| 243 | https://historysoa.com/items/show/243 | The Author, Vol. 01 Issue 05 (September 1890) | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Author%3C%2Fem%3E%2C+Vol.+01+Issue+05+%28September+1890%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 01 Issue 05 (September 1890)</a> | | | <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031017927&view=1up&seq=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031017927</a> | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Publication">Publication</a> | 1890-09-15-The-Author-1-5 | | | | | 105–128 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1">1</a> | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1890-09-15">1890-09-15</a> | | | | | | | 5 | | | 18900915 | Vol. I.-- No. 5.].<br />
SEPTEMBER 15, 1890.<br />
[Price, Sixpence.<br />
The Author.<br />
THE ORGAN OF THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS<br />
(INCORPORATED).<br />
CONDUCTED BY<br />
WALTER BESANT.<br />
Published for the Society Be<br />
ALEXANDER P. WATT, 2, PATERNOSTER SQUARE,<br />
LONDON, E.C.<br />
1890.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 102 (#134) ############################################<br />
<br />
ADVERTISEMENTS.<br />
Why is “Vinolia" Soap<br />
FREE FROM THE EVILS<br />
OF OTHER TOILET SOAPS?<br />
wwwwwwwwwwwww<br />
After careful investigation, the highest authority on Soaps, Dr. ALDER WRIGHT, F.R.S.,<br />
reports as follows:--<br />
FIRST.<br />
INGREDIENTS PUREST. "The ingredients are of excellent quality for the manufacture of a first-class soap.<br />
SECOND.<br />
PATENT PROCESSES. “The process is carried out in such a way as to render the products wholly free from all surplus<br />
uncombined alkaline matter, and therefore incapable of acting on tender skins, in the injurious and objection-<br />
able fashion exhibited by most kinds of ordinary soap."<br />
THIRD.<br />
Extra CREAM.<br />
“A further amelioration is also effected by the incorporation with the soap of extra fatty matter, well<br />
calculated to soften the skin, and diminish the tendency to irritation sometimes caused in very tender<br />
subjects by even the Purest of Ordinary Soaps."<br />
FOURTH.<br />
DELICATE SCENT. " Vinolia' Soap is Delicately Scented, and wholly free from poisonous Metallic Colouring<br />
Matters.”<br />
An overwhelming Proof that it is without any rival whatever is this:--<br />
o IT IS THE SOAP OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.<br />
OF ALL CHEMISTS. SAMPLES FORWARDED POST FREE ON RECEIPT OF THREE PENNY STAMPS.<br />
PRICES:-VINOLIA SOAP, Floral, 6d. ; Medical (Balsamic), 8d.; and Toilet (Otto of Rose), rod. per Tablet. VINOLIA SHAVING<br />
SOAP, Is., IS. 6d., and zs. 6d. per Stick, and Flat Cakes in Porcelain-lined metal boxes, 2s. VINOLIA CREAM (a Plastic Emollient<br />
Cream for the Skin in Health and Disease ; for Itching, Eczema, Sunburn, Roughness, &c.), is, ed., 35. 6d., and 6s. per Box. VINOLIA<br />
POWDER (a Soothing, Soluble, Rose Dusting Powder, for the Toilet, Nursery, Skin Irritation, &c.), in Pink, White, and Cream,<br />
IS. 9d., 35. 6d. and 6s. per box.<br />
BLONDEAU ET CIE., RYLAND ROAD, LONDON, N.W.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 103 (#135) ############################################<br />
<br />
The Society of Authors (Incorporated).<br />
PRESIDENT.<br />
THE Right Hon. THE LORD TENNYSON, D.C.L.<br />
SIR EDWIN ARNOLD, K.C.S.I.<br />
ALFRED AUSTIN.<br />
Robert BATEMAN.<br />
SIR HENRY BERGNE.<br />
WALTER BESANT.<br />
R. D. BLACKMORE.<br />
Rev, PROF. BONNEY, F.R.S.<br />
LORD BRABOURNE.<br />
JAMES BRYCE.<br />
P. W. CLAYDEN.<br />
J. COMYNS CARR.<br />
EDWARD CLODD.<br />
W. MARTIN CONWAY.<br />
MARION CRAWFORD.<br />
OSWALD CRAWFURD.<br />
THE EARL OF DESART.<br />
A. W. DUBOURG.<br />
ERIC ERICHSEN, F.R.S.<br />
ProF. MICHAEL FOSTER, F.R.S.<br />
HERBERT GARDNER, M.P.<br />
RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D.<br />
COUNCIL.<br />
EDMUND Gosse.<br />
H. RIDER HAGGARD.<br />
THOMAS HARDY.<br />
PROF. E. RAY LANKESTER, F.R.S.<br />
Rev. W. J. Lortie, F.S.A.<br />
GEORGE MEREDITH.<br />
HERMAN C. MERIVALE.<br />
J. C. PARKINSON.<br />
THE EARL OF PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY.<br />
SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK, BART., LL.D.<br />
WALTER Herries Pollock.<br />
A. G. Ross.<br />
GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA.<br />
W. BAPTISTE SCOONES.<br />
G. R. Sims.<br />
J. J. STEVENSON.<br />
JAS. SULLY.<br />
WILLIAM Moy THOMAS.<br />
H. D. Traill, D.C.L.<br />
EDMUND YATES.<br />
Hon. Counsel-E. M. UNDERDOWN, Q.C.<br />
Auditor-Rev. C. H. MIDDLETON-WAKE, F.L.S.<br />
ROBERT BATEMAN.<br />
W. MARTIN CONWAY.<br />
COMMITTEE OF MANAGEMENT.<br />
Chairman-Walter BESANT.<br />
EDMUND Gosse.<br />
H. Rider HAGGARD.<br />
A. G. Ross.<br />
J. M. LELY.<br />
Sir FREDERICK POLLOCK.<br />
Solicitors.<br />
Messrs. FIELD, Roscoe, & Co., Lincoln's Inn Fields.<br />
Secretary–S. SQUIRE SPRIGGE.<br />
OFFICES.<br />
4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN's Inn Fields, W.C.<br />
VOL. I.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 104 (#136) ############################################<br />
<br />
104<br />
ADVERTISEMENTS,<br />
1. Bertan, Sept nyt 1878<br />
Men. Marie, Todd & lo.<br />
Gentleman,<br />
- Thave seur me of your<br />
Reus, to have a paina mended<br />
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rence and I hohe yeu ance<br />
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<br />
<br />
## p. 105 (#137) ############################################<br />
<br />
(The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.)<br />
CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT.<br />
Vol. I.—No. 5.] SEPTEMBER 15, 1890. [Price Sixpence.<br />
C O N T<br />
PAGE<br />
News and Notes ~ 105<br />
The Poet's Seat: An Idyll of the Suburbs. By Austin Dobson ... 111<br />
English Authors and the Colonial Book Market in<br />
A Hard Case, No. IV 114<br />
A Society of Authors for America 115<br />
An Author's Home "8<br />
The Word " Slang." By Charles G. Leland 119<br />
Go Slow. By H. G. Keene 110<br />
NEWS AND NOTES.<br />
IHOPE that readers of The Author'will regard<br />
with favour the arrangement of last month's<br />
number, which contained nothing but the<br />
Report of the Dinner and the speeches pronounced<br />
on that occasion. For my own part I would gladly<br />
have a close season for magazines, journals, and<br />
new books of every kind. It would do the world<br />
every kind of good to rest from ephemerals during<br />
the months of August and September. There is<br />
plenty of old literature to read: no one can read<br />
anything like the number of good things that<br />
come out. If we would only rest! In a sense we<br />
do. The summer is the season for publishing in<br />
the magazines the papers which nobody cares to<br />
read. How if there were no publications at all ?•<br />
The Authors' Dinner I regard as chiefly valuable<br />
because it is the only function in which authors, as<br />
a body, have ever come together. It is difficult to<br />
manage; it causes little frictions of the moment;<br />
there is always the usual excuse from the man you<br />
want most to get. He who is best qualified to speak<br />
on this or that point is sure to be ill or absent. Yet<br />
with all these difficulties we have met for the third<br />
time, and we have met very successfully in increas-<br />
ing numbers. Would it be possible, or would it be<br />
better for us—in our own interests—to meet in any<br />
other way? A conference has been suggested, or a<br />
E N T S.<br />
PAGE<br />
Correspondence—<br />
I. A Club of Critics "i<br />
II. American Cookery "I<br />
III. The Society's Readers i«<br />
IV. Black Beauty m<br />
The Library of Toronto University "4<br />
International Copyright - "4<br />
At Work - "5<br />
New Books and New Editions "5<br />
Advertisements "7<br />
conversazione, as a change from the dinner. As<br />
regards the former we should require certain very<br />
definite points of discussion, and there would have<br />
to be a very rigid chairman, and I think that reporters<br />
should be excluded. A conference of two days<br />
followed by a conversazione might be a change for<br />
the better in our annual programme. I shall be very<br />
glad to receive any communications on this subject. ♦<br />
For reasons not wholly unconnected with laziness<br />
and a long holiday I have to defer the few observa-<br />
tions I wish to make on a certain Memorandum<br />
recently issued by the Society for the Promotion of<br />
Christian Knowledge until next month. However,<br />
two letters on the subject which appeared in the<br />
Daily News and in the Guardian early in August,<br />
have perhaps explained my views as to the value of<br />
that document and have prevented my silence being<br />
misconstrued. Meantime, let us note one thing very<br />
carefully. There is not in the minds either of the<br />
Publication Committee of that Society or in the<br />
minds of those who were persuaded to sign this<br />
precious Memorandum, the slightest perception;<br />
not the least glimmering of perception; that literary<br />
property now exists. Yet they make thousands<br />
every year by literary property. And they obsti-<br />
nately refuse to inquire, as to their methods of ac-<br />
quisition, whether they are honest and honourable,<br />
or the reverse.<br />
This prevailing ignorance of the existence of<br />
vol. 1.<br />
h 2<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 106 (#138) ############################################<br />
<br />
io6<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
literary property and its rights has been also illus-<br />
trated in other ways. Thus, a man who has long<br />
been connected with literature writes to a journal<br />
that he has been more "generously " treated by the<br />
S.P.C.K. than byother publishers. More generously!<br />
But the question is not one of generosity, but of<br />
justice. When will the world understand this?<br />
Are authors to stand, hat in hand, the tears of grati-<br />
tude running down their hungry cheeks, when these<br />
high-minded Christiangentlemen bestow theirdoles? •<br />
The awakening, however, even of the religious<br />
mind is illustrated by a recent fact. A lady writes<br />
that another religious publishing society—noncon-<br />
formists, these—have sent her word, that although<br />
they bought certain books of hers outright, and she<br />
has no claim, in spite of their success, they recognise<br />
the equity of her case. They have therefore sent<br />
her a substantial cheque for past years and promise<br />
her a royalty in future.<br />
This, you see, concedes the first principle to be<br />
observed by all honest men in the acquisition of<br />
literary property, viz., that the price paid for it, or<br />
the rental for the use of it, must depend on the<br />
actual sale of the book and not upon the amount<br />
fixed by the avarice of a sweater or the necessities<br />
of an author. But this is a Society managed by<br />
humble nonconformists, not by high - minded<br />
Churchmen. And a second lady, herself one of<br />
the unfortunate victims of the S.P.C.K., writes that<br />
shehas just negotiated with another religious publish-<br />
ing house for the production of a book. She has<br />
received the same sum which she has been accus-<br />
tomed to get from the former liberal and honourable<br />
house, but accompanied by a very reasonable royalty<br />
in addition. We are waking up, after all.<br />
Why is it that religious societies are always<br />
doing things of which private firms would be<br />
ashamed? I have, still further, received the par-<br />
ticulars of a case which I set down as it was told<br />
to me. If I had time to investigate the case fully<br />
I would publish the name of the Society. The<br />
accountant of a certain society discovered that<br />
another officer, by an elaborate system of secret<br />
book-keeping, had turned the society into a firm<br />
trading for his own advantage! He proceeded to<br />
expose the whole business after an immense deal of<br />
trouble in unearthing the intricacies of the method.<br />
The result was that the committee, on the offender<br />
saying that he had now repented, with prayer and<br />
tears, and had turned over a new leaf, passed a vote<br />
of confirmed confidence—and dismissed the ac-<br />
countant! It seems incredible, and there may be<br />
another side to the story, but the documents, which<br />
I have received and read, appear to leave no doubt<br />
on the matter.<br />
Here, again, is another case which speaks for<br />
itself. It is an advertisement cut out of a paper.<br />
In this case the name of the truly conscientious<br />
Society is given at full, for the admiration of the<br />
world:—<br />
"Competition for Twenty Pounds.<br />
"The Junior Division Church of England<br />
Temperance Society offers the following prizes :--<br />
"Ten Pounds for the best set of eight dialogues<br />
suitable for Church Bands of Hope, illus-<br />
trating respectively the eight lectures of the<br />
syllabus (health, wealth, and temperance)<br />
for the next year's examination.<br />
"Ten pounds for the best set of eight stories for<br />
tracts for children (not exceeding 1,000<br />
words), illustrating, respectively, the eight<br />
lectures above mentioned.<br />
"The Society reserves the right to publish any<br />
competition, whether it gain the prize or not.<br />
"For further particulars apply to the Secretary,<br />
(Junior Division C.E.T.S.), 9, Bridge Street,<br />
Westminster, S.W."<br />
This Church of England Society calmly proposes,<br />
in fact, to keep for nothing all the things that are<br />
sent in to them. It " reserves the right to publish<br />
any competition, whether it gains the prize or not."<br />
Now if an enterprising butcher was to offer a prize<br />
of twenty pounds for the best pig, "reserving the<br />
right" of keeping and selling for himself all the<br />
competing pigs, whether they gained a prize or not,<br />
what would be said of that butcher's impudence?<br />
How would his brother butchers speak of the offer?<br />
In what light would it be regarded by the pro-<br />
prietors of pigs? Yet, because it is only literary<br />
property that is concerned, the respectable Com-<br />
mittee of the Junior Division of the Church of<br />
England Temperance Society does not scruple to<br />
imitate that enterprising butcher. The committees<br />
of religious societies always, I believe, begin with<br />
prayer. Would it be possible for the Archbishop<br />
to draw up a form of prayer suitable for those<br />
committees which have to do with publishing?<br />
Some kind person has sent me the prospectus of<br />
a Society which really does seem to meet that "long-<br />
felt want" which calls for every new association.<br />
One need not mention it by name, because an<br />
association with such benevolent aims cannot fail to<br />
make rapid way. It is, in fact, the much-desired<br />
Ghost Society. There has never been a time when<br />
people have more ardently desired dramatic success.<br />
There has also never been a time when so few<br />
people have possessed the first elements of dramatic<br />
success. They may now, however, by joining this<br />
Association, whose terms of membership ought to be<br />
very high, be able to gratify their laudable ambition.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 107 (#139) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
They can have their manuscript plays corrected, re-<br />
vised, and put into practical dramatic form for them<br />
—no doubt by Messrs. Sims, Pinero, Henry Jones,<br />
Petlitt, and other leading dramatists. The Society<br />
is also about to issue a monthly paper, "supported<br />
by tales of the Association," which is a very odd<br />
form of support. They are also going to find<br />
engagements for ladies and gentlemen who wish to<br />
go on the stage, and they will teach people to play<br />
the violin or the harp, to sing, to become eloquent,<br />
and to compose music; in short, a most excellent<br />
Ghost Society. One department is, no doubt<br />
only for the moment, omitted. They do not yet<br />
propose to correct literary work and make it fit<br />
for publication. But here is a very great field<br />
lying open for the first comer. If only those who<br />
are now so foolish as to spend their money in<br />
paying for their own productions, receiving<br />
in return nothing but a nasty, spiteful notice<br />
in the papers, would only lay out that money<br />
in buying MSS. worth printing and put their own<br />
names to them, how much better it would be<br />
for all parties! For the author would get properly<br />
paid, the person with the money would get the<br />
glory, and the public would be spared the trash that<br />
is now offered them. We look for the develop-<br />
ment of this new Society in the direction of litera-<br />
ture. Perhaps we might do a good turn to our own<br />
members by creating a new Branch—the Ghostly<br />
Branch—of the Society of Authors ; or it might<br />
seem better adapted—a more natural growth—to<br />
the S.P.C.K.<br />
—♦<br />
An American paper, the Critic, has lately been<br />
preparing a list of the Forty living Immortals—the<br />
Academy—of the United States. Here they are,<br />
divided into the States or countries of their resi-<br />
dence :—<br />
Massachusetts. Aldrich, Brooks, Cable, Child,<br />
Fiske, Frothingham, Hall, Higginson, Holmes,<br />
Howells, Lowell, Norton, Parkman, Whittier.<br />
New York. Burroughs, Curtis, Dana, Gilder,<br />
Hawthorne, Stedman, Stoddard, Tylor, White.<br />
Connecticut. Clemens, Fisher, Lathrop, Mitchell,<br />
Porter, Warner, Whitney.<br />
New Jersey. Stockton, Whitman.<br />
Pennsylvania. Furness.<br />
England. Bret Harte, James.<br />
Columbia District. Bancroft.<br />
Michigan. Winchell.<br />
Georgia. Harris.<br />
Italy. Story.<br />
The same paper is about to prepare a new li*>t,<br />
containing the twenty who shall be considered the<br />
truest representatives of what is best in cultivated<br />
American womanhood.<br />
In a lecture entitled "Literature as a Profession,"<br />
Col. T. W. Higginson has made some remarks<br />
which are quoted in the Critic of New York.<br />
Among them are the following :—<br />
"Here, as nowhere else, the author stands free<br />
and dignified in his profession, with no class above<br />
him. How does a literary man stand to-day in<br />
England? So long as he is not raised to the<br />
peerage, he takes rank below the meanest man<br />
who has been: and if, like Tennyson, he consents<br />
to join it, he has the extreme felicity of being<br />
followed in that body by a prosperous London<br />
brewer. The separation of set from set makes its<br />
mark in all the literature of England. Why is it<br />
that the American magazines have marched in<br />
solid column into England and displaced the<br />
English magazines? It is because the American<br />
magazine is a magazine. It is a place of compre-<br />
hension. It brings people together."<br />
Here are two interesting points. The first is the<br />
wonderful inability of the American mind to under-<br />
standj^'hat rank means. As regards precedence the<br />
best English poet, if he had no title, would have to<br />
walk behind the lowest birthday or jubilee knight.<br />
But what Englishman in his senses would rank the<br />
birthday knight above the poet? What does it<br />
matter to the author and his position whether a<br />
brewer or a brewer's clerk receive a title? His<br />
own position remains the same. It is that acquired<br />
by his reputation alone. The next point is more<br />
serious. The lecturer says that the American<br />
magazines have displaced the English magazines in<br />
their own land. Is this so? Does the statement<br />
approach the truth? If it is true, or nearly true,<br />
it is a very great reproach on English writers and<br />
a great blow and discouragement. Well, we have<br />
the Contemporary, the Nineteenth Century, the<br />
Fornightly, the National, the Universal, the New<br />
Review, Blaekwood's, Macmillan's, the Cornhill,<br />
Longman's, Temple Bar, and a dozen others,<br />
all of which are well known to be flourishing,<br />
more or less—some, exceedingly—all supposed<br />
to be good properties, and all taken in and<br />
read in every part of our great Empire. The<br />
American magazines have come over here. One<br />
or two have succeeded, and deservedly. But to<br />
the detriment of the English magazines? I be-<br />
lieve, not at all. If this had been the case, it<br />
would have been proved by a falling-off in prices<br />
paid to contributors, when the Society would have<br />
heard of it. But no such thing has happened.<br />
Some magazines there are which are in a bad way,<br />
and have been in a bad way for years, because,<br />
when a magazine -takes a turn for the worse, it<br />
seems unable to recover itself, but goes continually<br />
down till it reaches the point of extinction.<br />
O" the other hand, the success of one magazine<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 108 (#140) ############################################<br />
<br />
io8<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
may create such a demand as will make room for<br />
half a dozen more, and this, I take it, is the reason<br />
of the English success of the American magazines.<br />
—♦<br />
I wonder if it is too late to speak with admiration<br />
of a paper in an August magazine. The " Perilous<br />
Amour" of Mr. Weyman, in Temple Bar for that<br />
month, stood out, as regards interest, workmanship,<br />
and freshness, above and beyond everything else<br />
of that month—I mean, of course, everything else<br />
that I saw.<br />
In August we received a letter from Lord Monks-<br />
well, who has charge of our Copyright Bill, informing<br />
us that the great length of the Bill made it for<br />
various reasons inadvisable that it should - be in-<br />
troduced at so late a period in the Session. Both<br />
his lordship and others whom he kindly consulted<br />
on the matter, recommended that it should be held<br />
over until November. This little delay is quite<br />
unimportant; the more so when we remember the<br />
many long years through which authors have waited<br />
for some attempt at the remedial legislation, which<br />
is now only some three months away. Of course it<br />
is the attempt only, and not the legislation, which<br />
is so near.<br />
The ingenious hidalgo, Don Quixote de la<br />
Mancha, seems to have thought that there were cer-<br />
tain plights from which the extremest knight-errantry-<br />
could not extricate a man. At any rate he tilts no<br />
lance on the author's behalf, but commends him<br />
simply to God. The passage runs as follows:—<br />
"Tell me, your worship, print you this book<br />
upon your own charges, or have you sold the<br />
copyright to some publisher?"<br />
"I print it on my own account," said the author,<br />
"and think to gain a thousand crowns by the first<br />
impression, which will be of two thousand copies,<br />
which they will sell at six reales a piece in a brace<br />
of straws."<br />
"Your worship is mighty well up in the account.<br />
It is well seen that you know nothing of the ins<br />
and outs of publishers. I promise you that when<br />
you shall find you laden with the bodies of two<br />
thousand books, your own body shall be so wearied<br />
that it will affiright you, especially if the book be a<br />
little dull and is nothing piquant."<br />
"So then, your worship," said the author," would<br />
have me give my copyright for three maravedis to<br />
a publisher, who will think he does me a kindness<br />
in giving me so much? I do not print my books<br />
to achieve fame in the world, for I am already<br />
known by my works; I want profit, for without it<br />
fine fame is not worth a farthing."<br />
"God give your worship good fortune," said<br />
Pon Quixote, and passed on.<br />
"I cannot," says an eminent author and drama-<br />
tist (who surely wants a holiday badly), "use my<br />
own judgment in a literary contract without being<br />
pounced upon and bullied by a trades union of<br />
authors." Now this is meant for us, and is not fair.<br />
We have pounced upon nobody, we have bullied<br />
nobody, nor have we ever attempted to pounce or<br />
to bully. We have never set ourselves up as a<br />
tribunal to which authors, eminent or otherwise,<br />
should apply before acceding to a publisher's terms,<br />
unless they wish to do so. We may have excellent<br />
reasons for thinking that they would be very wise<br />
if they did come to us, but we leave it to them:<br />
and more and more come daily. As for this<br />
particular author, he has never applied to us for<br />
advice and has therefore never received any. But<br />
a trades' union, I believe, dictates to its members<br />
[hat they should accept certain terms only, upon cer-<br />
tain conditions only, and members cannot continue<br />
to belong to the union unless they do as they are told.<br />
We have never attempted or wished to take up this<br />
position. We simply say to all authors and to this<br />
our eminent member among them :—" Com-<br />
plaints have been made and are still being made<br />
by men of letters that they have not obtained<br />
fair terms for their work, that they have been<br />
led to sign contracts to which they never would<br />
have assented had the meaning of those con-<br />
tracts been apparent to them, and the ultimate<br />
division of profits foreshadowed; that in short in<br />
the business side of the literary profession they<br />
have been at a disadvantage. Therefore the<br />
Society offers to make clear to its members the<br />
meaning of any proposal submitted to them, so<br />
that they may be, perhaps for the first time, in a<br />
position to understand whether they should take<br />
an offer or leave it." That is not the same thing as<br />
preventing an author from using his own judgment<br />
about a literary contract. Let those who have<br />
judgment exercise it, but what is to become of<br />
those whose judicial faculties are small, or who<br />
from absence of technical knowledge, or data from<br />
which to make deduction, cannot tell a good bargain<br />
from a bad one, when its terms are submitted to<br />
them? Must such an one always go to the wall?<br />
——♦<br />
Mrs. Craik and Mr. Richard Jefferies are both<br />
to be honoured in the same way.<br />
There has lately been placed in Tewkesbury<br />
Abbey a medallion portrait of the author of "John<br />
Halifax, Gentleman." Tewkesbury was the home<br />
of John Halifax, and the last place visited by the<br />
author before her death.<br />
Salisbury Cathedral very fitly has been selected<br />
as the right place to do similar honour to the<br />
memory of Richard Jefferies, a Wiltshire man and<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 109 (#141) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
109<br />
the poet of the Wiltshire Downs. As regards the<br />
latter, subscriptions may be sent to myself, and I<br />
shall be very grateful to any who will help to erect<br />
this monument to the great naturalist and writer.<br />
The following seems to me a remarkable story<br />
of perseverance. A young author writes :—<br />
"My story,' ,' has only been rejected<br />
twice, as yet. My first story, published just three<br />
years ago, was rejected thirty-six times before it<br />
was finally accepted. Another story of mine was<br />
only taken after forty-two publishers had refused it.<br />
So, you see, I cannot despair about' .'<br />
Besides, she is the only child of my brain that I<br />
have left to see settled in the world, all my other<br />
MSS. having been accepted, with the exception of<br />
a four-act drama."<br />
One can only wish every success to the four-act<br />
drama. This author has worked his way to suc-<br />
cess against discouragement that would almost<br />
have dashed the ardour of the Bruce's spider.<br />
Probably he could have spared himself a good<br />
proportion of these refusals, if he had been advised<br />
earlier of the most suitable direction in which to<br />
seek for a publisher. At the Society, we are often<br />
asked to "recommend a publisher," and it is<br />
possible that a mere glance at these books would<br />
have enabled us to save this author at least two<br />
dozen refusals by pointing out the publishers to<br />
whom it would be useless or unwise to apply.<br />
We are glad to learn from their organ, The<br />
Journalist, that the Institute of Journalists thinks,<br />
like ourselves, on the matter of International Copy-<br />
right, and that the Committee of Management<br />
propose to take such steps towards its establish-<br />
ment as may seem expedient. The question was<br />
brought to their notice through a resolution, passed<br />
on the motion of Mr. James Baker, by the Bristol<br />
Branch of the Institute. The motion was to the<br />
effect that "this meeting pledges itself to do all in<br />
its power to hasten the passing of a just and equit-<br />
able copyright convention between this country and<br />
America, especially urging that in such a conven-<br />
tion no injustice be done to the printers and paper-<br />
makers of this country; and that copies of this<br />
resolution be sent to the Institute of Journalists<br />
and the Society of Authors."<br />
M. Chatrian is dead. Chatrian, of the Erckmann-<br />
Chatrian series-—Chatrian whom we have all loved<br />
since first we read him. As for me, I think I made<br />
the acquaintance of this godlike pair early in the<br />
sixties—the remote sixties. What popularity has<br />
been the lot of these twins! Who can say how much<br />
they have done towards the extinction of the idiotic<br />
thirst for glory that formerly filled every ardent<br />
Gaul? Not that it has disappeared, but it burns<br />
now with a dimmer force. The young men go out<br />
to war because they must, but they know that it is<br />
not d la gloire but aux abattoirs. They will fight<br />
no worse for the knowledge, but they will not fight<br />
unless they must. Chatrian is dead! And before<br />
he died he had quarrels with his partner! The<br />
latter is as bad to think of as the former. One<br />
thing is quite certain—when two men form a literary<br />
partnership, they construct by talk and confidence,<br />
by weaving and interweaving, by selection and by<br />
arrangement, between them a work of art. Treason<br />
to Art if one begins to count how many pages he<br />
has written more than his partner!<br />
Charles Gibbon, who died last month at Yar-<br />
mouth, while still a middle-aged man, was a most<br />
prolific novelist. He wrote over thirty novels,<br />
some of which, "For Lack of Gold," and "The<br />
Queen of the Meadow," for example, enjoyed<br />
considerable popularity.<br />
I find the following in the Athenaum;—<br />
"In the course of nearly thirty years' continuous<br />
literary work, I have had frequent occasion for<br />
protest against the dishonesty of American pub-<br />
lishers, but I think my latest experience supplies<br />
one of the most striking examples of unscrupulous-<br />
ness in piracy.<br />
"I am credited in a glowing advertisement with<br />
the authorship of a sensational romance called<br />
'Tiger-Head; or, the Ghost of the Avalanche,'<br />
now being published in the New York Sunday<br />
Mercury. Now I never wrote a story called<br />
'Tiger-Head; or, the Ghost of the Avalanche,'<br />
nor any story which could, by any possibility, be<br />
described by such a title, and 1 beg to protest<br />
most earnestly against this misuse of my name.<br />
In the words of the great Burke I may say, 'My<br />
errors, if any, are my own. I bear no man's<br />
proxy.'<br />
"Mary E. Maxwell, nee Braddon."<br />
At present in America, as everyone who enjoys<br />
any circulation in England knows, there is nothing<br />
to prevent the unauthorized publication of English<br />
books on the other side of the Atlantic. But it<br />
seems to me that Miss Braddon has, in this case,<br />
some chance of an indirect remedy, or has, at any<br />
rate, an opportunity of some sort for some sort of<br />
reprisal, though blood would hardly wash out the<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 110 (#142) ############################################<br />
<br />
I IO<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
insult of being publicly accused of having invented<br />
the title of "Tiger-Head; or, the Ghost of the<br />
Avalanche." Miss Braddon's enormous and well-<br />
deserved popularity with all classes makes her<br />
name very valuable to the go-ahead Editor of<br />
the Sunday Mercury, and it is her name and<br />
not the story that is selling the periodical.<br />
Would it not be possible to send out to America<br />
an earnestly-worded repudiation of the literary<br />
honours thrust upon her? If this were sent to<br />
The New York Tribune, and The New York<br />
Herald, and the Sunday papers, most of the<br />
other journals might be trusted to copy it,<br />
without being requested to do so. This might<br />
damage the boom of the Sunday Mercury. Charles<br />
Reade was victimized in the same way, and, if I<br />
mistake not, Wilkie Collins was also.<br />
Here is a very interesting communication, based<br />
entirely upon the question of "What is trade-<br />
custom?"<br />
Without expressing any opinion on the case, we<br />
cordially echo our correspondent's wish that the<br />
customs of the trade could be made comprehensible<br />
to the intelligence of the author.<br />
"A publisher makes the following agreement:—<br />
"Messrs. X. and Y. agree to pay a royalty of so<br />
much per copy on all copies sold after the sale of<br />
the first copies of the said work, the publishing<br />
price of which shall be so much. The royalty on<br />
copies sold in America shall be one-half."<br />
The figures are omitted in charity to the pub-<br />
lisher and pity for the author.<br />
"In a few years about 1,000 copies are sold in<br />
America, and the royalty is duly paid; but these<br />
copies are not allowed to be reckoned among<br />
'the first '; so that the author has to wait till<br />
that number, plus the copies taken in America, are<br />
sold before he gets his royalty of ;i.e., the<br />
publisher, bypaying in advancethe stipulated royalty<br />
on the 1,000 copies sold in America, avoids the<br />
payment of the full royalty. Is this the 'custom<br />
of the trade'? It certainly seems an infraction of<br />
the agreement."<br />
"I found, too, by sad experience," continues the<br />
letter, "that it was the custom of the trade to<br />
distribute a large number of presentation copies,<br />
without consultation, and to advertise in such a<br />
way that in one year the cost of advertisements<br />
alone exceeded the receipts from the sale of the<br />
book. Having stopped this, I still had to submit<br />
to items like the following:—(The published price<br />
being, say, 3*. 6d.) 101 sold as 97, at 2s. 6d., less<br />
5 per cent., trade allowance (besides, of course,<br />
publisher's commission); or 52 (America) sold as<br />
48, at is. 4d. All this may be quite fair and<br />
necessary in a business way; but I think<br />
publishers should let authors know of these<br />
customs of the trade before the latter put a price<br />
on their book. Few new authors realize that in<br />
this way they can only expect (not counting adver-<br />
tisements), at most, one-half of the published price,<br />
and that six months after the whole year's account<br />
is made up."<br />
Our correspondent raises many questions in his<br />
letter, with all of which we hope at one time or<br />
another to deal. For the present I note only<br />
that this author has been made to sign an agree-<br />
ment, the nature of which he has not understood.<br />
For example, he is to receive nothing till the<br />
publisher has sold so many copies. How much<br />
will the publisher have made when the author's<br />
time begins? The author does not know. Yet<br />
he signed the agreement in the dark. When his<br />
time arrives, how much will the publisher make<br />
for his share? He knows very well, but the<br />
author does not. In this case the agreement was<br />
such, that the publisher would make, on a rough<br />
estimate, at least ^150 profit before the author got<br />
anything. He would afterwards make about twice<br />
as much as the author.<br />
There is given, later on, a resumi of an enquiry<br />
commenced last spring, into the position of the<br />
English author with reference to the Colonial<br />
book market. That this market is an ever-in-<br />
creasing one is plain. In the Colonies there are<br />
not only more people to read than formerly, but,<br />
in proportion, many more now who do read, and<br />
in both directions this increase will go on.<br />
The Society will do its best to deal with this<br />
problem. We shall probably first memorialize<br />
Government to enforce the existing protection,<br />
and shall then consider whether there is any direc-<br />
tion in which more protection could be obtained,<br />
and whether we have any chance of obtaining it.<br />
Local Copyright Acts might perhaps be procured<br />
in the interests of the English owners of the copy-<br />
rights, if the representations were made in the<br />
proper direction.<br />
At the present it may seem that great importance<br />
is being attached to a small matter, but our Colonial<br />
readers are no small matter, and it would be a<br />
thousand pities if, through supineness now, we lost'<br />
a splendid market in the future.<br />
In the meantime, let everybody see that his book<br />
is duly and promptly entered at Stationers' Hall.<br />
I beg to invite suggestions as to a future plan.<br />
Walter Besant.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 111 (#143) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
111<br />
THE POET'S SEAT:<br />
AN IDYLL OF THE SUBURBS.<br />
"Ille terrarum mihi prater omnes<br />
Angulus RIDET."—Hor. ii, 6.<br />
IT was a towering tree of yore,<br />
A lordly elm, before they lopped it,<br />
And weighty, said those five who bore<br />
Its bulk across the lawn, and dropped it<br />
Not once or twice, before it lay,<br />
With two young pear trees to protect it,<br />
Safe where the Poet hoped some day<br />
The curious pilgrim would inspect it.<br />
He saw him with his Poet's eye,<br />
The tall Maori, turned from etching<br />
The ruin of St. Paul's, to try<br />
Some object better worth the sketching ;—<br />
He saw him, and it nerved his strength<br />
What time he hacked and hewed and scraped it,<br />
Until the monster grew at length<br />
The Master-piece to which he shaped it.<br />
To wit—a goodly garden-seat,<br />
And fit alike for Shah or Sophy,<br />
With shelf for cigarettes complete,<br />
And one, but lower down, for coffee;<br />
He planted pansies round its foot,—<br />
"Pansies for thoughts," and rose and arum;<br />
The Motto (that he meant to put)<br />
Was Ille angulus terrarum.<br />
But "Oh ! the change (as Milton sings)—<br />
The heavy change!" When May departed,<br />
When June with its "delightful things"<br />
Had come and gone, the rough bark started,—<br />
Began to lose its sylvan brown,<br />
Grew parched, and powdery, and spotted,<br />
And, though the Poet nailed it down,<br />
It still flapped up, and dropped, and rotted.<br />
Nor was this all. 'Twas next the scene<br />
Of vague (and viscous) vegetations;<br />
Queer fissures gaped, with oozings green,<br />
And moist, unsavoury exhalations,—<br />
Faint wafts of wood decayed and sick,<br />
Till, where he meant to carve his Motto,<br />
Strange leathery fungi sprouted thick,<br />
And made it like an oyster grotto.<br />
In short it grew a Seat of Scorn,<br />
Bare,—shameless,—till, for fresh disaster,<br />
From end to end, one April morn,<br />
'Twas riddled like a pepper caster,—<br />
Drilled like a vellum of old time,<br />
And musing on this final mystery,<br />
The Poet left off scribbling rhyme<br />
And took to studying Natural History.<br />
This was the turning of the tide:<br />
His five-act-play is still unwritten;<br />
The dreams that now his soul divide<br />
Are more of Lubbock than of Lytton;<br />
"Ballades " are "verses vain " to him<br />
Whose first ambition is to lecture<br />
(So much is man the sport of whim !)<br />
On "Insects and their Architecture."<br />
Austin Dobson. *<br />
ENGLISH AUTHORS AND THE<br />
COLONIAL BOOK MARKET.<br />
IT may be remembered that at the end of last<br />
year we published a communication received<br />
by us from the Secretary of State for the<br />
Colonies, informing us that steps should be taken<br />
in accordance with our representations, to prevent<br />
the introduction of foreign reprints into the Straits<br />
Settlements. Shortly after this Mr. Rider Haggard<br />
sent to us a copy of his novel "Jess," which was<br />
circulating largely in an unauthorized edition in<br />
Africa, and pointed out the advisability of making<br />
an enquiry into the matter, with a view of finding<br />
out how far such practices were generally pre-<br />
valent in the Crown Colonies.*<br />
It is evident that our novelists have a large and<br />
ever-increasing market in the Colonies, and that<br />
some steps ought to be taken to prevent such<br />
robbery and secure the profits to them. At the<br />
same time it did not appear so very clear what<br />
those steps should be.<br />
We therefore addressed the following questions to<br />
prominent book-sellers in our various Colonies, in<br />
the hope that we should thus learn how much the<br />
author is at present injured by these reprints, which<br />
are mostly American, and how far anything could<br />
be done to prevent the injury :—<br />
"(i.) Are pirated editions imported freely<br />
into the colony?<br />
"(2.) Is there any legislation to prevent this<br />
importation?<br />
"(3.) Are such books openly exposed for<br />
sale?<br />
"(4.) To what extent in your opinion do<br />
pirated books and American reprints<br />
damage the books of the English trade?<br />
"(5.) What in your opinion would be the<br />
best steps to take for the protection of<br />
English and Colonial authors?"<br />
* The cost of this production was twenty cents, and it was<br />
the meanest Americanism we ever saw.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 112 (#144) ############################################<br />
<br />
i 12<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
The result of the answers we have received, as<br />
yet, is as follows :—<br />
Pirated editions are imported freely into Africa<br />
generally, into some parts of India, and into<br />
British Guiana, but not to any extent into Australia<br />
or New Zealand. In some colonies, what legal<br />
protection the law affords, is enforced, and in<br />
some it is not. For there is imperial legislation<br />
to meet the ppint. If the books are registered at<br />
Stationers' Hall, an import duty of 20 per cent, on<br />
the published price is collected by the Custom<br />
House for the good of the owner of the copyright.<br />
This, of course, is legislation for the regulation<br />
of the abuse, not for its prevention. It is very<br />
significant, however, that in Australia and New<br />
Zealand, where the Custom House officials levy the<br />
duty carefully, pirated editions are by no means<br />
rife.<br />
We are indebted to the courtesy of the Registrar<br />
of Canterbury College, Christchurch, N.Z., for the<br />
following information—<br />
"Lists of English copyright books are sent by<br />
the British Customs House to Wellington, and<br />
thence distributed to the collectors of customs at<br />
the different ports. I have this morning inspected<br />
the latest; it is dated May, 1889. The collector<br />
of Customs informs me that quite recently a<br />
quantity of music from America was destroyed<br />
under his directions, because of infringement of<br />
English copyright."<br />
From Auckland, New Zealand, we have received<br />
almost the same information, our correspondents<br />
believing that the existing law is sufficient if strictly<br />
carried out. Instances are given of the efficient<br />
working of the law.<br />
A correspondent writes from Dunedin to the<br />
same effect, adding that no bookseller worthy of<br />
the name would import reprints to the prejudice of<br />
the publishers of the old country.<br />
In Adelaide the law is enforced. The Principal<br />
Librarian of the Free Public Library at Sydney<br />
considers that the protection extended to authors<br />
and publishers by the Custom House is adequate.<br />
He has not received in seven years of office fifty<br />
such unauthorized books. In Melbourne we are<br />
informed that pirated editions are but seldom seen,<br />
and our correspondent is of opinion that the Eng-<br />
lish owners of the copyright have sustained no<br />
damage from them. In Brisbane the Act seems to<br />
be a sufficient protection, for but few American<br />
reprints have been seen there, and the fact that<br />
they are prohibited seems to be distinctly under-<br />
stood.<br />
In India, we hear from Calcutta that pirated<br />
editions are sometimes extensively imported. Our<br />
correspondent also casually throws out a horrible<br />
suggestion. He thinks that copyright books are<br />
sometimes printed in secrecy in India. This, of<br />
course, is quite beside the question, but it is a<br />
matter for grave apprehension.<br />
The Honorary Secretary of the Library at Simla<br />
Station informs us that pirated editions are freely<br />
imported into India, and that such legislation as<br />
exists to prevent this is not put in force.<br />
We learn from Bombay that the Custom House<br />
is very strict in preventing the import of pirated<br />
books, and that hardly any such editions find their<br />
way into British possessions.<br />
In Madras pirated editions are imported, but<br />
only rarely. They are always cheap American<br />
reprints. But in Madras the law is recognised,<br />
for one of our correspondents points out that the<br />
importation into British India of pirated editions,<br />
which infringe any law in force in the territory, can<br />
be punished by forfeiture and fine.<br />
Neither in Australia, New Zealand, or India, are<br />
these books openly exposed for sale, and the damage<br />
done to authors in the first two colonies by their<br />
sale is, of course, very slight.<br />
In Africa the tale is different; we print the<br />
following letter from the biggest book-seller at Cape<br />
Town, as it so clearly sets out the points at issue :—■<br />
"As the question of the prevention of Ameri-<br />
can reprints is an important one and damaging<br />
to a honest book-selling establishment, we beg-<br />
to reply to your queries, at the same time<br />
assuring you that you will have our heartiest co-<br />
operation. We may, however, tell you that we<br />
tried some two years ago this very same question,<br />
and we, as the largest publishers and importers of<br />
books into the Cape Colony, would have petitioned<br />
Government, but wanted the assistance of the<br />
London publishers. We were already in corres-<br />
pondence with the firms of Macmillan & Co.,<br />
Hurst & Blackett & Co., but we are sorry to say<br />
the matter has been allowed to drop. We have<br />
no doubt that, with the assistance of your Society,<br />
this evil will now be remedied, and those authors,<br />
whose works are stolen, will be protected from the<br />
American's avarice, which is allowed free play<br />
simply and only through the absence of an Inter-<br />
national Copyright Act. We, in the Cape Colony,<br />
are somewhat similarly placed to the injured authors<br />
with respect to the neighbouring States; for in-<br />
stance, books we publish are being sold in the<br />
Orange Free State and the South African Republic<br />
with impunity, without our being able to stop it,<br />
also for the want of an International Copyright<br />
Act<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 113 (#145) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
"(i.) Pirated editions are imported into the<br />
Colony in places like Cape Town and Port<br />
Elizabeth, as long as they pay the 20 per cent.<br />
Customs duty. These reprints, we learn, are<br />
imported direct from America.<br />
"(2.) There is no legislation to prevent this<br />
importation as long as they pay the duty.<br />
"(3.) Such books openly exposed for sale: it<br />
was not so very long ago there was a book-seller<br />
in Cape Town who had his windows simply<br />
swamped with these pirated American books,<br />
exhibiting books of authors like Rider Haggard s,<br />
Edna Lyall's, Mrs. Wood's, George Macdonald's,<br />
Ruskin's works, and others, selling them at is. 6d.<br />
per vol., whereas we had, of course, only the<br />
honest English edition at 6s., as the cheapest to<br />
sell.<br />
"(4.) The extent to which the pirated books<br />
and American reprints damage the books of the<br />
English trade is made evident by reading the fore-<br />
going paragraph. Moreover, this illicit trade is<br />
specially damaging in the Cape, where the majority<br />
of the population are not' reading people,' and may<br />
be induced to buy a book for cheapness sake, when<br />
they would not purchase it otherwise."<br />
At Cape Town, therefore,-in which town, by-the-<br />
bye, it was that the pirated copy of "Jess" was<br />
bought, the English author's property is greatly<br />
damaged by these illicit editions, and the law, even<br />
when enforced, is found powerless to check the<br />
evil. From Natal we have much the same story.<br />
From British Guiana we learn that the Custom<br />
House exacts on American editions, which are<br />
freely imported, the duty of 20 per cent, on the pub-<br />
lished price of all registered books.<br />
Here the penalty does not, in any way, stop the<br />
abuse. The impost is cheerfully paid, and the<br />
sale goes on to the detriment of the owners of the<br />
copyright.<br />
From the Straits Settlements we leam that the<br />
American reprint has been rife there. The Chap-<br />
lain of Penang, who is also honorary librarian of<br />
the Public Library, informs us that there were few<br />
books, except the pirated editions, to be bought<br />
on the Island, and that the question of purchasing<br />
these volumes for the use of the Library had been<br />
frequently before him. But from Singapore we<br />
have the following significant letter:—<br />
"We beg to acknowledge receipt of your favour<br />
of the 29th ult., and in reply beg to inform you<br />
that pirated editions are not sold in Singapore<br />
at all. All the firms here have agreed, in response<br />
to an appeal from the Colonial Government, not to<br />
keep them in stock."<br />
We say significant, for our attention was first<br />
called to this matter in reference to the Straits<br />
Settlements, so that before making this inquiry<br />
into the prevalence of the abuse in the Colonies<br />
generally, we were able to direct the attention of<br />
the Colonial Office to Singapore in particular: and<br />
the fact that action in Singapore has been so suc-<br />
cessful is encouraging to future effort.<br />
We invited, in our letter, suggestions for the<br />
remedy of the evil where it existed, and, with great<br />
unanimity, the Colonial book-sellers point out that<br />
the most certain remedy imaginable would be to<br />
issue cheap authorised editions for the Colonial<br />
market A Colonial edition of more expensive<br />
books is already issued by several publishers, and<br />
the plan has proved successful. One book-seller<br />
tells us that he could have sold perhaps 100 copies<br />
of Stanley's "Darkest Africa " at the English price<br />
of 42s., whereas he is confident that he will dispose<br />
of over 2,000 copies of the i6.r. edition, which has<br />
been prepared for Colonial use. It is suggested<br />
by most of our correspondents that this plan<br />
should be tried for cheaper books, that, in<br />
fact, the 3J. 6d., 5s. and 6s. novel, as each<br />
appears in England, should be accompanied by a<br />
is., is. 6d., 2s., paper-covered edition for the<br />
Colonies. It is too much to expect that people<br />
will give the large sums asked for the English<br />
edition, when they can buy the American copies<br />
for 25 cents.<br />
In New Zealand and Australia present legislation<br />
seems sufficient, and the English author does not<br />
appear to have been really damaged in India, but<br />
in Africa something must be done. Either the<br />
law is not enforced, or else the demand for these<br />
books is so large that, after the 20 per cent, has<br />
been paid to the Custom House officers, a hand-<br />
some profit can be made by their sale of them.<br />
The present law is not too neat in its working.<br />
The lists supplied to the Custom House are often<br />
a year old and more, which means that the pirate<br />
has a year's clear run before an official notice<br />
reaches the colony that the book is a registered<br />
property, and that a duty of 20 per cent, is due to<br />
the owner of its copyright. Now the edge is taken<br />
off the sale of a novel in a year. Again, the lists<br />
are made up from the registrations at Stationers'<br />
Hall, but very few authors trouble themselves to<br />
find out if their books are duly registered. They<br />
generally do get registered, but often not at the<br />
moment of publication, so that, during the first<br />
rush for the work, the book will often be unprotected<br />
in the Colonies, even though the Custom House<br />
officials should happen to be furnished with the<br />
latest lists.<br />
Lastly, if all goes well, the pecuniary return is a<br />
pitiful one. It was from this source that Charles<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 114 (#146) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
Reade received i6.f. 4J. as the result of two years'<br />
sale of " Never too late to Mend."<br />
There is no doubt that English authors ought to<br />
secure a better hold on this enormous market.<br />
The result of this inquiry will be laid before our<br />
Committee at once, and a sub-Committee formed<br />
to decide upon the best course. We know from<br />
experience that we can depend upon the courteous<br />
co-operation of the Colonial Office.<br />
*<br />
A HARD CASE.<br />
No. IV.<br />
AN author, already favourably known to a<br />
good if small public, wrote a story and<br />
took it to a literary gentleman, who had<br />
offered him friendly assistance in his search for a<br />
publisher. This gentleman approved of the story,<br />
and, on his recommendation, a publisher offered to<br />
bring the book out on the half-profit system. The<br />
agreement was a perfectly informal document, drawn<br />
by the intermediary on a sheet of writing paper.<br />
Under it the author gave up all his rights in the<br />
book in return for a half share in future profits.<br />
Let us stop here and consider what that means.<br />
The author gives up his work entirely to another<br />
person, a joint-adventurer, on the understanding<br />
that all profits shall be shared between them, and<br />
from the moment that he does so he ceases to have<br />
any voice in the management of the transaction,<br />
and any control over the expenditure. He is con-<br />
sidered to have done his share of the task. His<br />
has been the simple and easy part, the writing of<br />
the book. Why it is a thing, some people say, that<br />
any educated gentleman can do, if he can get credit<br />
for pens and paper; and a thing, moreover, which<br />
is constantly done by people of no education what-<br />
ever. The author is at no expense. It is true<br />
that the work may occupy all his leisure time for a<br />
year. It is true that if he had devoted that time,<br />
to (say) digging, he would have earned perhaps fifty<br />
pounds, and that there are still more people who<br />
can dig than spell. Indeed we do not ourselves<br />
think that writing even a very bad book is so simple<br />
a matter, but let it be conceded that the author's<br />
lot's a very happy one, and let us suppose that he<br />
has just written a book. He expects to be repaid<br />
in money and in increased reputation. If he does<br />
get money so much the better, but if he only gets<br />
fame from any one venture, that will mean money<br />
from his next venture. Now comes in the daring<br />
publisher and proceeds to take the risk. He can<br />
take it how he likes, either fighting—like Colonel<br />
Quaggs—or with sugar—as Orpheus C. Kerr took<br />
the oath—but how he takes it is a matter for his<br />
own private consideration. And this is the fact<br />
with which we find fault. The publisher can pro-<br />
duce so small an edition that if the whole sold, there<br />
would still be a loss on the book. Then, one may<br />
say, where are his own profits to come from? There<br />
won't be any for him, but that is a most unchristian,<br />
as well as an empty sort of satisfaction for his partner.<br />
He can produce so large an edition that it never<br />
can sell, so that the results of all the sales that do<br />
take place do not cover the printer's bill. He can<br />
advertise once a month in a circular privately sent<br />
out to a few customers, or daily in The Times, and<br />
take a column of it. He can bind the book in any-<br />
thing. There is or was a book in a well-known<br />
local library, bound in the skin of the Red Barn<br />
murderer; between anything so expensive and<br />
unique as this and a paper wrapper, there is a large<br />
choice for the publisher to whom the total manage-<br />
ment of details is left, and the chance of there<br />
being a profit depends greatly on the publisher's<br />
choice.<br />
It was in this way that the entire management of<br />
the book in question fell into the publisher's hands;<br />
he could produce it entirely as he pleased, all the<br />
details of publishing were left to his discretion.<br />
But alas! he appears to have had no discretion.<br />
He employed good artists and first-class printers,<br />
and he ordered an enormous first edition of this<br />
costly book, an edition he would hardly have been<br />
justified in ordering, if the book had been written<br />
by one of the most popular writers of fiction.<br />
Doubtless he relied on the splendid work put into<br />
the production to largely assist in the sale, for, in<br />
spite of the expense incurred over illustration, the<br />
book was announced at a popular price. The fact<br />
that the name of his firm was and is one honoured<br />
in book-land, would also be a great help to the<br />
author.<br />
Then came a series of delays in the publication,<br />
quite incomprehensible to the author, for neither<br />
the publisher nor the common friend gave him a<br />
hint that there was any definite reason for these<br />
delays. The book was announced for this month<br />
and for that month; now it was to stimulate the<br />
wear)' palate of August, now to satisfy the hungry<br />
cravings of Christmas, but still it never appeared.<br />
But at last an explanation of some sort or another<br />
leaked out. The publisher was at variance with<br />
his partners, who repudiated, as a firm, this and<br />
other contracts, into which he had entered in their<br />
name. Certainly this one partner had signed the<br />
agreement, given all the orders and effected all<br />
communications with the author, but the idea that,<br />
when doing so, he wasnot in a position to speak<br />
for his firm never occurred to the author. The<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 115 (#147) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
legal side of this question was never discussed. It<br />
is possible and even probable, that the firm would<br />
have been obliged to carry out the undertaking, but<br />
the author was advised to try and get away from his<br />
original arrangements and find a fresh publisher.<br />
The position now was this.<br />
An enormous and splendidly illustrated stock lay<br />
in sheets at the printers, and an enormous bill had<br />
to be paid for it, before the printer would let it<br />
out of his hands, and the copyright of the work<br />
had been assigned—at any rate, for this enormous<br />
number of copies—to a man who could not meet<br />
the bill himself, and whose firm repudiated their<br />
liability. This was awkward, but further complica-<br />
tions were yet to follow.<br />
The publisher's creditors proceeded against him,<br />
and chose to consider this luckless novel one of<br />
his most valuable assets. So much money had<br />
already been spent upon it in the way of illustra-<br />
tion, and the chance that it would achieve a large<br />
sale seemed so good, that they were probably right<br />
in so appreciating it. But that meant that the aulhor<br />
could not get his book from the printer without much<br />
trouble and legal formality. For if the copyright<br />
was undoubtedly partly the author's, it was un-<br />
doubtedly partly the publisher's, and if the author<br />
redeemed his stock and sold it for his own benefit,<br />
he might be held to have injured the publisher's<br />
estate. On the other hand, the author had many<br />
grounds upon which to base a large pecuniary<br />
claim against the publisher, and some to substan-<br />
tiate a breach of contract. Their joint property<br />
had been damaged by the continual delay; large<br />
orders which had been given for the book were<br />
not, of course, executed, and perhaps would not<br />
be repeated later, while many advertisements,<br />
some representing a tolerable sum of money, were<br />
lost for good. This was a side of the question<br />
which, we are happy to allow, the publisher's re-<br />
presentatives saw most clearly. Their behaviour<br />
throughout to the author was very considerate, and<br />
a definite understanding was at last arrived at, that<br />
no obstacle would be put in the way of the author<br />
if he chose to treat directly with the printer for the<br />
stock.<br />
Now things began to look smoother, when there<br />
appeared on the scene another claimant to rights<br />
over the unfortunate book. It appeared that i/ie<br />
publisher had assigned the copyright of the work for<br />
this enormous first edition to another publisher at<br />
the actual cost price of the work! Of course he had<br />
no power whatever thus to assign a copyright, which<br />
was not unconditionally his, to a third person, who<br />
was unknown to the author, and to do so without<br />
the author's sanction: but, setting this point aside,<br />
consider his interpretation of his agreement. He<br />
was to give the author half-profits. Avowedly to<br />
effect this, he took the book, gave nothing for it,<br />
but promised "as remuneration," to give the author<br />
one-half of any receipts over and above his disburse-<br />
ments. Then he sells the book for the exact sum<br />
he had disbursed, or, at any rate, for the exact sum<br />
he is stated to have disbursed.<br />
This assignment was set aside by the author,<br />
who was advised that he need not be bound by<br />
such an arrangement, and the hard case had a happy<br />
termination. With the co-operation of the first<br />
publisher's solicitors, the author recovered his stock<br />
from the printers, and came to an arrangement with<br />
the second publisher (who had already advertised<br />
the book and taken orders for it), to publish it for<br />
him.<br />
The book has been so far a success.<br />
*<br />
A SOCIETY OF AUTHORS FOR<br />
AMERICA.<br />
I.<br />
[Reprinted from the Xciv York Tribune.]<br />
London, July igth.<br />
WHY is there no Society of Authors in the<br />
United States? I shall, perhaps, be<br />
told there is one, but is there one answer-<br />
ing to the Society of Men of Letters in France, or<br />
to that which exists in England? The work this<br />
Society has done here is most useful, and it would<br />
be hard to praise it too highly, if you consider that<br />
it has been done by authors who are themselves both<br />
busy and successful. They give many hours a<br />
week to the cause of Literature, and to the interests<br />
of their fellow-authors. They have made the<br />
Society what it is; a body with purely practical<br />
aims, using practical methods to attain them. It<br />
takes a long time for the English—and, perhaps,<br />
sometimes for others than English—to grasp a new<br />
fact, or comprehend the real object of a new enter-<br />
prise.<br />
There are people, as 7'he Author tells us, who<br />
look on the Society as one which exists for the<br />
purpose of patching up, or even of creating quarrels<br />
and grievances with publishers. It is nothing of<br />
the kind. The Society has no quarrel with pub-<br />
lishers as such, and never had any: that it exists<br />
mainly for the purpose of maintaining the rights,<br />
the sacredness, and the reality of Literary Property.<br />
With the honest publisher the Society has no<br />
quarrel; with the dishonest publisher it has, and<br />
it makes no secret of its desire and intention to<br />
keep the author out of the clutches of the dis-<br />
honest publisher. As success in that laudable<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 116 (#148) ############################################<br />
<br />
u6<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
effort will increase the business of the honest pub-<br />
lisher, they and the Society ought to be on good<br />
terms. The honest publisher, like the author,<br />
owes, or will owe, a debt of gratitude to all who<br />
are concerned with it.<br />
It has some 600 members, with Lord Tennyson as<br />
President. On its Council are—besides Mr. Besant<br />
—Sir Edwin Arnold, Mr. Bryce, Sir Frederick<br />
Pollock, Mr. Rider Haggard, Mr. Marion Craw-<br />
ford, Mr. George Meredith, Prof. Michael Foster,<br />
and many more men of leading and light in the<br />
world of letters. It has offices in Portugal Street,<br />
Lincoln's Inn Fields. It has legal counsel, solici-<br />
tors, a committee of management, and a monthly<br />
organ. And it has principles. These have just<br />
been restated in a brief and convenient form, and<br />
I cannot do better than quote them:—<br />
1. Literary property is created by the author,<br />
and belongs, at the outset, to him.<br />
2. Literary property must be held as sacred as<br />
any other kind of property.<br />
3. Literary property is ruled by the demand for<br />
a book, just as colliery property means the<br />
sale of the output. And as the value of<br />
a colliery depends first on the output in<br />
tons and their price, so the value of a book<br />
can only be estimated with reference to the<br />
number of copies sold.<br />
4. The author must not part with his property<br />
without due consideration, nor without<br />
understanding exactly what possibilities,<br />
as well as what certainties, he gives and<br />
what he receives.<br />
5. What the author is entitled to is, after pay-<br />
ment of the cost of production and the pub-<br />
lisher's agency and labour, all the remaining<br />
proceeds. This proportion of the returns is<br />
the property which he has to sell for a lump<br />
sum down, or to receive year by year.<br />
6. The publisher has to be remunerated for his<br />
agency and labour out of the returns of the<br />
book in a certain proportion which should<br />
be a fixed proportion recognized by both<br />
contracting parties and understood by both.<br />
To some of these the publisher may demur, but<br />
they are principles which the French Society of Men<br />
of Letters have established in France. There is, I<br />
apprehend, no country in the world where the rights<br />
of Literature are better understood or settled on a<br />
more practical basis than in France. The English<br />
Society of Authors is, in fact, an imitator of the<br />
French, and will perhaps end by doing for the<br />
English author what has been done for the French,<br />
Both in England and America a public opinion<br />
on this subject has yet to be created. Recent events<br />
have shown that in America there is a great body of<br />
opinion which is hostile to the whole idea of literary<br />
property. Mr. Payson of Illinois and Mr. Mills of<br />
Texas seem to deny its existence. That they repre-<br />
sent the majority of the American people I do not<br />
believe. It is enough for them to have carried with<br />
with them a majority of the House of Represen-<br />
tatives. They and their majority have brought such<br />
discredit and disgrace upon the American name as<br />
many years of honesty and honourable dealing will<br />
not altogether efface. Judge Shipman, of the<br />
United States Circuit Court, has done something to<br />
efface it—all honour to him, strange as it still seems<br />
to be proclaiming honour to a Judge because he will<br />
not admit it to be legal to steal.<br />
The question of copyright, domestic or inter-<br />
national, may seem aside from the main subject, but<br />
all questions of literary property are inextricably in-<br />
terwoven and cannot be separated. They all have<br />
the Eighth Commandment for their basis. Until<br />
the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" case, it had been<br />
supposed that the American Pirate put forth no<br />
pretension to rob any other than the foreign author.<br />
It was then seen that he claimed the right to rob the<br />
native author also; the American man of letters was<br />
to be his spoil just as much as the British. There<br />
can be—outside of the courts, and the courts are<br />
always a last resort—no complete remedy for such<br />
a state of things, and no redress of grievances,<br />
otherwise than by the creation of a sound public<br />
opinion, and that is one of the aims of the<br />
Society of Authors. Very different, I may re-<br />
mark, is the handling of the copyright business in<br />
the Society's Journal from that of Mr. Wemyss<br />
Reid, whose heavy-handed invective attracted some<br />
notice at the time. Mr. Wemyss Reid would fain<br />
hold all America responsible for Mr. Payson and<br />
Mr. Mills. The Society urges, on the other hand,<br />
a recognition of the noble efforts in behalf of copy-<br />
right made by the leading men, the men of culture,<br />
in the Eastern States. These men, it tells its British<br />
readers, include all the authors of America, all the<br />
honourable publishers and a great number of editors.<br />
The opponents of the Bill were Western farmers,<br />
who knew nothing about literature, literary property,<br />
authors' rights or anything else except their own<br />
local interests. And The Author boldly says that<br />
the views of the British world, with respect to literary<br />
property, are not much more enlightened than those<br />
of the ignorant Western farmer.<br />
Education, however, and most of all the educa<br />
tion of public opinion, is a slow process, and the<br />
Society of Authors meanwhile busies itself with<br />
the most practical and pressing necessities of its<br />
clients. Any respectable author may join it on<br />
payment of a yearly subscription of 85. Once a<br />
member, he becomes a client, and may have his<br />
business transacted for him without further charge.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 117 (#149) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
117<br />
It is the cheapest advice anywhere to be had, and<br />
it is also the best. The relations between author<br />
and publisher undergo a change at once. It is<br />
no longer the case of a business man dealing with<br />
one who, as a rule, is not a man of business, and<br />
knows nothing of the mysteries of manufacturing<br />
and publishing printed books. The Society does<br />
know, and knows how to make its knowledge<br />
useful to the author.<br />
He has only to send to the Committee the form<br />
of contract prepared for him by the publisher.<br />
He will be told whether it is a fair one or not,<br />
and, if not, in what particulars it is unfair. He<br />
will be told what it costs to manufacture his<br />
book if he is himself to bear, or to share, the<br />
cost of publication. If he is to be paid by a<br />
royalty, he will be advised what percentage upon<br />
the selling price of the book he ought to receive.<br />
He will be warned, if need be, against the dis-<br />
honest publisher. If the publisher he has selected<br />
be honest, his negotiation with him is still a<br />
matter of business, and he needs all the help he<br />
can get toward looking after his own end of the<br />
bargain. Legal advice is of little or no use.<br />
Few lawyers have taken the trouble to master<br />
the intricacies of publishing, or are aware of the<br />
pitfalls and traps in which some of these pub-<br />
lishers' forms of contract abound. The author who<br />
goes to this Society may or may not be able to<br />
command good terms. But at least he will know<br />
whether they are good or bad, and know exactly<br />
what the contract is which he is asked to sign.<br />
A case came to my knowledge the other day.<br />
An author submitted two contracts to his solicitor:<br />
one of the few who are supposed really to under-<br />
stand the subject. He approved of both, and<br />
advised his client to sign both, with, in one case, a<br />
trivial technical alteration. Not quite satisfied, the<br />
author sent them to the Society; with this sur-<br />
prising result, that he was advised to object to<br />
many of the clauses, and did object. The pub-<br />
lishers in both cases were among the best, and<br />
assented readily enough to the modifications pro-<br />
posed. The effect of them was that in both cases<br />
the agreement ultimately signed was far more<br />
beneficial to the author than those first submitted<br />
to him and sanctioned by his solicitor.<br />
The organ of the Society gives singular instances<br />
of the adventures which have befallen the authors<br />
in quest of publicity. The latest case is the most<br />
extreme,—that of a lady who handed her manu-<br />
script to a publisher, and was told that the cost of<br />
printing a specified number of copies would be<br />
$600. A friend sent it direct to a printer, who<br />
offered to print and bind that number of copies for<br />
$80! Perhaps this publisher was one of that firm,<br />
elsewhere described in The Author, as one "of<br />
which all the worst things ever alleged against the<br />
publishing trade may be alleged with the greatest<br />
truth." The paper adds: "We have for a long time<br />
kept work out of their hands, and we intend to<br />
go on doing so until they mend their ways."<br />
An earlier statement shows that the dishonest<br />
publisher is not such a rarity that the author need<br />
not beware of him. There are, according to this<br />
estimate, not more than a dozen publishers in all<br />
London with whom publishing is anything but a<br />
system of robbery. If the condition of things in<br />
America be in any degree analogous to this, the<br />
foundation of a Society of American Authors is a<br />
pressing need. And even if the American be, as<br />
we are bound to suppose, vastly more virtuous<br />
than his British brother, there are other reasons<br />
which make the need for such a Society hardly<br />
less imperative. I have touched on but few of<br />
them, and it is for the American at home to<br />
consider the whole subject for himself. But I may<br />
repeat what I have said before, that, perhaps<br />
evenmorethan the author, the honourable publisher<br />
has an interest in suppressing his dishonourable<br />
rival.<br />
G. W. S.<br />
II.<br />
{Reprintedfrom the Brooklyn Times.)<br />
Mrs. Katherine Hodges, the authoress, of this<br />
city, has a grievance against her publishers of long<br />
standing and grave nature. To ventilate that<br />
grievance a meeting of authors took place yester-<br />
day afternoon in the green room of Historical<br />
Hall.<br />
Dr. Ingersoll, who was voted to the chair,<br />
said that the gathering had been called to assist<br />
those who seemed to have been wronged and to<br />
prevent others from falling into the same trouble.<br />
He then called on Mrs. Hodges to recite the story<br />
of the wrong that she had suffered at the hands of<br />
her publishers.<br />
The authoress said: "In the urgent need for an<br />
Authors' Protective Union or for some means by<br />
which this class of bread-winners may be protected<br />
in their rights, as are all other wage-workers save<br />
the author, perhaps the best argument I could<br />
offer would be some experiences of my own in<br />
dealing with publications. The book, 'Fifty<br />
Years a Queen,' was published on my account by<br />
Belford, Clarke & Co., New York and Chicago,<br />
in the last days of April, 1887. A few days after<br />
it appeared, Mr. Robert Belford, manager of the<br />
New York branch, told me in his office, 386,<br />
Broadway, that he had on that morning received<br />
an order for 100 of the books from one house and<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 118 (#150) ############################################<br />
<br />
n8<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
had the morning before had an order from another<br />
house for 200. When the publisher's first state-<br />
ment was rendered in September, 1887 (four<br />
months after this conversation), I was astonished<br />
to see that the total receipts up to that date were<br />
given as §101.88! I remembered the sale of 300<br />
books mentioned by Mr. Belford in the first days<br />
of May, the price of which alone would aggregate<br />
more than the whole sum of money stated, and<br />
that four months had passed since that time, from<br />
May to September, these months including the<br />
Jubilee celebration, when the book had a good<br />
sale. My surprise was followed by doubts. This<br />
statement of September, 1887, also gave the issue<br />
of the book as one edition of 1,000, which seemed<br />
to me to be as doubtful as was the statement of<br />
money said to have been received by the pub-<br />
lishers.<br />
"In this dilemma, and in order to explain, if<br />
possible, the seeming discrepancy between facts<br />
and figures, I made an appeal for information and<br />
learned from an undoubted authority that instead<br />
of 1,000 copies of the book being made Belford,<br />
Clarke & Co. had issued no less than 3,000.<br />
"On February 1, 1888, a further statement was<br />
furnished by the publishers, in which the receipts<br />
were stated as $101.88, and the number of books<br />
as 1,000, as in the first account. In February, 1888,<br />
however, as I have since learned and can conclu-<br />
sively prove, these publishers (without my know-<br />
ledge), surreptitiously issued the book in paper<br />
covers under the title of 'Great Britain under<br />
Queen Victoria,' and altered my name as author."<br />
Mrs. Hodges here produced the two issues of<br />
the book to illustrate her remarks. (The alteration<br />
was thus: In the genuine edition the proper name<br />
of the authoress is given—Mrs. Katherine Hodges;<br />
in the paper covered and spurious edition the book<br />
is stated to be by " Mrs. K. Hodge.")<br />
"Of this paper covered edition," resumed the<br />
speaker, " they put out an edition of at least 4,000<br />
copies at 50 cents a book at retail, and in May, 1888,<br />
they issued (as Mr. Belford now acknowledges) 4,000<br />
more in paper covers, cheaper form, &c, which were<br />
sold to Butler Brothers, also under the altered title,<br />
obviously with fraudulent intent. In all I have<br />
traced nearly 20,000 copies of my book issued by<br />
the firm in question, and I believe that they have<br />
issued a great many more. They have not paid<br />
me one dollar. They have appropriated the whole<br />
work, and in the present defenceless condition of<br />
authors, who are without any protection whatever,<br />
the chance of gaining redress which people who<br />
labour in other channels may resort to for remedy<br />
in cases of spoliation does not exist. This case, it<br />
seems to me—and I know of other cases similar to<br />
mine—proves the necessity for immediate action<br />
for the protection of authors, and adequate action<br />
at that. That there are honourable publishers,<br />
honest men who would scorn to rob persons so<br />
entirely at their mercy as the authors, no one can<br />
doubt. To such men the protection to authors<br />
would be welcome and gratifying, while in cases of<br />
the unscrupulous classes of publishers who make it<br />
a practice to pilfer when they can, the author<br />
would have his safeguard as others have, and even<br />
those men in whom morality must be at low ebb<br />
would be made better, higher and more human by<br />
the utilization of this portion of the Lord's Prayer:<br />
'Lead us not into temptation.'"<br />
*<br />
AN AUTHOR'S HOME.<br />
AREFUGE for brain workers in need has<br />
been started within the last year by Miss<br />
Fisher, of Brooklyn, New York.<br />
This lady owns a large house, and having only<br />
an invalid father occupying it with her, she con-<br />
ceived the idea of sharing it with some authors<br />
who are in need.<br />
Miss Fisher wisely thinks it more humane to<br />
help the author before he quite breaks down, rather<br />
than subscribe to a monument to him after he has<br />
been starved to death. About half a century ago,<br />
Mr. N. P. Willis tried to establish such a home. The<br />
terrible sufferings of Edgar Poe and his wife made<br />
such an impression on him, that he appealed to<br />
several of his contemporaries to help him in found-<br />
ing a refuge where literary workers and others of<br />
refinement, whose pursuits had been of an intellec-<br />
tual character, might find a temporary home and<br />
rest, to help them to "tide " over a season of diffi-<br />
culty or illness, without any publicity. He did<br />
not succeed. Now, in its infancy, Miss Fisher's<br />
Home Hotel, it is hoped, will fulfil this mission.<br />
The object is to afford the guests of the Home a<br />
retreat until able to resume their labours, or to<br />
find a permanent home (for those who are unable<br />
to work) for the rest of their lives. This home is<br />
free to those who cannot pay; to others a merely<br />
nominal charge is made.<br />
It has been asked in busy America, " How can<br />
gifted people come to such terrible want?" And<br />
yet it is said that Edgar Poe worked hard as a<br />
newspaper slave from morning until midnight,<br />
while his devoted wife lay dying on a bed of straw<br />
with his only coat covering her shivering body.<br />
The poem which has made his fame, "The Raven,"<br />
brought him only ten dollars—about two guineas.<br />
A case was lately cited of dire poverty of an<br />
author in a wealthy city like New York, which<br />
seems almost too horrible to tell. An aged pro-<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 119 (#151) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
119<br />
fessor and his wife, dreading the poor-house, com-<br />
mitted suicide together, bequeathing to Columbia<br />
College (N.Y.) his valuable writings, notes, and<br />
researches, the study of a lifetime. A writer in<br />
the Woman's Cycle (from whom I collate these<br />
facts) tells me that an aged and well-known author<br />
whose books are read by every youth in America,<br />
has said that the future was appalling to him.<br />
"After a lifetime devoted to authorship, I see<br />
nothing for my old age but want and privation."<br />
These cannot all be divided into Mr. Gosse's<br />
helpable and unhelpable folks. As we know, in<br />
the terrible contradictions of society, there are<br />
scoundrels who pay their tradespeople, so also do<br />
those, whose experience outruns popular " saws,"<br />
understand that there are practically honourable<br />
people who are breaking their hearts because they<br />
cannot do so.<br />
Miss Fisher's home is supported by many patrons,<br />
but those who have helped it most generously<br />
with money are, Mrs. Chauncey M. Depew, Mrs.<br />
Russell Sage, and Mrs. Whittlow Reid, wife of the<br />
American Minister to Paris.<br />
In Paris, an author's home has been founded by<br />
the publisher, Galignani. He left a sum sufficient<br />
to build a home for those who bad been less<br />
fortunate than himself, without depriving them of<br />
their independence or self-respect. This home<br />
shelters one hundred people of both sexes, who<br />
have each a sleeping room and a dining room. Fifty<br />
of this number are to pay one hundred dollars a<br />
year for lodging and board, the remaining fifty pay<br />
nothing, but they must belong to the literary or<br />
artistic profession. Ten must have been publishers,<br />
twenty savants, and twenty literary men or artists.<br />
Once inmates of the house they are as free as if<br />
at an hotel; they come and go as they like.<br />
Ralph Waldo Emerson calls the scholar and<br />
thinker one beloved of God; with a few Miss<br />
Fishers and Galignanis we may come to think<br />
him not ignored of men.<br />
*<br />
THE WORD "SLANG."<br />
IT would seem as if by some strange law of de-<br />
velopment, or non-development, all men,<br />
but especially philologists, are incapable of<br />
understanding that a word may be derived from<br />
several sources. The fewer words a man possesses,<br />
the more meanings he makes them carry—as it is<br />
said in Egypt that the poorer the peasant the more<br />
water jars must his wife bear. In jargons and<br />
slangs with limited vocabularies such as Chinook,<br />
pidgin English and English Gypsy, a single word has<br />
vol. 1.<br />
very frequently from ten to twelve or more meanings,<br />
which is natural enough, when the whole language<br />
or dialect contains less than five hundred words<br />
all told. Thus in English Gypsy a dozen Hindi<br />
terms with entirely different meanings, become one<br />
word, e.g., shukdr, which means dry, sweet, gently,<br />
forcibly, loud, &c.; that is to say, it is derived from<br />
words which separately mean dry, gentle, and so<br />
forth. So it would be difficult to decide whether<br />
bully, boss, the master of a house of vile character,<br />
comes entirely from bully and boss (Dutch bas,<br />
master), or whether it does not owe something by<br />
association, to the Yiddisch baal-habos, which means<br />
precisely the same thing (bal, master, bas, house)<br />
and which is very widely disseminated in foreign<br />
slangs.<br />
This is all curiously enough illustrated by the<br />
word slang itself. According to Skeat, in his<br />
Etymological Dictionary, slang is of Norse or<br />
Northern origin, and meant originally to revile or<br />
abuse. And so far as abuse goes, I see no reason<br />
to differ from him. In popular parlance, when one<br />
man "slangs" another, he "gives him a bit<br />
of his mind," in the gypsy sense in which to<br />
give means to hit a hard blow. And it therefore<br />
"follows perforce as a matter of course," that this<br />
is the sole source and origin of the word! So in<br />
my boyhood, having learned that the Mississippi<br />
came from a small rivulet which ran out of Turtle<br />
Pond, I speculated on the dire consequences<br />
which would ensue—such as the desolate dessica-<br />
tion of the entire valley of the Mississippi—<br />
should any small Indian boy take it into his head<br />
to dam the rivulet.<br />
For to return to slang, it has other meanings<br />
besides abuse. One of these, and the one most<br />
familiar to Alltheworld, as well as Mrs. Alltheworld,<br />
his wife, is that of vulgar, or at least unlicensed,<br />
synonyme. Some of these plebians in quarantine<br />
rise eventually to the pratique of aristocracy (excuse<br />
mixed metaphors) but I speak of those which are—<br />
like the good knight in the old German tale,<br />
ascensionem expectans—waiting to be hanged and to<br />
rise to heaven. Now, to abuse a man is one thing,<br />
but to call him by a fond nick-name which may be<br />
highly complimentary—as, for instance, a gom—is<br />
quite another, both being however "slanguage" of<br />
the most decided description.<br />
Now, it is worth noting that slang, in the sense<br />
of vulgar synonyme, has long been popularly<br />
regarded as a gypsy word, and that the gypsies<br />
themselves claim it. And though they be no<br />
philologists, the accuracy with which these people<br />
distinguish between words which belong to their<br />
own tongue, and those which do not, is very<br />
remarkable. Having taken down as they came,<br />
by chance here and there, about four thousand<br />
1<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 120 (#152) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
English gypsy words, chiefly from old people, I<br />
have been astonished to find what a vast proportion<br />
of these, especially those now obsolete, are Hindi-<br />
Persian, especially the former, and how very few<br />
really English slang words have crept into Romany.<br />
One especially gypsy use of the word slang is its<br />
application to all matters connected with the stage,<br />
or with "shows," requiringtheatrical language, which<br />
they in common with the vulgar regard as "a way of<br />
talk" quite different from that of common life.<br />
Hence, being "on the slangs" in common parlance<br />
means connected with exhibitions, and also licensed<br />
to hold forth in any way whatever. In this sense,<br />
Mr. Henry Irving, Miss Ellen Terry, or the Rev.<br />
Mr. Spurgeon (I am not so sure as to his Grace the<br />
Archbishop of Canterbury), are all "on the slangs"<br />
—and long may they wave there as credits to them-<br />
selves and their country 1<br />
Now, be it noted that the word "swdngi" means<br />
in India just what slangi (the old form) does in<br />
gypsy—all which is of the shows, showy, and of<br />
theatres, theatrical. As for the conversion of W to<br />
L, it took place innumerable times in India, just as<br />
it takes place now, ever and anon, in England, when<br />
it comes easier. The better philologer a man is, and<br />
the more familiar with strictly correct language, the<br />
more foreign and forced does the change from<br />
swangi to slangi seem, but to a gypsy it is the most<br />
natural thing in the world. It is within the memory<br />
of man that at one time there were few side or<br />
small shows, or even large theatres in which gypsies<br />
were not to be found, and the terms current among<br />
actors, such as cully, gorger, and mash, indicate<br />
their influence. By the way I have been reproved<br />
in print, for extravagance in declaiming that mask<br />
is gypsy, but I earnestly reply with the exquisite<br />
logic of the American darkey, "I wish I had as<br />
many dollars as I can prove dat to be true."<br />
It maybe remarked—"to top of faith"—that slang<br />
of yore meant abuse, and that its connection with<br />
things theatrical, and as a canting jargon, is subse-<br />
quent to the incoming of Gypsyness to England.<br />
And for a supernaculum to the topping-off, that the<br />
fact that slang is in these senses possibly not<br />
known to Continental gypsies, goes for little,<br />
considering that English Gypsy has retained a vast<br />
number of Indian words—such as Kushte and<br />
Koshko (good), which are rarely, if ever, heard out<br />
of England.<br />
Charles G. Leland.<br />
<br />
GO SLOW.<br />
ALL here, give ear, to whom I sing,<br />
Whatever your degree;<br />
Don't go to fast in anything,<br />
However fast you be.<br />
If people try to give you tips<br />
Because "they love you so,"<br />
Don't let your heart approach your lips—<br />
Go slow, my friends, go slow.<br />
If girls with curls above their brow,<br />
And roses on their cheek,<br />
Smile innocently when you bow,<br />
Or listen when you speak;<br />
If one of them, in times of grief,<br />
Desires to share your woe,<br />
Avoid the dangerous relief—<br />
Go slow, my friends, go slow.<br />
If folks that hoax should call on you<br />
To stand for Parliament,<br />
And ask you for an I.O.U.<br />
For cash they say they've spent;<br />
Or talk to you of "bulls and bears,"<br />
Like people "in the know,"<br />
And undertake to get you shares—<br />
Go slow, my friends, go slow.<br />
If men, again, pronounce your verse<br />
Too precious to be lost,<br />
And try to dip into your purse<br />
"To meet production's cost "j<br />
However pleasant they appear<br />
In Paternoster Row,<br />
That whistle will be bought too dear—<br />
Then, most of all, go slow.<br />
H. G. Keene.<br />
*<br />
INSCRIPTION FOR A MEMORIAL BUST OF<br />
FIELDING.<br />
[From The Atlantic Monthly, August, 1890.]<br />
He looked on naked Nature unashamed,<br />
And saw the Sphinx, now bestial, now divine,<br />
In change and rechange; he nor praised nor blamed,<br />
But drew her as he saw with fearless line.<br />
Did he good service? God must judge, not we;<br />
Manly he was, and generous and sincere;<br />
English in all, of genius blithely free:<br />
Who loves a Man may see his image here.<br />
James Russell Lowell.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 121 (#153) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE A UTHOR.<br />
CORRESPONDENCE.<br />
I.<br />
A Club of Critics.<br />
Can it be that a 'plan for the foundation of a<br />
club of critics is really and seriously under con-<br />
sideration, or has the suggestion merely been<br />
thrown out by an enterprising daily paper on the<br />
chance of eliciting an interesting correspondence?<br />
I have now read this statement in half-a-dozen<br />
different places. The much-maligned critic, who<br />
is generally a very good fellow, and, in letters<br />
at any rate, almost always knows what he is about,<br />
has three or four good clubs open to him already;<br />
he has to share them with his victims but, if they<br />
do not mind, it is difficult to see why he should.<br />
It seems to me, also, that it would be very hard<br />
to define the qualifications for membership, for<br />
the critic of to-day is the criticised of to-morrow.<br />
Again, is the expert in Greek art or German music<br />
to compete for a vacancy with the man who can<br />
appreciate the qualities of a prize-fighter or the legs<br />
of an horse?<br />
Mr. Robert Buchanan says that his night is made<br />
hideous by journalistic birds of prey, and begs<br />
that a Trades' Union of critics may boycott the<br />
slanderer and blackmailer. If a slanderer is to<br />
be blackballed at the critics' club, and if everybody<br />
who falls foul of an author's work is to be held to<br />
have slandered that author, where are the members<br />
of the club to come from, and how is the Com-<br />
mittee, who elect, to be constituted?<br />
That the blackmailer exists is a serious sugges-<br />
tion (has Mr. Robert Buchanan made it<br />
seriously?), but I am unwilling to believe in the<br />
venal critic. I remember that Mr. Lang, in his<br />
very humorous lecture, " How to fail in Literature,"<br />
pointed out that the writers who affected to believe<br />
that the critic had gone out of his way to slander<br />
them, in spite of their poor opinion of his manners<br />
and his morals, never approached him with gifts.<br />
A. B.<br />
II.<br />
American Cookery.<br />
August "jth, 1890.<br />
I think that my experience of cookery at the<br />
hands of the Americans caps that of Mr. Rider<br />
Haggard and "A. R. H. M." The recipe is as<br />
as follows, the cook being one "Smith, D.D. " :—<br />
Take the whole of Clodd's Childhood of the<br />
World, garble all the passages which tell against<br />
vol. 1.<br />
the doctrine of man's total depravity (which doc-<br />
trine the aforesaid Smith's act is designed to further<br />
establish), add thereto a few chapters from Cox's<br />
Gods and Herons; strain all the juice therefrom;<br />
pour in some pious reflections on the fall of man,<br />
and on echoes of the Hebrew revelation in Greek<br />
mythology; mix well together, so as not to know<br />
"t'other from which," and serve up cold under the<br />
title of "Myths and Herons; or, the Childhood of<br />
the World." Edited by Rev. S. F. Smith, D.D.<br />
This is how they served up Sir George W. Cox<br />
and<br />
Your obedient servant,<br />
Edward Clodd.<br />
III.<br />
The Society's Readers.<br />
I have read "Leaflet No. Ill" on the subject<br />
of "Paying for Publication," which appeared in the<br />
last issue of The Author, with interest and with<br />
some amusement. After describing the process<br />
—too familiar to all writers—of the rejection of a<br />
MS. by successive publishers, and the subsequent<br />
determination of the author to pay for its produc-<br />
tion himself, you condemn the conduct of such an<br />
author as foolish, and suggest the proper course<br />
for him to follow. You say, "If a MS. is offered<br />
to all the respectable houses in vain, it is refused<br />
because all the respectable houses are agreed that<br />
the public will have none of it." You tell the<br />
poor author to ask himself these questions, "If<br />
this public should refuse to buy this MS. if pub-<br />
lished—say, by or of what other publisher<br />
would they buy it? and for what reason?" In short<br />
you imply that a MS. is always rejected by respect-<br />
able publishers because it is worthless, and you con-<br />
sequently suggest to the author that instead, after<br />
such rejection, of rushing recklessly into print at<br />
his own expense, he should revise his MS. and<br />
submit it some third person—"say one of the<br />
readers for this Society, for an independent opinion<br />
as to the cause of these repeated failures." Now,<br />
sir, it is this last sentence which tickled my fancy<br />
in an especial degree for reasons which I shall now<br />
mention.<br />
Some little time ago I had ready for publication<br />
the materials of a book! I submitted them to<br />
various well-known publishers, with the usual<br />
result—they were declined with thanks. I then,<br />
instead of determining to pay for the production of<br />
them, adopted precisely the course you recommend.<br />
I took the MS. to the Incorporated Society of<br />
Authors, of which I have the honour to be a mem-<br />
ber, and requested to have the opinion of " one of<br />
1 a<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 122 (#154) ############################################<br />
<br />
122<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
your readers." In due course the opinion was<br />
given to the effect that it would be unwise to pub-<br />
lish the book, as it was not likely to have a sale.<br />
Thereupon, I suppose, I ought to have concluded<br />
that, in your own words, my work "lacked at least<br />
commercial value, if not literary merit," and should<br />
have thrown it behind the fire. However, with<br />
the folly which characterises the race of scribblers,<br />
I had one more try and found in Messrs.<br />
a firm willing to produce my book at their own<br />
risk. Subsequently at my request they permitted<br />
me to alter my arrangement with them and pay<br />
for the production of the book myself, but this<br />
change, though advantageous to me, does not<br />
affect the question with which I am dealing. Now<br />
what has been the result? The first edition of<br />
1,000 copies was exhausted in less than three<br />
weeks, and the demand for the second edition is<br />
most encouraging. In a word, the book, which<br />
your reader condemned, is a success—and your<br />
reader has proved himself just as fallible as the<br />
majority of publishers' readers; and no wonder,<br />
as the sequel will show. Calling a few days ago<br />
at the office of the Society, I could not resist the<br />
temptation to draw the attention of the courteous<br />
Secretary to the passages in " Leaflet No. Ill," on<br />
which I am commenting, and to point the moral.<br />
This gentleman said he could not understand how<br />
my book had been misjudged, for he had sub-<br />
mitted it to one of Messrs. 's most ex-<br />
perienced readers. He could only suppose that<br />
the reader in question, being a seriously minded<br />
man, had been misled by the title—" Four years in<br />
Parliament with Hard Labour "—and finding the<br />
contents not so grave as he had been led to expect<br />
therefrom, had condemned the work in conse-<br />
quence of the inconsistency between the inside and<br />
the outside.<br />
I own that I was not much impressed with this<br />
suggested explanation, but I certainly was struck<br />
with the discovery that the readers for the Society<br />
should be none other than the very same publishers'<br />
readers to whom in the ordinary course and with-<br />
out the intervention of the Society, the work would<br />
be submitted by the author.<br />
Surely when you advise an author who has had<br />
his MS. returned by publishers to submit it "to<br />
some third person—say one of the readers for this<br />
Society—for an independent opinion as to the<br />
cause of these repeated failures," no one would<br />
suppose that these independent third persons<br />
would be of the very class of men, possibly the<br />
very men themselves, by whom the MS. had already<br />
been examined and rejected! It is clear that if<br />
the Society desire to set up, what I think might be<br />
a useful tribunal, namely, a Court of Appeal from<br />
the judgment of publishers' readers, which may<br />
gain and retain the confidence of authors, such a<br />
Court will have to be composed of persons other<br />
than than those who at present seem to constitute<br />
it.<br />
Do not suppose, however, because I have given<br />
a quite recent instance of a case in which the<br />
advice of the Society, if followed, would have pre-<br />
vented the publication of a successful book, that<br />
therefore I can see no good in the existence of the<br />
Society. On the contrary I acknowledge that the<br />
Society has by its disclosures of the practices of<br />
dishonest publishers done an excellent work—a<br />
work which will benefit authors and improve and<br />
strengthen the position of respectable publishers.<br />
If it proceed on these lines and receive the support<br />
to which it will then be entitled, it will become not<br />
merely a prosperous but also a powerful body—a<br />
body able to make good terms for authors because<br />
it will be able to say how the constant output of<br />
new literary work on which publishers in a great<br />
measure subsist shall be divided among them.<br />
I am, Sir,<br />
Your obedient Servant,<br />
C. W. Radcliffe Cooke.<br />
House of Commons,<br />
August 6lh, 1890.<br />
Editor's Note.—We think Mr. Radcliffe Cooke expects<br />
too much of us, although we appreciate the compliment.<br />
Our readers are not infallible, nor have we made any such<br />
claim for them. We think also that the reader for a pub-<br />
lisher is in a position to give the surest prognosis that can<br />
be given as to the future of a book.<br />
This was our meaning when we invited authors, after<br />
continued rejection, to submit their MSS. for an "indepen-<br />
dent" opinion. From a good publisher, such an author<br />
receives, as a rule, only a few words regretting the inability<br />
of the firm to undertake 'the work. Sometimes the answer<br />
comes back so promptly that the author cannot believe his<br />
claims have been properly considered. From others he<br />
receives invitations to provide the expense of production.<br />
From some he receives a letter of high commendation by<br />
return of post, with an effusive offer to publish at once on<br />
the half-profit system, if the author will pay—say £<)0—in<br />
three instalments. Whom is he to believe! What is he to<br />
do?<br />
We try to tell him. But we are not infallible. In this<br />
case our reader's opinion proved completely wrong. We are,<br />
however, quite certain that this reader has kept from publica-<br />
tion, at the author's risk and expense, a mass of stuff which<br />
would never repay the author, and would only have swollen<br />
the mass of worthless literature.<br />
IV.<br />
Black Beauty.<br />
There are cases so strong that any comment<br />
weakens them. Permit me, therefore, to tell the<br />
story of "Black Beauty," and to leave you and<br />
the British public to admire it. This book, written<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 123 (#155) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
by Miss Anna Sewell and published by a reputable<br />
English firm, made its way to this country early in<br />
the current year, was placed on the shelves of the<br />
public and private circulating libraries, and made<br />
a reputation for itself and accomplished a good<br />
work among young equestrians, and among the<br />
owners of costly horses. In time, its influence<br />
would doubtless have been felt among the teams-<br />
ters and the drivers of public conveyances, but,<br />
early in April, Mr. George T. Angell, the Presi-<br />
dent of the American Humane Society, published<br />
an edition of his own, and boldly announced that<br />
he should give away several hundred copies, and<br />
should sell the remainder of the 10,000 issued at<br />
twelve cents a copy. He added the words, "The<br />
'Uncle Tom's Cabin' of the Horse," to the<br />
English author's title-page, and he wrote a beauti-<br />
ful preface, running over with benevolence, and<br />
stating, in substance, that this was the book he<br />
long had sought, and mourned because he found<br />
it not, and he kindly italicized certain passages<br />
which he considered were not strong enough in<br />
plain Roman type. The importers, booksellers,<br />
and librarians shrugged their shoulders, but wisely<br />
saved their breath, about the only thing which the<br />
present state of the law has left them to save.<br />
A Mortified Yankee.<br />
Boston, May 2.2nd, 1890.<br />
We were unaware that " Black Beauty" was so<br />
valuable a property, but the manner in which the<br />
possessor of the copyright has been treated is<br />
deeply remarkable. For here we have not a story<br />
of the doings of the pirate-publisher, but of the<br />
practical philanthropist, yet we doubt if the late Mr.<br />
Charles Reade, in his wonderful store-house of notes,<br />
possessed a more bare-faced example of robbery.<br />
Here is a really valuable property—of some-<br />
body's—appropriated by a man who has not the<br />
slightest claim to it, and sold at such a ridiculous<br />
price that no legitimate edition can possibly live<br />
in the market with it. "It is highly improbable,"<br />
says the Boston Herald, "that 'An Uncle Tom's<br />
Cabin' of the horse will be written, or even at-<br />
tempted, in the country now, since the publication<br />
of the American edition of 'Black Beauty.' The<br />
proper price of the book should be 50 cents, and<br />
even in the present ludicrous condition of the<br />
book trade would be at least 25 cents for the im-<br />
ported edition. This would remunerate the author,<br />
the publisher and the bookseller; but the American<br />
edition being frankly stolen, pays nobody, and<br />
inspires the person who buys it for 12 cents, for<br />
the good of the horse, with a disinclination to pay<br />
more than 12 cents for any other similar book.<br />
Twelve cents from the purchaser means 12 mills<br />
for the author, or $12 a thousand, and American<br />
authors, not being donkeys, do not write books for<br />
that price, even for the good of the horse. If<br />
'Uncle Tom's Cabin' had been sold for next to<br />
nothing, does anybody suppose that the hundreds<br />
of later anti-slavery novels which powerfully affected<br />
public opinion would ever have seen the light?<br />
Would even 'Dred' have been written, had not<br />
its author expected a fair recompense?"<br />
It is impossible to attribute any but the very<br />
best and highest intentions to the publishers of the<br />
American edition, but to do evil that good may<br />
come is invariably unwise. "The ten command-<br />
ments will not budge," as Mr. Lowell says, and<br />
giving away conveyed copies of "Black Beauty"<br />
destroys the chance that an American will write a<br />
better book in behalf of the horse. True, it is<br />
possible that there is a combination of saint and<br />
clever writer somewhere in the country, and that<br />
he may be willing to work for nothing, and to bear<br />
all manner of abuse by way of compensation, but<br />
few will believe in his existence until he actually<br />
appears.<br />
Here is Mr. George T. Angell's logical reply :—<br />
"To the Editor of the Herald .—In the Herald's<br />
review of 'Black Beauty,' the book which the<br />
American Humane Society is distributing free of<br />
charge, the statement is made that the author re-<br />
ceives no remuneration. I answer:<br />
"(1) The authoress died unmarried shortly after<br />
the publication of the book.<br />
"(2) Her mother, a widow, died soon after.<br />
"(3) So far as we are aware no one but the<br />
English publisher gets a sixpence from it.<br />
"(4) He has already sold 103,000 copies in<br />
England.<br />
"(5) Its immense advertisement and circulation<br />
in the United States will give it a large sale in<br />
Upper and Lower Canada, where his copyright<br />
holds good, and will attract increased attention and<br />
sale both in Great Britain and all British colonies.<br />
"(6) The publisher can better afford to make<br />
a present to the American Humane Education<br />
Society than the American Humane Education<br />
Society can afford to make a present to him.<br />
"Boston, May -]th, 1890."<br />
Was there ever such a condition of hopeless<br />
mental confusion, for it is fair to suppose that his<br />
action has been entirely dictated by a confused<br />
idea that good would follow his evil deed. The<br />
Society of Authors, in spite of its actions and printed<br />
disclaimers, has often been accused in the press 01<br />
cherishing savagely unjust views concerning pub-<br />
lishers, but Mr. Angell—in his own argdt—" goes<br />
us one better." Stealing does not matter a cent,<br />
says President Angell, for we are only robbing a<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 124 (#156) ############################################<br />
<br />
124 THE AUTHOR.<br />
publisher. This is the doctrine of "'eave 'arf a<br />
brick at him " with a vengeance.<br />
Mr. Angell holds out to the publisher, as<br />
though perhaps to show that he was acting for the<br />
the best all round, the immense sale that his work<br />
will have in certain Crown colonies where the copy-<br />
right restrictions hold good. In view of the letters<br />
whose substance has been reproduced later in this<br />
number of The Author, we are doubtful if any of<br />
our colonies are very safe from American enterprise,<br />
but certainly we cannot believe that there will be<br />
much demand for this book at its proper price north<br />
of the American frontier line, while it is being given<br />
away with a pound of tea on the southern side.<br />
*<br />
information, and trust that all willing to contribute<br />
will communicate with the Executive at 13, King's<br />
Bench Walk, Temple, London, E.C.<br />
The Marquis of Lorne {Chairman<br />
of the Executive Committee),<br />
Alex. Staveley Hill, Esq., Q.C.,<br />
M.P. {Hon. Treasurer),<br />
Sir George Baden-Powell, M.P.<br />
{Hon. Secretary).<br />
There has been gathered together a Committee,<br />
chiefly consisting of lords and noblemen, to collect<br />
books. Among them appears the name of James<br />
Bryce, as almost the solitary man of letters, though<br />
science is well represented. In any other country<br />
such a Committee would have contained none but<br />
men of letters and of science.<br />
THE LIBRARY OF TORONTO<br />
UNIVERSITY.<br />
<br />
E have great pleasure in giving publicity<br />
to the following communication, which<br />
has been received at the office:—<br />
The loss which the University of Toronto has<br />
sustained in the destruction by fire of its valuable<br />
Library, has aroused a widespread feeling of sym-<br />
pathy in the Mother Country.<br />
In order to give practical effect to this feeling<br />
a Committee has now been formed in order to<br />
collect and forward to Toronto gifts of books.<br />
The Committee will also gladly receive any con-<br />
tributions in money to be expended in the purchase<br />
of suitable books.<br />
Many possessors of books will be willing to con-<br />
tribute. The Committee are happy to state that<br />
the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin,<br />
the British Museum, and other public bodies, as<br />
well as many private firms and individuals, have<br />
already offered to contribute books. The Com-<br />
mittee are also happy to state that the Allan and<br />
Dominion Steamship Lines and the Canadian<br />
Railways have generously offered to carry the<br />
books free of charge.<br />
It will be a convenience if those willing to con-<br />
tribute would, first of all, send to the Executive<br />
Committee a list of such books as they may be<br />
willing to give, with a view to the avoidance of<br />
the unnecessary multiplication of copies of the<br />
same book.<br />
A plate will be prepared for insertion in each<br />
volume, upon which will appear the name of the<br />
contributor of the books or of the money expended<br />
upon the purchase.<br />
The Committee will be glad to afford every<br />
*<br />
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.<br />
ON July 29th, Samuel Gompers, President of<br />
the Federation of Labour, addressed the<br />
following letter to Speaker Reed :—<br />
Dear Sir,—By direction of the Executive<br />
Council of the American Federation of Labour,<br />
it becomes my duty to inform you, and I take<br />
pleasure in so doing, that the organised working<br />
men of this country feel a deep interest in the<br />
enactment of an International Copyright Law by<br />
the Congress of the United States.<br />
In favouring such a law, however, we do so pro-<br />
vided it contains a clause which shall protect the<br />
compositors and all other wage-workers in the<br />
printer's trade, as well as the authors and manu-<br />
facturers, and believe that House Bill 10,254,<br />
introduced by Mr. Win. E. Simonds, representing<br />
the First District of Connecticut, covers all the<br />
points in interest.<br />
Seldom if ever have all the interests in an in-<br />
dustry been so thoroughly united in the advocacy<br />
of a measure as represented in the Bill referred to.<br />
No injury is contemplated, or can occur, to any of<br />
the people of our country. It can be followed with<br />
but one, and that a good, effect upon all.<br />
We earnestly ask you to give the Bill such<br />
assistance as will bring it before the House, and<br />
secure its passage, and that I may hear from you<br />
to that effect.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 125 (#157) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
125<br />
AT WORK.<br />
This column is reserved entirely for Members of the Society,<br />
who are invited to keep the Editor acquainted with their<br />
work and engagements.<br />
THE first volume of Mr. York Powell's new series,<br />
"Scottish History from Contemporary Writers," has<br />
appeared. It is entitled "The Days of James IV,"<br />
and is edited by Mr. Gregory Smith, and published by Nutt.<br />
The object of this series is to send the reader to the best<br />
original authorities for information.<br />
Mr. Walter Besant's novel "Armorel of Lyonnesse," which<br />
ran in the Illustrated London Nenus from January to July of<br />
this year, will be published by Chatto and Windus in October.<br />
"Fantasia," by Matilda Serrao, is to be translated from<br />
the Italian by Sir. H. Harland (Sidney Luska) for the<br />
"International Library," edited by Mr. Edmund Gosse, and<br />
published by Mr. Heinemann.<br />
Professor J. S. Nicholson's romance "Thoth," which is<br />
now in a third edition, has been translated into German, and<br />
will shortly appear in the Berlin National Zeitung.<br />
A new serial story by Mr. Marion Crawford will begin in<br />
an early number of the English Illustrated Magazine.<br />
Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will publish "A Cigarette<br />
Maker's Romance," by the same author, this autumn.<br />
Mr. C. F. Keary's novel in letters, "A Mariage de Cove-<br />
nance," is to appear shortly in cheap form in Mr. Fisher<br />
Unwin's novel series.<br />
Dr. W. H. Russell has finished his book on "A Visit to<br />
Chile and the Nitrate Fields of Tarapaca, &c.,"and it will be<br />
published shortly by Messrs. Virtue and Co. Mr. Melton<br />
Prior has furnished some sixty illustrations.<br />
"Mademoiselle," a 1 vol. story by Miss Peard, will shortly<br />
be published (Walter Smith and Innes).<br />
Mrs. Oliphant's story, " Kirstein," was concluded in last<br />
month's number of Macmillan's Magazine.<br />
Mr. Leland's " Memory and Thought" is now appearing<br />
in a series of six manuals in New York. The publisher is<br />
T. P. Downs.<br />
Dr. Goodchild has in the press a sequel to his clever and<br />
fanciful little book, "Chats at Sant Ampelio."<br />
The poems of Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton) form the<br />
latest volume in the Canterbury series issued by Walter Scott.<br />
The selection is preceded by an introduction by M. Bethane<br />
Edwards.<br />
"Esme Stuart's" novel is continued through The New-<br />
bery House Magazine.<br />
Messrs. Chatto and Windus have again commissioned Mr.<br />
T. W. Speight, author of " The Mysteries of Heron Dyke,"<br />
&c, to write 714* Gentleman's Annual for Christmas next.<br />
This will make the sixth consecutive year that the Annual in<br />
question has been from Mr. Speight's pen. The same<br />
writer has a three-volume novel well under way, which he<br />
hopes to have finished by the beginning of the new year.<br />
A paper on " Binary Stars of Short Period," by Mr. J. E.<br />
Gore, F.K.A.S., appears in the August numl>er of Kno-Mledgc.<br />
The paper is illustrated by drawings of the apparent orbits<br />
of some remarkable binary stars. These have been drawn<br />
to scale and reduced by photography.<br />
"John Strange Winter" has three different novels running<br />
as serials at the present time in London periodicals, viz.,<br />
"Other People's Children," in The Gentlewoman, "He Went<br />
for a Soldier," in Tit-Bits, and "The Other Man's Wife,"<br />
in The Weekly Times and in Tinslcy Magazine, and numerous<br />
provincial and colonial newspapers. These three novels<br />
have been written during this year.<br />
The Rev. Frederick Langbridge has nearly completed a<br />
volume relating for children the lives of Samuel, Saul, and<br />
David. The Ixjok will form a number of the "Stepping<br />
Stones " Series, published by the R.T.S. The same Society<br />
will also issue immediately the Fourth Part of "What to<br />
Read," edited by Mr. Langbridge. Mr. Langbridge has<br />
just completed a story called, "I Bide My Time," which<br />
will run as a serial in the Church Monthly during the first<br />
half of 1891. In conjunction with Mrs. Lysaght, Mr.<br />
Langbridge has written a somewhat sensational story, called<br />
"The Burden of Cassandra," which, previously to its issue<br />
in volume form, will appear as a feuilleton in the Bristol<br />
Observer.<br />
*<br />
NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS.<br />
Allingham, William (The Late). Thought and Word,<br />
and Ashby Manor. Reeves and Turner. I vol.<br />
Archer, William. Prose Dramas of Henrik Ibsen.<br />
Authorized English Edition. Edited by. Vol. I—III.<br />
Scott.<br />
Austin, Alfred. English Lyrics. Edited by William<br />
Watson. Crown 8vo. ys. 6d. Macmillan and Co.<br />
Black, William. The New Prince Fortunatus. Cr. 8vo.,<br />
cloth. Sampson Low.<br />
Blind, Mathilde. The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff.<br />
Translated, with Introduction by. Cassell and Co.<br />
Burnett, Frances Hodgson. Louisiana; and That Lass<br />
o' Lowrie's. I vol. Crown 8vo. y. 6d. Macmillan<br />
and Co.<br />
Campbell, Lady Colin. Darell Blake. 1 vol. Trischler<br />
and Co.<br />
Clodd, Edward. Story of Creation: A Plain Account of<br />
Evolution. I vol. Longmans and Co.<br />
Cobb, Thomas. For Value Received. 3 vols. Ward and<br />
Downey.<br />
Conway, W. M. Climber's Guide to the Central Pennine<br />
Alps. Fisher Unwin.<br />
Crommelin, May. Midge. 1 vol. Trischler and Co.<br />
Dickens (Charles) and Collins (Wilkie). The Lazy<br />
Tour of Two Idle Apprentices; No Thoroughfare; The<br />
Perils of Certain English Prisoners. Crown 8vo. I vol.<br />
Chapman and Hall.<br />
*#* These stories are now reprinted in complete<br />
form for the first time.<br />
Dobson, Austin. Selected Poems of Matthew Prior.<br />
Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trubner and Co.<br />
Esler, E. Rentoul. The Way of Transgressors. 3 vols.<br />
31*. 6d. Sampson Low and Co.<br />
Farrar, F. W., D.D. The Passion Play at Oberammergau,<br />
1890. 4to., cloth. I vol. William Heinemann.<br />
Frazf.r, J. G. The Golden Bough: A Study in Compara-<br />
tive Religion. Macmillan and Co. 2 vols.<br />
Harley, Ethel B. (Mrs. Alex. Tweedie). A Girl's Ride<br />
in Iceland. Crown 8vo. 1 vol. Ss- Griffith and<br />
F arran.<br />
Hethbrington, Helen, and Burton, Rfv. H. Darwin.<br />
Paul Nugent, Materialist. 2 vols. 2If. Griffith and<br />
Farran.<br />
Hume, Fergus. The Man with a Secret. F. V. White.<br />
3 vols.<br />
The Gentleman who Vanished. F. V. White.<br />
James. Henry. The Tragic Muse. 3 vols. Crown 8vo.<br />
31 j. 6d. Macmillan and Co.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 126 (#158) ############################################<br />
<br />
126<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
Kirh'.T,, R';dtarj>. In Black and White. Demy 8vo.,<br />
c/vers. Saropvjn Low. Rain Tales from the Hills. Third edition. I voL<br />
Crown tn<i. (a. Macmillan and Co.<br />
Lyw*» Lywto*, Mrs. E. Sowing the Wind. Chattoand<br />
Wrryius. I rol. 3/. <*/.<br />
Lrrrojt, Earl op. Poem*. ivoL Walter Scott.<br />
Marty*, EkwarMSirius). Morgante the Lesser. Swan<br />
.Sonnensthein and Co. I vol. 6s.<br />
Mekciek, Dk. Chaei.es. Sanity and Insanity. 1 vol.<br />
Walter Scott.<br />
Mo*KHOL'»E, Cosmo. The Earlier English Water-colour<br />
Painter n. Illustrated. Seeley and Co.<br />
Corn and Poppies. Elkin Mathews.<br />
Murray, Christie, and Herman, Hesry. Wild<br />
Darrie: A Novel. New and cheaper edition. Crown<br />
8vo. I vol. 21/. Longmans, Green and Co.<br />
Nicholson, J. Shield. Toxar: A Romance. Longman<br />
and Co. 8vo. 6s.<br />
"Nomad." A Railway Foundling. 3 vols. Trischler and<br />
Co.<br />
Oliphant, Mrs. The Mystery of Mrs. Blencarrow. 1 vol.<br />
Spencer lilackett.<br />
Parry, E. A. Letters from Dorothy Oslx>rne to Sir William<br />
Temple, 1652-54. New edition. 6s. Griffith and<br />
larran.<br />
I'ATEKson, Arthur. The Better Man. 1 vol. Ward<br />
and Downey.<br />
I'ayn, Ja.mf.s. Mystery of Mirlvidge. 12 mo. 2s., bds.<br />
— Notes from the "News." Chatto and Windus.<br />
Crown 8vo. is.<br />
Pollock, Sir Frederick. An Introduction to the History<br />
of the Science of Politics. I vol. 2s. 6d. Macmillan<br />
and Co.<br />
I'ooi.e, Stanley Lane. Story of the Nations. The<br />
liarlary Corsairs. Fisher Unwin.<br />
Praed, Mrs. CamI'HELL. The Romance of a Station.<br />
2 vols. Trischler and Co.<br />
Kohinson, Mahk.i.. The Plan of Campaign. Crown 8vo.<br />
I vol. Mclhuen and Co.<br />
Rohinson, F. W. A Very Strange Family. Crown 8vo.<br />
I vol. 3/. 6d. William Ileinemann.<br />
The Keeper of the Keys. Hurst and lilackett. 3 vols.<br />
SlDGWICK, Henry. The Methods of Ethics. Fourth<br />
edition. 8vo. 14/. Macmillan and Co.<br />
Sims, GkorckK. The Case of George Candlemas. Chatto<br />
and Windus. 1 vol. is.<br />
Stevenson, Roiiert Louis. Father Damien: an Open<br />
I-etlcr to the Rev. Dr. Hyde. 1 vol. Chatto and<br />
Windus. is.<br />
Symonds, John AddINCTON. Essays, Speculative and<br />
Suggestive. Crown 8vo. 2 vols. Chapman and Hall.<br />
Toynhrk, William. Lays of Common Life. Remington<br />
and Co.<br />
Tyti.kr, Sarah. French Janet. Smith, Elder and Co. 1<br />
vol, 2r.<br />
Wariikn, Florence. City and Surhurban. F. V. White.<br />
Westai.l, W. Two Pinches of Snuff. I vol. Crown 8vo.<br />
2f., hoards.<br />
Whistler, J. M'Neii.l. The Gentle Art of Making<br />
Enemies. 410. 1 vol. William Ileinemann. Large-<br />
Taper Edition, numbered and signed, £2 2s.<br />
Winter, John Strange." "Dinna Forget. 1 vol.<br />
Trischler and Co.<br />
OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY.<br />
1. Trie maintenance, definition, and defence of<br />
literary property.<br />
2. The consolidation and amendment of the laws<br />
of Domestic Copyright<br />
3. The promotion of International Copyright.<br />
The first of these objects requires explanation. In<br />
order to defend Literary Property, the Society<br />
acts as follows :—<br />
a. It aims at defining and establishing the<br />
principles which should rule the methods<br />
of publishing.<br />
/3. It examines agreements submitted to<br />
authors, and points out to them the<br />
clauses which are injurious to their in-<br />
terests.<br />
! 7. It advises authors as to the best publishers<br />
for their purpose, and keeps them out of<br />
the hands of unscrupulous traders.<br />
£. It publishes from time to time, books,<br />
papers, &c, on the subjects which fall<br />
within its province.<br />
e. In every other way possible the Society<br />
protects, warns, and informs its members<br />
as to the pecuniary interest of their works.<br />
*<br />
WARNINGS.<br />
Authors are most earnestly warned—<br />
(1) Not to sign any agreement of which the<br />
alleged cost of production forms an in-<br />
tegral part unless an opportunity of<br />
proving the correctness of the figures is<br />
given them.<br />
(2) Not to enter into any correspondence with<br />
publishers, who are not recommended by<br />
experienced friends, or by this Society.<br />
(3) Never, on any account whatever, to bind<br />
themselves down to any one firm of pub-<br />
lishers.<br />
(4) Not to accept any proposal of royalty<br />
without consultation with the Society.<br />
(5) Not to accept any offer of money for MSS.,<br />
without previously taking advice of the<br />
Society.<br />
(6) Not to accept any pecuniary risk or res-<br />
ponsibility without advice.<br />
(7) Not, under ordinary circumstances, when a<br />
MS. has been refused by the well-known<br />
houses, to pay small houses for the pro-<br />
duction of the work,<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 127 (#159) ############################################<br />
<br />
AD VER TISEMENTS.<br />
127<br />
"THE LITERARY HAflDJKAID OF THE<br />
CHURCH-"<br />
HENRY GLAISHER, 95, STRAND.<br />
Price ONE SHILLING.<br />
NOW READY.<br />
This pamphlet is a reply to the invitation issued by the Publication Committee of the Society for<br />
the Promotion of Christian Knowledge in their Report of last year, for any suggestions, which they "will<br />
gladly receive," on the best way of making "the Venerable Society the most efficient literary handmaid<br />
of the Church of England throughout the world."<br />
The suggestions offered in these pages contain, first, some of the elementary principles which guide<br />
honourable men in the administration of literary property. The writer next advances three cases, as<br />
illustrating the methods adopted by the Society. A copy of this pamphlet will be sent to any member of *<br />
the Society by application to the Office, including two postage stamps.<br />
THE METHODS OF PUBLICATION,<br />
BY S. S. SPRIGGE, B.A.<br />
READY IN OCTOBER.<br />
This book, compiled mainly from documents in the office of the Society of Authors, is intended to<br />
show a complete conspectus of all the various methods of publication with the meaning of each; that is to<br />
say, the exact concessions to publishers and the reservation of the owner and author of the work. The<br />
different frauds which arise out of these methods form a necessary part of the book. Nothing is advanced<br />
which has not been proved by the experience of the Society.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 128 (#160) ############################################<br />
<br />
128<br />
AD VER TISEMENTS.<br />
TYPE-WRITING!<br />
CHARM CROSS TYPE-WRITING ASSOCIATION,<br />
h| 447, STRAND *•<br />
(Directly opposite Charing Cross Station).<br />
Managers - Miss ROUSE & Mrs. URQUHART.<br />
Authors' MSS. copied with accuracy and despatch.<br />
Specifications. Law copying.<br />
Translations from and into all foreign languages.<br />
Shorthand Writers always in attendance.<br />
MISS GILL,<br />
TYPE-WRITING OFFICES,<br />
6, ADAM STREET,<br />
HARRISON & SONS,<br />
$)rtntrnr in Ortfnarn to $?er fHajeltg,<br />
GIVE SPECIAL ATTENTION TO<br />
ARTISTIC AND OLD STYLE PRINTING,<br />
ALSO TO THE ACCURATE PRODUCTION OF<br />
SCIENTIFIC AND MATHEMATICAL WORKS,<br />
AND PRINTING IN<br />
ORIENTAL TYPES.<br />
45, 46, & 47, 8t. Martin's Lane; 14,15,16, & 20, Great May's<br />
Buildings; 59, Pall Mall; 10, Tower Street,<br />
LONDON.<br />
MISS ETHEL DICKENS,<br />
TYPE-WRITING OFFICE,<br />
26, WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND<br />
(Over tie Office of " Alt tie Year Round").<br />
MSS. copied. Price List on application.<br />
TYPE-WRITING OFFICE,<br />
ST. PAUL'S CHAMBERS, 19, LDDGATE HILL, E.C.<br />
Authors' MSS. carefully copied from<br />
i/- per 1,000 words. One additional copy<br />
(carbon) supplied free of charge.<br />
References kindly permitted to many<br />
well-known Authors and Publishers.<br />
Further particulars on application.<br />
SECOND-HAND AND SCARCE BOOKS.<br />
HARRISON & SONS have special facilities<br />
for the supply of Second-Hand and Scarce Books.<br />
All orders entrusted to them will receive immediate<br />
and careful attention. No charge is made until<br />
successful in procuring the work desired. Price,<br />
Condition of Binding, Plates, &C, will be reported<br />
before securing.<br />
Address—<br />
HARRISON & SONS,<br />
NEW & SECOND-HAND BOOKSELLERS,<br />
59, PALL JWALL, LONDON, S.W.<br />
ESTABLISHED 1851.<br />
SOUTHAMPTON BUILDINGS, CHANCERY LANE.<br />
THREE per CENT. INTEREST allowed on DEPOSITS, repayable on demand.<br />
TWO per CENT. INTEREST on CURRENT ACCOUNTS when not drawn below £100.<br />
STOCKS, SHARES, and ANNUITIES purchased and sold.<br />
DEPARTMEHTT.<br />
For the encouragement of Thrift the Bank receives small sums on deposit, and allows interest, at the rate of THREE<br />
per CENT, per Annum, on each completed £l. The Interest is added to the principal on the 31st March annually.<br />
FRANCIS RAVENSCROFT, Manager.<br />
HOW TO PURCHASE A HOUSE FOR TWO GUINEAS PER MONTH, OR<br />
A PLOT OF LAND FOR FIVE SHILLINGS PER MONTH, with immediate<br />
possession. Apply at Office of the Eirkbeck Freehold Land .Society.<br />
THE BIRKBECK ALMANACK, with full particulars post free on application.<br />
FRANCIS RAVENSCROFT, Manager.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 128 (#161) ############################################<br />
<br />
A D VER TISEMEN TS.<br />
Hi.<br />
THE BAR-LOCK TYPE-WRITER saves the eyesight.<br />
THE BAR-LOCK TYPE-WRITER prevents writer's cramp.<br />
THE BAR-LOCK TYPE-WRITER prevents round shoulders.<br />
THE BAR-LOCK TYPE-WRITER enables you to keep pace<br />
with your thoughts, the operation requires less mental<br />
effort than the use of a pen, allowing you to concentrate<br />
your mind more fully on the matter you are writing on.<br />
The writing of the BAR-LOCK TYPE-WRITER is equal to<br />
a printed proof, and can be used as such for corrections, thus saving<br />
large printer's charges which are sufficient in many books to defray<br />
the cost of a Bar-Lock.<br />
Supplied for Cash, or on Our Easy Payment System by<br />
Twelve Monthly Payments of £1 19s., or on<br />
Hire at £2 2s. per Month.<br />
CORRESPONDENCE AND INSPECTION INVITED.<br />
THE TYPE-WRITER COMPANY, Limited,<br />
12 & 14, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.<br />
40, North John Street, Liverpool; 22, Renfleld Street, Glasgow; 25, Market Street,<br />
Manchester; Exchange Building, Cardiff; 385, Little Collins Street, Melbourne.<br />
Type- Writing Taught by Experts. Author s MSS. Copied at is. jif. per 1,000 Words at all Our Offices.<br />
PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY.<br />
1. The Annual Report. That for January, 1890, can be had on application to the Secretary.<br />
2. The Author. A Monthly Journal devoted especially to the protection and maintenance of<br />
Literary Property. Issued to all members.<br />
3. The Grievances of Authors. (Field & Tuer.} 2*. The Report of three Meetings on the<br />
general subject of Literature and its defence, held at Willis's Rooms, March, 1887.<br />
4. Literature and the Pension List. By W. Morris Colle=, Barrister-at-Law. (Henry<br />
(llaisher, 95, Strand, W.C.) 4*. 6d.<br />
5. The History of the Society des Gens de Lettres. By S. Squire Sprigge, Secretary to the<br />
Society, is.<br />
6. The Cost of Production. In this work specimens are given of the most important forms of<br />
type, size of page, &c, with estimates showing what it costs to produce the more common kinds<br />
of books. The work is printed for members of the Society only. 2s. 6d. (A new Edition<br />
preparing.)<br />
7. The Various Methods of Publication. By S. Squire Sprigge. In this work, compiled<br />
from the papers in the Society's offices, the various kinds of agreements proposed by Publishers<br />
to Authors are examined, and their meaning carefully explained, with an account of the various<br />
kinds of fraud which have been made possible by the different clauses in their agreements. The<br />
book is nearly ready, and will be issued as soon as possible.<br />
Other works bearing on the Literary Profession willfollow.<br />
THIS VIEW IS REFHOOUCH) HtOM APHOTDGRAPH OFAN OPERATOR*<br />
oarlock<br />
TYPEWRITER<br />
^TlMES<br />
THE SPEED<br />
OF A PEN.<br />
Till: TYPK WRITER CO., I^d.,<br />
12, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, LONDON.<br />
40. North Jnim St.-Liverpool; Guardian Bide.,<br />
Ilinebeater; ja. \\--\- \ St., jci-<br />
chautfc Uliife'., Cardiff; ?83. Little ColIlUB St..<br />
aielboume.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 128 (#162) ############################################<br />
<br />
iv.<br />
ADVERTISEMENTS.<br />
NEW MODEL REMINGTON<br />
STANDARD TYPEWRITER.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Sim<br />
For Fifteen Years the Standard, and<br />
to-day the most perfect development<br />
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add to the Remington every improve-<br />
ment that study and capital can secure.<br />
WYCKOFF, SEAMANS & BENEDICT,<br />
Principal Office-<br />
LONDON: 100, GRACECHURCH STREET, E.C.<br />
(CORNER OF LEADENHALL STREET).<br />
Branch Offices-<br />
LIVERPOOL: CENTRAL BUILDINGS, NORTH JOHN STREET.<br />
BIRMINGHAM : 88, COLMORE ROW.<br />
MANCHESTER : 8, MOULT STREET.<br />
Printed for the Society, by HARRISON & SONS, 45, 46, and 47, St. Martin's Lane, in the Parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, in the Cit<br />
of Westminster. | https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/243/1890-09-15-The-Author-1-5.pdf | publications, The Author |