of each month. All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether members of the 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 under- stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances, undertake the publication of MSS. The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for information, rules of admission, &c. Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker's order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the trouble of sending out a reminder. Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding 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 he was honest or dishonest? Of course they would not. Why then hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them- selves into literary bondage for three or five years P Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15 per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands at £948. The figures in our book are as near the exact truth as can be procured; but a printer's, or a binder’s, bill is so elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be arrived at. Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged in the “Cost of Production” for advertising. Of course, we have not included any sums which may be charged for inserting advertisements in the publisher's own magazines,  ## p. (#385) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 31 or in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket, by inserting any number of advertisements in his own magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it. *-- ~~~ sº-sº" ºr *s LITERARY PROPERTY. I.—ADDRESS BY MIR. HALL CAINE. * OLLOWING the annual meeting of members F of the Retail Newsagents’ and Booksellers' Union, which was held yesterday morning at Stationers' Hall, Ludgate-hill, under the presidency of Mr. C. Roberts (Brompton), a mass meeting of the trade was held in the evening in the same hall, for the purpose of hearing an address by Mr. Hall Caine, “upon his experience of the present unfair conditions existing in the bookselling trade.” There was a large attendance, members being present from all parts of the country. Letters regretting inability to be present were read by the general secretary (Mr. E. Gowing Scopes) from Sir George Newnes, who was absent on a political mission on the Con- tinent ; from Mr. B. Quaritch, and Mr. Mudie. A telegram was also received to a similar effect from Mr. Zangwill on account of ill-health. Mr. Hall Caine, who was received with applause, stated that there was no better maxim than the old and trite one that union was strength, and there was no body of men who had more reason to remember it than the booksellers of the United Kingdom. Therefore he began by congratulating them on the organisation of book- sellers which they had met that night to inaugu- rate. Never in the history of English booksellers had there been more need for organisation, because the condition of the trade of the book- seller had hardly ever been so bad. It was not to be accounted for on any of the ordinary principles of commercial law. On the one hand they had an enormous increase of population during the past half-century, an enormous increase of wealth, and an enormous increase of the reading public ; and, on the other hand, they had an appalling decline in the number of booksellers throughout the kingdom. More than that, the past half century had witnessed a complete change in the character of the bookseller's business. Fifty years ago the bookseller was a seller of books only. His shop was lined with books, his counters were covered and his windows were filled with them. Bookselling was a lively industry in those days. It existed by itself, and was a profitable and an honourable, and even a dignified and distinguished business. That con- * dition was a thing of the past. There were hardly a score of such book shops remaining in the provinces. The other book shops were small- wares or fancy goods shops first, and book shops afterwards. No longer did books line the walls, cover the counters, and fill the windows. Children's dolls and air balls, ladies’ purses and hand-bags, inkstands and Japanese fans had usurped the places which knew the new books mo more. The bookseller was not to blame. He would rather sell books than nick-nacks if he were able to do so and to exist. It was not from choice that he had descended from the estate of bookseller to that of the keeper of a little Moorish bazaar. He would tell them that, as a dealer in new books, he could not exist, and that he was compelled to supplement his bookselling business with these humbler auxiliary aids. Yet more books were sold to-day than at any previous time. The sales of the classic literature in cheap editions were now very great indeed, and the sales of new books, of new novels for example, were beyond comparison larger than in the best days even of Dickens. Where lay the mischief that was crushing the local booksellers out of existence P CONCERNING THE DISCOUNT BOOKSELLER, Ten or more years ago a number of booksellers in the heart of London began to sell new books to the public at the great discount of 25 per cent. They had an enormous success, because they made large businesses with a rapid turn- over. But the heart of London was the only scene for such an enterprise. To the local book- seller such terms were impossible. He could not give 25 per cent. discount and keep a roof over his head. His customers demanded that discount on pain of leaving him. He gave it in some cases, and so died hard. Many of his class were thus crushed out of life, but not until they had inflicted a heavy blow on the great discount houses of London. These houses were not as a whole so prosperous now as they were a few years ago. They had suffered severely in exter- minating the local bookseller. (Hear, hear.) No system of bookselling that was centralised in London would ever work for the book trade as the old local bookselling system worked; large as the increase in the sales of books had been during the past half century, it was not at all Com- mensurate with the increase in population and in the taste for reading. The old bookseller with his local shop was the only agency yet found that seemed to be at all capable of making the |book trade of to-day what it ought to be. (Hear, hear.) With the whole book trade feeling the injury which was said by many to have been  ## p. (#386) ################################################ 32 THE AUTHOR. inflicted by the discount business a remedy had been suggested. This was the net-book remedy. So far as he understood it, the proposal was that a new book should be sold met at the published price, and that the bookseller should be allowed 20 per cent. for selling it. But here, again, the local bookseller was at a disadvantage in Com- petition with his London fellow tradesman. The 20 per cent. which was enough for the London bookseller was not enough for the local bookseller, with his greater expenses of “laying down '' and his smaller sales. The net-book system had much to recommend it, but it needed the readjustment of its terms. (Applause.) “ UNBRIDIED GREED' contROVERSY. — REMAIRECABLE FIGURES. This first explanation of the decline of the book trade (that it had suffered from the big discount businesses) touched points with which he was not entirely competent to deal, but the other explana- tion of that decline, the popular explanation, the explanation which had been making so much noise of late, was one on which he might quite modestly but confidently claim to be as good an authority at this moment as any other man what- ever. Continuing, Mr. Hall Cane said: It is being circulated very industriously that the book- trade is declining because authors have been THE Squeezing the publishers, who in turn have had to squeeze the booksellers. The charge appears to have taken shape in the speech of my friend and comrade Edmund Gosse, but it has been backed up by the extraordinary letters of Mr. Fisher Unwin, Mr. Burleigh of the Associated Booksellers, and other wise and well-informed persons in the Times, Daily News, and else- where. May I be so bold as to say that during the past few months it has been my painful duty to forget more about the financial relations of author and publisher than it has yet fallen to Mr. Gosse's much happier lot to learn ? But I have remembered enough to give you to-night certain exact figures which neither Mr. Gosse, nor Mr. Fisher Unwin, nor any of their brother critics and publishers will be quite so courageous as to question, because they are the figures of pub- lishers themselves, the best publishers, supplied to me for my personal use in another connection, but honestly and properly available for the rebutting of a damaging and unfounded charge. We are told that the “unbridled greed” of the author is killing the book trade; but these are the exact facts. A 6s. novel costs to print and bind about Is. a copy; if produced in good numbers, it can be done for a penny less; it sometimes costs a penny more. To advertise a successful novel a publisher may spend two pence a copy, but where he knows his business, and where the sales are in twenties and thirties of thousands, he does not usually spend nearly so much. The author's royalties on a 6s. novel vary from 15 per cent. to 25 per cent., and in only two known instances have authors received more. This royalty is on the published price, but usually with the condition that thirteen copies count as twelve. Thus the payment of the most highly-paid of English novelist—two novelists excepted—is 1s. 4d. per copy. So the writing, printing, binding, and advertising of a popular 6s. novel has cost 2s. 6;d. That is the gross outlay. PUBLISHERs' PROFITs. Now, what is received for the book P I will quote from a paper in the handwriting of one of our great publishers. The full price paid for a 6s, book is 4s. 2d. less 5 per cent, thirteen copies as twelve, namely, 3s. 8d. The lowest wholesale price paid is 4s. less 7% per cent. or Io per cent., thirteen as twelve, namely, 3s. 4d. Therefore, the average earnings to the publisher who has distributing agencies of his own are 3s. 6d., or a fraction under. Thus the profit to the publisher on a successful 6s. book, which pays 25 per cent. to the author, is I Id. a copy. But the smaller local bookseller does not buy at even 3s. 8d. Being a purchaser of small numbers, and often requiring credit, he buys from one of the great distributing agencies, and pays from 4s. to 4s. 2d. for his 6s. book. Now, this book—upon which he must pay carriage from London—he is expected to sell, and often does sell, at 4s. 6d. in order to keep pace with his brother publisher in the heart of London. These are the figures, I believe the exact figures. I have not quoted them from one authority only, but from at least six excellent authorities, all publishers; and none of my authorities will question my right to use them, for they were supplied in the open spirit of men who had nothing to conceal or fear. But the figures show—first, that the local bookseller's profits are reduced to the miserably inadequate sum of 3; d. ; next, that the author's earnings reach the modest sum of Is. 4d. ; again, that the printing and binding of a book costs no more than Is. ; and finally, that the gross cost of pro- ducing a book is often as low as 2s. 6; d., and the expense of distributing it is often as high as Is. 7#d, After this we ought to hear no more of the “unbridled greediness” of authors, and of the accusation that authors are squeezing the booksellers. While Is. 7#d. is the cost of dis- tributing a 6s. book to the local booksellers, the public and the trade may know where the shoe pinches. (Loud applause.)  ## p. (#387) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 33 SU GGESTED REMEDIES. For this ruinous condition, asked Mr. Hall Caine, what was the remedy ? The first and easiest remedy lay in the hands of the more suc- cessful author. He did not squeeze the retail bookseller, and neither was it to his interest that anybody else should squeeze him. In his agreements he ought to be assured that the book- seller should have his book at a living wage. (Loud applause.) This condition had been offered to him by more than one of the best publishers, and he should most certainly see that it formed a clause in any agreement he should make in the future, (Renewed applause.) That would mean, as far as it went, the reduction of the earnings of the middlemen. (Hear, hear.) The next remedy lay with the booksellers them- selves. By uniting their forces they might go in a body to the publishers, and say, “Give us a profit upon which we can exist.” That, he under- stood, was what they intended to do. The effect of this protest, if it succeeded, would be to reduce the number of the middlemen. Books would have to pass through fewer hands. Either the “new” publisher himself or his wholesale dis- tributing agency would eventually have to go. If they asked him which, he could not hesitate to reply the “new” publisher. (Applause.) The distributing agencies (agencies like Messrs. W. H., Smith and Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.) were often the only real publishers. They were the only people who were doing the useful and necessary work of distribution, except in the few instances of the active publishers who were distributing for themselves both at home and abroad. They were earning their wages, and neither the book trade nor the authors could have the slightest desire to disturb them. But cer- tainly their protest would exterminate certain of the “new” publishers, men who rented two rooms somewhere, and without machinery of any visible kind, and almost without visible capital, carried on noisy and apparently profitable businesses by the sole help of the great and powerful distri- buting agencies. A MODERN IN WIENTION. The third remedy lay deeper down, and might appear to be more dangerous to touch. It was a remedy which they would employ as a last resource, and with the consciousness of its risks and difficulties—he meant the remedy of doing without the publisher altogether. It was not for them to undervalue the real live publisher, though they thought his relations both with authors and with booksellers stood in need of reconsideration. (Cheers.) But there were just two parties neces- sary to the production of a book—the man who made it, and the man who sold it to the public. The publisher was a modern invention. He did. not exist, as such, in England as recently as the days of Dr. Johnson. Authors then talked of writing for the booksellers, not for the publishers, and they must not suppose that bookseller and publisher were equivalent terms. A bookseller in Johnson's time was what he still was—a man who sold books over his counter, not a publisher who distributed books which other people were to sell. There was no middleman in those days to stand between the man who wrote the book and the man who sold it to the public. And it was to this excellent condition that they might be com- pelled to return in part, if not altogether. (Loud cheers.) Bookselling was in a thriving state then, and, Grub-street notwithstanding, authors were not so often starved out of existence as they were now. (Hear, hear.) It had hardly ever been in a thriving state since. It was now in a more deplorable condition than at any time, per- haps, since the great failure which involved Scott in ruin. He had shown them where the money went which was made by books, and he urged them to reflect whether it might not be to the advan- tage of the only two parties essential to the pro- duction of books that they might sometimes come closer together. If they could do so—if they could dispense with the services of the interme- diaries, they must both be gainers by the change. The author could afford to give the bookseller a profit such as he has never had in the history of English bookselling, and yet keep a greater profit for himself than he had ever been paid in the history of English publishing. Booksellers and authors would be dividing the profits not of one middleman merely, but of two middlemen. Mr. Longman looked with amused indifference towards any attempt to dispense with the third estate in the republic of letters. But they, on their part, were disposed to believe that the publisher could occasionally be dispensed with ; and now that the booksellers of the kingdom were banding together in this Association, the means of touch with the trade (which hitherto was a scattered one only to be reached by the expensive machinery of travellers) was becoming simple and easy. And if an author might publish his book for himself, if by help of a business representative, a clerk, and a cashier, he might send it direct from the printer and bookbinder to the shop of the book- seller, he would not only put more into the book- seller's pocket and more into his own pocket on each copy sold, but he would enormously increase the chances of sale by vitalising the trade of book- selling, by restoring it to the condition of a living industry, and by insuring a wider distribution. (Loud cheers.)  ## p. (#388) ################################################ 34 THE AUTHOR. MR. RUSKIN’s ExPERIENCE. Their friends outside, their publishing friends, would do their best to smile and say that these were revolutionary measures. But they were not so revolutionary as they might appear to be. A few weeks ago he had the pleasure of discussing them with Mr. Ruskin, who many years ago foresaw the crisis in which they were now placed, and made an effort of his own to escape from it. What the merits were of Mr. Ruskin’s remedy it was not for him to say. The only remark he would make was that in an endeavour to abolish the publishers Mr. Ruskin created another publisher. (Hear, hear.) That was an obvious and immi- nent danger of any reform on the lines he had indicated. The other middleman always lay in wait for the reformer who rose up to exterminate the middleman. No doubt Mr. Ruskin had reason to be entirely satisfied with the results of his own experiment, but the great reform of the bookselling trade, if it ever came about, would go deeper than that, deeper than any discussion of net prices and discounts, or any settlement of the vexed question of thirteens—it would go to the very root of the existence of the publisher himself, as publisher apart from bookseller. If this reform should be attempted in a large way, if any considerable body of popular English authors should try to follow Mr. Ruskin’s lead with more technical knowledge and experience, whatever success or failure attended them, the responsi- bility for the change would rest with the publishers themselves. The publishers would have provoked it by starving the local bookseller out of existence, and by throwing the blame of that act upon the authors, and loftily threatening to “send them back to Grub-street.” Both book- sellers and authors were finding out that the real earnings of books were stopped midway between the producer and consumer, and that the services of the publisher in the fortunes of books were often the meanest sort of bogey set up to frighten them. Far be it from them to say that the publisher had not done and was not still doing in some cases excellent service to literature and to the trade of bookselling. He had suggested and fostered many noble literary enterprises; he had helped many worthy authors to recognition and recompense; and he had, by wise and merciful methods of business promoted the growth of the bookselling industry in many places. Far be it from them to undervalue the work of the real publisher, who, through many years, perhaps many generations, had gathered about his house a vast machinery of book distribution, and was in touch with the public and with the Press. But they need show no quarter to certain other types of publishers, who had no visible reason for their existence except that they passed a book on from the printer and bookbinder to the agency that was to distribute it. At all events he con- gratulated them heartily on their efforts at organisation, and he assured them that where their interests lie as booksellers there lay their interests as authors. Booksellers and authors must stand shoulder to shoulder. If he might dare to speak in general terms for his own craft it was not for their good that the local bookseller was being starved out of existence. (Applause.) It was to their interest that the bookseller, both in the country and in London, should work for a living wage—(applause)—that he should be encouraged to buy books in order that he might sell them ; that he should be able to exist by selling books alone and not by selling gimcracks and nick-nacks, and that his shop should be nowadays what it was in the days of their fathers and grandfathers—the centre of the intellectual life of the locality in which it was placed. (Loud applause.) Mr. E. Gowing-Scopes, the general secretary, at the invitation of the Chairman, entered into an explanation of the proposed Booksellers' Union. He had, he declared with apparent modesty, been for some time an “agitator’’ in the trade, one of the greatest needs and desires of which was to remove the burden of discount, If they had strength of purpose enough to combine together, no publishing house could stand against them and rob them of the profits which honestly belong to them. At that meeting representatives were pre- sent from every great centre in Great Britain— from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, and of the great centres of the industry. That night they had made a step in the right direction, for they had found a great author like Mr. Hall Caine who was bold enough to stand up and say, if they could not induce those who stood between them to help them, that then they would stand shoulder to shoulder together as author and bookseller, and manage their own affairs. Under such circumstances a book might be produced at five shillings—at a fairer price to the public, for after all, six shillings was a big lump for the public to pay for a book which costs one shilling to produce—and at the lesser price bring a better profit to the author and to the seller. It seemed to him wrong that a publisher, who did merely mechanical work, should take as great a share of profit as the author who worked on a novel one or two years and took all the risks of success or failure. It appeared, indeed, as if there was an opening for an authors' union. (Laughter and applause.) He hoped to see the union for which they had long waited successfully established. He hoped also to induce Mr. Caine to help them to  ## p. (#389) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 35 form an author's committee that should act in conjunction with the National Association of Booksellers, and he knew that at least four or five of the leading authors were willing to combine with Mr. Caine in the effort he was ready to undertake. Mr. C. Roberts moved, “That in the opinion of this meeting it is expedient to form a National Association of Booksellers for the purpose of of acting upon the scheme suggested for the aboli- tion of the discount system.” Mr. J. C. Mather seconded the resolution, which was carried with acclamation.—Daily News, June 5. II.-LECTURING IN AMERICA. I observed a passage in last month’s Author which speaks of the gains to be made by lecturing in America. It is a subject upon which there has been a great deal of exaggeration, and I think that a few words upon it may not be amiss— the more so as my name was coupled with the remarks. Anyone who goes to America with the intention of seeing the place and the people, and counts on no more from his lectures than the payment of his expenses, will have a most enjoyable experience. He will come back with enlarged ideas, with a pleasant remembrance of hospitality received and with new friendships, which he will hope to retain until they are old ones. But if he goes with the primary idea of making money he will be disappointed. Thackeray and Dickens made money, and when we have another Thackeray and Dickens they may do the same; but the British lecturer whose credentials are more modest will find that the margin left over, after his expenses are paid, is probably a less sum than he could have easily earned in his own study. In the extract to which I refer from your American correspondence, the sum of 500 dollars a lecture is mentioned. This is nonsense. Taking an average a fifth part of it would be nearer the mark, which is no more than could be obtained from the better class provincial societies in Great Britain. For argument’s sake, however, let us put the American average at 125 dollars. When the agent's commission of 15 per cent, and the high travelling and hotel expenses have been paid, the lecturer will probably have from 80 to 85 dollars clear. Allow him four lectures a week, and we have from 320 to 350 dollars as his gain Two months of this will leave him something under 3000 dollars. From this he has to sub- tract his double passage-money, and about a month extra spent in the journey and prepara- tions. If the balance will exceed what he would WOT. WI. earn in the same period by his pen, it is then worth his while to go to America for money. If any brother author should go, however, I strongly recommend him to put his affairs in the hands of my friend, Major J. B. Bond, in whom they will find a very sympathetic comrade as well as a keen business manager. My own trip to America was one of the most pleasant experiences of my life, but if it had been the wish to earn more than I could have done at home which had attracted me thither, I should certainly have been disappointed. This would be a merely personal and unimportant matter, were it not that the mention of exaggerated sums in your pages might mislead and cause disappointment to some of your readers. A. CONAN DOYLE, Grand Hotel Belvedere, Davos-Platz, Switzerland. III.-A HUMOROUS AGREEMENT. Here is a pleasing offer: “I will take the entire responsibility of the production, advertis- ing, &c., of the work if you will agree to be responsible for 375 copies at 3s. 6d., or whatever number is needed to bring the total sales up to this quantity, if it has not been reached within six months after the date of publication; the publishel price to be 6s.” This offer is supple- mented by an explanation to the effect that an edition of 500 or 750 copies will be printed, and that “the royalty”—he says “the ” royalty, but does not explain what—will not begin for the author until the second edition is reached. How would the publisher stand in case of 700 copies, or the whole of the first edition, going off P - 38 s. d. He would receive from the author ... 65 12 6 From the trade ........................... 56 17 6 38.122 Io o From which we must deduct the cost of produc- tion. Probably, therefore, he would receive from £40 to £50 against the author's nil. - .. But, if he chose to keep back the book for six months, and then offered it for sale, he might clear the whole of the guarantee money, together with the proceeds of the sale. - This is a very humorous method of publishing. As for the second edition one need say nothing, because the amount of royalty is not stated, and because it is so extremely problematical. There is nothing fraudulent in such an offer: nothing to prevent any man making such an offer. He may argue that he guards against loss of money paid, and that as the book is very unlikely, from his own experience of such books as he publishes, to go into a second edition, or to sell many copies, E  ## p. (#390) ################################################ 36 THE AUTHOR. he means to pay himself for his personal trouble, which means a quarter of an hour's talk with the printer and for the use of his office, by laying his hand upon everything. Now and then he may light upon a prize; but very, very seldom. Do prizes come the way of this kind? IV.--THE OLD TRICK. Over and over again we have exposed the tricks of certain so-called publishers who live by making the unfortunate aspirant who falls into their hands pay for his book. The following is generally the order of events. 1. The writer sends up his MS. 2. He immediately receives back a letter in which the firm state that their reader has pro- nounced so favourably on the MS. that they are prepared to offer the “following exceptional terms.” The author is to pay £120, viz., 38o down, and £40 on receiving the last proof. For this they will produce an edition of 1250 copies; É. the author two thirds of the proceeds; and ring out future editions as they are demanded. The author to have half profits. The price to be 6s, 3. The author cannot afford £120. He says so. They reply instantly, that in consideration of the merit of the MS., they will knock off £30. Observe that all this is a mere form; the same reply is sent to everybody, the only alteration is in the figures. As for future editions they know very well that there will be, in all probability, no sale at all; their reader has not read it; and they are not going to print I 250 copies, or anything like it. In encouraging the author to believe that there will be this demand, they are deceiving him. Should there be anyone who has fallen into the pitfall and paid money on these representa- tions, perhaps he will send up the papers to the Secretary, who may be able to get some of hi money back for him. * W.—THE CANADIAN CoPYRIGHT QUESTION. When a person adopts false premises he is sure to arrive at absurd conclusions, and this has happened with Mr. Lancefield of the Copyright Association. He assumes as follows:– (1) That our copyright laws are for the benefit of printers and publishers, and not for the pro- tection of native authors, artists, and musicians, and the advancement of learning here, and that when a conflict arises between the interests of the instrumentalities employed and those of authors and artists themselves, the interests of the latter should be ignored and destroyed. (2) That where it may pay to print and publish books, music, &c., for a market of 2OO,OOO,OOO (the British Empire and foreign countries of the convention) or 65,000,000 (the |United States) it will also pay to print and publish for a market of 5,000,000 (Canada). (3) That because the civilised nations of the world have recognised the supreme right of an author to control the work of his own brain irrespective of all foreign printers and publishers, and because the terms of the international con- vention as to foreign printing and publishing do not suit half a dozen publishing houses and newspapers of Canada, the interests of Canadian art and literature must be sacrificed for all time by withdrawing Canada from the benefits of the convention and thus effect complete isolation of this country. (4) That if we had the Copyright Act demanded by the publishers, all of the 131 English and United States novels picked out by Mr. Lancefield as recently made, there would also have been made in Canada instead of the three, as actually the case. (5) That the Imperial Government, for selfish ends, tricked Canada, and forced the benefits derivable from the Berne Convention on our authors and artists against the earnest protests of the Canadian Government and the Minister of Justice. (6) That we have been unfairly deprived of our rights to legislate as to copyright, granted to us by the British North America Act of 1867. (7) That it is in the interests of the British author that cheap American reprints shall be excluded from Canada, so that he may be sure of getting IO per cent. on the higher prices to be extracted from the Canadian public by our pub- lishers. (8) That, as the United States are playing a game of “grab,” as Mr. Lancefield puts it Canada must pursue the same ignoble course, and that Canada must be isolated (although the United States, by foreign treaties, are not), until the Americans grant us reciprocity (as suggested by Mr. Lancefield) in their infinitely better book market. These are some of the assumptions we must swallow to adopt the platform of the Copyright Association of Canada. It must be distinctly understood that all the shouting has hitherto been done by half a dozen Canadian publishing houses and newspapers, and that this association comprises some twenty-six members, more than half of whom are inactive and indifferent; while there are 340 printing and publishing houses in the Dominion who do not care enough to pay 5 dollars to join the associa- tion. So much then for the labour cry and the deputations which besieged Sir John Macdonald  ## p. (#391) ################################################ THE AUTHOR, 37 and Sir John Thompson in the interests of pub- lishers and the labour party. As to printing and binding in Canada, there are very few authors who make enough out of Canada alone to pay for printing, binding, and commissions, the market is so limited; many of us can speak feelingly on this subject; so it is absurd to suppose that under any circumstances our publishers would print and bind more than 15 per cent. of the 131 novels referred to as printed in England and the United States, only three of which, as Mr. Lancefield bitterly com- plains, were made in Canada, and not even that much would they make if they had to pay the author say 500 or IOOO dollars royalty. Our publishers will take no chances or make tenders, as United States publishers do; they desire only to select the most catchy of the British or foreign novels on their own conditions and at their own prices. We have yet to learn that a fair offer was ever made to a British author by a Canadian publisher and that such offer was refused. Nothing can be more untrue than that the mother country wronged Canada in the matter of the Berne Convention. On the contrary, a vast benefit was conferred on native art and literature, and, moreover, the assent of the Canadian Government was freely given. See Sir John Thompson’s “Despatch on Canadian Copyright,” May, 1894. In 1887, when Canada became a party to the convention, the benefits likely to accrue to native art and literature were clearly recognised, and it was not till half a dozen publishing houses and newspapers found that the interests of foreign printers were postponed by the conven- tion to those of authors and artists the world over that the shouting commenced and the Printers’ Copyright Act of 1889 was forced on the Govern- ment. It is also untrue that Canada has been deprived of any rights granted the in matter of copyright under the British North America Act of 1867. This Act was known to be subject to the Colonial Ilaws Walidity Act of 1865 (Imp.), whereby no Colonial Act can amend or repeal an Imperial Act conferring privileges within Canada, as was well understood. It must be kept in mind that the whole dispute is with reference to the printing of cheap novels and serial novels in newspapers, of the “Dodo" and “Trilby’’ class, and of European and American musical works. Were it not for the shouting of half a dozen publishing houses and newspapers and the falsely-alleged interests of trades and labour councils in the matter, even Mr. J. D. Edgar, M.P., would admit that the vast market opened up by the Berne Convention afforded such facilities for the growth and re- muneration of Canadian art and literature that we are under lasting obligations to the mother country. John G. RIDouT. Toronto. — Toronto Globe, June 12, 1895. *-* ~ * -- - -, NOTES FROM PARIS. F I may be allowed to say a few words pro I domo, I should like to contradict the report that I am writing “the story of Daudet's youth.” This I did to the best of my ability about a year ago. What I am writing, in collabo- ration with M. Alphonse Daudet, is a story of the great novelist's youth, the story of some adven- tures which he had on the Rhone when he was quite a lad, in company of his little cousin Léonce. As Mme. de Genlis would have called this book, had she been writing it, it is the story of “Alphonse and Léonce ; or, the Victims of Imagination.” This work was finished on Wednesday last, after a sitting of five hours, the day previous to Daudet's departure to Champrosay, where he means to set hard at work upon his new novel: “Ie Soutien de Famille.” M. Daudet has specially asked me to deny that he ever made the offensive statement, concerning English women, which was attributed to him by a Parisian reporter. It appears that this reporter was one of the many whom Daudet was unable to receive. He wrote his interview all the same, like a true new journalist, and put the offending words into Daudet's mouth. What Daudet really said, to another reporter, was that he preferred the way in which French ladies dressed. There is no doubt that the Parisian élégante does dress with better taste, especially in point of selection of colours, than her English sister, and that this is so is the just punishment of English snobbishness. Almost all our élégantes think it indispensable to dress in Paris, and are supplied with the leavings of the French ladies. Go with a Parisienne to some big dressmaker's in Paris, and ask to be shown the latest fashions, and it is ten to one that you will see some very ugly materials. “Oh, don’t look at that,” the dress- maker will say, “that is for our foreign customers.” So the unhappy foreigh customers get served with what no Parisienne would wear, and go about imagining themselves dressed in the height of Barisian fashion. It serves them right. Let the Englishwoman dress at home, and let the foolish French dressmaker be. Zola is working very hard at “Rome.” He is down at Médan, “cloistered in work,” as he  ## p. (#392) ################################################ 38 THE AUTHOR. writes me in a note which I have just received from him. He has begged his friends not to come near him, “at least, not for another fortnight, until the fever has assuaged itself.” I suppose that we shall not see him again until the begin- ning of July, when he will preside over the monthly meeting of the Société des Gens de Lettres. - Monsieur de Goncourt is working at the third volume of his series on Japanese painters. This kind of work he considers rest, as compared to the effort required for the production of a novel. But he has by no means definitely abandoned the novel, and I believe has it in mind to write a book which shall be the confirmation of his theories. He is a wonderful old man, as energetic as most men thirty years his junior, and full of work. I sometimes doubt the sincerity of his unvarying apparent discontent. . The vegetarians must not ask M. Maxime JBouchor, the poet and dramatist, to speak well of their theories. Monsieur Boucher converted him- self to vegetarianism some months ago, and very nearly died in consequence. He is now making up for lost time with beefsteaks à la Tartare and other most carnal delights. Francisque Sarcey, on the other hand, has become a confirmed vegetarian, and, with the enthusiasm of the convert, tries to win others over to this régime, He says that since he gave up eating meat his capacity for work has doubled. At a literary re-union the other night, there being many leading novelists present, I asked whether the practice of writing fiction disposed an author to untruthfulness in ordinary life. The general opinion was that this was not the case, but this I am inclined to doubt. I should like to have other opinions on the subject. A man who tells stories professionally must, it seems to me, lose, to a certain extent, the percep- tion of truth. - Maurice Barrés has recently returned from Spain and the T3alearic Islands. He says that Daudet is most popular in Spain, and that at Majorca, his “La Derniére Classe” is familiar to everybody. It has been adapted to local condi- tions. It is a Balearic schoolmaster who gives the last lesson to his class in the Balearic patois before the law enforcing Spanish in these islands as the language in which the children are to be taught at the schools has been promulgated. Daudet was very happy when he heard this, for he has always been greatly attached to these islands, and has often told me that it was the dream and ambition of his life to end his days there. - Max Nordau, the author of “Degeneration,” is at present at work on a novel, “I shan’t write another philosophical work for some years,” he said to me. “I don’t want to be nailed down to any speciality.” When his novel is finished he will write a play, and then perhaps another novel. I should say that there is a great deal of work in Max Nordau yet. He is only forty-six; and as hale a man as one can wish to see. He began writing when he was twelve years old, and made money with his pen when he was fourteen. At the age of eighteen he was keeping all his family, and indeed was earning as much as a thousand francs a month, quite a fortune for Pesth Monsieur Jules Lémaître was yesterday elected to the French Academy by twenty-one votes, at the first ballot. Nine votes were given to Monsieur Jules Delafosse. We had expected that the latter would have ten votes, but the election of Monsieur Jules Lémaître was a fore- gone conclusion. I hear that the solitary academician who voted at both ballotings for Emile Zola was Monsieur Paul Bourget. De Lesseps's seat could not be filled, and this elec- tion has been put off till next December. Monsieur Charmes just missed his election by one vote, and, from what I hear, is likely to be elected in December. He has contributed but little to the literature of his country, and is known rather as a politician and student of history than as a man of letters. His great work has been a publication entitled “Le Comité des Travaux historiques et scintifiques.” Monsieur Jules Lémaitre is what the French call un heureua. He has succeeded in everything which he has attempted. Stay, I think that there is one ambition which he has as yet been unable to realise, and that is that though he has often tried to write a novel, he has never written one which has attracted any attention. But as a critic, as a poet, and as a dramatic author, he has achieved very great success. His criticisms of living writers are excellent, though perhaps he was rather too severe on George Ohnet. He was born in 1853, and went through the Ecole Normale without having his originality stamped out of him. His first book, a volume of poems entitled “Les Petites Orientales,” was published in 1883, and since then he has come to the front as a critic, a poet, and a dramatic author, although not as a writer of fiction. Besides “Tues Petites Orientales’’ he has written another volume of poems entitled “Médaillons.” His dramatic criticisms in the Journal des Débats are celebrated as masterpieces of their kind. His plays “Revoltée,” “Le Deputé Leveau,” “Les Rois,” “L’Age Difficile,” and “Pardon,” have all been great successes, and “Billets du Matin,” “Figurines,” “Les Rois,” “Serenus,” and “Dix Contes” are read, though not without disap-  ## p. (#393) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 39 pointment, by those who want to find in this uni- versally successful man of letters a successful writer of fiction also. “Gyp,” otherwise Madame La Comtesse de Martel, sends me a delightful book of dialogues, entitled “Les Gens Chics,” full of biting satire on the cosmopolitan society which has of late years ousted the old French society from its place. The book, which forms the third volume of Charpentier's admirable “Collection Poly- chrome,” is illustrated with numerous coloured illustrations by the inimitable “Bob.” “Gyp” is the creator of the dialogue story, and far and away the best living writer of this form of fiction. The more she writes the more witty she seems to become, and a truer picture of certain phases of Parisian high life than those given in this book it would be difficult to imagine. Messrs. Char- pentier and Fasquelle must be complimented on this “Collection Polychrome” of theirs. The volumes are admirably produced at a price which leaves one wondering “how it can be done for the money.” The first volume of the series, illus- trated in colours, was “Un Siecle des Modes Féminines,” with pictures of four hundred toilettes. This was followed by Gautier’s “Emaux et Camées,” and now we have “Gyp’s” “Les Gens Chics.” The selection, as may be seen, is a wide one. I am very sorry to hear that that excellent publisher, M. Charpentier, is in great trouble. His son is reported to be at death's door. Every- body who has come into contact with this gentle- man will sympathise with him in his distress. A new poet has recently revealed himself to the Parisians. This is M. Lionel des Rieux, the author of the recently published volume of poems, “Les Amours de Lyristès,” admirably produced at the office of Le Mercure de France. This little book has attracted con- siderable attention in literary Paris, and at many houses recently I have heard it discussed, Personally M. des Rieux seems to be unknown to most literary people, and I believe that he leads a very retired life, entirely given up to his work. Under these circumstances one may expect great things of him in the future; indeed, I hear that he has an important work in pre- paration. I have always admired Victor Hugo's pro- ductivity. Since I have been working with Daudet on this new book my admiration has increased. Daudet supplied me with foolscap paper which came from the stock left behind by Victor Hugo. He never used any other. It is rough mediaeval paper, and paper on which it was almost impossible to write. I tried every variety of steel pen from the “J” downwards, but WOL, WI. had the greatest difficulty on making any pro- gress whatever. But for a kind of superstition which made me think it good policy to work on Victor Hugo's paper, I should have asked for cream-laid. I cannot imagine how the poet could remain serene and composed whilst his pen struggled with the fibrous jungle of the paper. Possibly he chose such paper on purpose, in order that his composition should be slow and delibe- rate, as a sort of Mexican curb on a too ready pen. Max Nordau uses very smooth paper, the kind called “foreign note,” I believe, and writes with a steel pen and violet ink. His manuscript is ex- ceedingly fine and small, so small as almost to need a magnifying glass. The whole MS. of “Degeneration ” consists of less than two hundred pages, whilst some of his longer novels are con- tained in sixty pages of manuscript. He keeps all his manuscripts bound up, as they return from the printers. Daudet, like Du Maurier, writes in copybooks, Zola on unruled sermon paper. The new writer writes with a type-writer on foolscap sheets. How the English reader does seem to delight in the sufferings of others I hardly pick up a popular paper without seeing some description of prison life or of punishment, whilst most of the short stories which I read end in somebody's con- viction or hanging. I really think that this form of Sadism is more immoral than the outspoken immorality of the French, and far more injurious. And I regret deeply to see the heroification of the detective which is so fashionable in English fiction. For the detective is ipso facto a con- temptible person, who ought to be allowed to slink, and peer, and listen in obscurity. There is no making of a hero in him. RoBERT H, SHERARD. I 23, Boulevard Magenta, Paris. June, 1895. *-* -º g- > - NEW YORK LETTER, New York, May 25. HE Editor of the Author recently quoted from Mr. Walter Blackburne Harte's “Meditations in Motley” a paragraph that it was “a most lamentable thing that, in spite of all the literary activity and the intel- lectual restlessness of our time, there are not probably more than half a dozen writers in the United States who follow literature, pure and simple, as a profession; and it is noteworthy that among these there are neither poets nor essayists.” In commenting on this, the editor Fº  ## p. (#394) ################################################ 4O THE AUTHOR. declared that we in America had no quarterly reviews, and that such weekly reviews as the Spectator and the Saturday Review “simply do not exist in America.” There are, perhaps, half a dozen quarterly reviews published in the United States of one type or another. Most of them are dull, and few of them pay their contributors. The best of them is the Sewanee Review, edited by Prof. W. P. Trent, which is excellent. The only American representative of the weekly review is the Nation, for the admirable Dial of Chicago is a semi-monthly. If literature be taken to mean the actual writing of books and not the editing of magazines, or journalism of one sort or another, or teaching or lecturing, then I think Mr. W. B. Harte is not far out in his assertion. Mr. Howells, Mr. James, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Bret Harte, Mr. Aldrich, Mr. Stockton, Mr. Cable, Mr. Clemens (“Mark Twain’’) are authors pure and simple, not editors or lecturers or professors; and by literature pure and simple they support them- selves now. Mr. Howells, Mr. Aldrich, and Mr. Stockton were editors for years, and Mr. Clemens made money as a lecturer first, losing it after- wards as a publisher. Mr. Charles Dudley Warner and Mr. Laurence Hutton are connected with Harper’s Monthly, Mr. Gilder with the Century, Col. Higginson with Harper's Bazaar, Mr. Eugene Field with the Record of Chicago, Mr. A. S. Hardy with the Cosmopolitan, Mr. Harold Frederick with the New York Times, Mr. H. W. Mabie with the Outlook, Mr. H. C. Bunner with Puck, Mr. W. J. Stillman with the London Times, Mr. Henry Harland with the Pellow Book. Dr. Edward Eggleston besides writing novels writes short histories; Mr. John Fiske lectures and also writes school books; Mr. Whitcomb Riley lectures, or rather reads from his own writings; so does Mr. Hopkinson Smith, who is also a successful painter in water-colours. Mr. Stedman is a stockbroker, Mr. Thomas Nelson Page is a practising lawyer, Mr. Weir Mitchell is a practising physician, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt is in the Civil Service, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge is in the United States Senate. Fourteen of the members of the Authors’ Club are attached to Columbia College here in New York, and a dozen other members belong to other universities here and there throughout the country. This brief list will not, of course, answer the question propounded by the editor of the Author, as to how an American man of letters, not being a popular novelist, manages to live. But it makes clear what is a fact, that the American man of letters, not being a teller of tales, cannot support himself by literature pure and simple. r—- * He may have inherited money as Motley had, and Prescott, and Parkman. He may be a college professor as Longfellow was, and Lowell. He may be an editor of a newspaper as Bryant was. He may be a lecturer as Emerson was. He may live with extreme frugality as Whittier did, and so support himself by the sale of his poems to the periodicals. He may be a stockbroker as Mr. Stedman is or a bank-examiner as Mr. John Burroughs is. But by literature pure and simple he will find it very difficult to support himself, unless he is a writer of popular novels or of popular plays. But is there anything in this state of affairs at all peculiar to the United States now P Has there ever been a time anywhere when literature pure and simple supported an author, who had no wealthy patron, no place under Government, no pension, no connection with a university ? I doubt if such a time has ever been ; and I doubt if it would be good for literature if it should come to pass now. Here in America, just now there are any number of openings for a quick- witted man of letters ; I think there are more in proportion here than there are in England. Journalism, as such, has of course nothing to do with literature as such ; the aims of the two callings are wholly distinct ; and the practice of the one sooner or later unfits a man for the practice of the other, yet the dividing line between them often seems almost invisible ; and many authors earn their living by newspaper work. Again, the line between the daily newspaper and the weekly journal is hard to draw ; and so is that between the weekly journal and the monthly magazines. Never have there been more periodicals in the United States than now ; and many of them are prosperous, and the best of them are very liberal paymasters—as every British author who has written for them can testify. If Poe were alive now his wares would never lack a market, and perhaps with prosperity his character would have stiffened into manliness. (This is a digression—but an excursus may be the most instructive passage of a sermon; I cannot resist the temptation to remark here that there is unending nonsense talked in England about Poe and his hard luck. The fact is that a study of Poe's career and of the conditions of literature in America at the time will convince any disinterested reader that Poe was his own only enemy. He impressed people favourably at first, and they were always willing to help him ; and then, before long, he threw away his chance.) Messrs. Macmillan and Co. have just begun a series of monthly novels in one volume in paper covers at fifty cents. These novels are all copy-  ## p. (#395) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 4 I righted, and are many of them by American authors. Mr. Marion Crawford, Mrs. Humphrey Ward, and Mr. Kipling are among the novelists whose recent books will appear in this series. Some surprise is felt among other publishers here that the Macmillans should establish so cheap a series now, when there is no longer a need to compete with the pirates. The Scribners, it is understood, will not this summer make any additions to their fifty cent yellow-covered series, which contains the best of Mr. Stockton’s tales, and of Mrs. Burnett's. The Harpers seem to have also abandoned their fifty cent paper series of American novels, called “Harper's Quarterly Library,” at least the volume for February has not appeared yet. The paper- covered series of Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., and of Longmans, Green, and Co., are not pushed with vigour, probable because both these impor- tant publishing houses have discovered that the conditions of the book trade being what they are there is but little profit in trying to sell a copy- righted book at fifty cents. The conditions of the book trade are still very unsettled. The enormous stock of pirated books left on hand at the passage of the Copyright Act four years ago is apparently nearly all worked off; but the stereotype plates exist, and these are in use. Now the large “dry-goods stores,” some- times called “department stores,” which are “universal providers,” have been enlarging their book departments and cutting prices right and left. On a very popular book the price is some- times cut below cost. I saw “Trilby’’ the other day advertised at 97 cents, the regular price being I dollar 75 cents, This sort of thing is likely to hurt the regular bookseller. It is to be noted, however, that the book department of these department stores, at first a mere adjunct to the other departments, and serving only as a means of tempting purchasers inside the building, is now gaining in importance and is therefore in the hands of men who really understand the book trade. One department store here in New York has just engaged a new manager for its book department at a salary of two thousand pounds a year; and it gives up to books a space on the ground floor about a hundred feet square. It also spends large sums in advertising. It may interest to see how friendly the advertiser is with the newspaper reader (this firm pays the writer of its advertisements four thousand pounds a year !) Here is a recent advertisement of theirs: GETTING BETTER AND BETTER Good storekeeping means progress. Yesterday's best isn’t well enough for to-morrow. But it is easy to go from one height to a greater if the business has a springy, full- of-life step. Do you keep track of what is going on here? Interesting, surely; you can make it profitable if you care to. - WE’vE A NEW Book STORE, Not yet full grown, but far enough along so you can see what the intent is, and how great and good it is likely to be. We mean to keep the books any reader of healthy tastes will want—all of them. Easy to get at-easy to see— welcoming you to see them. And we mean to so choose and so price the books that they’ll tempt you to buy. Let this one lot—HANDY CLASSIC EDITIONs of the most noted works in English literature—give you a notion of our new way with books. These “classics " are all beautifully printed on good paper and bound in full embossed cloth with silver stamping. volume—we say I2 cents. inches. A Book of Golden Deeds. By C. M. Yonge. Black Beauty. By Anna Sewell. Coming Race, The. By Lord Lytton. Crown of Wild Olive. By John Ruskin. Dreams. By Olive Schreiner. Lady of the Lake. Scott. Light of Asia. By Arnold. Epictetus. Discourses of, and the Encheiridion. Ethics of the Dust. By John Ruskin. Greatest Thing in the World, and other Addresses. By Henry Drummond. Heroes and Hero Worship. By Carlyle. *House of Seven Gables, The. By Nathaniel Haw- thorne. Lamb’s Essays of Elia. *Scarlet Letter, Publisher's price 35 cents the This is a part list. Average thickness, # of an inch. Size 4 × 6 Lucile. dith. Mornings in Florence. By John Ruskin. IBy Owen Mere- *Mosses from an Old Manse. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Paul and Virginia. Pleasures of Life, The. By Sir John Lubbock. *Poe, Edgar Allan. Poems. Queen of the Air. By John Ruskin. Sartor Resartus. By Thomas Carlyle. The. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Sesame and Lilies. By John Ruskin. Story of an African Farm. By Olive Schreiner. Thoughts from the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Anto- ninus. Vicar of Wakefield. By Lamb's Last Essays of Elia. Oliver Goldsmith. *Longfellow, Henry W. *Whittier, John Greenleaf. Early Poems. Early Poems. *Lowell, James Russell, Early Poems. Of course there is no copyright on any of these books. I have marked with a star the volumes by American authors now out of copyright. Most of those by British authors are also out of copy- right in England. H. *— — —” •- AUSTRALIAN NOTES. \ | ARCUS CLARKE, the Australian novelist, whose work, “For the Term of His Natural Life,” is looked upon as the greatest Australian novel yet published, died in poor circumstances. He was for some years librarian of the public library, Melbourne. His wife, who survived him, holds a small Govern- ment appointment in Melbourne. She is said to have received little or nothing from “His Natural  ## p. (#396) ################################################ 42 THE AUTHOR. Life,” which Clarke either sold outright, or allowed to pass away from him in some way. Literature in Australia has not been an encouraging occupation so far. Clarke died young and poor; Gordon, the poet, shot himself because he could not meet a £30 bill that was coming due ; Kendall, the poet, after a hard life, died very poor; Bracken, the New Zealand poet, has been a newspaper editor, canvassed for a life insurance company, and various other things. At the present time, with the exception of “Rolf Bolderwood,” Ada Cambridge, Hume Nisbett, and a few others, most Australian writers have evacuated the South, and are mostly to be found in London. a- * ~ * MAID MARIAN'S DEAD, Maid Marian's dead, you say. A sadder cheer Possesses all the pleasant wood of Shere, The cushat moans upon her elder-bush, The lavrock’s out o' tune to-day : the thrush He sings a new song to the woodmen’s ear. We trample underfoot dead leaves and sere, All unafraid skim by the fallow deer, Never a horn’s note wakes the woodland hush Maid Marian’s dead. Yet must I deem her merry ghost walks here, Fitly bedight in the green forest-gear, While shadows of wild deer before her rush, And Robin by her treads the grasses lush, While England loves these lovers who shall fear Maid Marian’s dead P NORA. HoPPER. *— — —” r- - - NOTES AND NEWS, E publish in another column, by permis- sion of the speaker, Mr. Hall Caine's address to the booksellers. Few things have ever created so much interest and excitement in the publishing world, and the reason is not far to seek. Hitherto the publisher has very carefully kept the secrets of his trade from both authors on the one hand, and booksellers on the other. Let us regard this secrecy merely as a good stroke of business, if you please. The author has found out, however, the whole of the Secrets, and has published them. Certain publishers made it their business, impudently, to deny the author's figures, The booksellers, especially, were led to believe that they were wrong. Now, Mr. Hall Caine has made a separate investigation for himself, and has obtained figures from publishers which agree with our own. After this it will be difficult to deny their accuracy. Now, the objections raised in the papers against Mr. Hall Caine's conclusion seem to be the following: I. That he spoke to retail newsagents and not to booksellers. Perhaps. But every bookseller in the country has now got his figures, so that it comes to the same thing. 2. That he was not strong enough against the discount houses, nor strong enough in favour of the net price. One thing at a time. Surely it was enough for one evening to give the figures which he pre- sented. Besides, there is not as yet unanimity against discount booksellers or in favour of a net price. 3. That he talked as if the only books were those which sell 20,000 each. The objection does not seem carried out by the text. But it must be remembered that there were six books in the year which sold between them 180,000 copies, a substantial slice of the year's trade. 4. That the estimate of production was too low for any book with a sale less than 20,000. Mr. Edward Marston, in the Daily Chronicle, raised this objection. Now, it is extremely unfair to take “The Manxman" as a model of the 6s. novel. It is a book of 27; sheets, 439 pp., and 5OO words to a page, and 219,500 words—a book much larger than the average one, or three volume uovel. I take at random three other 6s. novels. a. One contains 20 sheets, 320 pp., at 250 words to the page, viz., 80,000 words in all, rather over one-third of “The Manxman.” /3. The second contains 19 sheets, 300 pages, at 250 words to a page, viz., 75,000 words. y. The third contains 18; sheets, 293 pages, 250 words to a page, or 73,000 words. If now any one will refer to the “Cost of Pro- duction” he will find that a book of 17 sheets, or 272 pp., at about 258 words to a page, for a first edition of 30OO copies, would cost II+d., or say, one shilling without advertising. Following editions of 3000 copies can be produced at less than IOd, each. 5. That this talk about the cost of production is merely the outcry of a few novelists who think they are not getting enough. That is not so : it is the outcry of all the men and women who write books: it means that they want to know all the particulars in the manage- ment of their own property. It is not a question of what we get: it is a question of what the property is worth : it is also a question of what the distributor should be paid for his services.  ## p. (#397) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. is 6. Idle talk about publishers’ “risks.” We are talking, here, of books which carry no risk with them. Since this is all that can be said against Mr. Hall Caine, we may read his address over again in confidence; and, in our own interests, we may learn it by heart and commit it to memory. Some eight years ago a certain literary paper reviewed a “Life of Richard Jefferies,” written by myself. The reviewer spoke kindly of the bio- graphy, for which reason I do not mention the name of the paper. But, it said, if anyone in ten years' time were to take up the “Life of Jefferies '' he would ask in astonishment, “Where are the documents or writings of this man P’” It was really one of the most unfortunate predictions ever offered. Nearly that time has now elapsed. What do we see P Fancy prices for all Jefferies' early editions, reprints of his books, a constant stream of quotations from them, and a growing and widening circle of readers; a second biography of him—that by Mr. H. S. Salt ; and now the most dainty little book in the world—just issued—a collection of “Thoughts” from his writings. The publishers are Longmans. I hope that every lover of the country, even if he is not already a lover of Jefferies, will make a note of this book. It is concentrated Jefferies. Oh! the wonderful writer | The eyes that saw through and through The soul open to the voices of the flowers, the trees, the grasses, the skies, the clouds ! There has never been any worshipper of Nature like unto Richard Jefferies since poets first began. A note has been received by me concerning a Certain person who owes an author a somewhat considerable sum of money, which he will not pay, taking no notice of letters sent to him. The infor- mation is sent with a request that the case may be published in the Author. But, it is said, the author refuses to take steps on religious grounds. Then what is the good of publishing the case in the Author 2 . The time has gone by when we published real cases under initials in order to prove to people the abuses which exist. If we publish such a case as this, it must be as part of the whole case, as taken up by our lawyer. Where religious scruples come in it is difficult to discover. A man owes money; he does not dispute the debt; he answers no letters; he takes no notice. Evidently the only sequel possible is the lawyer. If the author is not prepared for the intervention of the lawyer, why does he ask for the money at all? ... And should not religious scruples point out that to let a scoundrel rob with impunity is equivalent to encouraging him to rob others? and surely that would be a very irreligious thing to do. The Secretary of the Society has again asked me to call attention to the fact that a safe has been purchased for the storing of the agreements of members of the Society. All agreements will, of course, be kept absolutely private and confi- dential. There are, however, two advantages in placing the documents in the hands of the Secre- tary: First, the advantage accruing to the member in the knowledge of their secure preservation; and, secondly, the advantage accruing to the Secretary from the knowledge he obtains of the different methods and principles of the different publishers. Certain members of the Society who resigned at the end of last year have returned to their allegiance, stating that they have been unable to act without the advice of the Society. This is very satisfactory, and shows how necessary the Society must be to most of those who live by literature. One may be thought to be insisting too strongly on the enormous increase of readers during the last few years. Let us look back a little. In the year 1837 there were 20,984 committals in England and Wales. Of this number only I 91 could read and write well. Of the rest some could read a little; the rest could not read at all. This proportion represented the condition of the class from which these criminals came— the agricultural and lower class of working people. To put it roughly, 200 out of 20,000 (or I per cent. only) could read and write well. The popu- lation of England and Wales was then about 2O,OOO,OOO. Setting aside 4,OOO,OOO for the better educated, there were left in this country only I per cent. in 15,000,000 who could read and write —only, that is to say, 15,OOO persons. These I5,OOO,OOO have now grown to 3O,OOO,OOO and they can all read. What do they read P Most of them only a newspaper. But they are getting village libraries, and they will soon read a great deal, because village life is dull, and reading will become for a time—and as a stepping-stone—the principal recreation. The astonishing circulation of many novels of the day seems, but is not, without precedent. If, for instance, we find novels of the day going into their fiftieth, hundredth, even hundred and twentieth edition, let us compare what was done with “Waverley.” Lockhart tells us that the first edition of IOOO copies appeared on July 7, 1814; the second before the 3rd of August; the third in  ## p. (#398) ################################################ 44 THE AUTHOR. October; the fourth in November ; the fifth in January, 1815; the sixth, of 1500 copies, in June, 1816; the seventh of 2000, in October, 1817; an eighth, of 2000, in April, 1822; that up to the edition of 1829, I I,000, at a guinea, were disposed of; and that up to the time of Lockhart's writing 40,000 copies of the edition of 1829 had gone. So that the circulation of “Waverley” up to the year 1836 or so was 51,000 copies. At that time the population of Great Britain and Ireland was about fifteen millions. It is now 40,000,000, and with its colonies it is about 60,000,000. A modern book therefore, to be in as great demand by 1895 as “Waverley” was by the year 1836, should have sold 200,000 copies. Well; but Scott's novels were priced at a guinea; those of the modern novelist at 6s. ; if price controls circulation, an equivalent to the popularity of Scott’s “Waverley” would in these days mean about 600,000 copies. And this total has not, so far as I know, been reached by any living man. WALTER BESANT. *- A --> º- ~~ FROM “GREEK SONNETS.” I.—THE THEATRE OF DIONYSUs, ATHENs. Here let me stand, where Sophocles has stood; Lo the blue sky, the mountains, and the main I hear the call of GEdipus again, Re-echoing thro’ this marble solitude : Chained to his rock I see Prometheus brood, Faint falls Alcestis' fugitive refrain, And the birds chant their unforgotten strain, Flashed from the Rhodian minstrel's “airier mood. O to have listened when the Argives’ song Orestes’ stately trilogy unrolled, And o'er the awe-struck crowd surged deep and strong, Their mighty rhythmic descant manifold, Or wailed the Persae, till the sunset-gold Sank the free waves of Salamis among. C. A. KELLY. II.—NAxos. What cry tempestuous thrilled the ecstatic air, And pierced false Theseus' bosom thro' and thro’, As fraught with doom, his black-sailed galley flew From her he spurned, the fairest of the fair? Catullus’ chant has deified despair : On Pluto's rock the faithless chief shall rue Those amorous lips, those eyes AEgean blue, And lucent gold of Ariadne’s hair. A glamour, o'er gray cliffs and valleys lone Breathed from a vanished presence, broods around : Lo the proud sea where Chabrias’ star outshone ! From those wild peaks what revelries resound ! Thro' yon green boskage glints Iacchus crowned, So dreams the minstrel, but the gods are gone. C. A. KELLY. * “Folk have called me Rhodian, do you know?” Aristophanes' Apology, OPENING OF THE BRONTÉ MUSEUM, (Saturday, May 18, 1895.) P the old perpendicular main street, paved with worse material than good intentions, past the queer little shops and the Black Bull of immortal memory, until we find ourselves in the midst of such a crowd as probably Haworth has never before seen. Brontë worshippers have been asked to bear witness to the faith that is in them, and they have responded in no uncertain voice. In front of an unassuming doorway, with the mystic No. 2 upon it in white letters, standing upon an unpretentious arm- chair, a gentleman is reading the speech which Sir Wemyss Reid should have delivered in person, had not ill-health compelled him to be absent. By dint of edging our way step by step into the heart of the crowd, we manage to catch the words “neighbourhood — forefront — literature— bleak moors,” but we are told afterwards that the speech will “look well in print.” We cheerfully await the continuity which those five words seem somewhat to lack. After the speech, the door is formally opened, and some few of those in front admitted to the museum. The museum is small, and the crowd is large; hence a considerable amount of waiting is necessary. An English crowd, surrounded on all sides by house-walls, and being slowly broiled, as in a crater, by the captive sunbeams, is not always good - tempered ; but this crowd is, singularly so. A diversion is created by the appearance of Dr. Wright, an invaluable con- tributor to Bronté lore, who finds it no easy task to gain the doorway, even under escort of a bland, white-ribboned official. We are glad to see him. After a time he who, august in blue, guards the door proclaims that strangers shall take prece- dence over inhabitants, as the latter can see the museum any day. We live exactly five miles away, across the hill, and are wont to haunt Haworth like a familiar spirit, but our conscience unhesitatingly proclaims us a stranger. We enlist the services of a policeman in our imme- diate rear on behalf of a pilgrim from a distant land, and together we manage to reach the door, The Haworth morality, we regret to say, is lax; not a few of the villagers enter with us, hoping to pose as strangers; they have forgotten, however, that the guardian constable knows every face in the neighbourhood, and they are ignominiously pushed into a little room on the right. We chuckle, and pass up the stairs, into the museum itself. An oft-repeated cry assails our ears, “Pass on quickly, please; we can't keep the people outside waiting too long,” so that our  ## p. (#399) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 45 inspection of the relics is of necessity hasty and incomplete. Our impression, however, is that the collection is a distinctly good one, and we learn that shortly it will be added to considerably. There are many copies, and some originals, of the Bronté letters, a few striking portraits in oil by Branwell Brontë, numerous personal possessions of the family, and odds and ends of all kinds. Particularly do we wish to linger above a white lace collar that once belonged to Charlotte; but how can we, with the haste-cry ringing in our ears P. We shall come here on a quiet day and sentimentalise upon that bit of lace; there is about it an inexpressible pathos, which only these scraps of personal apparel seem able to attain. Out once more into the street, and across to the defaced parish church, rich in the gaudiness of modern windows, memorial only in respect of one small tablet, just without the chancel, recording the death of Charlotte Bronté. There is a window also to the glory of God and the Brontë family, presented by an American citizen ; we metaphorically shake hands with that American citizen, but we feel that there was earnest need for an emergetic Bronté Society in England here. Then to the Black Bull, thronged with thirsty and a-hungered worshippers. A Yorkshire tea spread in the big room upstairs, and everyone in the most delightful of hail-fellow-well-met humour. The local band enlivening the pro- ceedings by waltz tunes, and other harmonious frivolities. Cream is scarce and the bread and butter gives out ; but no one minds in the least. Afterwards, a well-filled pipe and a ramble among the ever-dear moors, harsh of aspect, but tender with a lover's tenderness when once you win inside their mystery. At six we adjourn to a packed meeting in the capacious schoolroom. Alderman John Brigg is in the chair, and sits it gracefully. The Established Clergy are conspicuous by their absence—both from the platform, and, so far as we can judge, from the audience—but Canon Clarke, of Dewsbury, does his best to atone for this by giving us an admirable speech. Other speeches follow, but candour compels us to admit that the meeting has suffered by the absence of many excellent people who were expected to be present. Dr. Wright, when he comes in at fifth wicket down is of course interesting, and gives us not a few reminiscences which might with advan- tage have appeared in his book; but, in our opinion, he rendered too much honour to Ireland, and too little to their true inspiration, when dealing with the origin of the Bronté works. Mr. Joe Normanton, a local celebrity, rises at a later stage, and the raciness of the soil is about his lips. He exposes a blot on the escutcheon of the Rev. Patrick Brontë ; this otherwise exem- plary pastor, it seems, “spliced ” Mr. Normanton and his spouse some thirty or forty years ago, and Mr. Normanton finds it hard to forgive, though he may excuse. But the speech par earcellence of the evening comes, like good wine, at the close of the banquet. It is Mrs. Scatcherd, of Morley, we believe, who rises to ask if no ladies are to be allowed to speak, and who is forthwith invited, with genial if tardy courtesy, to mount the platform. And it is good to have waited to the end. With exquisite sarcasm she points out that they are here to-night to honour three women, and that no woman has as yet lifted her voice. With exquisite pathos she dwells on that too little appreciated book, “Wuthering Heights.” And we who love “Wuthering Heights” detect in the speaker's voice that trembling and hint of inward tears which we know so well; and it is hard to deter- mine whether Mrs. Scatcherd's pluck, or the true ring of her sentiment, is more to be admired. Out again into the heart of the moors, with a half gale blowing into the teeth of a dying sunset. Tºp there on the brow a lone farmhouse, and over the moor that deathless cry of “Cathy | Cathy Cathy | * Yes, we know how to love, we people of the moors. Finally, back to the Bull, which is almost deserted now. A seat, for sentiment's sake, in the original Branwell armchair, whisky (Irish whisky, again for sentiment’s sake), and a pipe. And added thereto, perchance, a feeling that it is risky for a mere writer of books to undertake to “write up" a function. One last word. Two items in the day's pro- ceedings are much to be deplored. Firstly, some ill-timed allusions to politics were mingled with the nobler issue. Secondly, not a few of the visitors thought it necessary to appear “bedecked and bedraped” in the fashionable monstrosities of the hour, as though they were attending a regatta or a military tournament. Surely the Three Sisters would have welcomed quieter, and more careless, garb. But it has been a good day, and a good-tem- pered day, and even errors of taste must be con- doned. The grand upshot of it all is, that us who are Yorkshiremen, born of the moors, thank the gods for their mercies. HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE. *-* –” -* THE DINNER TO THE EDITOR, Tº: dinner was held on June 26. A report of part of the speeches will be presented in the August number.  ## p. (#400) ################################################ 46 THE AUTHOR. THE “SPEAKER,” AND THE AUTHORS' SOCIETY. N June 15 there was permitted to appear in the columns of the Speaker an article directed against this Society, which for unmannerly insinuations—there is no other word —and ridiculous figures would be difficult to beat. The following are a few specimens of the spirit in which the paper is written : 1. The writer says that the secretary is not aware of the existence of any other book than the novel. He either conceals or is ignorant of the publica- tion of a book by the Society some years since, in which the cost of producing nearly every kind of book was considered. The cases which are individually brought to the secretary cover every possible branch of literature. But where he writes of a novel he confines his attention to a novel. 2. “The Society,” he says, “is a self-elected English Academy.” It is, of course, nothing of the kind. Its sole function is the defence of literary property. The writer does not know even what the French Academy attempts. That body has nothing whatever to do with literary property. 3. It is in defence of literary property that the Society have collected and published their figures. They were published five years ago, and were collected, and tested, and proved very carefully before publication. Those obtained by Mr. Hall Caine the other day were actually furnished to him by publishers. And they agree with ours. More- over, printers have declared themselves ready to work on the basis of these figures, not in “immense editions” only as this writer ignorantly affirms, but in moderate editions. Tenders for the work have been brought to the secretary on much lower terms. 6. The writer says that our figures apply only to editions of 20,000. This shows that he has not even opened the pages of our book, where editions of different numbers are separately estimated. 7. Now let us turn to his own figures. He says that if a publisher orders an edition of 15OO copies to begin with they will cost him 2s. 9}d. each. Observe that he is so ignorant of the sub- ject as to suppose that all books cost the same. He pays no attention to length, size, type, paper, or anything. No, they all cost the same: all 28.9%d. each. Next, if you turn to our figures, you will see that the estimates are drawn up each for a cer- tain book of so many pages, so many lines to a page, such and such type, and a certain sum assigned for paper and for advertising. There can be no mistake about our estimates. Now, look again at our figures. (See “Cost of Production,” p. 27.) The book quoted is one of 17 sheets, or 272 pages, at about 258 words to a page; i.e., an average six-shilling book. The cost of the first edition of 1500 copies, with advertising, is Is. 6d. per copy, against this writer's absurd estimate of 2s. 9}d. each. The cost of the second edition and following editions of 1500 copies is Io; d. per copy. His estimate, therefore, is actually double our own for the first edition. But this man, who is writing on figures which he does not understand, is himself unable to work out the simplest sum. He says that a royalty of I5 per cent. On a six-shilling book is Iod. It is not ; it is Io; d.-a very considerable difference in a large sale. He says further that a royalty of 25 per cent. is “rather more than 16d. per copy.” It is, indeed. It is 18d.—only a difference of a trifle of £50 in a sale of 6000 copies! - 8. Next consider his facts. He says that Mr. Hall Caine should remember that his publishers “found the capital for the production of his book, and risked that capital on the chance of success.” This is quite the old-fashioned way of talking—the loose and ignorant way. What are the plain facts of the case? (1.) The finding of the capital. The produc- tion of a book only moderately successful need not require the advance of any capital at all. The printers, paper makers, and binders are all paid after the first and largest returns of the book. This is a simple arrangement — one supposes the universal arrangement—of which the writer has never heard. (2.) The so-called risk. There are some hundreds of writers, historians, poets, essayists, novelists, concerning whose works the word “risk” cannot be used. It is an insult to speak of their writings as bearing any risk. Of course, if a publisher is such a fool as to print an edition of a million copies when only five thousand will sell there is risk, but we speak of publishers as men of sanity and common sense. The writer speaks of novel publishing as a “very risky’ business. “Not one in ten,” he says, “furnishes the publisher with more than a bare percentage on his capital.” What stuff is this Not one in ten ? Why, setting aside the things produced at the author's own expense, the new novels of the day produced by responsible firms are nearly all books which are certain to pay, not only their expenses, but, as well, to leave a comfortable margin. That they all pay large sums cannot, of course, be claimed. If they were not all nearly certain to pay something they would certainly not be published.  ## p. (#401) ################################################ THE AUTHOR, 47 As we have said, over and over again, the business of the Society of Authors is not to attack publishers, although it has constantly been accused of doing so. Its business is simply to defend literary property. In order to do so it ascertains the facts and figures as to publication, and publishes these facts and figures. This exposure is, one understands, extremely disagree- able to certain publishers, because the Society converts into an open and honest business what was formerly kept cose and secret. But why does the Speaker object to openness and honesty P *- e- BOOK TALK, RS. KATHERINE MACQUOID will begin a new serial story, to run for six- teen or twenty weeks, at the beginning of this month. It will appear in the provincial newspapers which subscribe to Tillotson's syndi- Cate. The Consolidated Board of Trustees of the New York Public Library—the Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations—have elected their officers. President, John Bigelow; first Vice- President, Bishop Potter; second Vice-President, John S. Kennedy; Treasurer, Edward King; Secretary, George L. Rives. No action has yet been taken as to the site of a library. The President, who was at one time United States Ambassador to France, is the author of the “Life and Letters of Benjamin Franklin,” the “Life of Bryant’’ the poet, the “Life of Molinos,” the “Life of Tilden,” and many other historical and political works. He is now seventy-seven years of age. His son, Mr. Poultney Bigelow, is at this time a resident in London. - The “Following of Christ” is a collection of passages from modern writers, selected and arranged by Charles L. Marson, curate of St. Mary’s, Somers Town, N.W. The Rev. Canon Scott Holland supplies an introduction or preface. The note struck by the latter is that our times no longer produce “supreme individualities, robust, complete, severe.” Even the giants of the day, now fast vanishing, have been “feverish, excited, with a touch of extravagance.” What have we now P “A crowd of lesser men, obviously clever. Reen, alive, interesting, but all more or less on a level.” In other words, not the whole of a man’s work is at the man's highest, but only bits here and there. These bits, picked out and arranged, form the “Following of Christ.” (Elliot Stock.) º “The Furled Banner,” by Heather Gray, is a tender, pathethic little religious story. It does not take long to read it. Nor does it take long to touch the heart and bring the tears to the eyes. (Elliot Stock.) “Cromwell’s Soldier’s Bible.” This is a notable little reprint. It is a copy of the “Pocket Bible" supplied to every soldier in Cromwell’s army. Not a complete Bible, but a collection of passages selected as likely to be most useful to a soldier on a campaign. It is a book which any- one who has ever considered the history of that time should purchase. The “Teacher's Prayer,” by Zillah Dugdale (Elliot Stock and the Sunday School Union). This little book is written as much for Sunday school scholars as Sunday school teachers. It is, as might be expected, a deeply religious story. It is also well written, and shows a high level of thought and feeling. “Turquoise and Jade,” by D. M. B. (Maid- stone : Young and Cooper), is a collection of rondeaux, sonnets, triolets, &c. Let the poet Speak. MOTHER-HOOD. The mystery of dawning mother-hood Dwelt in her eyes and lingered in the air She hourly breathed, was painted in the fair Transparency of cheek and brow : she stood, Gazing upon the world, for her imbued With newer beauty, greater good than 'ere Her mind had compassed—sweet beyond compare Were life and love—at length she understood. Dreams of the future, fancies of the past, Held her in bondage, while they set her free, Though still herself, she also had to be The mother of her child—to hold so fast To faith and truth, that round it she might cast The shelter of her perfect purity. A novel by Sir Walter Besant has been pur- chased with all rights by Messrs. Chapman and Hall. The work will run serially in Chapman's Magazine before publication in volume form. It will probably appear in 1897. The same writer's other engagements, up to 1898 inclusive, are for the Pall Mall Magazine, the Tillotson's Syndi- cate, and for Messrs. Chatto and Windus. Mr. R. H. Sherard’s new novel, “Jacob Niemand,” will be published early in July by Messrs. Ward and Downey. Mr. Sherard is at present engaged on a story of the Napoleonic wars, entitled “With the Great Commander,” which will be published in the autumn. M. Daudet's new book, “Premier Voyage— Premier Mensonge,” written in collaboration with Mr. R. H. Sherard, will first appear in serial form in an English and American magazine. Arrangements have already been made for its subsequent publication in book form both in England and America. Mr. M. H. Spielman's History of “Punch" will appear in the autumn. It will contain about a hundred and twenty portraits, illustrations, and  ## p. (#402) ################################################ 48 THE AUTHOR. facsimiles. There will be two editions, one of I6s., and the other an Edition de Luare at two guineas. The publishers are Cassell and Co. Mr Bloundelle-Burton’s new novel, “In the Day of Adversity,” will begin this month in The Family Circle, and will also appear simul- taneously in the Melbourne Argus. Another story by the same author will commence shortly in the People. - A new edition of Hall Caine’s “Recollections of Rossetti” is announced for publication shortly by Mr. Elliot Stock. We have to record the death of F. Percy Cotton, the husband of one of our members (known as Ellis Walton), and cousin of the late Mrs. Mortimer Collins. He had set Collins' chief lyrics to music, and edited a large collection of his poems, published by their friend, the late Mr. George Bentley. It is noticeable that Mrs. Collins and Mr. Cotton were about the first to confide a joint literary grievance to the management of the Society of Authors, and that the case—an impor- tant one—was carried through successfully. Some little time ago we had occasion to refer to a new novel, “The House of the Strange Woman,” which Messrs. Henry and Co. were publishing for Mr. Norreys Connell, the author of “In the Green Park.” Since then Mr. Connell has blossomed into playwright, and his first dramatic effort — a one-act piece — has been accepted by Mr. Arthur Bourchier for early production at the Royalty Theatre. Mr. Bour- chier will appear in Mr. Connell’s play himself, and speaks of bis part as one of the strongest he has ever come across. Mr. Connell is not altogether innocent of mumming himself, having appeared, amongst other plays, in Ibsen's “Ghosts '' and Zola’s “Rabourdin.” What with Mr. Jerome, Mr. Zangwill, Mr. Philpotts, and now Mr. Connell, it would seem that all the “new humourists” were going stage-struck. Mr. Barry Pain is the only one who has escaped. Admiral Sir Henry Keppel sits down at the venerable age of eighty-six to write his Reminis- cences. Mr. Bentley will publish the book in the winter. Colonel Kenney-Herbert, the author of “Fifty Breakfasts,” has written two new books to cor- respond with it, namely, “Fifty Lunches” and “Fifty Dinners.” They will be published shortly by Mr. Edward Arnold. Mr. Arnold, by the way, is opening an office in New York. Mr. Walter Cranston Larned is the author of a book on “The Churches and Castles of Mediaeval France,” which Messrs. Sampson Low announce for immediate issue. Mrs. Stevenson's last story, “ Woodrup's Dinah: a Tale of Nidderdale,” has been brought out by Messrs. Hutchinson and Co. in their Homespun Series in an edition of Io,000 copies— cloth and paper covers. Mr. Rudyard Kipling will issue a new volume of poems in the autumn. At the annual meeting of the London Library, on the 13th ult., it was agreed to adopt the com- mittee’s recommendation for the reconstruction of the premises at a cost of about £17,000, pro- vided that £5000 be first obtained by subscrip- tions. A letter was read from the Prince of Wales, in which his Royal Highness entirely approved of the scheme for providing an adequate building for the books, he being “well aware of the deep interest the Prince Consort took in the library, and how invaluable it has proved itself to be to all who are in any way connected with histºry and literature.” Lady Sophia Palmer will be glad to receive at Blackmoor, Petersfield, on Sept. 1, or as soon after as possible, any letters of interest written by her father, the late Lord Selborne. This is for the preparation of the volumes of “Memorials of Lord Selborne,” which, as we announced last month, Messrs. Macmillan will publish. A book on “Politics in Russia,” by Mr. Herbert Thomson, of the Free Russia Society, will be published next autumn. Mr. Albert F. Calvert's work on “Exploration of Australia’’ will be published shortly by Messrs. George Philip and Son. It will be a companion volume to his “The Discovery of Australia.” A work on “The Greater Victorian Poets,” by Professor Hugh Walker, of St. David's College, Lampeter, is being published by Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein. Also one called “Literary Types,” the author of which is Mr. E. Beresford Chan- cellor. The pronounced feature of the June output was the large number of biographical works. Most important of these—it is, indeed, the book of the month—was “The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen’” (Smith, Elder, and Co.), by his brother, Mr. Leslie Stephen. Beginning with articles in the Morning Chronicle in 1851, Stephen de- veloped, alongside his legal work, a prolific journalism. On the Saturday Review he wrote with Freeman, Maine, John Morley, Harcourt, Goldwin Smith, and the late Lord Justice Bowen as colleagues; for the Pall Mall Gazette he wrote I I2O articles in thirteen years, besides letters, &c.; and to the Cornhill Magazine and Fraser he also contributed. In Judge Stephen's eyes John Stuart Mill seemed “not so much cold- blooded as bloodless,” “too much of a calculating machine, and too little of a human being,” for “Fitzjames could only make a real friend of a man in whom he could recognise the capacity for  ## p. (#403) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 49 masculine emotions as well as logical acuteness.” The other notable books in this line to appear were “The Life of General Sir Edward Bruce Hamley, K.C.B., K.C.M.G.,” by Alex. Innes Shand (Wm. Blackwood and Sons); “Sonya Kovalevsky,” by Anna Carlotta Leffler, Duchess of Cajanello (Fisher Unwin); “Colonel Sir Robert Sandeman,” by Mr. T. H. Thornton (John Murray); Mr. Stuart J. Reid’s “Lord John Russell’’ (Sampson Low); and “The Princess of Wales,” by Mary Spencer-Warren (Newnes). Bret Harte's new volume, entitled “Clarence,” which Messrs. Chatto and Windus will shortly publish, will complete the trilogy of which “A Waif of the Plains '' and “A Ward of the Golden Gate ’’ are the other parts. A new “Life of Hans Christian Andersen,” which will be illustrated by drawings from original sketches by himself, is being published by Messrs. Lawrence and Bullen. Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson has stated to a San Francisco interviewer that her late husband’s manuscripts are awaiting examination by his cousin, Mr. Graham Balfour, who was in China when Stevenson died. They include the “Weir of Hermiston,” which the novelist had only begun, and also some poems. A translation of St. Juirs’s “The Tavern of the Three Virtues,” illustrated by Daniel Urrabieta Vierge, is in preparation for early publication by Mr. Fisher Unwin. Mr. Edmund Gosse writes au introduction, criticising the work of the famous artist. Mr. George Murray, F.L.S., the new keeper of botany in the Natural History Department of the British Museum, is publishing, through Messrs. Macmillan, an “Introduction to the Study of Sea Weeds.” The rarity of the books, and the fact that they were excellent types of binding, induced good prices at the sale, at Sotheby’s, of a selection from the library of the late Earl of Orford. The copy of the Second Folio” Shakespeare,” (1632), in the Original calf binding, which brought 2148 at George Daniel's sale thirty years ago, now sold for £540. “Ile Nouveau Testament,” translated by Huré (1712), a beautiful example of Le Mounier's binding, which realised £51 seventeen years ago, was here purchased for £345. The proof sheets of Scott’s “The Pirate” sold for £86; 384 I was got for Walpole's own copy of “Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides with Dr. John- son ''--the more valuable because of the states- man's autograph notes to it; while Walpole's “Hieroglyphic Tales’ (1785), one of six copies printed for the author's private amusement, realised £37. Catherine de Medici's copy of Ariosto’s “Orlando Furioso.” (1556), was sold for 3130; “Le Pastissier François '' (Amsterdam, I655) for £IOO ; and Rousseau's own copy of “Julie, ou La Nouvelle Heloise ’’ (1761), 356. For Isaac Casaubon's copy of the first edition of Bacon’s “Twoo Books of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning ” (1605), in brown morocco, 349 was paid. Altogether the 340 lots in the sale realised £26 IO. |Mr. Eden Phillpotts is publishing in book form, at the price of 6s., his humorous study entitled “The Laughing Philosopher,” which has been appearing In Black and White for a con- siderable time. Mr. Stopford Brook is collaborating with another Irishman, namely, Mr. A. P. Graves, on a new Anthology of Irish Verse. The work will be published in the autumn by Messrs. Dent. Among more immediate publications from this house will be Mr. James Ashcroft Noble's “Impressions and Memories.” Two new Ruskinian books are announced by Mr. George Allen. The first to appear will be “Studies in Both Arts,” which will contain ten plates, some being in colour, from unpublished drawings by Ruskin, accompanied by selected passages from his writings. In the autumn will be published “The Principles of Art according to John Ruskin,” compiled by Mr. William White, of the Ruskin Museum. This book will also contain some hitherto unpublished writings of Mr. Ruskin on the pictures he got for the St. George's Guild. Mr. Gilbert Parker's works are to be issued in a uniform edition by Messrs. Methuen ; so are Miss Emily Lawless’s. The occasion of Sir Henry Irving's knighthood appears timeous for a popular edition of the biography of the great actor by Mr. Percy Fitzgerald. It is to be revised and brought up to date, and Messrs. Chatto and Windus will issue it shortly, price Is. A series of essays by Mr. Brander Matthews on “Books and Play Books,” is in the press of Messrs. Osgood, McIlvaine, and Co. M. Sarcey, R. L. Stevenson, Mark Twain, Zola, and Mr. Andrew Lang are among the personal subjects of the essayist, who also writes on the dramati- sation of novels, and “the whole duty of critics Messrs Osgood also publish at once a story by Miss Alma Tadema, called, “The Crucifix.” Mrs. F. A. Steel’s “Red Rowan,” the Queen serial, will be published this summer by Messrs. Macmillan. Her story of the Indian Mutiny, for which she has made a long visit to India and lived beside the native survivors, will occupy her for about two years. IMr. Whistler is putting together material for a second volume of “The Gentle Art of Making  ## p. (#404) ################################################ 50 THE AUTHOR. Enemies.” Mr Heinemann will publish it in a style uniform with the first. “The Life and Times of Cardinal Wiseman,” which Mr. Wilfrid Ward has written, and Messrs. Longmans will publish shortly, has reminiscences of its subject by Cardinal Vaughan, Mr. Glad- stone, and Lord Acton. It also contains letters from Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Gladstone, Dr. Döllinger, Cardinal Manning, Lord Houghton, Pugin, and other famous men. The Duchess of Cleveland is engaged in writing the Life of Lady Hester Stanhope, the niece and confidant of Pitt, whose career doubtless furnishes excellent material for an interesting book. Lady Hester had, it is said, a great affection for Sir John Moore, and after his death, and that, also at Corunna, of her favourite brother, society became odious to her, and England saw her no more after 1810. Four years later she went to reside permanently among the half-savage tribes of Mount Lebanon, living there for about a quarter of a century. Kinglake devotes a chapter to her in “Eothen,” and Dr. Meryon, her physician, published her “Memoirs and Travels'’ in six volumes, fifty years ago. Mr. Charles Hannan, author of the Chinese novel “A Swallow’s Wing,” has written a volume of stories, mostly laid in the far East. Messrs. Constable and Co. will publish it in the autumn. Mr. Laurence Hutton is writing upon “The Literary Landmarks of Venice, Florence, and Rome,” but the book will not appear for some months. Those of Paris will possibly have a volume devoted to them afterwards, in further continuation of the series Mr. Hutton began with his “Literary Landmarks of London.” Mr. Stead’s novel, “A Modern Maid in Modern Babylon,” is expected to appear on the 6th inst. Mr. William Morris’s “The Life and Death of Jason,” which will appear shortly from the Kelmscott Press in a style uniform with “Beourilf,” is to have two woodcuts by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. The literature of the Burns Centenary, which occurs a year hence, is shadowed forth by the announcement of a four-volume “Centenary. Edition,” to be published by Messrs. T. C. and E. C. Jack, Edinburgh. Volume I will be “Poems Bublished by Burns; ” the second, “Posthumous Poems; ” the third, “Songs; ” while the fourth will contain “Songs, Doubtful Pieces, Addenda, Glossarial Index, and General Index.” Mr. William Hole, R.S.A., will illustrate the work with about twenty-four etchings. The plan also includes a library édition de lua.e. The volumes will be issued at intervals of three months. Mrs. M. C. Leighton and Mr. Robert Leighton, the authors of “Convict 99,” “Michael Dred, Detective,” and other popular stories which have added to the success of Answers, are writing another serial for that publication. The first chapters are to appear on March 19, and the novel is to be entitled “In the Shadow of Guilt.” In “A Fisherman's Fancies,” by F. A. Doveton, is a book of tales and sketches. We have on more than one occasion published in these columns some of Mr. Doveton’s graceful verses. Be now comes before us in prose, and that of a very readable and entertaining kind. It is well known that the best introduction to a graceful style in prose is the acquisition of a graceful style in poetry. The book is published by Elliot Stock. *~ * → FRELIMINARY PROSPECTUS OF THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE SOCIETY. HE Elizabethan Stage Society is founded to T give practical effect to the principle that Shakspere should be accorded the build of stage for which he designed his plays. Furthermore, in Shakspere's day, and at no other period of English literature, the best work of the best men appeared upon the boards, showing that the conditions which then obtained at the theatre were peculiarly adapted to the greatest drama. An additional gain with this method of playing is that, though the costume may be costly, there is no occasion to renew it for every play, as archaeology in costume was little if at all studied at the period to be revived, so that, there being no scenery, the bill can be changed at no further cost than the rehearsals. A theatre specially built on the plan of the 16th century—not a very costly building—is much to be wished for. In 1893, “Measure for Measure" was revived in a way to illustrate this principle, under the direction of Mr. William Poel, by the Shakspere Reading Society. The Elizabethan Stage Society will commence its work with a revival of “Twelfth Night, or what you will,” given under Mr. Poel's direction, for one performance only, exclusively to members and guests. It is expected this performance will take place early in June. Time and place will be duly announced to members. The society’s revivals will have the use of the stage fittings of the 16th century stage, prepared for the revival of “Measure for Measure,” and of a valuable wardrobe mainly purchased at the sale of M. Barthe. Capt. Hutton, F.S.A., will kindly advise on matters of old swordsmanship: while for old music it is intended to obtain the services of Mr. Arnold Dolmetsch.  ## p. (#405) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 5 I A subscription of £1 1s. constitutes member- ship for the year. And the year dates from the foundation of the society to Oct. 1, 1896, and then to each following Ist day of October. All interested in the work are invited to become members. Communications may be addressed to ARTHUR DILLON. 52, Talgarth-road, West Kensington, W. *— a 2-2 a- - -s. CORRESPONDENCE, I.—EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITY. T is not of a publisher that I have to complain. Whatever may be the sins of publishers, I have always found those with whom I have had to deal courteous gentlemen and excellent men of business. Nor is it of an editor: my relations with my brethren in the profession, however superior their status to my own, have invariably been pleased. I am a worm who has been crushed by a board of directors, and who seeks to turn against them. - In the year 1893 I was tempted by whatever demon may be responsible for the beguilement of those among us who take an interest in politics to construct a squib on the subject of Home Rule, which I labelled “Interviews with the Immortals. By Ananias Green.” While in search of the best means of firing it off, it occurred to me that an article of mine on “Ireland under Her Own Government’’ had appeared in the National Review of March, 1886, and that large portions thereof had been conveyed from the Review, with flattering comments, into the columns of a paper called England. I ventured to approach Mr. Cecil Walsh, who was then editor of England, on the subject of my “Interviews.” I told him that I did not propose to part with the copyright, as it was my intention to publish my work in book form as near as might be to the time of the next General Election; but that I would offer the “Interviews" for publication in England on very moderate terms. I asked Mr. Walsh whether he would like to see my manuscript, and whether he would promise to return it to me as early as possible, if not accepted. Mr. Walsh re- plied that he would be pleased to read my manu- script, and would take care of it. He also asked me to name a price for publication in England, I reserving the right of reproduction. I sent him my work, and named my price. Towards the end of 1893 I wrote to remind him that I was waiting an answer. Mr. Walsh replied that he was also waiting one—having sent on the work to his directors. He added that he was doing his best to get the matter settled forthwith, and would let me know the result as soon as he possibly could. When I wrote again to Mr. Walsh it was only to learn that these dilatory directors had not yet made up their minds. A year passed without any decision being arrived at by them, and last autumn there appeared to be a prospect (now lost) of disposing of my “Interviews” in another quarter. I wrote to Mr. Walsh to say so, and to request the return of my long-detained MS. Mr. Walsh was very sorry, but his directors were out of town, and he was still without knowledge of the course they had decided on. He remarked that he feared I must think him guilty of great discourtesy, but assured me it was not his fault. I have no reason to doubt his word, nor have I any com- plaint to make of Mr. Walsh’s behaviour, which was characterised throughout by the courtesy T might expect from a brother editor. Shortly before the meeting of Parliament in January, I wrote again to Mr. Walsh, when he replied that he was leaving England, and recom- mended me to apply to a person whom he described as the Secretary of the “English Publishing Company.” I wrote to this person, and received a somewhat cavalier reply to the effect that Mr. Walsh had left them and that my correspondent, the Secretary, would have “to begin de novo.” I wrote again and again, and received no answer at all. Then I addressed a letter formally to “the Editor of England,” in which I stated that I had received no reply to my former letters inquiring whether the manuscript of my work had been lost or not. I made a claim for compensation in the event of its loss, and added that, failing a reply in a week's time, I proposed to consult the Secretary of the Society of Authors, of which Society I am a member. Still no answer. I wrote at the end of a week to the Secretary, who took up my case with the promptness and courtesy to be expected from him. I need not enter into details of the subsequent proceedings, but will briefly state the result of them. I am advised by the Society that if I bring an action in the County Court (as I wished to do), against the people of England, I shall probably get small damages, and shall perhaps be dragged from one court to another by the elaborate machinery of appeals which our legal system provides. The Society was kind enough to offer me aid in prosecuting my case in the County Court. I declined it with thanks, ex- plaining that I could afford to fight my own battle in that court, but dreaded the risk of being put to heavy expense by means of appeals. I offered to bring a County Court action at my  ## p. (#406) ################################################ 52 THE AUTHOR. own cost, if the Society would undertake the risk of subsequent appeals—the question of the responsibility of a journal for the loss of a work the editor had promised to take care of seeming to me an important one to authors generally, The Society did not accept my offer, wherefore I infer that it shares my dread of being subjected to the process of bleeding to death by appeal. I do not blame the Society; if I cannot get justice once and for all in the County Court, it is the law that is to blame. Charles Reade, in “Hard Cash,” made the Yankee inventor, Fullalove, describe our courts of law as shops where justice was sold “dear, but prime.” I have not enough hard cash at my command to warrant me in testing the truth of Fullalove's statement. Not having got my manuscript back (sent to England in September, 1893), I am now busy in reconstructing my work from the first rough draught. I have not even received from the England people an expression of regret for the loss of my property, the breach of their late editor's warranty, and the trouble they have put me to. It need hardly be added that from such persons I have not received the offer of a farthing of compensation. If I were a tailor or a bootmaker, and a possible customer had deprived me of a coat or a pair of |boots after promising to buy or return them, I suppose I should have a good claim for damages, and the case would not have gone beyond the County Court. But, as I live by my pen, I must either put up with the loss of my property or run the risks I have referred to. Of the two courses it seems the wiser to make the people of England a present of my lost labour and property, also of their unredeemed pledge to take care of the manuscript. - Whether their conduct has been either gentle- manly or business-like, I leave it to others to determine. But they might at least have repaid me the stamps I sent to cover the return postage of my MS. TIEITH DERWENT, Author of “A Daughter of the Pyramids,” - “Circe's Lovers,” &c. II.-PARALLELISM. Mr. Coulson Kernahan has sent me his beautiful little book, “God and the Ant.” The parallelism to which—rather too hastily, perhaps—I called attention in the April Author, proves, though in certain details, singular enough, to lie wholly on the surface. It may, however, be worth while to note that both Mr. Kernahan’s prose allegory— if I may call it an allegory—and my sonnet were the result of the suggestions of a dream, or, at least, of sleep. I fancy that the number of authors who turn their slumbers to literary account is already large, and is likely to become larger. My poor sonnet received rather unusually severe treatment from the printers and proof- reader. Skin for skein—in spite of rhyme—is decidedly unkind. Triumphs, of course, should be triumph. Only a goose could do justice to that line as it was made to stand—a posy of sibilants. FREDERICK LANGBRIDGE. III.-BYRONIC MISQUOTATION. I love my Byron, and do not like to see him misquoted, even by an American Ambassador at an Authors' dinner. This is what the poet wrote: Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, - Survey our Empire, and behold our home ! My criticism is aimed at the first line only ; the second, apart from the transposition of the verbs, was altered for topical reasons; and I am not, at present, concerned with the rights and Wrongs of such a procedure, though my opinion is strong on the point. I cannot, however, allow “bear the ocean's foam ” to pass without protest. The whole meaning, and most of the beauty, of the line is damaged by the alteration. In short, Such mangling is utterly inexcusable. I trust my warmth will be excused In other respects the Ambassador, judging by the printed report, spoke admirably. How Byron would have applauded this sentence : “I don’t think that the land can hold the mind of man; it must embark upon the sea, and it must be wafted as the gales may blow, freely, unhesitatingly.” - His Excellency is evidently no landlubber, no amateur yachtsman, more at home on the American equivalent of Ryde Pier than on the Atlantic, in fine no Luxurious slave Whose soul would sicken o'er the heaving wave ; he speaks fair words of the deep sea, and is clearly a man of large intellect and wide sympathies; but, to conclude, he really should endeavour to avoid misquoting the great poet who not only wrote incomparably in praise of the ocean, but was himself, from his earliest childhood, a genuine and unaffected Ocean lover. And I have loved thee, Ocean and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy I wanton’d with thy breakers—they to me Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror—’twas a pleasing fear, For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane—as I do here HUBERT GREENE. 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. 06 Issue 02 (July 1895) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 Issue 02 (July 1895) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1895-07-01-The-Author-6-2 publications The Author