https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/285/1896-01-01-The-Author-6-8.pdf e6566919e3e3a9aae73e03da5751ec3d PDF Text Text ������������������������ Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1896-01-01 Volume 6 Issue 8 Pages Page range in volume 173–196 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18960101 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 C T E D BY W.A. L T E R B E S A. N. T. VoI. VI.-No. 8.] JANUARY 1, 1896. [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 should 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-- * -—s WARNINGS AND ADVICE. 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 warmed 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 SIDES 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. You 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 alone. 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. 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 MS. 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. 13. 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. *~ 2. ~" a- - - HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY. I. WERY 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 T 2  ## p. (#528) ################################################ I 74 THE AUTHOR, experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple 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 Awthor 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. *- a 2-seº ** * *—s THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE. EMBERS are informed : 1. 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 ea clusively 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 £9 4s. 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.  ## p. (#529) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. I 75 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, 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. *-ºs- a -º r-- - -—s FROM THE COMMITTEE, HE Committee beg to remind members that the Sub- scription for the year is due on January the First. The most convenient form of payment is by order on a Bank. This method saves the trouble of remembering. The Secretary will in future send reminders to members who are in arrear in February. The Author will not be sent to members in arrear after the month of March. G. H. THRING, Secretary. *... ak =s* Q- * * ADDRESS OF ENGLISH TO AMERICAN MEN AND WOMEN OF LETTERS, WHE following Address has been sent out by the Society of Authors for signature. As soon as possible it will be forwarded to the United States. Its importance will rest entirely on the weight of the names appended: it is earnestly hoped that all those men and women of English blood who have made them- selves respected by their writings across the Atlantic will sign the paper:— “At this crisis in the history of the Anglo- Saxon race, when two paths lie before us, and on the choice between them depends the future of that race, it seems to be the plain duty of us who sign this paper, being followers of literature in Great Britain, to address upon the subject of that choice you who follow literature in the |United States. - “There are two paths before us. One leads us we know not whither, but in the end through war with all its accompaniments of carnage, un- speakable suffering, limitless destruction, and hideous desolation to the inevitable sequel of hatred and bitterness and the disruption of our race. It is this path which we ask you to join with us in an effort to make impossible. The present is neither the time nor the place, nor are we the persons to deal with the crisis on its technical issues, but it should not be difficult for any of us as men and women of reading and imagination, not liable to be carried away by political passion, to understand the general bear- ings of the case on both sides. We, on our part, are prepared to understand that the United States, as the greatest nation in America, looks with proper jealousy on the extension of Euro- pean powers of influence and territory on the American continent. And you, on your part, will not fail to realise that European Powers in general, and Great Britain in particular, have never made any effort to enlarge their dominions on your continent at any time within the past hundred years. e “But it is not on grounds of political equity that we now address you. We are united to you by many ties, and the first and closest of our ties is the bond of blood. We are proud of the United States. There is nothing in our history that has earned us more glory than the conquest of the vast American continent by the Anglo- Saxon race. When our pride is humbled by the report of some things which you do better than ourselves, it is also lifted up by the consciousness that you are our kith and kin. We see very much of you, and you see much of us. During the last quarter of a century the influx of American visitors to these shores has been very great, while every year sends more and yet more of our people across the Atlantic. There is hardly a household in this country without its American relations, its American friends, without its sons and daughters settled in America; and everywhere in England the American people are settled in our midst. Our public men go to you for the inspiration of your youthful nation, and you receive them with boundless hospitality. Your public men come to us for the interest of our ancient institutions, and we welcome them as our brethren. There is no anti-American feeling among Englishmen, and it is impossible that there can be any anti-English feeling among Americans. For two such nations, then, to take up arms against each other would be civil war, not differing from your calamitous struggle of thirty years ago, except that the cause would be immeasurably less human, less tragic, and less inevitable. “There is another tie that unites our nations, and more especially unites those of us who sign this paper and you who receive it—the tie of literature. Party problems may solve or exhaust themselves, burning questions may burn them- selves out, but the literature which a great race, divided into two nations, holds as a joint inheritance will live on after the fever of political strife has passed away. But though it will live it may also suffer, and from nothing can a people take such injury to its moral nature as from the wounds and scars of its literature; if war should occur between England and America, English  ## p. (#530) ################################################ 176 THE AUTHOR. literature would be dishonoured and disfigured for a century to come. The patriotic songs, the histories of victory and defeat, the records of humiliation and disgrace, the stories of burning wrong and unavenged insult, these would be branded deep into the hearts of our peoples, they would so express themselves in poems and novels and plays as to make it impossible for any of us who had lived through such a fratricidal war to take up again the former love and friendship. “For the united Anglo-Saxon race that owns the great names of Cromwell and Washington; of Lincoln and Nelson; of Gordon and Grant ; of Shakespeare and Milton ; there is, we trust, such a future as no other race has yet had in the history of the world—a future that will be built on a confederation of Sovereign States, living in the strength of the same liberties. We ask you to join us in helping to protect that future. Poets and creators, scholars and philosophers, men and women of imagination and of vision, we call upon you in the exercise of your far-reaching influence to save our literature from dishonour and our race from lasting injury.” *... * * MR, HALL CAINE'S MISSION. I.—CANADIAN RECEPTION. T is gratifying to record that Canada has herself been the first to acknowledge the work of our ambassador. On the night before Mr. Hall Caine left Ottawa, he was enter- tained at a dinner, which was first conceived of as a tribute to him as a man of letters, and ended by being in all senses a ministerial farewell. Nearly all the Ministers of the Dominion Govern- ment were present, and the Minister of Justice, Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper, was in the chair. In proposing the toast of the evening he said that his presence side by side with the guest would be a sufficient answer to the reports so industriously circulated that the question of Canadian copy- right had made them public and personal enemies. All the world knew Mr. Hall Caine as a novelist, but since his arrival in Canada, he had established for himself another reputation—that of a great diplomatist. He used the word advisedly and with a proper sense of responsibility. Mr. Caine had conducted difficult and delicate negotiations with a tact which had awakened the admiration of his colleagues, and brought to what appeared to be a settlement, amid the applause of nearly all the parties concerned, a question which had for years been a cause of difference between the Dominion and the old country. Amongst the other speakers were Mr. Foster, Minister of Finance, and Mr. Daly, Minister of the Interior. II.-FROM MR. R.IDOUT. Toronto, Nov. 18, 1895. I now inclose a copy of a resolution passed by The Ontario Society of Artists which has been forwarded to the Minister of Justice, Ottawa. I also inclose you a copy of the resolution passed by the Canadian Institute, on Nov. 16 last, which has also been forwarded to the Minister of Justice, Ottawa. The Canadian Institute is an old and well- known institute, and representative of Canadian art, literature, and science. The resolution from this institute will no doubt have weight with the Government. As an old member of this Canadian Institute, I succeeded in getting the resolution passed. It would be well if a petition were also presented. Mr. Hall Caine mentioned to me that such a one was going to be passed round for signature. I have not seen it yet. JOHN G. RIDOUT. III.—THE ONTARIO SOCIETY OF ARTISTs. Toronto, November 14, 1895. At the monthly meeting of our Society held on Tuesday last the following resolution was adopted:— “That this Society is of opinion that the Canadian Copyright Act of 1889, now before the English Government for ratification, is detri- mental to the interests of artists in Canada, and would much regret the withdrawal of Canada from the International Copyright Convention.” ROBT. F. GAGEN. IV.--THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. At a meeting of this Association, held on Saturday, Nov. 16, 1895, a resolution was passed that the Canadian Government be memorialised to remain within the Berne Convention. W.—FROM MR. GoLDw1N SMITH. To the Editor of the Times. Sir, Thanks to the eloquence of Mr. Hall Caine, who spoke admirably well, and to his diplomacy combined with that of Mr. Daldy, it appears that we have arrived at a settlement of the copyright question; though I do not myself believe that any settlement will prove in the end satisfactory except that of a uniform copyright for the whole Empire. Our retail booksellers are still in arms against the article of the agreement interfering with the importation of editions  ## p. (#531) ################################################ THE A UTHOIP. 177 printed in England. They have reason for their protest. The Canadian High Commissioner says that no nation except Great Britain treats her colonies as foreign countries. Can he name any colonies except those of Great Britain which treat their mother country as a commercial enemy and protect themselves against her products? A wider question, however, and one affecting the entire constitution of the Empire, has been raised by this dispute. The British North America Act reserves to the Imperial Govern- ment a veto to be exercised in the general inte- rests of the Empire on all Canadian legislation. The Act is barely thirty years old, so that its provisions can hardly have lost their force. Yet our Minister of Justice, Sir C. Hibbert Tupper, said the other evening at a public dinner in Toronto that “the advisers of Her Majesty would not now dare to disallow the Acts of the Federal Legislature (of Canada) as had been done before.” The Imperial veto, in other words, is to be treated as a practical nullity. Canada asserts her legislative independence; in insisting on her right of withdrawing from the Berne Convention she asserts her diplomatic independence also. If Sir C. Hibbert Tupper's reading of the Imperial Constitution is right, the Parliament and the Parliamentary Ministry of Great Britain are merely local, like those of Canada or any other colony; and nothing is Imperial but a Crown constitutionally divested of its power. To the Imperial country no distinction is left except that of her sole responsibility for Imperial defence. This theory of the Imperial Constitution has, in fact, been almost formally advanced in the course of the copyright discussion. Are you prepared to accept it? It is time that your minds should be made up, as this controversy, from which, perhaps, we have not yet wholly emerged, shows. —Yours faithfully, GOLDw1N SMITH. Toronto, Dec. 2. WI.-CANADIAN COPYRIGHT. A SHORT Account (from the point of the English author) of the DRAFT ACT agreed upon by the Canadian Copyright Association, the Canadian Publishers’ Association, the Cana- dian Press Association, on the One part, and Mr. Hall Caine, representing the English Society of Authors, on the other part, and submitted by them to the Dominion Ministers at the Copyright Conference held at Ottawa, Monday, Nov. 25, 1895. I. That when an English author is about to publish a book simultaneously in England and a foreign country he shall enter its name and deposit a copy of it at Ottawa, or (by payment of a higher fee) at the Canadian High Commis- sioner’s Office in London. 2. That by this registration he shall undertake to print and publish that book in Canada within sixty days, or, if he can show cause for delay, within ninety days, of its first publication. 3. That printing in Canada shall mean the printing from plates made elsewhere. 4. That if an author has not published simul- taneously in England and in a foreign country (that is to say, if he has lost his American copy- right) his copyright in Canada shall remain as at present (under English law) until his book has been published without copyright and authority in, say, America. Then it shall be within the right of a publisher in Canada to apply to the Minister for a licence to publish it in the Dominion. 5. Or if an author has not fulfilled his under- taking to publish in Canada within the time prescribed it shall be within the right of a publisher in Canada to apply for a licence. 6. But before the license can be granted by the Minister the author must be informed of the application and given his choice of accepting it or of publishing for himself within sixty days. 7. Publishing for himself means publishing in his own name, in the name of his agent, of his English publisher, or of his foreign publisher. 8. If he should elect to accept the application for a licence he must receive at least Io per cent. On a book published at not less than 25 cents, with not fewer than 500 copies to an edition, his royalty must be paid in advance, and there must be only one licence granted for one book. 9. An author who is about to publish a serial story in England and in a foreign country (say America) may protect it during the time of its publication in parts by entering its name, a general description of its length and character, and his own name, &c., at Ottawa or (by payment of a higher fee) at London. Io. That if he does not do this, or if he does not publish in a foreign country (say America) and his serial is stolen there, the proprietors of any number of Canadian newspapers may apply to Ministers for a licence to print it. II. The author may stop them from doing so by undertaking to arrange for the publication in Canada within sixty days. I2. Or he may accept the applications, and in that case they must bring him small payments of twenty-five dollars from newspapers published in towns of under one hundred thousand inhabi- tants, and fifty dollars from newspapers published in towns of over one hundred thousand. 13. There are various penalties for violation of copyright, &c.  ## p. (#532) ################################################ 178 THE AUTHOR. 14. The rights enjoyed by English authors are to be enjoyed by American authors and by the authors of every country having a copyright treaty with England. WII.-LETTER FROM MR. HALL CAINE TO THE -- TIMEs. Sir, With the knowledge and goodwill of Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper, the Minister of Justice at Ottawa, and with the consent and sympathy of the Canadian Copyright Association and the Publishers’ Association of Toronto, I wish to make a general explanation of the draft Bill which authors and publishers recommended to the Dominion Government yesterday as a basis for any fresh legislation on Canadian copyright which in the exercise of their judgment they may, perhaps, submit to the Canadian Parliament. The object of making this draft Bill public at the present moment is to afford to English authors, publishers, and owners of copyrights a proper and timely opportunity, before the Dominion ministers have attempted to give shape to new legislation, of saying if they foresee any serious disadvantages in the operation of a Canadian Copyright Act which should be founded on these lines:— SYNOPSIS OF DEAFT ACT. I. Any citizen of any country which grants copyright to British subjects may secure copyright in Canada for forty- two years. 2. The Act is not retroactive. 3. Any work hereafter issued that may have copyright under this Act shall have copyright in Canada without printing in Canada, subject to certain restrictions in the case of a book. 4. Any such work, and any work first produced in Canada, may secure exclusive copyright in Canada. 5. Every book published in a foreign country, simultane- ously with its publication in the British Dominions, must be registered simultaneously at Ottawa. If the book is pub- lished in the country of origin only, the owner may register at Ottawa at any time until a licence has been applied for. If a book is to be or is first published in Canada, it must be registered on or before day of publication. 6. Three copies of every copyrighted book or work, printed or produced in Canada, must be delivered at Ottawa. 7. From the day of registration importation must cease, except as to two copies which any person may import, and except as to copies of the book printed and published for circulation in the United Kingdom, which may be imported for sixty days, when the Canadian edition is to be ready.” 8. Application to print a book under licence, stating the proposed retail price, may be made to the Department : (a) When the book is registered at Ottawa and is not produced in Canada, within sixty days; or, (b) When the book is published in the country of origin only, and is published or announced for publication, with- out, copyright, in a foreign country. (c) When the book is published simultaneously in the * See P.S. to this letter. British Dominions and in a foreign country, or vice versa, but not registered or published simultaneously in Canada. 9. The registration mentioned above may be made at Ottawa ; or, for the convenience of authors abroad, it may be made at the office of the High Commissioner of Canada at London, provided the author pays the cost of cabling the fact of registration to Ottawa. I9. This registration involves an undertaking to print and publish an edition of the book in Canada within the sixty days following. THE AUTHOR GIVEN A SECOND CHANCE TO SECURE; COPYRIGHT. II. It will be seen that the author has already been given one opportunity to secure exclusive copyright in Canada. He is now given a second opportunity as follows: I2. On receipt of the application for a licence, the Minister is to telegraph or cable particulars to the publisher of the book in the country of origin, offering the choice of two plans, as follows:— (a) The copyright owner may accept the application, in which case the licence will issue forthwith ; or, (b) He may refuse the application and decide to retain the copyright himself, in which case he must register within seven days of the notice from the Minister, and must produce the book in Canada within the sixty days following. - 13. Should no answer be received by the Minister within seven days, the licence is to issue. All licences are to be given on certain conditions, as follows: I4. The applicant to agree to publish without alteration or abridgment, to pay the author a royalty of Io per cent. on the retail price, which royalty is in no case to be less than 23 cents, on each copy, and to pay the royalty on editions of 500 copies at a time, each copy of each edition to be stamped by the Department of Inland Revenue before being in any way disposed of. I5. The licence may be cancelled should a new edition with material alterations or additions be produced in the country of origin. The author is entitled to copyright on the new edition as though it were a new book. Should the author not register the new edition, the licence shall revert to the original licensee. I6. Importation ceases in the case of application for licence, the same as in the case of registration for copyright. 17. A copyright book going out of print must be reprinted within sixty days, otherwise a licence may be issued. 18. Books to be published under licence are to be printed within thirty days after issue of licence. 19. The Minister may, for cause, allow an extension of thirty days beyond any term specified as that in which a book must be printed in Canada. SERIAL COPYRIGHT. 2O. The author has the right to arrange for exclusive serial publication in Canada. Also by registration at Ottawa, he may protect his serial while it is in course of publication in any country. 21. Should he fail to do so, application for a licence to publish serially under licence may be made. Here, again, the author is given a second opportunity to retain exclusive eopyright, as follows:— 22. On receipt of the application for a serial licence the Minister is to telegraph or cable particulars to the publisher of the paper publishing the work in the country of issue, offering the choice of two plans, as follows:— (1) He may accept the application, in which case the licence issues forthwith ; or, (2) He may refuse the application, and decide to arrange for serial publication himself, in which case he must register within seven days of the notice from the Minister,  ## p. (#533) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. I 79 and arrange for serial publication of the work within sixty days. 23. Should no answer be received by the Minister within seven days the licence issues forthwith, on conditions as follows: 24. The publisher agrees to publish the work in full. 25. The licence conveys exclusive right for the city, town, or village for which issued. 26. The licensee is to pay fifty dollars for papers in cities of Ioo,ooo population or over, and twenty-five dollars for cities, &c., of less than IOO,OOO. 27. Thereafter, a licence is to be issued to all applicants on above conditions without further cabling. 28. Every registration for copyright or serial copyright and for every application for licence is to be published once in Canada Gazetle. 29. This serial licence gives no other right to print aud publish the work in any other form whatever. I now submit this draft Bill, with respectful homage, for the consideration of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, of Sir William Martin Conway and the Society of Authors, and of English publishers. It is a Bill to which the Canadian Copyright Association and other interested classes in Canada pledge themselves, and it is a basis on which, I have the best reason to think, fresh legislation might, perhaps, be framed, agreeably to the wish of the Canadian Government. I shall not traverse the points at which it seems to me better for English authors than the proposed Act of 1889, or attempt to show the particulars in which the interested parties in Canada have made concessions to our claims. Neither shall I discuss the constitutional question of Canada's rights to legislate so as to cover the interests of English authors, or yet touch the vexed problem of manufacture as a limitation of the principle of copyright. But I will try to indicate the operation of an Act which, in the wisdom of the Dominion Government, might, perhaps, be based on these general lines:— I. Such an Act would be limited in its opera- tion to the works of the popular authors. This would meet one of the objections of Mr. Goldwin Smith to the clause requiring that a book should be printed in the Dominion. 2. If a book would not pay to print and pub- lish in Canada, it would not therefore fail of copy- right there. The original edition could go into the Dominion, as at present, during the whole term of its copyright in the country of its origin. This would meet the case described in the valu- able letter of Mr. Herbert Spencer. 3. Though a new writer might lose his copy- right in America by failing to comply with the American Copyright Act, he would not therefore lose his copyright in Canada, where he would hold it absolutely until the end of his term. This would meet the painful case of such young writers as Miss Beatrice Harraden. WOL. VI. 4. Such an Act would not exclude from Canada the English book which had been copyrighted in the United States, but never registered or licensed in the Dominion, but it would exclude the American reprint of a book which had been registered or licensed, and it would also exclude the English colonial reprint, which was meant to meet a condition that is gone—the condition of general piracy in the United States—and would then be useless and mischievous; and it would also exclude the English edition after the pub- lication of the Canadian edition. 5. Our understanding with the United States would not be endangered, because American authors would enjoy the same privileges and be under the same obligations as English authors. 6. Such an Act would not imperil the great advantages to English authors of American copy- right, because it would put it within the author's control (both under the condition of registration and under the condition of license) to see that his American market could not be injured in Canada. 7. Such an Act should not be inconsistent with the spirit of the Berne Convention. As the excellent report of the departmental representa- tives (1892) very properly says: “The Conven- tion merely stipulates that foreign copyright owners are to be entitled to the same rights and privileges as British copyright owners, and if the rights of British copyright owners are cut down by such licences, foreign copyright owners are not entitled to complain of their rights being cut down to a similar extent. 8. Such an Act ought to enable the Dominion Government to withdraw its application to denounce the Berne Convention, and so to remove the danger under which Canadian authors now stand of being put into a position of isolation. 9. The interposition of a Government depart- ment (the Department of Agriculture) in the pub- lishing industry of Canada—now perplexed by the uncertainties of the Foreign Reprints Act, and threatened with the intricacies of the pro- posed legislation of 1889—would be confined to a single and simple transaction, which would probably be the less frequent form of arrange- ment. In conclusion I venture to counsel my brother authors not to inquire too curiously into the constitutional question involved in Canada's demand to legislate for herself, and I promise them, after yesterday's public conference with the Premier, Sir Mackenzie Bowell, and the Minister of Justice, Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper, as well as with the representatives of the publishing, printing, and bookselling industries throughout the Dominion, that Canada is at this moment in TJ  ## p. (#534) ################################################ 18O THE AUTHOR. the mood to deal with us, if we are conciliatory and reasonable, not only justly, but generously. In the last word I desire to make acknowledg- ment of the valuable assistance of Mr. F. R. Daldy. I must not charge him with any re- sponsibility for the principle of this Bill, which must be laid to my own account entirely; but I should be very wanting in gratitude if I did not say how much I owe to his special knowledge of copyright law and to his warm sympathy and untiring help. Mr. Daldy is to remain some days longer in Ottawa, and he will, I am sure, obtain some further concessions on points of detail.— Yours very truly, HALL CAINE. Ottawa, Nov. 26. P.S.—Since writing the foregoing Mr. Daldy and I have heard from the Dominion Ministers that they cannot propose to exclude any English book except the colonial edition after publication of the Canadian edition. The exclusion of the English edition was a concession made by me to secure certain of the authors’ rights. To-night (Tuesday) the Canadian Copyright Association writes asking me if I would agree to the with- drawal of the prohibition on English editions. I have answered that I would agree. Therefore, this clause of the foregoing draft may, I think, be read as abandoned. HALL CAINE. Dec. 5, 1895. VIII.-CANADIAN COPYRIGHT IIEGISLATION. Canadian copyright legislation has been ad- vanced by another not unimportant stage. The draft Act which Mr. Hall Caine brought back to England as the basis of compromise which had been submitted to the Dominion Government has been reported upon by the home authorities and revised by Parliamentary counsel, and will pro- bably be returned to Ottawa at an early date. It is understood that the revision consists in the main of technical changes which are intended to bring the Act into harmony with the terms of Imperial legislation, and that it removes the prohibition on books lawfully printed and pub- lished for general circulation in countries of the Berne Copyright Union. This change will no doubt meet the only objec- tion urged against the Bill in Canada on behalf of Canadian readers and retail booksellers, and it is therefore not unlikely that the Minister of Justice will put the Act in hand before the dissolution of the Dominion Parliament in the spring. In that event it seems probable that there will be no further opposition in this country. — Times, Dec. 23, 1895. changes. EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. T a meeting of the committee of manage- ment held on Monday, Dec. 9, a sub-com- mittee was appointed to investigate and to report upon the question of the publishing of educational works. The sub-committee will be extremely obliged if members of the Society will interest themselves in this important work and forward to the secretary their own experience, or that of their friends, with the accounts and the agreements. It is understood that no cases will be published with names unless by permission of the authors concerned. The following, for instance, is the experience of one writer of educational books:— “For my first book I agreed with my publisher to receive a royalty of Io per cent., to begin after the first thousand were sold. This book has done extremely well—so well that I think the publishers ought to have gone beyond the agreement and paid me royalties as from the beginning. I have done two other books for the same publishers on Io per cent. from the beginning; the work was of a kind which necessitated considerable sums of umoney spent in copying books and other pay- ments, amounting to about £50 in all. This money has been paid by me, not by the publishers. I do not know what proportion of profit has been taken by the publishers and what has gone to me. “I next made arrangements with a general editor of a certain firm to edit a book for which I was to receive a certain sum—quite a small sum. I worked at this for nearly a year, and had done about half the work, when the general editor resigned, and his place was taken by another man who refused to accept the work on which his pre- decessor had engaged me, and which I had already. half finished. I have done another book for an educational series for which I am receiving a . royalty of 7% per cent. on the published price. With regard to this book, I made it a condition when I contributed it to the series that it should be planned in a certain manner. “Thris was agreed to, and I spent a year's hard work upon it. This summer, however, without any warning to me, the publishers have issued in the same series an “alternative’ book to my own. It is a work closely modelled on mine with certain I should like to ask whether there ought not to be some protection for contributors to an educational series against the introduction of ‘alternative' volumes embodying, as far as may be convenient, the fruits of their labour.” This case illustrates the need for the inquiry of  ## p. (#535) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 181 the newly appointed sub-committee. The royal- ties are simply sweating. As for the introduction of an “alternative” volume, this extraordinary statement demands further investigation. * * ==s* r----, OFFICE EXPENSES. HE question whether a publisher is entitled to charge for office expenses is growing larger and more important. In fact, the relations between author and publisher cannot be discussed, to say nothing of being settled, until this question has been thoroughly thrashed out. Every honest man is agreed that there must be no secret charge of any kind; that to spend £80 and to tell the author in the accounts that £IOO has been spent is—but it is quite unnecessary to say here what that is. We wish to speak of agreements and terms of partnership between two honourable men, both of whom desire nothing more than is fair, and both of whom would scorn the dirty tricks of Secret profits and lying returns. Let us set forth the conditions of the question as fairly and as dispassionately as possible. We will here consider only that kind of book which carries with it no risk. By this we mean a book which is certain to pay for the actual cost of production with some margin, great or small; a book of which the publisher knows that he can dispose of a certain minimum which will at least clear his liability, and which he hopes will greatly exceed that sum. In every branch of literature there are a great many authors whose books fall under this head—books without risk. Of course we cannot admit that kind of risk incurred when a publisher, for the sake of saving a little on the cost of production, issues a much larger edition than he can depend upon selling. Thus, if a writer has recently written a book which has gone through an edition of 2000, the publisher would not be justified in complaining of the risk he had undertaken if he were to begin with an edition of 4OOO. Let us, as usual, deal with our customary example, the 6s. book; not necessarily a novel. There are three methods of publishing : that of purchase, which is perhaps the best of all if the author obtains the proper price : of profit- sharing, also very good if the author gets his proper share : of royalties, which is very good if the author gets a proper royalty. Now, when any one of these methods is dis- cussed, the publisher, too often, objects, generally putting the two together, the cost of advertise- ment, and his enormous office expenses. As regards the former, that forms part of the cost of production, and is only mentioned here because it is sometimes lumped together with office expenses in the desire to pass the latter because the former cannot well be disputed. One word re- garding the cost of advertising. It is as well to remind the reader what it means. Thus the expenditure of £10 on advertising means: On the first thousand copies an addi- tion of .................................... 2#d. On the first two thousand ............... Iłd. On the first three thousand ............ #d. Of the first ten thousand 9-d. to the cost of every volume. . So that if £30 is spent on advertising a book which has a sale of Io,000, the cost of production is increased by #d. for every volume. Of course this does not include advertising in a publisher's own newspapers or exchanges, either open or concealed. Let us return to the clause for charging office expenses. It is a new thing. Formerly a publisher agreed, if he thought a book likely to succeed, to take the risk and give his services in considera- tion of half, or one-third, of the profits. The word “profits” was understood to mean the difference between the gross receipts and the money spent on production. This point is estab- lished by Charles Knight, who gives the accounts of Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall,” on a profit-sharing agreement (see p. 183). Knight wrote fifty years ago, but he calls attention to the tampering with accounts which had then become too common a practice. The point, however, is this: that a hundred years ago a profit-sharing agreement in which the publisher gave his risk and his services in return for an agreed share of profits did not allow him, nor was it ever thought of, to deduct his office expenses, and then begin to share. The bargain was that in return for his share he should take the risk and give his services. Now his services meant then, and they mean now, the use of the whole of his machinery. We have here eliminated the question of risk. That is to say, we are considering only that class of books, now become very large, in the produc- tion of which there is no risk, The services of the publisher remain; and for these services he must be remunerated on such a scale as will pay him a fair margin over and above his office expenses. What are these services P. That is the question on which depends the adjustment of the relations between author and publisher. What does the publisher actually do for the book? His own  ## p. (#536) ################################################ 182 THE AUTHOR. personal work lies first in giving the machinery of his office and clerks whereby the book can get printed, and bound, and distributed, and the accounts collected. All this is pure routine, and is the daily work of clerks, accountants and travellers. There is not the least mystery or difficulty about it. Knowledge there must be, viz., as to the proper charges for printing, binding and paper; but knowledge that the clerks and accountants may possess as much as the principal. There is, next, the decision as to the best number to start with, a difficulty easily met in the case of the book we are considering—a book that carries no risk. Then comes the amount of expense that the book will “bear” in advertising—a point as to which all publishers differ in practice. One does not desire in the least to undervalue the personal work done for the book by the publisher; but can anyone find any other contribution to the success of the book P. In other words, what does a publisher do for a book whose production carries no risk, more than has been stated above P - Yet for doing this simple routine work by the hands of his clerks some publishers claim the right of charging first for office expenses, and then actually going halves—if not worse—with the owner and creator of the property On what grounds can this claim be allowed P Do other people—agents — stewards — trades- men—ever make such a claim P What would be thought of a rent collector—a solicitor—a land agent—a house agent--demanding first a deduc- tion for the Office expenses, and, next, half what is left for himself? The thing would be monstrous. In all work done for other people, of whatever kind, the office expenses must be met by the man who does the work. It is his affair. He has got to make his own machinery; to buy his own tools. The doctor does not charge for the carriage in which he drives about: the solicitor does not charge for the clerks who do his writing: the barrister does not charge for his rent and his clerks; on the contrary, the charges of all these men are uniform, and on the same scale, whether there are few clerks or many. There cannot, in fact, be named any kind of trade or profession, except that of publishing, in which it is pretended that the shop or the office is charged for separately. That there must be a first charge on the shop- keeper's returns for rent and servants is obvious; and there must be a margin, otherwise the shop- keeper could not live. Some time ago an interesting interview with a publisher, already referred to in these columns, appeared in the New Budget. This publisher, speaking of a popular six shilling novel, lamented bitterly that the author got eighteenpence a copy, but that he himself, after deducting the cost of production, the advertisements, and his office eapenses, only made sevenpence a copy. Only sevenpence Poor man. It was a very popular book. It sold a great many thousands. If it sold 40,000 copies this publisher received, there- fore, no more than £1 166 in three months for doing—what? We have seen above all that he did. His figures, besides, require auditing. Since, however, it is desired to decide upon a fair adjustment with the publisher, one which shall include office expenses and leave a proper margin, there are two or three other things necessary to be considered. Thus, we must ascertain what are office expenses, and what proportion they bear to each book. In order to do this it would be necessary to have access to the publisher's books —all his books—a thing not easy to get. Yet without these books it is impossible to arrive at any answer. The expenses include rent, taxes, readers, clerks, servants, fire and lighting, travellers, stationery, and all the ordinary expenses of an office. In the case of the new publisher, with his two rooms and his two boys and no traveller, these expenses are not, of course, considerable; a few hundreds a year would cover them. In the case of a great house they are, naturally, very large indeed. One is quite willing to admit the fact. The question is, first, how much are they, year by year, on an average as shown by the books P. Next, what are the average sales, year by year, of all the firm’s publications, as shown by the books? For instance, the publisher above referred to calculated the office expenses on each volume at something like 50l., i.e., the share of office expenses on that one successful book would be—putting the circulation at 40,000—3833 for three months If one book out of all those in his list cost £833 for three months to distribute, how terrible must be his office expenses taken as a whole and divided among all the books The figures are the pub- lisher's own—not ours. But does this include the advertising P Yes: but the sum of £100, which is enormous, spent in advertising would not mean so much as three farthings a volume. However, let us take a more reasonable view of things. We will suppose that the sum of £3000 covers all office expenses. There are houses where, no doubt, this sum would not nearly cover expenses; there are also smaller ones where this sum is not nearly reached. We may fairly con- sider that one volume may be taken with another. That is to say, there is as much trouble and work over the distribution of a half-crown volume as over a half-guinea, volume. So that if, for in- stance, the whole sales of the year amount to 24O,OOO volumes, we have to divide the office  ## p. (#537) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 183 expenses by this number of volumes in order to arrive at the share of each. Now £3000 divided by 240,000 gives the sum of 3d. for each volume, i.e. if 3 s. 6d. be the trade price of the volume, 7 per cent. On the gross receipts will be wanted for office copies. But these figures are purely imaginary. Nor can any general percentage be arrived at, because the pro- portion must vary with the business done by any house. The next consideration is very important. It is this. If the office expenses of the publisher are to be charged, those of the author must also be charged as well. Now, the office expenses of the author are sometimes very heavy indeed. A case was recorded in these pages some time ago in which an author who wrote a small book for a sum of £1oo found it necessary to make three journeys at a cost of £35 in order to verify certain points. Were not these office expenses? Then there is the rent of his study; the payment of the typewriter; that of the occasional or regular shorthand writer; the cost of fire and lights; the share of servant’s work; paper; books bought —often an extremely heavy outlay; sometimes research and copying to be done and paid for. Are not those things as much office expenses as the publisher's office P Of course they are. Think what they mean. The rent of the study can hardly be placed at less than £30; the type- writer takes perhaps & IO; the shorthand writer may perhaps be had for part of the time at, say, IOS. a week, or say only £20 a year; books, paper, and other things easily rise into another £2O a year. His office expenses, therefore, amount to £8o a year, say £80 for the one book. We are sometimes told that office expenses mean Io per cent. of the gross receipts: we are not informed how that figure has been arrived at. Let it pass, however. Now, IO per cent. On a 6s. book means Io per cent. On 3.s. 6d., or 4+d. If a writer of whose book 3000 copies are sold received the same allowance he would still be a loser, because he would only receive £52 IOS. for his office expenses. In other words, if a writer is to receive Io per cent. on the returns for his office expenses, he must have a sale of 4600 before his office expenses for one year are paid. To sum up. First of all, a claim for office expenses is a new thing invented of late years. (2) The publisher's services, for which alone, in a book without risk, he can claim anything, mean the use of his office, which can no more be considered separately, in such a book as we are considering, than it is when dealing with a solicitor, a doctor, a barrister, a printer, a carrier, a rent collector, an agent, or one who does any kind of work for any other man. The WOL. VI. publisher and his office are one. (3) If the pub- lisher's office expenses are to be charged to his account separately, so must the author's. (4) The real office expenses, together with the average number of volumes sold, cannot be arrived at without examination of the books, and no charge can be allowed in any kind of account or bill which cannot be audited and verified. Two methods are possible. The first is for both author and publisher to take a percentage—the same—on the receipts, or on the cost of production, for office expenses, and then to proceed with the division. Of course this is the same thing as taking no notice of them—the old plan. The other method is for the author to have nothing to do with the publisher's office expenses at all, but to give him a royalty as remuneration for his services which shall include office expenses with a fair margin for himself. *-- ~ --" e- * *—s A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, HE following extract, taken from Knight's “Shadow of the Old Bookseller,” shows what was meant a hundred years ago by a profit-sharing agreement — two-thirds of the profits to go to the author and one-third to the publisher; the actual cost of production to be taken from the gross returns; the publisher's remuneration or share to include his services, i.e., his office, clerks, and general machinery. What else, indeed, could the publisher of Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall ” do for the book P “State of the account of Mr. Gibbon’s “Roman Empire.” Third edition. Ist vol. No. IOOO. April 3°,1777. S. Printing 80 sheets at £1 6s. with notes at the bottom of the paper ...... ........... ........ I 17 o o 180 reams of paper at 19s. ........................ I7 I O O Paid the corrector extra care ..................... 5 5 O Advertisements and incidental expenses ......... I6 I5 o 3IO O O 3 S. d. IOOO books at 16s. .................. 8OO o o Deduct as above ..................... 3IO O O Profits on the edition......... 490 O O Mr. Gibbon's two-thirds is ........................ 326 I3 4 Messrs. Strahan and Cadell's........... * . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 6 8 490 O O I should be unwilling to raise any invidious comparisons between the publishers of the eighteenth and those of the nineteenth century; but, if I am not mistaken, the ordinary profits would—say twenty-five years ago — have been taken upon a different principle, and the account X  ## p. (#538) ################################################ 184 THE AUTHOR. would have assumed something like the follow- ing shape: Hypothetical account, wbom the half profit system, of a book which cost £31o. 3 s. d. 1000 at 16s. ............................................. 8oo o o Less IO per cent. for publisher ..................... 8o o o 720 o o Deduct as above ............... 3IO O O 4IO O O Half share to author ............... 2O5 O O Half share to publisher, with £80 commission .................. 205 o o' By “five and twenty years ago.” Knight clearly means his own time of writing, which was about thirty years ago, when cookery applied to publishers' accounts was already one of the Fine Arts. Let us give another hypothetical case showing a modern account not worse than has been found in certain cases brought to the Society within the last ten years. Of course the pro- cess of Cookery was not shown in the account rendered. True Cost. Charge. 48 S. d. 48 S. d. Printing.............................. II 7 O O I28 I 4 O Paper................................. I71 o o 188 2 O Corrections ..................... ... .5 S O IO IO O Advertisements..................... 16 15 O Y Do. in publisher's own organ ... 33 5 o y so O O Postage, &c. ........................ 5 O O 382 6 o Profit on editions .................. 3IQ 4 IO 701 Io Io Receipts. IOOO books at 16s., 13 as 12 ... 738 9 o Less 5 per cent, for bad debts... 36 18 5 7OI IO Io Half profit to author ................................. I59 I2 5 39 to publisher.............................. } each. True profit to publisher, 22.41 18s. 5d. So that in a “half-profit” system the publisher would get by these figures 382 6s. more than his partner. THE RETURN OF MISS. CASE was tried before one of the City Courts last month, which presents a point of some interest. It has not been reported, so far as we know, in any paper, and the statement of the case as presented here is that of the plaintiff only. In the absence of documentary proofs, or a Press report, let it stand as a hypothetical case only. - – t The plaintiff stated that a certain editor of a weekly paper—not the proprietor—invited him to send in contributions, adding that he could not give him the order unconditionally, as he was not the proprietor, but stating that he would arrange for their acceptance. - The plaintiff thereupon sent in three separate contributions. The papers were sent in on July 8, Aug. 13, and Aug. 24. Then nothing more was heard about the contributions. The plaintiff called and wrote repeatedly. Nobody was ever at home, and no reply came to the letters. He sent in an account and asked for payment. No reply. He then brought an action for the amount. The defence was that the customary paragraph concerning MSS., which appears weekly in the paper, released the defendants from any liability. This was the paragraph: NOTICE TO CONTRIBUTORS. The editor will not guarantee the return of any MSS. sent in on approval, but he will use his best endeavours where stamps are forwarded for the purpose. The judge agreed with this view, but asked why the MS. was not returned in accordance with this paragraph. The defendants said that they had the MS. in the court. The judge ordered the MS. to be handed over and dismissed the Ca,Sé. The plaintiff, therefore, got his M.S. at the cost of IOS. and a wasted morning. The point to observe is that the editor, or proprietor, who inserts such a notice is clearly within his right, even when the MS. has been invited to be sent in on approval. The contri- butor who accepts such an invitation must protect himself, therefore, beforehand, by getting an assurance from the editor, in writing, that his MS. will be returned if it is not acceepted. Of course, the conduct of an editor who invites a contribution and then spitefully refuses to return it, under cover of such a “notice,” needs no comment. *– ~ -º g- - - NEW YORK LETTER, New York, Dec. 14, 1895. R. HALL CAINE will have reached your shores long before this letter leaves New York, and he will be able to report in person the success of his mission to Canada. The most of the authors and the publishers with whom I have chanced to talk about the new Canadian bill do not approve of it. They are in favour of leaving things as things are now. The authors for the most part care very little about the matter, for the Canadian market is not large, and it seems to prefer British books to American. The publishers feel very keenly on the subject, as  ## p. (#539) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 185 they have reason to fear that the Canadian re-printer is already making arrangements to pour into the Western States, through the post- office, a mass of books copyright in the United States. One would think that the Canadians who do most of their trading with us would not be in favour of anything likely to tighten the restric- tions which already interfere with the liberty of commerce between the two countries. It must be remembered always that Canada, although the nearest neighbour of the United States, is not very friendly to us. This unfriendliness is due in part to an inheritance of hate brought into the Dominion by the exiled loyalists who had to leave the United States after the Revolutionary War. And the element in the Canadian people free from this unfriendliness, the element most in sympathy with the life and the ideals of the people of the United States, is not large, and is never likely to be, since the Canadian who likes the United States is prone to immigrate here. I heard the other day that there are now more native Canadians residing in the United States than there are native Canadians residing in Canada. The temptation must always be very great to the strong and the energetic to go to the place where they can better themselves, and there- fore to abandon a native land which is bleak, and infertile, and heavily in debt. But this has nothing to do with Mr. Hall Caine's experiences here, or with the pleasant im- pressions he left behind him. The Aldine Club, composed chiefly of members of the publishing trade, gave him a dinner. He spoke one evening last month before the Nineteenth Century Club on the “Moral Responsibility in the Novel and the Drama,” having a manuscript before him but using it only occasionally. He illuminated his discourse with two or three Manx anecdotes, capitally told; and he illustrated his assertion that this present century is far and away the most romantic and interesting of any yet known to mankind, by an American anecdote of a telegraph operator, narrated with knowledge and sympathy and point. Another British author, Mr. Gilbert Parker—if he is to be called a British author, in spite of the fact that he was born in Quebec, I believe—has been spending the autumn months in New York. He was married last week to a young lady of this city, Miss Wantine; and the happy couple propose settling in London next month, I understand. Yet a third British author is here, “John Oliver Hobbes,” and here I am even more in doubt as to the nationality since Mrs. Craigie was born in the United States, but brought up and married in England. Mrs. Craigie is being much entertained and frequently interviewed by all sorts of newspapers. She has arrived here in time to be present at the first performance of her little play, “Journeys End in Lovers Meeting,” by Miss Ellen Terry at Abbey's Theatre this week. The performances of Miss Terry and of Sir Henry Irving and of the London Lyceum Com- pany have been attended as faithfully as they always are here in New York. At the request of the Shakespeare Society of Columbia College, Sir Henry delivered a lecture on the “Character of Macbeth,” before some thousand or so of the officers and students of the University. It was a brilliant gathering which Sir Henry addressed in the lofty and beautiful library of Columbia, from which the tables had been removed, and on the bookcases of which many of the younger students had perched themselves picturesquely. And Sir Henry’s lecture was worthy of the occasion. Of course it was to some extent an explanation of that reading of the character which the actor follows in his own performances of Macbeth. The address was beautifully delivered and it was most cordially received. As I have seen more than one reference in the pages of the Author to the New York society called the “Uncut Leaves,” at the meetings of which authors read their imprinted writings to appreciative audiences, it may be of interest to record here that Mr. L. J. B. Lincoln, the origi- nator of the scheme, has issued his circular for the winter of 1895-6. Readings for the fifth season will be held at Sherry's Rooms on Satur- day evenings, Nov, 23, Dec. 2 I, Jan. 25, Feb. 29, March 28, and April 25. In response to many requests, an afternoon series will be held at Sherry's on Tuesdays, Dec. 17, Jan. 7, Feb. I I, March IO, April 7 and 28, at 3.30. At these meetings prominent actors, whose presence would be impossible at the evening meetings, will take part, as well as authors. The subscription for either the evening or afternoon course will be ten dollars, admitting two persons to each reading. For both courses the subscription will be seven- teen dollars for two persons. An initiation fee of five dollars will be required from new members for the evening readings. It is to be recorded that the authors who read are always well paid for this labour. The London Spectator not long ago, in noticing the fact that Macmillan and Co. had become the British agents of the Century Magazine, expressed the hope that they would soon abandon the so- called American spelling. Of course this was written in ignorance of the fact that the London agents of the Century, of Harper's Magazine, and of Scribner's Magazine have nothing what- ever to do with the management of authose  ## p. (#540) ################################################ I86 THE AUTHOI8. magazines; their sole function is to sell a certain number of copies consigned to them. These three magazines are edited here in New York and for American readers with but little thought for the British reader, since the circulation in Great Britain of any one of the three is probably not one-fifth of its total circulation. And the habit of advertising in magazines is not so far developed in Great Britain as it is in the United States; the Century and Harper's appear here frequently with more than one hundred pages of advertise- ments all carefully classified. Obviously it is on the American reader and on the American advertiser that the American magazine must rely; the circulation it may gain in England it is glad to have, for these sales in Tondon are so arranged as to be almost clear profit with little or no risk in most cases. So far from their being any probability that the American people as a whole will give up their simplifications of English orthography, any keen observer can see that the simplifying movement is steadily advancing. The latest symptom of this is the organisation of the “Orthografic Union,” the object of which is to secure the simplification of English orthography. The president of this new society is Mr. Benjamin E. Smith, the managing editor of the “Century Dictionary;” and among the vice-presidents are Francis J. Child, Professor of English in Harvard University; Thomas R. Tounsbury, Professor of English in Yale Univer- sity; Francis A. March, Professor of English in Lafayette College; Brander Matthews, Professor of Literature in Columbia College; William R. Harper, President of the University of Chicago; Alexander Melville Bell, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, William Dean Howells, Edward Eggleston, Andrew D. White, formerly President of Cornell University. The Orthografic Union has issued a circular calling for further advance in spelling reform. As this is a subject in which all authors are interested I append the modifications the society suggest : The Orthografic Union aims to organise effort for the adoption and persistent use of uniform improvements in English spelling. In the first series of improvements, con- sisting of the three classes given below, are introduced only such changes as there is reason to believe a considerable number of eminent authors, editors, and publishers are ready to unite in using. The first and second classes of improvements selected, and most of the words in the third class, have been recom- mended by the Philological Society of England, the American Philological Association, and the Modern Lan- guage Association of America, and are recognised in the columns of “A Standard Dictionary,” and in lists given in “The Century” and “Webster's International * dic- tionaries. The Orthografic Union recommends the following improve- ments for immediate use in books, journals, commercial and private correspondence, &c. : Class I. Final ed pronounced as t : after a short vowel or diphthong, spell simply t, and simplify preceding double consonants, as : blest, exprest, past, backt, lookt, wisht, slipt, patcht, toucht. Class 2. Silent final e : in words ending in -íde, -íle, -íne, -īte, mme, -tte, and -gue, omit the e and preceding silent letters, when the change will not suggest another quality for a preceding letter, as : chlorid, fertil, glycerin, definit, definitly, gram, program, quartet, catalog, dialog. Class 3. Special cases: (a) Miscellaneous words: spell according to the simpler forms given in the columns of “Webster's International,” “The Century,” “A Stan- dard,” or other good dictionary, as: ax, theater, mold, rime, maneuver, hemorrhage, esophagus; (b) Chemical terms: as recommended by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and “A Standard Dic- tionary,” and as largely used in the text of “The Century Dictionary,” as : bromin, bromid, sulfur ; (c) Names of places and peoples: as recommended by the Royal Geo- graphical Society, or the United States Board of Geographic Names, and given in “The Century Cyclopedia of Names’ and “A Standard Dictionary,” as: Bering, Korea, Fiji. X. Y. Z. *- - -º * w - NOTES FROM PARIS. TV.HE election of an Academician to fill the fauteuil vacated by the death of Alexandre Dumas will take place at the French Academy in May, when Pasteur's fauteuil will also be filled. At the next elections, which will be held directly after the reception of M. Jules Le- maître, the fauteuils of MM. de Lesseps and Camille Doucet will be balloted for. For the de Lesseps fauteuil there are now five candidates (not including Zola, the perpetual candidate). These are Francis Charmes, Desjardins, Barboux, Jean Aicard, and Anatole France. The fauteuil will go to one of the two last named. My opinion is that Anatole France will be elected. Camille Doucet's fauteuil will be filled either by Emile Deschanel or the Marquis Costa de Beauregard, One is inclined to think that the latter will be the successful candidate, as the Dukes (le parti des Ducs) will probably give the preference and their votes to the grand seigneur. The Marquis has also substantial claims as a man of letters, his “Un Homme d’Autrefois” having been “crowned.” by the French Academy. Deschanel, however, has a large following, and it is possible that the election will have to be postponed for want of an absolute majority. The most interesting election will be the one to fill the fauteuil Dumas, the candidates being Henri Becque, Jean Richepin, and, of course, Emile Zola. I should back Henri Becque, for his “Les Blasphèmes’ are against Richepin, and Zola has not, I think, any chance, in spite of the campaign in his favour in the  ## p. (#541) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 187 principal papers. I see that Daudet is mentioned as a candidate also. He has told me that he is no candidate, and that he never will be one, and I believe him. Whenever I am asked, as I often am, in Paris about les jeunes in English literature, I invari- ably tell my questioner that the author who, in my opinion, is most worthy of attention amongst the newer men is Morley Roberts. Roberts, I explain, has not so far attained the great popular success which should certainly be his, in consideration of his wide—almost universal —knowledge of the world and life, of men and places, his fine unique style, and a profundity of human sympathy which puts him on a level with men who on this score alone are eminently suc- cessful in the commercial sense of the word. I have recommended his “Question of Instinct” to the translators. It is a book which would be better understood—and therefore more appre- ciated—in Paris than in London, and I shall be curious to watch its reception. There are also many of his short stories which would be very popular in France. I do not think his “Western Avernus" would meet with much sympathy in Paris. “Qu'allait-il faire dans cette galère.” would be the general remark. The French do not travel, and do not believe in travelling stories. “A beau mentir,” &c. They do not sympathise with travellers' woes. “Let us have no meander- ing,” they say with the old lady in “David Copper- field.” I hear on very good authority that since the death of Victor Hugo the receipts from his works have totalled up to close upon seven and a half millions of francs (£30,000). I agree with the editor of La Plume that under these circum- stances it is rather strange that the £2OOO necessary to complete the sum required for his statue are not forthcoming. required, only £6000 have been collected during the ten years which have elapsed since his death. At a recent sitting of the Académie de Médecine, two doctors, MM. Cazal and Catrin, declared very emphatically that the risk of con- tagion by the use of books which have been in the hands of persons suffering from infectious diseases is a very great one, and they described a number of experiments by which they had estab- lished the truth of this statement. One is glad to hear that the risk is greatly enhanced in the case of those objectionable persons who moisten their fingers in order to turn over the leaves. They recommend that any book which may be suspected should be baked for disinfection in an oven. The best advice, Ithink, to give under these circumstances is never to borrow books, but for Of the £8000 each man and woman to buy his or her own copy. Authors can only benefit by MM. Cazal and Catrin's communiqué to the Academy of Medicine. I heard a French man of letters express the opinion that much of the Anglophobia which has recently manifested itself in America may be the effect of the mass of Napoleonic literature, almost entirely of a pronounced Anglophobic nature, which has recently been circulated in the States. I should not be surprised to find that this opinion could be largely corroborated. The Figaro has resumed its weekly column of literary gossip, which is now published in the Wednesday issue. It is, however, no longer edited by M. Jules Huret, who has taken over the daily column of theatrical gossip, known as “Courrier des Théâtres.” The famous Journal des Débats no longer appears as a morning paper, the recently founded evening edition alone appearing. It is to be hoped that it may fill a real want in Paris—that of a good evening paper containing news. Such a paper does not exist in Paris at present. My opinion is that in the future it will be the evening paper which will have the largest chance of great success. In Paris most people get up late—at an hour when the morning papers are already out of date. The Débats continues to be the One paper to which one looks for sound and useful literary criticism. M. Jean Aicard’s translation of “Othello” has been received a l'unanimité by the Comité de Lecture of the Comédie Française, and the play will be eventually staged there. It has never been performed in its entirety, though portions of it have been played, with Mounet-Sully as Othello and Sarah Bernhardt as Desdemona. Sarah Bernhardt is making good progress with her Memoirs. She is said to be receiving the most brilliant offers from syndicates for their publication in serial form. Emile Zola's libretto for M. Bruneau's new opera “Messidor” is not, as has been stated, based on the author's novel “La Terre,” but is an entirely original work. M. Bruneau hopes to finish his music in time for the production of the opera, next autumn. M. Jean Ajalbert has discovered a new poet, a new Mistral—the Mistral of Auvergne. This is interesting, as Auvergne of all countries is the least likely nurse of any poetic child. The new Mistral, whose personality and work are attract- ing great attention in literary Paris at present, is a wine-seller, Arsène Vermenouze by name, who lives at Aurillac. His volume of poems, written in the ugly Auvergnat patois, which is familiar to Parisians as the language of the coal-men and  ## p. (#542) ################################################ I 88 THE AUTHOR, hawkers of roasted chestnuts in the capital, is called “Flour de Brousso’ (Gallicé, “Fleur de Bruyère”). Says Jean Ajalbert: “Lamartine wrote of Mistral that he had made of Provence a book. Toutes proportions gardées, Vermenouze has made of Auvergne a book also.” The question is, Was Auvergne worth making into a book P. It is a terribly ugly, uninteresting country. Apropos of the publication of a very interesting “History of the French Novel during the 19th Century " (“Le Roman en France pendant le XIX' Siècle,” par Eug. Gilbert) by Plon, it is to be noted that, with the exception of a few writers like Zola and Daudet, literary men in France are generally expressing the opinion that as a vehicle of thought the novel is quite “played out ’” — archiusé is the expression generally used. Quite so; and high time it is (pace Zola) that the novel with a purpose should be played out. Mr. Gilbert's book, by the way, merits attention by students of French literature. I should like to see it translated into French. I receive quite a number of letters with refer- ence to my remarks on the blackleg genus. I am glad to find that in more senses than one these remarks seemed to have touched the spot. I do not want, however, to say anything more on the subject. A country has only the literary blacklegs which it deserves, and, if English people like to tolerate these farceurs, tant pis pour eua. It is always interesting to hear what an author considers the best scene in his book, and accord- ingly I was interested to hear from Nordau that in his opinion the best touch in his “Comedy of Sentiment” was where the hero finds out that Paula, who has come to Dresden “to be sepa- rated from him again only by death,” as she says, had supplied herself with a return ticket, for use in case her blandishments proved unavailing. By the way, speaking of return tickets, I never take one without a shiver as I remember how Mme. Fenayron, conducting Aubert to the house at Pecq, took for herself a return ticket, but for the intended victim a single only. He was not to return, nor did he. This horrible detail was proved at the trial, and went far to establish the premeditation of the crime. R. H. SHERARD. - - - Fºx's rºse— NOTES AND NEWS, R. HALL CAINE has returned. It is premature to congratulate ourselves upon the success of his mission until the question has been brought before the Canadian Parliament and decided. But it is not premature to congratulate ourselves upon the masterly ability displayed by Mr. Hall Caine in the whole conduct of his negotiations. Any blunder might have been followed by consequences the most disastrous to literature. The Canadian susceptibilities have been respected: their claims have not been dis- puted: a way has been found: and the goodwill of Canada has been apparently secured. These are the services of Mr. Hall Caine. Let us hope that the welcome with which he is to be received will be worthy of the occasion. I wrote the above from the communications and letters which have appeared in the papers during the last three months. Since this paragraph was set up in type, I have had no opportunity of hearing from Mr. Hall Caine's own lips an account of the whole mission. It is a story which must be told by himself at his own time and in his own way. Meantime it may be per- mitted to say in this place that the words used above are not strong enough to express my own sense of his work. The difficulties which existed have not been understood here; the conflicting interests have not been studied. Not only the goodwill of the Canadians has been secured, but that of the Americans. Especially admirable has been the manner in which Mr. Hall Caine was received by the Canadians. Last, but not least, Mr. Chamberlain has addressed a letter to Mr. Caine, recognising amply the value of his services and the skill of his diplomacy. It is proposed that Mr. Hall Caine will address a general meeting of this Society some time this month. He remains in town for some weeks on business connected with his mission. It ought I think to be generally known that Mr. Hall Caine has most generously given to the Society three months and more of very hard and trying work; he has also given to the Society the whole of the expenses incurred in this long journey. With these munificent gifts in our mind we shall not be so ready to accuse men of letters as selfishly pursuing their own interests alone. Two objects were in view : the first was to save the American Copyright Act of 1891; the second was to show the world that men and  ## p. (#543) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 189 women of letters have seriously united for the defence of their own affairs, and are competent to defend them. From my own point of view I do not know which is the more important of these two objects. It is now two or three months since I cut a paragraph out of a certain newspaper for com- ment in these pages. I put it aside, however, so that my remarks might not be taken either as an attack upon any publisher, or as an attack upon any author. Now that the subject has been partly forgotten, one may speak. Let us put the case in general terms. The paragraph made the following assertions: (I.) That should a successful author offer the administration of his property on the terms of a royalty of 2s. On a six-shilling book, it would be necessary for the publisher to sell 30,000 copies before getting any profit at all for himself. Now, the cost of such a book, including adver- tisements, does not, under ordinary circum- stances, amount to more than Is. The average price paid by the trade may be taken as 3s. 6d.- though it is really more. The profit to the pub- lisher therefore would be 6d. a volume; or, on 3O,OOO copies, the profit would amount to £750. Does anybody in his senses believe that it would cost £750 to distribute, by the ordinary machinery, 3O,OOO volumes and to collect the accounts P But just observe what a very simple little sum in arithmetic it requires to knock over this loose and misleading assertion. (2.) The paragraph says, further, that at all events the novelist in question “has not much to complain of in regard to the remuneration of novelists.” How much longer will it take to make people understand that literary property belongs to the creator, not to the middleman? A successful writer creates a property; it is his own property; he may sell it or do what he likes with it ; but it is his own property. In the case before us the writer says, “If you like to ad- minister my property for me on the terms of paying me 2s. for every volume you sell, you shall have it. If not, somebody else shall have it. But understand that it is my property. When I take that royalty I am taking my own property; I am not remunerated. I am receiving my rents, of which you are the steward.” Some day, I suppose, we shall get these simple and elementary facts recognised and acted upon. I am informed, by one who knows of one case at least, that an attempt is still being made to induce an author to sign contracts to publish with one firm only for a term of years. It is difficult to believe that anyone can be so incredibly foolish. What? In the face of all the dangers and the tricks exposed—of secret profits, of charges for advertisements got for nothing, of one-sided agreements, of broken agreements—a miserable author is to bind himself to the man who has the power to commit these acts P He is to give that man a free hand to do what he likes with his victim for a term of years. Was anything ever proposed more monstrous P Consider a parallel case: does the medical man dare to bind his patient to remain with him, whether he treats him skilfully or not ? Does the solicitor P Does any professional man P Nay—does any employer of labour make his hands bind themselves for a term of years ? But it is difficult to believe that any author can be so incredibly foolish after all the light that we have poured upon the methods of publishing. Perhaps, however, one way might be found out of such a contract. A second paper on the Literary Hack and his work has appeared in the Forum. It is extremely interesting, but I fail to see where the Literary Hack comes in. Does he exist in this country P If so, I do not know him. A Literary Hack—as I understand it—is a person who executes literary jobs of any kind without regard to his own convictions, if he has any ; or to his own fitness; or to his own special knowledge. He is a man who, being a Conservative, writes leaders for a Radical paper; or, being a Radical, writes leaders for a Conservative paper. He is a man who makes and compiles books to order on any subject, being equally ready to produce a dictionary of the English language, or an account of Polynesia. The bookmaker to order at so much the job is very nearly extinct. One hears of him from time to time, but he has grown very scarce. The old-fashioned hack, who wrote up a party to order, simply no longer exists. He is as dead as a door nail. The Conservatives can find plenty of Conservative papers; the Liberals can find plenty of Liberal papers; while there are hundreds of men who write for the newspapers on topics not connected with politics, so that they need not concern, themselves as to the opinions of the journals for which they write. A cutting from the British and Colonial Printer has been sent me. It contains an appeal based on practical figures for a shilling edition of a popular book. The writer argues that a shilling, not a sixpenny, edition is wanted at the present time. For sixpence we cannot get such a book as we should like to put upon our shelves; but a book can now be produced by the new pro-  ## p. (#544) ################################################ 190 THE AUTHOR. cesses, well printed and well bound, at so small a price as to render a shilling quite a practicable price to put upon a volume. The writer supposes a book of 240 pages printed upon a “think- handling twopenny” paper. The cost would be, he says, as follows: Ioo,000 Edition. £ Linotype composition at 2% per IOOO—say– 20 Paper Ilb. per copy at 2d. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 850 Machining and folding... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Pulp corrugated cases ...... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I IO Making up and casing ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22O Incidentals...’................... 50 31325 Which comes to less than 3}d. a copy. In other words, if the retail price of the book be 8d. and the booksellers allow no discount, the value of the author's estate as represented in this book may be taken at 4:#d. a copy, out of which he will have to remunerate his publisher, if he have one. Or, to look at it another way, he must sell 40,000 copies before he clears his expenses. The remain- ing 60,000 would be clear profit. But how to get at the people who are to buy books in this wholesale manner? How to persuade them, if they can be persuaded, to take a hundred thousand P. The present machinery is, as everybody can understand, antiquated and unequal to the task. The booksellers’ shops must add to their machinery the house-to-house retail vendor. This, in fact, is the only way of bringing books within the reach of the people. Shops cannot do it; advertisements cannot do it; the last thing in the paper read by the common people is the column of book adver- tisements; books must be brought to the very door. That this method will be adopted by the trade before very long it is not difficult to prophecy. The book-selling of the future will be largely carried on by the house-to-house vendor. One only hopes that those who take up this method will provide really good literature, such as our public libraries are now teaching the people to demand. The following magnificent offer was recently made by a firm of publishers of no small note. It illustrates the necessity of knowing above all things the cost of production. They offered to bring out the book at 3s. 6d. The first 500 copies were to go to the publisher. The author would then receive 5 per cent. royalty." After the first IOOO copies the author was to receive Io per cent. ; after that I 2% per cent. How does this work out P The first edition would be probably of 2000 at a cost of (say) 3IOO. of the Forties and the Fifties. Results of first edition of 2000 copies:— Sale of 2000 at Say 2s. ............... £2OO Cost IOO Profit ............ 3 Ioo Of which the author receives... 322 7s. 6d. And the publisher . . . . . . . . . . . 377 12s. 6d. If another edition of 2000 goes off the whole profit will be about £130, of which the publisher will take £86 5s. and the author £43 158. Did the publisher explain what proportion of profit he proposed to take P If so, he was within his rights. If he relied on the ignorance of the author, he was within his wrongs. The risk actually incurred was the difference between the first six months’ subscription and the cost of production, which would have to be paid six months after publication. In order to meet this bill there must be sold about a thousand copies. How great was that risk P Probably not much, since the book had been so well re- ported on by the reader as to be taken without hesitation. The death of George Augustus Sala has called forth a notice in every newspaper in this and perhaps in all other English-speaking countries. He had come to be regarded as the representative journalist. Certainly there was no one like him as a correspondent, or as a writer of those social articles in which he showed so marvellous a grasp of facts and such an endless command of anecdote. He was a member of the Society from the begin- ning, one of the honorary members who were elected at the outset as vice-presidents. He took no active part in our proceedings, but was present at one or two of our dinners. He delighted in the gathering together of men and women engaged in the literary life, but I think he never understood the serious side of the Society. He belonged to the old Bohemian school, with whom a publisher was regarded as the natural enemy, who would certainly screw the most work out of an author for the least pay, and whom it was laudable to scathe with epigrams. That there was any practical way of having one's property administered with equity, or that a writer's work was his property, never occurred to the Bohemian The school of which Sala was the last surviving representative has been well described by Vizetelly in his Recollec- tions. - The literary contest invented by the New Pork Herald has been decided. Prizes were offered for the best novels, the best “novelette,” the best short story, and the best epic poem.  ## p. (#545) ################################################ THE I9 I A UTH () I. There were sent in eleven hundred novels, a thousand novelettes, between two and three thousand short stories, and nearly a thou- sand poems—all epic P Imagine a thousand new epic poems all sprung upon a bewildered world at the same moment—a thousand Miltons, inglorious as yet, but not mute It is pleasing to note that the prizes, with one exception, were carried off by professional writers. The first prize for novels of £2000 fell to Julian Haw- thorn : the second, of £400, to the Rev. W. C. Blakeman, before this event unknown : the third, of £200, to Edith Carpenter, said to be known in America. For the novelette the only prize of £600 was awarded to Miss Molly Seawell, already well known : for the short story, the only prize of £4OO was given to Mr. Edgar Fawcett, also well known. The epic, or “Abraham Lincoln,” fell to an unknown pseudonym. WALTER BEs ANT. a-sº - * *- THE AUTHORS' JOURNAL, HE December number of the New York Authors’ Journal lies before me. The number contains two or three papers of advice to literary candidates—advice for the most part of the obvious kind—but then there are plenty of people who always want directions of the most obvious kind, so that it is not pro- bably advice thrown away. There is a full account of the literary competition invited and carried out by the New York Herald. A meet- ing of the Authors’ Guild is reported. They elected twenty-three members; they received a letter setting forth a “case” against certain publishers; and they ended the meeting with recitations and speeches. There is a paper on “Public, Taste in Literature,” and another by Mr. Hall Caine, probably the paper referred to in our New York Letter, on the “Moral Responsi- bility of Novelists.” There is a paper on the “Editor's Point of View”—very good; there is the complaint of the contributor that the editor will not explain why a paper is rejected. The Contributor never can understand that an editor simply has not the time to become a critic; he can only Say Yes or No. We have the same com- plaints here. There is an article on writing advertisements which in America has become one of the fine arts. There are notes and replies, and paragraphs and poetry. Altogether it is a pleasant and agreeable journal, useful to its readers. We might with advantage borrow some of its features. Its advertisement columns present one feature, at least, which is absent from ours. It is this: while it is everywhere and well known and notorious that the American editor is more pelted with MSS. than even the London editor, it seems to pay the American writer to advertise himself and to offer his work for sale. Here, it is true, we see occasionally an advertisement offering a novel for sale, but no one ever heard that any response was received. For instance, here are two or three advertisements cut out of two columns : EGIN 1896 with bright, confidential “Ed. Copy.” It pays. Politics to suit. Booklet and “points' sent editors and publishers only. G. T. HAMMOND, Newport, R. I. WRITE one act Curtain Raisers, between two thousand and three thousand words. Also short stories for children. Glad to receive orders. AMY D’ARCY WET- MORE, 859, Park Ave., Baltimore, Md. WRITE verse, humorous and sentimental. Would do Valentines or adv’g verse. Nothing makes so effective an ad. Also write short stories, sketches, &c. Would conduct a column of book and magazine reviews. Editors send me copies of papers containing your prize competition offers. BYRON HOWARD, Esperance, N. Y. TORIES for Little Boys and Girls. I write good stories for children. MSS. submitted on application. A. D. B., Box 25, care AUTHORS’ Journ AL. These are practical and to the point. Yet one would rather not advertise one's own work or one’s own literary powers in a newspaper. The third advertisement, that of Mr. Byron Howard, makes one long to see more of his work, his sentimental verse, for example. sº- * * LITERATURE IN THE PERIODICALS, FREEDOM IN SPELLING. Leading article in Times for Dec. 17. MATTHEw ARNOLD. Right Hon. John Morley. Nine- teenth Centwry for December. THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS. teenth Centwry for December. THE LITERARY AGENT. Sir Walter Besant. Nineteenth, Centwry for December. Sir W. M. Conway. Nine- TJNTO THIS LAST. Frederic Harrison. Nineteenth Centwry for December. * GUSTAVE FLAUBERT. Ernest Newman. Fortnightly Review for December. LIVING CRITICS. III. : MR. LESLIE STEPHEN. J. Ash- croft Noble. Bookman for December. OLD EDINBURGH AND THE “EVERGREEN.” W. Brant- ford. Bookman for December. MR. WILLIAM MORRIS. December. PUBLISHERS AND THE ASSOCIATED BOOKSELLERS. Bookseller for December. MR. HALL CAINE. Interview on return from America. Daily Chronicle for Dec. 12. CoPYRIGHT IN CANADA AND MR. GOLDw IN SMITH. Letter by Sir Charles Tupper. Satwrday Review for Dec. 7. Interview. Bookselling for  ## p. (#546) ################################################ I 92 THE AUTII O/º. CoPYRIGHT AND THE IMPERIAL Constitution. Letter by Mr. Goldwin Smith. Times for Dec. 13. CANADA AND THE CoPYRIGHT. Draft of Bill. Letter by Mr. Hall Caine in Times for Dec. 7. THE CARLYLE CENTENARY. Frederic Harrison. Daily Chronicle for Dec. 7. A REMINISCENCE OF CARLYLE. (Interview in 1873). J. C. C. Saturday Review for Nov. 30. - HILL TOPPERY. Speaker for Nov. 30. p.": LATEST SCOTCH For AY. New York Nation for ec. 5. PRESENT-DAY SCOTTISH NovKLISTs. Weekly Swn for Dec. I. William Wallace. NOTABLE REVIEWs. Of “Matthew Arnold’s Letters.” Saturday Review for Dec. 7. Of Björnson's New Play, “Over AEvne.” Daily Chronicle for Dec. I I. - Professor Dowden. #: #: §: 3% Replies to Mr. Laurie's paper of the previous month are made separately in the December Nineteenth Century by Sir W. M. Conway and Sir Walter Besant. The Society of Authors exists and prospers because it supplies a demand and does work that needs to be done, says Sir Wm. Conway. The charge of its destroying the old friendship between authors and publishers he denies, because once the publication of a book is agreed upon author and publisher become part- ners. “The Society has merely enabled the author to negotiate this partnership with a full knowledge of what it is that is bargained for.” As to newly successful authors binding them- selves ahead to over production, they bind them- selves not with the Society, not with agents, but with publishers. The question of prices paid by publishers is one of ordinary bargain and economy. The other reply defends the literary agent. The Society, he says, found the facts and figures of publishing, but literary men have not the time and in few cases the business faculty for treating personally with publishers. Therefore the agent, with special knowledge, acts for them; and the ill-advised publisher who dares to protest against meeting him stands self-condemned, because his only reason must be the desire to overreach the author when the agent is not present to defend him. Further, the agent is required for looking after publication rights in the various countries, translation rights, and the rights of dramatisa- tion. Some interesting correspondence has been appearing in the Times on the subject of Spelling. Professor Earle and Dr. Abbott argue for greater freedom in the matter. Mr. Horace Hart, printer to the University of Oxford, and Mr. Randall, of the Association of Correctors of the Press, plead for uniformity, the former remarking upon the innumerable applications from printers at home and abroad for his set of rules recently drawn up for the spelling of doubtful words. “Language is a product of life,” writes Professor Earle, “and if not exactly a living thing it certainly shares the incidents of life. Of these incidents none is more pervading than abhorrence of fixity.” In its articles on the letters the Times says most people will be convinced of the reason- ableness of what may be called constitutional freedom in spelling, while in a private letter latitude is permissible without inconvenience. An author must be consistent in spelling if his pages are not to be unsightly and perplexing. The article thus concludes:— Woltaire, who derided the orthography of the French books of his time as ridiculous—adding that English orthography was still more absurd—described the ideal system when he said: “Writing is the painting of the voice ; the closer the resemblance the better the picture.” Unfortunately the perfect likeness is not attainable; and it is found more convenient to agree upon a conventional representation than to circulate a multitude of bad copies unlike each other. The Bookseller agrees that there can be no two opinions about the desirability of forming a Publishers’ Association, but is not satisfied with the non possumus attitude taken up at the publishers’ meeting towards the booksellers. Our contemporary thinks the “paramount neces- sity in these matters of a combined and consistent policy, such as exists in Germany, was not sufficiently recognised.” The Nation article deals with the “sudden and great popularity" of the Scotch story writers, finding the explanation merely in the love of constant change in the novel-consuming public. “We observe,” it says, “that the canniest of them are themselves persuaded that their day of grace may soon be written away, and are thriftily gathering together every available bit of plunder before being compelled to retire to their fast- nesses beyond the border.” Mr. Wallace's article, comparing Scotch novelists of the day, places Mrs. Oliphant first, though he would have done so more outright had she written but a fifth of what she has written and made that fifth perfect. Even as things are, he gives “Firsteen" first place among recent Scottish novels. - A statement made by the way in Mr. Morley's paper is worth noting in these days of biographies of everybody. “There are probably not six Englishmen over fifty now living,” he said, “whose lives need to be written, or should be written.” This relative to the prohibition of a biography by Arnold, who was not, says Mr. Morley, a great correspondent beyond his own family. He was one of the most occupied men of his time. “He was not the least of an egotist, in the common, ugly, and odious sense of that  ## p. (#547) ################################################ THE I 93 A UTHOI8. terrible word”; unselfish, he had not a spark of envy or jealousy, and he took the deepest and most active interest in the well-being of his country and countrymen. In a comprehensive paper on Flaubert, Mr. Ernest Newman says that with the knowledge of the nervous malady from which he suffered we have the key to his life and art. His philosophy was not pessimism or cynicism ; he keeps his characters and their motives in the ideal atmo- sphere of art, and never allows that personal note of contempt and bitterness to be heard that sounds so frequently in the work of Maupassant. As to his method:— Where a novelist keeps himself so sedulously in the back- ground as Flaubert does, it requires all the more assiduity on the part of the reader to combine the multiform portions of the picture. An imartistic novelist like George Eliot, who is continually obtruding herself among her characters, may annoy us by the obvious clumsiness of her method, but she at least saves every man the trouble of being his own artist. *- - * ~ BOOK TALK. HE name of Mr. F. Marion Crawford’s latest novelty is “Taquisira.” It will appear serially in the Queen, beginning this month. The Hon. Frederick Moncrieff has written a Scottish romance of the time of James VI., entitled “The X Jewel,” which Messrs. Black- wood and Sons will issue immediately. Mr. G. W. Appleton, author of “The Co- respondent,” has written another novel entitled “A Philanthropist at Bay,” which Messrs. Downey and Co. will publish. Miss Beatrice Harraden has gone back to California, and in the course of the year she will write a series of short stories of Califor- nian life. A novel from her on English topics will, however, appear earlier—probably in the Spring. Mr. A. H. Norway has written a “History of the Post-Office Packet Service, 1793-1815,” which Messrs. Macmillan will issue in a few days—a somewhat romantic subject, and one not much remembered about in these days. The post-office kept a fleet of fifty to sixty armed ships for a century and a half, the principal station being at Falmouth, where, from 1688 to 1823 there were packets solely under post-office control. Much stiff fighting was done by them too—in the three years 1812-15 no fewer than thirty-two actions with American privateers were engaged in by the Falmouth packets. Mr. Norway has had access to official records in preparing the work. A volume of reminiscences by Mr. Charles Bertram, prestidigitateur, will be published at an early date by Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein and Co., with illustrations by Mr. Phil May, Mr. Cour rold, and others. The title will be “Isn’t it Wonderful ? A History of Magic and Mystery.” Mr. Robert W. Chambers has written another story of Paris life, this time selecting the period a quarter of a century ago, when the city was in the hands of the Communists. The title is “The Red Republic,” and Messrs. Putnam's Sons will issue the work very soon. Mr. Egerton Clairmonte, husband of “George Egerton,” is the author of a volume which Mr. Fisher Unwin is about to publish, entitled “The Africander: a Plain Story of South Africa.” Louis Stevenson’s work “Fables' will be published on an early day by Messrs. Longmans, Green, and Co. A dictionary of the musical artists, authors, and composers of Great Britain and the Colonies is being prepared for issue to subscribers by Mr. J. D. Brown (Librarian, Clerkenwell Public Library) and Mr. Stephen S. Stratton, under the title “British Musical Biography.” Mr. Brown invites information as to any of the above professions likely to have escaped his notice, so that the work may be as complete as possible. The “Life and Letters of George John Romanes, M.A., LL.D.,” is in preparation by Mrs. Romanes for issue by Messrs. Longmans, , but will not be ready for some time. There will be a portrait and other illustrations. Mr. T. L. Southgate read a paper before the Musical Association on the Ioth ult., on “The Treatment of Music by Novelists.” He gave instances from the works of many leading authors to show the ignorance they displayed of IllllS1C. - In a paragraph report of the lecture the Times said it lost much of the weight which might have been attached to it because nearly the whole of Mr. Southgate's examples were those in which ignorance played the chief part, while “there exist very many instances of equally great blunders perpetrated by professed musicians;” and, furthermore, “after all is said and and done, the errors of novelists in regard to music are perhaps not greater than those of musicians as a class with regard to other arts.”  ## p. (#548) ################################################ 194 THE AUTHOR. Mr. Ernest A. Gardner, formerly Director of the British School of Archæology at Athens, is engaged on a two-volume “Handbook of Greek Sculpture,” in which he distinguishes the diffe- rent schools and periods, and selects typical examples to show the development of each. The first volume will appear this month, and the second some time later. Mr. Thomas March is writing a “History of the Paris Commune of 1871,” which Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein will issue this month, with two maps of the city at that period. Mr. Thomas MacKnight, an Irish editor, has prepared two volumes of reminiscences and ex- periences, which will be published under the title “Ulster As It Is,” by Messrs. Macmillan. Miss Kingsley, who made a daring and remark- able journey through West Africa, some months ago, has submitted her diaries to a London pub- lisher, and the work will probably be ready in the spring. It will be illustrated with the author's sketches and photographs. Mr. Standish O'Grady has written an Irish romance of the reign of Elizabeth, which is to be issued by Messrs. Downey, probably under the title “Ulrick Ready.” He will present the last stand of the Irish chieftans from the Irish point of view, in contradistinction to Froude's “Chiefs of Dunboy” from the British. Mr. Stead is launching a series of “Penny Novelists” on the same lines as his “Penny Poets,” which has proved a very popular enterprise. The idea of the novel series is to counteract or abolish the “penny dreadful” type of boys’ literature. A better beginning could not be made than with Mr. Rider Haggard’s * She.” The Commonwealth is a new monthly maga- zine, at threepence, edited by Canon Scott Holland. Messrs. Innes and Co. have transferred the Minster magazine to the Artistic Publishing Company, who are going to introduce new features into it. An adaptation of Mr. Anthony Hope's “Prisoner of Zenda,” which has successfully appeared in New York, will be produced at the St. James's Theatre early this year. Another dramatised adaptation to be given in London soon will be by Mr. Joseph Hatton, of his recent novel “When Greek Meets Greek.” The members of the Savage Club, men of letters and artists, are contributing to a volume of “Savage Club Papers,” to be issued in the spring, under the editorship of Mr. J. E. Muddock. Messrs. Hutchinson and Co. are the publishers. A Burns Exhibition of MS., pictures, and other relics, and also portraits and pictures of the people and places who figure in his works, will be held in Glasgow in celebration of the centenary of the poet's death. Lord Rosebery is hon. president of the Exhibition, and Sir James Bell (Lord Provost) president, while the other office-bearers and patrons include many of the foremost literary people of the day. Mr. James Baker will lecture at the Imperial Institute, on Feb. 3, on “Egypt of to-day; Her People and their Country.” He was up the Nile as special correspondent last winter, and will illustrate his lecture with over sixty photographs, taken by himself, of the natives and their religious ceremonies, &c. He takes the chair at the Author's Club, at the first dinner of the New Year, on Jan. 6. Mr. Horace Cox will publish early in January a new novel, in one volume, entitled “Hather- sage: A Tale of North Derbyshire,” by Charles Edmund Hall, author of “An Ancient Ances- tor,” &c. Two new volumes of verse are announced for immediate publication by Mr. Elliot Stock, viz., “Urania, and other Astronomical Poems,” by Samuel Jefferson,” and “Meetings and Partings,” by E. C. Ricketts. Mr. Gladstone is writing a series of articles for the North American Review on “The Future State and the Condition of Man In It,” the first appearing this month, also a series on Bishop Butler for Good Words, beginning in February. A Library Edition of Mr. George Meredith’s novels is being arranged for, its issue to begin, probably, in the summer. At a sale of rare books held by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson, and Hodge, the “Album ” of Giacomo Lauri at Rome, 1608-29, continued and extended by Anne Le Febvre in 1687-88, and com- prising letters and signatures from many of the most eminent persons of the time, brought ten guineas; “Rime di Antichi Autori Toscani,” Venice, 1532, Lord Byron's copy, with his autography on the title and the date 1820, £6 Ios.; and a fine copy of the first edition of Chapman’s translation of Homer's Odyssey, 1614, 3II IOS. - Mr. W. M. Noble has investigated the material concerning how the county of Huntingdon pre- pared to meet the 1588 invasion, and a volume by him on the subject will shortly be published by Mr. Elliot Stock under the title “Huntingdon- shire and the Spanish Armada.”  ## p. (#549) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. I95 The most important books of December were the first volume of “Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century,” edited by Dr. Robertson Nicoll and Mr. Thomas J. Wise (Hodder and Stoughton); Mr. John Davidson’s second series of “Fleet-street Eclogues '' (John Lane); Dean Stanley’s “Letters and Verses,” edited by Mr. R. E. Prothero (John Murray); and “Ironclads In Action,” by H. W. Wilson (Sampson Low). In one of his letters Dean Stanley gives this impression of Renan, whom he met at Paris with Turgeniev : “He showed a curious mix- ture of interest and want of interest ; had not been to Damascus because there were no monuments there ; was disappointed in Jerusalem, because there were so few monu- ments; had made every effort, with special recommendations, to enter the mosque, but found it totally impracticable unless by storming the town.” In the list of articles quoted in “Literature and the Periodicals” of last month’s Author, a valuable paper by Miss Alice M. Christie on Sir Philip Sidney’s “Defence of Poetry” was omitted. It appeared in the October and the November numbers of the Monthly JPacket. Mrs. Marshall’s last historical story The Master of the Musicians, was published by Messrs. Seeley in November. The White King’s Daughter, by the same author, published by Messrs. Seeley in May, has reached its 30OO, and is included in the Tauchnitz edition, making the twentieth volume of Mrs. Marshall’s works which have appeared in that series. Many of Mrs. Marshall’s books are translated into German and French. Mrs. Rentoul Esler's new book, just issued by Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston, and Co., is entitled “Mid Green Pastures.” In an exhaus- tive and literary review of this book The National Observer says: “Of all living writers Mrs. Esler is probably the nearest we now have to the author of “Cranford.” Whatever else may go out of fashion, detective literature does not seem on the wane. According to a recent return of the output of vernacular literature in India several of the well-known Dick Donovan's volumes have been translated for the benefit of “Tamil-speaking Christians.” The detective story seems to be as popular in India as it is in this country; but we believe that Mr. Donovan is the first author of this class of litera- ture who has ever had the honour of being trans- lated into Tamil. Messrs. Hutchinson and Co. have just issued Dick Donovan's entertaining romance of “Eugene Vidocq.” The story deals with the life and adven- tures of that extraordinary character, who was in turn soldier, thief, spy, detective, and lecturer. Reviewing the book the other day the Glasgow Herald said: “None of Dick Donovan’s rivals in this class of literature have yet outstripped him.” Early in January Chatto and Windus will issue yet another Dick Donovan volume entitled “The Mystery of Jamaica Terrace.” * * * CORRESPONDENCE. I.—NOTES AND Common-PLACE Books. & & O One except students ever did make notes or keep common-place books, and these do so still.” True, yet your paragraph shows that your own “common-place book” is not a book at all, and how can it be in these days P. To get the book and turn the pages requires too much time. And then the A pages, the M’s, the S's get filled up too soon, while O and K are still nearly empty. Besides there are so many newspaper cuttings in these days. So for notes we catch up the nearest half-sheet of paper, and for the disposal of notes and cuttings we devise a suitable recep- tacle. Your own plan is a good one, loose sheets of paper put into brown paper envelopes. Mine is different and may be useful as an alternative. At a shopfitter's I bought a frame of boxes such as is used by grocers for their teas or iron- mongers for brass nails and tin tacks. * With five rows and six in a row, it is convenient to make the vowels lead the files, and then everything is easily found. Four boxes are still available for special notes. The compositor's arrangement would not do for the student, and I think the plan below is even better that that of the poste Testante. |A | p q ºd E | F | g | H TT I || | | K-Ti, TM Nº O | P | Q || R. S T U | V | W X | Y Z GEO. ST. CLAIR. Cardiff, Dec. 11, 1895. • - - - -º-º-º-º- .  ## p. (#550) ################################################ 196 THE AUTHOR. II.-PROVISIONAL CoPYRIGHT REGISTRATION. The idea contained in this letter is due to the suggestion of Mr. George Haven Putnam, men- tioned in the article “The Working of the Copy- right Law,” on p. 6 of the Author of June, 1894. Mr. Putnam's suggestion is to the effect that the title of a work may be registered, and copyright in it be thereby acquired for a period of six months from the date of registration ; and that, if by or before the expiration of that period, the work be completed, copyright for it shall date from the day on which the title was regis- tered. This is an excellent suggestion, and one with which I entirely agree. It is the equivalent in the literary sphere to provisional protection for an invention or discovery under the patent law. In that, by filing a provisional specification describing the invention in general terms, and then, within a limited time thereafter, filing a complete specification describing it in detail, the patent is obtained from the date of the provisional specification. My proposal is to draw this parallel still closer, and to extend this proposed provisional protection to something more than the title. However useful and valuable a title may be, it is useless without the work, and one may protect the former by the simple process of not communicating it to any one. My proposal deals with a more practical question of publishing, where, besides the title, the style and arrangement of the work is fixed upon; where, by the mature of the case, one is bound to disclose them; and where, therefore, one cannot protect them by the simple process of silence. In the case of the proposed publication of some periodical which, though printed matter, cannot truly be classed as literature, a work in which composition does not enter into the question—as, for instance, a time-table or other work of refer- ence, in which the arrangement is the most im- portant point, more important even than the title. In such a case, where the outlay of capital has to be considered, it may be desired to ascertain, before going to much expense, what prospect there is of the venture’s meeting with success ; and, therefore, it may be necessary to issue, Con- siderably in advance of the first serial number of the proposed publication, a specimen number thereof, with a view to ascertaining what support can be obtained for it. The arrangement and design of such a work cannot be protected under the Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks Act, and, though one might register it under the existing Copyright Law, one would have secured copyright only for the speci- men number, and not either for the title or arrangement of the actual publication at all. That comes because, under the existing law, registration at the Copyright Office affords no protection until the actual work is published. In such a case as this, the contents of the specimen would be bound to be old or fictitious, as it would be impossible to insert the matter that number one of the proposed publication would contain, for the simple reason that it would not be ascertainable so long in advance, besides which there is no copy- right in it. This, then, is what might happen under the existing law, that, as copyrighting the specimen afforded no protection to the actual work, anyone else (perhaps more favourably placed) having seen the specimen, might arrange to issue No. 1 of such a publication before the date announced by the person issuing the former ; and there would be nothing whatever to prevent his adopt- ing the title and arrangement, and securing copyright for them both to the exclusion of the person with whom they originated. What I propose is, that there should be pro- visional protection for such a specimen number, Securing copyright in the title and arrangement, for a period of, say six or twelve months from the date of registration ; and that, if No. 1 of the actual publication be not issued before or by the expiration of that time anyone else should be at liberty to make use of either or both of the ideas, but no one be able to obtain copyright in either of them. It would not be necessary, as with provisionally protected inventions, to demand a. second fee, as no second description would be filed. It is suggested in Lord Monkswell's Bill that the Copyright Registration Office might be com- bined with the Registry of Designs and Trade Marks; as designs and trade marks are under the same administration as patents for inventions, perhaps they may all, eventually, come under the same control, and, as each deals but with a different way of expressing ideas, there is nothing unreasonable in this. It is stated at the end of the article above re- ferred to that provisional protection of a title is provided for in this Bill. I have read it through carefully, and, having failed to find any reference to it, shall be glad to be informed which clause covers that point. This seems to me to be the the only omission from an otherwise perfect Bill. HUBERT HAEs. 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 08 (January 1896) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 Issue 08 (January 1896) 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 1896-01-01-The-Author-6-8 publications The Author