| 273 | https://historysoa.com/items/show/273 | The Author, Vol. 05 Issue 09 (February 1895) | <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.+05+Issue+09+%28February+1895%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 05 Issue 09 (February 1895)</a> | | | <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</a> | | | | | | | | <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> | 1895-02-01-The-Author-5-9 | | | | | 225–252 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=5">5</a> | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1895-02-01">1895-02-01</a> | | | | | | | 9 | | | 18950201 | C be El u t b or,<br />
(The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors.<br />
Monthly.)<br />
CON DU CTED BY WALTER BESAN. T.<br />
VoI. W.-No. 9.]<br />
FEBRUARY 1, 1895.<br />
[PRICE SIXPENCE.<br />
For the Opinions eaſpressed in papers that are<br />
signed or initialled the Authors alone are<br />
responsible. None of the papers or para-<br />
graphs must be taken as ea pressing the<br />
collective opinions of the committee unless<br />
they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br />
Thring, Sec.<br />
HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all<br />
remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and<br />
requests that all members not receiving an answer to<br />
important communications within two days will write to him<br />
without delay. All remittances should be crossed Union<br />
Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered<br />
letter only.<br />
Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on<br />
all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub-<br />
jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are<br />
returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS.<br />
*- A -º<br />
r- - -<br />
WARNINGS AND ADWICE,<br />
I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.-It is not generally<br />
understood that the author, as the vendor, has the<br />
absolute right of drafting the agreement upon<br />
whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out.<br />
Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In<br />
every form of business, this among others, the right of<br />
drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or<br />
has the control of the property.<br />
2. SERIAL RIGHTS.—In selling Serial Rights remember<br />
that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that<br />
is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you<br />
object to this, insert a clause to that effect.<br />
3. STAMP You R AGREEMENTS. – Readers are most<br />
URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements<br />
immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected<br />
for two weeks, a fine of £10 must be paid before the agree-<br />
ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every<br />
case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter<br />
which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The<br />
author may be assured that the other party to the agree-<br />
ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society,<br />
to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of<br />
members stamped for them at no ea'pense to themselves<br />
eacept the cost of the stamp.<br />
WOL. W.<br />
4. ASCERTAIN WHAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES To<br />
BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an<br />
arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi-<br />
ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party<br />
refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he<br />
reserved for himself.<br />
5. LITERARY AGENTS.–Be very careful. You cannot be<br />
too careful as to the person whom you appoint as your<br />
agent. Remember that you place your property almost un-<br />
reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting<br />
the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience<br />
of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone.<br />
6. CoST OF PRODUCTION.——Never sign any agreement of<br />
which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part,<br />
until you have proved the figures.<br />
7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.—Never enter into any cor-<br />
respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad-<br />
vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced<br />
friends or by this Society.<br />
8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever,<br />
bind yourself down for future work to anyone.<br />
9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or<br />
responsibility whatever without advice.<br />
Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a M.S. has been re-<br />
fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises<br />
they may put forward, for the production of the work.<br />
II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American<br />
rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any<br />
agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the<br />
publisher, unless for a substantial consideration.<br />
12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper,<br />
either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright,<br />
without advice.<br />
13. ADVERTISEMENTS. –- Keep some control over the<br />
advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in<br />
the agreement.<br />
14. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any<br />
other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy,<br />
charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with<br />
business men. Be yourself a business man.<br />
Society’s Offices :-<br />
4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN's INN FIELDs.<br />
*—- - --"<br />
- - -<br />
HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br />
I. VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive<br />
advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub-<br />
lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his<br />
business or the administration of his property. If the advice<br />
Y 2<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 226 (#240) ############################################<br />
<br />
226<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member<br />
has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the<br />
case is such that Counsel’s opinion is desirable, the Com-<br />
mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this<br />
without any cost to the member.<br />
2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br />
and publisher's agreements do not generally fall within the<br />
experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br />
to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually<br />
engaged upon such questions for us.<br />
3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past<br />
accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in<br />
order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree-<br />
ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively<br />
so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any<br />
agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor-<br />
mation thus obtained may prove invaluable.<br />
4. If the examination of your previous business trans-<br />
actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should<br />
take advice as to a change of publishers.<br />
5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro-<br />
posed document to the Society for examination.<br />
6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in<br />
the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish-<br />
ing firm in the country.<br />
7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you<br />
are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are<br />
reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing<br />
the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen-<br />
dence of the writer.<br />
8. Send to the Editor of the Awthor notes of everything<br />
important to literature that you may hear or meet with.<br />
THE AUTHORS' SYNDICATE,<br />
EMBERS are informed :<br />
I. That the Authors’ Syndicate takes charge of<br />
the business of members of the Society. That it<br />
submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree-<br />
ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, generally,<br />
relieves members of the trouble of managing business details.<br />
2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured<br />
will be forwarded upon detailed application.<br />
3. That the Authors' Syndicate works only for those<br />
members of the Society whose work possesses a market<br />
value.<br />
4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations<br />
whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia-<br />
tions are placed ea clusively in its hands, and that all<br />
communications relating thereto are referred to it.<br />
5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by<br />
appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days'<br />
notice should be given.<br />
6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi-<br />
cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent<br />
to defray postage.<br />
7. That the Authors' Syndicate does not invite MSS.<br />
without previous correspondence; does not hold itself<br />
responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that<br />
in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray<br />
postage.<br />
8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for<br />
lectures by some of the leading members of the Society;<br />
that it has a “Transfer Department” for the sale and<br />
purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register<br />
of Wants and Wanted" is open. Members are invited to<br />
communicate their requirements to the Manager.<br />
There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services<br />
will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It<br />
is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the<br />
Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in<br />
the Syndicate.<br />
_*<br />
,-- - -<br />
NOTICES,<br />
HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the<br />
Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br />
of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very<br />
heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br />
many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br />
6s. 6d. subscription for the year.<br />
The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and<br />
communications on all subjects connected with literature<br />
from members and others. Nothing can do more good to<br />
the Society than to make the Author complete, attractive,<br />
and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this<br />
work send their names and the special subjects on which<br />
they are willing to write P<br />
Communications for the Author should reach the Editor<br />
not later than the 21st of each month.<br />
All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether<br />
members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate<br />
to the Editor any points connected with their work which<br />
it would be advisable in the general interest to publish.<br />
Members and others who wish their MSS. read are<br />
requested not to send them to the Office without previously<br />
communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable<br />
despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in<br />
which they are received. It must also be distinctly under-<br />
stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances,<br />
undertake the publication of MSS.<br />
The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at<br />
3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary<br />
for information, rules of admission, &c.<br />
Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br />
have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do<br />
this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker’s<br />
order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the<br />
trouble of sending out a reminder.<br />
Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br />
warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a<br />
most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding<br />
for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they<br />
would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five<br />
years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest<br />
or dishonest? Of course they would not. Why then<br />
hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them-<br />
selves into literary bondage for three or five years P<br />
Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are<br />
requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15<br />
per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble<br />
of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the<br />
pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding<br />
is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be<br />
added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands at<br />
£948. The figures in our book are as near the exact truth<br />
as can be procured; but a printer's, or a binder's, bill is so<br />
elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be arrived at.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 227 (#241) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
227<br />
Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br />
in the “Cost of Production” for advertising. Of course, we<br />
have not included any sums which may be charged for<br />
inserting advertisements in the publisher’s own magazines,<br />
or in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too<br />
often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from<br />
sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket,<br />
by inserting any number of advertisements in his own<br />
magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are<br />
who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those<br />
who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it.<br />
*- ~ *-*<br />
s= * *<br />
LITERARY PROPERTY.<br />
I.—THE HICKs CoPYRIGHT BILL.<br />
"TYPHE Hicks Copyright Bill, against which Mr.<br />
William Agnew has written to the Times,<br />
has no chance of passing through the<br />
House. Protests have been filed against it by<br />
the American Copyright League of Authors and<br />
Publishers, the American Artists' Society, the<br />
Fine Arts Society, the New York Etching Club,<br />
and others. The chairman of the House Com-<br />
mittee on Patents, which has charge of the Bill,<br />
considers that it will be abandoned.—Times,<br />
Jan. 2 I.<br />
II.-NET PRICEs.<br />
In response to the circular about met prices,<br />
the secretary has received a great many replies,<br />
but not so many as might have been expected<br />
on a subject which touches our members in a<br />
twofold manner. That is to say it affects them<br />
as buyers of books as well as makers of<br />
books. In the former capacity they should ask<br />
whether they will lose or gain by the pro-<br />
posed change. Of course the answer is obvious.<br />
They will no longer get the discount and they<br />
will not be able to buy so many books. A rise<br />
in price from 4s. 6d. to 6s. is a rise of 33; per<br />
cent. “Oh but we are not going to charge so<br />
much. Trade competition will come in.” Perhaps.<br />
But trade competition has done very little so far<br />
to cheapen books. The book-buying public is<br />
small: 1t must remain small, because people<br />
cannot think of buying books whose incomes are<br />
under £2OO a-year. The interest of trade com-<br />
petition is to keep up the price of books. Book<br />
buyers will infallibly lose by the change. “But<br />
the author will have more.” Will he P Suppose<br />
3OOO copies of a 6s. book to be sold at 4s. 6d.<br />
That means an expenditure of £675 by the<br />
public. If that book is sold net at 6s., the same<br />
expenditure would only buy 2.250. “But the<br />
royalties would be adjusted to meet the difference.”<br />
Would they P. The preponderance of opinion<br />
was in favour of the net price, and generally on<br />
the ground that one would know how much had<br />
to be paid.<br />
Another objection is that the buyer would still<br />
demand and still obtain his discount; not openly,<br />
as at present, but secretly, which would be worse,<br />
and so the later position of the bookseller would<br />
be worse than the former.<br />
What it comes to is that something must be<br />
done for the booksellers if they are to continue.<br />
They have more than one association. They are<br />
surely united enough to agree upon what they<br />
want, and strong enough to demand it. Publishers<br />
cannot do without booksellers. Authors could<br />
do without publishers, but they cannot do without<br />
booksellers. The question rests entirely with the<br />
booksellers. Let them agree, and find an answer.<br />
The net system, it is believed, will not be dis-<br />
cussed much longer. There are already a good<br />
many net books, and there will be more, especially<br />
of the class whose circulation is bound to be<br />
limited, and whose price is too high for the book-<br />
seller to take thirteen as twelve. A good man<br />
of the leading publishers have refused to take the<br />
proposed action submitted to them, and it is not<br />
likely that those who advocate the change will be<br />
able to set up a six-shilling book at net, against a<br />
six-shilling book at 4s. 6d.<br />
III.--ARTISTIC CoPYRIGHT.-MR. WILLIAM<br />
AGNEw.<br />
In the issue of the Times of Jan. I6 there is a<br />
long letter from Mr. William Agnew with regard<br />
to the artistic copyright in engravings and<br />
etchings. He states that a Bill has been intro-<br />
duced by a certain member of the Congress in<br />
the United States to bring etchings and engrav-<br />
ings under the manufacturing clause, and com-<br />
plains, and rightly so, that this is seriously detri-<br />
mental to artistic copyright,<br />
It is no doubt of the utmost importance to keep<br />
artistic copyright apart from the manufacturing<br />
clause, and the same remark applies in a lesser<br />
degree to literary works. For all the civilised<br />
nations of Europe at the Berne Convention<br />
recognised that copyright property should not be<br />
trammelled with trade burdens. The retrogres-<br />
sive policy of the Americans in having established<br />
a manufacturing clause to the literary copyright<br />
is the real cause of the present disturbance now<br />
being made in Canada with regard to Canadian<br />
copyright; and this disturbance may perhaps<br />
prejudice the whole system of copyright as it at<br />
present exists in England. It may be worth<br />
while, therefore, if steps are going to be taken to<br />
oppose the manufacturing clause with regard to<br />
artistic copyright, that authors should raise their<br />
voices in opposition to the present manufacturing<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 228 (#242) ############################################<br />
<br />
228<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
clause bearing on the reproduction of books.<br />
This clause is no doubt opposed to the whole idea<br />
of copyright property as at present existing.<br />
TV.-A CANADIAN PAPER ON CANADIAN<br />
CoPYRIGHT.<br />
I.<br />
As every intelligent person knows, copyright is<br />
the method by which law guards the right of<br />
property which authors, artists, musicians, and<br />
designers have in their intellectual productions.<br />
It is for the defence of authors and for their<br />
defence alone. It is to secure their right to the<br />
profit of the reproduction and multiplication of<br />
their own works. A copyright law pure and<br />
simple would secure to the author the right to<br />
say who and who alone should publish his work<br />
and on what terms, leaving him free to make the<br />
best terms possible for himself. This, in effect,<br />
is what free trade Great Britain does, and what<br />
even protectionist France, Germany, Austria, and<br />
most of the great countries do where intellectual<br />
production is respected. But this is not what<br />
protectionist countries like the United States do.<br />
There the manufacturers, who are ever clamour-<br />
ing for the privilege of enriching themselves at<br />
the expense of the rest of the people, compelled<br />
Congress to turn the copyright law intended for<br />
the defence of authors against pirates into a<br />
protective law for themselves, requiring the book<br />
copyrighted to be printed or reprinted in the<br />
United States. There must be, in the words of<br />
the Tammany corruptionists, “something in it<br />
for them” to be got at the expense of the author<br />
and of his American readers. The United States<br />
Government gave British authors this privilege<br />
on the pledge obtained from Great Britain that<br />
United States copyright should be good all over<br />
the British empire as well as in Great Britain,<br />
and as British copyright holds everywhere<br />
throughout the empire that was granted, and as<br />
a result authors, British or American, can dispose<br />
of their right to United States publishers for the<br />
United States and Canada, and the books cannot<br />
be reprinted here.<br />
Canada, which follows the United States in<br />
most of its international legislation, good and<br />
bad, reciprocated by following the United States<br />
in its course in turning a copyright Act for the<br />
defence of authors into a protection Act for the<br />
protection of manufacturers in Canada. The<br />
effect of this Act would be to compel authors to<br />
have their works reprinted in Canada, to the<br />
probable loss and injury of themselves and of<br />
their Canadian readers; the only people who<br />
would profit by it would be a few Canadian<br />
publishing and printing firms. The present inter-<br />
national arrangement between Great Britain and<br />
the United States, which serves all the purposes<br />
of copyright in securing the rights of English,<br />
Canadian, and other foreign authors to the con-<br />
trol of their works published in America, and<br />
which has made English authors, to their great<br />
profit, more popular and more widely read in the<br />
United States than even United States authors,<br />
would be imperilled if Canada should assert the<br />
right of reprinting which the United States has<br />
done, seeing that Great Britain has coolly<br />
thrown her colonies into the bargain as part of<br />
her copyright domain. Nothing could be more<br />
contemptible than the denunciations of Canada<br />
by the Americans for doing what they themselves<br />
selfishly did. Nothing could be more unfair than<br />
for the English to reproach Canada for wanting<br />
to do what she has consented to the United States<br />
doing. Nothing could be more ill-informed than<br />
the rude expressions of intelligent men of both<br />
countries with regard to Canada's course. All<br />
this is very galling, but no reason why Canada<br />
should, under pretence of securing the rights of<br />
authors, pass a law to embarras them.<br />
It must be remembered that the authors are<br />
agreed that their interests are served by the<br />
present arrangement, and it is authors’ interests<br />
that copyright laws are made to protect. These<br />
should not be sacrificed to the interests of the<br />
mere manufacturer. The immense market of the .<br />
United States affords them large profits as<br />
authors now that pirating is stopped. It is<br />
because that market is so big and the Canadian<br />
market is so comparatively small that English<br />
authors sell the right to publish in both countries<br />
to United States publishers, thus saving the extra<br />
cost involved in printing and publishing two<br />
editions. There authors’ interests are served by<br />
the present British copyright law, and it is<br />
authors’ interests that copyright laws are made to<br />
protect. These should not be sacričced to the<br />
interests of the mere manufacturer. There has<br />
not been a whisper of complaint from either<br />
Canadian authors or readers. Only Canadian<br />
manufacturers, and but a few of them are inte-<br />
rested. It is the knowledge of this that makes<br />
the British Government slow to interfere with a<br />
copyright arrangement which suits those whom<br />
copyright is made to defend, and which would be<br />
endangered in order to turn a copyright law into<br />
an engine of protection. Here, again, the false<br />
pretence and injustice of protectionism creates<br />
bitterness and poisons the relations of the peoples.<br />
We are home rulers, and believe that Canadians<br />
should legislate for themselves in the matter of<br />
copyright as well as of everything else which<br />
affects themselves. But when a few persons<br />
desire, in the name of home rule and of<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 229 (#243) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
229<br />
patriotism, to tax both authors and readers for<br />
their own benefit, we are not anxious to play into<br />
their hands. The United States has undoubtedly<br />
got an unrighteous advantage, but she has been<br />
given it because her market is of the first import-<br />
ance to the authors, who have the first claim to<br />
consideration, and her advantage works no injury<br />
either to Canadian authors or Canadian readers,<br />
who probably get better made and cheaper books<br />
under it than they would under the protective<br />
conditions demanded by the manufacturers.-<br />
Montreal Weekly Witness, Dec. I I, 1894.<br />
II.<br />
The following manifesto on this subject was<br />
issued from the London Chamber of Com-<br />
merce, after combined action with the Society of<br />
Authors and the Copyright Association :-<br />
Copyright is now uniform throughout the<br />
whole of the British Dominions, including, of<br />
course, Canada.<br />
It is based on the following principles:—<br />
I. That a work shall be first or simultaneously<br />
published therein.<br />
2. That copyright shall be independent of the<br />
place of printing, and of every other condition as<br />
to place and manner of manufacture.<br />
3. That the use of it as property shall,<br />
whilst it is copyright, be within the author's<br />
control.<br />
Canada, now seeks to alter these principles, and<br />
has asked the British Government to sanction<br />
arrangements to take away copyright in Canada<br />
from all British authors but Canadians.<br />
If such an imperial sanction be obtained,<br />
Canada offers to legislate so as to give British<br />
authors copyright in the Dominion there for<br />
twenty-eight years, if they reprint and republish<br />
the work in Canada within one month of its<br />
original publication.<br />
But if an author does not reprint and repub-<br />
lish his work there within a month, the Canadian<br />
Government may grant to any applicant a licence<br />
to print an edition without the author's consent,<br />
on his agreeing to pay to the Canadian Govern-<br />
ment, for the author, ten per cent. of the retail<br />
price of such edition. The retail price of every<br />
such edition is to be fixed by the publisher without<br />
consulting the author.<br />
The proposed Bill is silent as to whether the<br />
royalty is to be paid on copies sold or copies<br />
printed. The Canadian Government is not to be<br />
responsible for the collection or payment of any<br />
royalties.<br />
... The following reasons show some of the in-<br />
juries the proposed legislation would inflict on<br />
British authors:—<br />
It undermines the general recognition of the<br />
rights of copyright property, which has now be-<br />
come almost universal.<br />
It interferes with the law of vendor and pur-<br />
chaser which prevails throughout the British<br />
Empire in respect to copyright, equally with all<br />
other personal property.<br />
It requires registration in Canada, a condition<br />
of copyright abandoned by the leading nations of<br />
Europe at the Berne Convention.<br />
It takes from the author the control of his own<br />
property, and hence hinders his improving or<br />
correcting or enlarging his own writings.<br />
It injures his reputation by allowing the con-<br />
tinued circulation of unimproved editions, even<br />
after the author has enlarged his work.<br />
It would enable Canada to reprint, without<br />
permission, articles and stories from reviews,<br />
magazines, and encyclopædias, and thus seriously<br />
to injure the sale of the publications in which<br />
they appeared.<br />
It injures the value of his British edition,<br />
because the Canadian edition could be imported<br />
into the United Kingdom and the other colonies,<br />
and compete with it.<br />
It forcibly deprives him of the benefit now<br />
belonging to him in Canada under the Imperial<br />
Copyright Acts.<br />
It sanctions the appropriation of his property<br />
by others without his, the legal owner's, consent.<br />
It weakens his title to his own property.<br />
It substitutes for trade contracts, on agreed<br />
terms, an inadequate royalty not guaranteed.<br />
It clogs his property with the condition of<br />
local manufacture.<br />
It was not recommended by the Royal Com-<br />
mission for cases where readers were adequately<br />
supplied.<br />
It is at variance with the free trade principles<br />
of the United Kingdom.<br />
Any such dealing with copyright property in<br />
Canada will affect future arrangements with the<br />
Australian and all other English-speaking colonies<br />
and possessions.<br />
It would almost certainly destroy our present<br />
means of securing copyright in the United States<br />
of America.<br />
It diminishes the copyright interests of all who<br />
have given their adherence to the terms of the<br />
Berne Convention. Two million Canadians are<br />
IFrench. -<br />
To this manifesto it may be added that the<br />
Society will immediately issue an Appeal to the<br />
people of Canada upon the whole subject.<br />
*~ a 2–º<br />
g- * =<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 230 (#244) ############################################<br />
<br />
23O<br />
TIII. A UTHOR.<br />
NOTES FROM NEW YORK.<br />
[The first part of these notes should have appeared in<br />
the last number, but we had to go to press early on account<br />
of the Christmas holidays.]<br />
New York, Dec. 15, 1894.<br />
N the December number of the Bookman<br />
appear two paragraphs declaring that Mr.<br />
Meredith’s “Lord Ormont and his Aminta.”<br />
had met with “extraordinary success in America,”<br />
and that “among the other markedly successful<br />
recent books in America” were Mr. Hall Caine's<br />
“Manxman.” and Mr. Stanley Weyman’s “My<br />
Lady Rotha.” And to these statements was<br />
appended this comment: “In fact it seems as if<br />
English fiction were almost entirely supplant-<br />
ing American. Nearly all the great American<br />
successes in the last year or two have been<br />
English books.” Any one who really knew the<br />
facts of the case could not but smile at these<br />
statements and at this comment. The great<br />
success of the winter has been a British book,<br />
Mr. du Maurier’s “Trilby”; but the great success<br />
of last winter was an American book, Mr. Lew<br />
Wallace’s “Prince of India,” which, although<br />
published when times were harder than now and<br />
sold at a higher price, reached a larger sale than<br />
“Trilby’’ and in a shorter time.<br />
Mr. Meredith’s “Lord Ormont ?’ has been well<br />
received in America, but the Bookman grossly<br />
exaggerates the number of copies sold; and the<br />
Bookman cºnveys an entirely erroneous impression<br />
of the condition of the book-marketin America. Mr.<br />
Weyman’s “My Lady Rotha" has done well in<br />
the United States, but not so well as his “Gentle-<br />
man of France.” In fact, the really successful<br />
works of fiction in the year 1894 in the United<br />
States have been Mr. Crawford’s “ Katherine<br />
Lauderdale’’ and Miss Wilkins’s “Pembroke,” —<br />
both of American authorship, and Mr. Weyman's<br />
“Gentleman of France,” Mr. Caine’s “Manxman,”<br />
Mr. Hope’s “Prisoner of Zenda,” Mrs. Ward's<br />
“Marcella,” and Mr. du Maurier's “Trilby.”<br />
Probably every one of them had a sale varying<br />
between twenty and fifty thousand copies (except-<br />
ing “Trilby” of course, the sale of which already<br />
exceeds one hundred and ten thousand). Three<br />
books of American authorship were published too<br />
late in the winter to enter fairly into the com-<br />
parison, but both Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett's<br />
“Piccino,” and Mr. Charles Dudley Warner's<br />
“Golden House” began with editions of ten<br />
thousand each, while Mrs. Deland’s “Philip and<br />
his Wife” got into a fourth edition before the<br />
end of its first month.<br />
I have spoken here of copyrighted books only,<br />
because each one of these is in the hands of a<br />
single publisher; and it is possible, therefore, to<br />
ascertain precisely the number of copies sold.<br />
But during the past year or so three British<br />
works of fiction were not copyrighted —Miss<br />
Harraden’s “Ships that Pass in the Night,” Mr.<br />
Benson’s “Dodo,” and Mrs. Caffyn’s “Yellow<br />
Aster.” All three of these were seized by the<br />
pirates immediately, and reprinted right and left<br />
in cut-throat competition until they are now to<br />
be had for fourpence each. And, no doubt, the<br />
sale of these three British books has been<br />
enormous, owing partly to their own merits and<br />
partly to the furious energy of competing pirates.<br />
But the sale of these non-copyrighted stories of<br />
British authorship has been greatly surpassed, I<br />
think (of course, exact figures for comparison are<br />
not available) by the sale of certain stories of<br />
American authorship which have just come out<br />
of copyright. Our term of copyright here is<br />
twenty-eight years with one renewal of fourteen,<br />
making forty-two years in all; it is the shortest<br />
term of any of the leading countries of the world.<br />
Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” was published in<br />
1850, his “House of Seven Gables” in 1851, and<br />
his “ Blithedale Romance ’’ in 1852 ; and also in<br />
1852 was published Mrs. Stowe’s “Uncle Tom's<br />
Cabin.” On these four stories the re-printers<br />
rushed as usual, and with unusual success. I<br />
have been told that one house alone has sold<br />
more than a hundred thousand copies of “Uncle<br />
Tom’s Cabin.” And this is in the lifetime of the<br />
author, for Mrs. Stowe is still alive, although she<br />
is no longer interested in the life about her;<br />
probably she will never know that her story has<br />
had a second youth on its attaining its majority<br />
twice over. Perhaps it is well to recall here that<br />
she received little or nothing from any of the<br />
British publishers who have sold countless<br />
thousands of “Uncle Tom's Cabin’’ during the<br />
last two score years. American pirates have<br />
more sins to answer for than the British pirates<br />
but the British pirate was never slow in helping<br />
himself to every American book he thought worth<br />
stealing.<br />
At the very time when the editor of the Author<br />
has been holding the American magazine editor<br />
up as an example to his British brother, an<br />
American humorist was preparing to make fun<br />
of the American magazine, and of its editors and<br />
of its principles. Mr. James L. Ford, who may be<br />
known to some English readers as the author of<br />
a volume of broadly comic sketches, called<br />
“Hypnotic Tales,” and who was one of the<br />
earliest contributors to Puck, the oldest and<br />
strongest of our comic papers, has now just put<br />
forth a volume called “The Literary Shop,” in<br />
which he considers the successful periodicals of<br />
the United States from the point of view of a<br />
young writer who has “copy " for sale. The<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 231 (#245) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
23 I<br />
attack he makes on the magazines has been made<br />
before both in Great Britain and in the United<br />
States. The sum and substance of it is that the<br />
American magazines being intended for family<br />
reading, the editors very wisely reject anything<br />
which could “offend the taste of the most<br />
fastidious.” Mr. Ford praises the “business<br />
sense” of the editors who have applied this<br />
theory so adroitly as to give the Century and<br />
Harper's a circulation of 200,000 copies a month;<br />
but he declares that American literature is being<br />
strangled by this restriction of it to themes suit-<br />
able for the contemplation of the Young Person.<br />
He affirms that only an emasculated literature is<br />
possible under these conditions; and he directs<br />
special attention to the fact that the great city of<br />
New York is teeming with subjects for fiction,<br />
and that these subjects are not getting the treat-<br />
ment they deserve because the magazine editors<br />
are “down on low life.” Mr. Ford makes his<br />
points very sharply and with a sub-acid humour<br />
which is pleasing, except, no doubt, to those who<br />
are pierced by his shafts; but he has wilfully<br />
taken a false view. At the very time he was<br />
saying that no American magazine would publish<br />
stories of low life in New York, Harper's had just<br />
concluded a series of sketches of New York scenes,<br />
up town and down town, high life and low life;<br />
and it has since begun another series of sketches<br />
of New York characters, frankly low-life, all of<br />
them.<br />
Nevertheless, there is a great deal of truth in<br />
Mr. Ford’s little book, and an abundance of<br />
humour, shown most abundantly, perhaps, in the<br />
satiric sketches which fill the final pages of the<br />
volume. Of these “The Poet's Strike,” depicting<br />
a sad occurrence at Harper and Bros, and “The<br />
Society Reporter's Christmas,” are the most<br />
comical.<br />
Of the three British authors we have had here<br />
this winter lecturing and reading from their own<br />
works, one, Dr. Conan Doyle, returned to Eng-<br />
land last week laden with dollars. Dean Hole<br />
continues in the field and so does Mr. Christie<br />
Murray. At the meeting of the “Uncut Leaves”<br />
to-night Mr. Murray is to be one of the readers.<br />
I understand that the practice of the “Uncut<br />
Deaves” of reading from their own unpublished<br />
words has been introduced into your Authors’<br />
Club in London. It is not a custom in the<br />
Authors’ Club here. The “Uncut Leaves '' is a<br />
private enterprise of Mr. L. J. B. Lincoln, who<br />
engages various authors to appear before his sub-<br />
scribers. Those who attend the meetings Mr.<br />
Lincoln conducts pay for the privilege ; and<br />
there are sometimes eight and nine hundred pre-<br />
sent. Those who read Mr. Lincoln pays, and<br />
pays liberally. So successful has this scheme<br />
WOL. W.<br />
been, that Mr. Lincoln conducts series of “Uncut<br />
Leaves,” every winter, not only in New York, but<br />
also in Brooklyn, in Philadelphia, in Baltimore,<br />
and in Washington.<br />
The Authors’ Club here, which has been home-<br />
less for nearly a year, is to be housed at last in<br />
quarters specially prepared for it in the recent<br />
addition to the sumptuous Carnegie Music Hall.<br />
It expects to get into these new rooms early next<br />
month. In the meantime its fortnightly meetings<br />
have been held this fall in the ample halls of the<br />
Architectural League in the noble building of the<br />
Fine Arts Society.<br />
By a purchase of plates and stock from<br />
Messrs. Harper and Brothers, the New York<br />
branch of Longmans, Green, and Co., has become<br />
the American publishers of all of Mr. Rider<br />
Haggard’s novels. They have recently published<br />
here his “People of the Mist,” and they will have<br />
another tale ready in January. They are also<br />
steadily enlarging their list of American authors,<br />
as, of course, any British house must do if it<br />
wishes to have close relations with American<br />
bookbuyers. In one week, as it happened,<br />
Longmans, Green, and Co. issued in New<br />
York four different books of American origin.<br />
By a purchase of plates and stock, they have<br />
also become the publishers of Col. Thomas<br />
Wentworth Higginson, whose “Young Folks'<br />
History of the United States” has now nearly<br />
attained a circulation of two hundred thousand<br />
copies.<br />
To St. Nicholas during the coming year Mr.<br />
Theodore Roosevelt will contribute a series of<br />
“Hero Tales of American History.” He is en-<br />
gaged on what may be called a continuation of<br />
Parkman's great history; it is an account of the<br />
“Winning of the West,” the slow expansion of<br />
the English-speaking people from the Atlantic<br />
coast, over the Alleghanies and across the plains.<br />
The third volume has just appeared, and a fourth<br />
will follow in about eighteen months.<br />
Mr. H. C. Bunner, the poet who wrote “Airs<br />
from Arcady,” is also the editor of Puck, and he<br />
has just reprinted from that popular weekly a<br />
second series of the ingenious and delightful<br />
comic tales he calls “Short Sixes.” Later in the<br />
winter he will have ready a volume of “Urban<br />
and Suburban Sketches,” reprinted from<br />
Scribner's Monthly.<br />
In February, Messrs. Dodd, Mead, and Co.<br />
begin to publish an American edition of the<br />
Bookman, to be conducted by Professor H. T.<br />
Peck, of Columbia College. The American<br />
edition will be wholly independent of the British,<br />
which it will not even resemble in shape.<br />
Another Columbia man, Professor Cattell, is to<br />
be the editor-in-chief of a new series of Science<br />
Z<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 232 (#246) ############################################<br />
<br />
232<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
(which may be described as an American emu-<br />
lator of the British Nature). Professor Cattell<br />
is already one of the editors of the Psychological<br />
Review ; he has called about him a staff of extra-<br />
ordinary strength, representing nearly every<br />
department of science and almost every institu-<br />
tion of learning in America.<br />
New York, Jan. 12, 1895.<br />
The death of Robert Louis Stevenson has<br />
occasioned real grief in America, and to express<br />
this in a slight degree a memorial meeting<br />
was held in this city on Jan. 4, under the<br />
auspices of the Uncut Leaves Club. It was<br />
a most notable crowd that gathered together to<br />
listen to the homage paid the great romancer by<br />
the speakers; and it was thoroughly representa-<br />
tive of the literary and artistie circles of the<br />
city. (See p. 248.)<br />
Perhaps a short account of the organisation of<br />
one of our greatest magazines may prove of<br />
interest to the readers of the Author. In 1865 a.<br />
primitive “family magazine,” called Hours at<br />
Home, was started, and this soon led Charles<br />
Scribner, founder of the publishing house of that<br />
name, to consider the possibilities which lay in<br />
issuing a periodical that would appeal to a wider<br />
audience and be on a much larger scale. With<br />
this idea in view Dr. Holland, author of the<br />
famous “Timothy Titcomb's Letters,” was con-<br />
sulted as to taking the editorship of the new<br />
venture. Thus in 1870 the firm of Charles<br />
Scribner announced from the office of Hours at<br />
Home that they had organised the Magazine<br />
Department into a separate company, with Dr.<br />
J. G. Holland and Roswell C. Smith as part<br />
owners, under the name of Scribner and Co., and<br />
that the periodical should be known as Scribner's<br />
Monthly. From the start it set a new standard<br />
for the popular magazine. It introduced many<br />
fresh writers, who had great influence in American<br />
literature, and on the artistic side it gave impetus<br />
to wood engraving.<br />
When the death of Mr. Scribner occurred the<br />
magazine continued to increase in prosperity, but<br />
in 1881 a disagreement arose between the<br />
partners, which finally resulted in the sale of the<br />
monthly to a new corporation, headed by Dr.<br />
Holland and Mr. Smith. This transfer was<br />
effected under the stipulation that the Scribners<br />
should abstain from publishing a magazine which<br />
could be a rival in the same field, while on their<br />
side the new company agreed to withdraw the<br />
name Scribner; and the periodical was henceforth<br />
known as the Century Magazine. The old<br />
magazine under its new name continued its<br />
prosperous career, and after the appearance of<br />
the war series in its pages the circulation was<br />
actually doubled within a twelvemonth.<br />
From the start, the Century Company agreed<br />
to allow its editorial staff to acquire shares of<br />
the stock, thus consolidating the interest of the<br />
magazine with those in whose charge it is.<br />
Another custom is the giving at Christmas time<br />
to all employées, not holding shares, a percentage<br />
of the year's profits in proportion to their<br />
salaries. On the death of Dr. Holland, in 1881,<br />
Mr. Richard Watson Gilder, who had long been<br />
his assistant, became editor-in-chief. He has<br />
filled his post most ably, and has gathered about<br />
him men of unusual capability. The associate<br />
editor is Mr. Robert Underwood Johnson, who<br />
was secretary of the Copyright League, and was<br />
rewarded for his work by the French Government<br />
with the Legion of Honour. The assistant editor<br />
is Mr. Clarence Clough Buel, who was formerly<br />
a journalist, and who suggested the famous war<br />
series. Among others in the editorial office are<br />
Mr. Frank H. Tooker and Mr. William Carey, to<br />
whose care is due the make up of the tasteful<br />
pages and the arrangement of the illustrations.<br />
Besides these, three women clerks are employed;<br />
and there is also a special staff to whom is com-<br />
mitted the preliminary reading of all the manu-<br />
scripts, some 20,000 of which are passed on every<br />
year.<br />
The art department has a special staff of its<br />
own, at the head of which is Mr. Alexander W.<br />
Drake, with Mr. W. Lewis Fraser as his chief<br />
assistant. It is owing to the efforts of Mr. Drake<br />
that the art of wood engraving has received so<br />
much encouragement from this magazine, and it<br />
is through him also that the development of that<br />
art has been speeded. The Century was among<br />
the first to try photographic engraving processes,<br />
and with a success certainly not yet surpassed by<br />
any other publishing house, even in France. The<br />
half-tone process, although mechanical, and thus<br />
supposedly true to the original, is but what its<br />
name represents it to be—a half tone, and hence<br />
lacking the darkest and lightest shades. In the<br />
January number of the Century is a block, which<br />
originally was a half-tone plate, and which has<br />
been worked over by a wood engraver until about<br />
one-half of its surface has felt the tool. Thus<br />
this new reproduction frankly substitutes<br />
engraving where the mechanical process fails.<br />
The Century aims solely at getting as near the<br />
Original as possible, and the question of cost is<br />
not allowed to interfere with what is the best<br />
method for obtaining the desired results. There<br />
have been cases where etchings were made simply<br />
that they might be processed ; and wood-<br />
engravings found to be too large have been<br />
processed down to half size. Also it is well to<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 233 (#247) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
233<br />
note that the superiority of the American<br />
magazine is due to a great extent to the care<br />
taken with its printing. Infinite thought is<br />
taken by De Winne, the artist printer, to keep the<br />
presswork of the Century up to the level of its<br />
text and illustrations.<br />
The Century Company also issue a juvenile<br />
monthly called St. Nicholas. This, again, has<br />
its own staff. Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge is editor-<br />
in-chief, and Mr. W. F. Clarke is assistant editor.<br />
There are also two editorial assistants, Messrs.<br />
Tudor Jenks and Chapin, and besides these<br />
several clerks. With this magazine, as with the<br />
Century, every manuscript received is carefully<br />
read and examined. The printing is of the same<br />
high standard, and the illustrations proceed from<br />
the same art department.<br />
In addition to the staffs of the two magazines,<br />
there is a third entirely separate staff, having<br />
charge of the Century Dictionary. At the head<br />
of this is Mr. Benjamin E. Smith. Since the first<br />
page of that stupendous undertaking was cast the<br />
work has never stopped, for it is constantly under-<br />
going revision, and a supplement will eventually<br />
be inevitable. Mr. Smith has recently brought<br />
out a seventh volume, the Century Cyclopædia<br />
of Names.<br />
A large part of the success of the Century is<br />
due to its publishers. They have pushed the<br />
sales judiciously, and have shown such enterprise<br />
in the advertising department, that the magazine<br />
often contains a hundred pages of advertisements.<br />
The business sense which has characterised the<br />
management of the Century is a heritage from<br />
Roswell Smith, the first president of the com-<br />
pany, whose position is now adequately filled by<br />
Mr. Frank H. Scott, Mr. Charles F. Chichester<br />
having succeeded the latter as treasurer. In its<br />
early years the Century found many advantages<br />
in the fact that it was not connected with a pub-<br />
lishing house, as it was never obliged to receive<br />
any author on account of his relations with the<br />
house. But of late, as book material accumu-<br />
lated, it was found expedient not to allow it all<br />
to leave the Century office, and hence the Century<br />
company has been for several years now a pub-<br />
lisher of books also.<br />
The Century pays for all manuscripts on<br />
acceptance. Indeed, this is the custom of all<br />
reputable magazines here, and the editor of<br />
Harper's has been heard to remark “that it was<br />
immoral to accept an article without paying for<br />
it at once.” This naturally leads to the<br />
accumulation of material, and the Century has<br />
always several thousand pounds worth on hand;<br />
in fact, during the past year it has been largely<br />
drawing on that stock. Thus articles on “Book-<br />
bindings,” by Brander Matthews, which were<br />
VOL. W.<br />
accepted and paid for some four or five years ago,<br />
are only now appearing. “Folk-speech in<br />
America,” by Mr. Edward Eggleston, had been<br />
lying by eight or ten years; and Mrs. Oliphant's<br />
papers on the period of Queen Anne waited ten<br />
or twelve years for publication ; while Mr. Marion<br />
Crawford’s article on “The Gods of India,”<br />
which was printed only early last winter, had been<br />
accepted and paid for before he wrote his first<br />
novel, “Mr. Isaacs.” ---<br />
The Century occupies several floors of a fine<br />
large building overlooking Union-square. Its<br />
rooms are most luxuriously and beautifully fitted<br />
up. The walls are decorated with the original<br />
drawings of its illustrations, and to the outsider<br />
it would seem almost like a picture gallery were<br />
it not for its home-like appearance.<br />
The organisation of other American magazines<br />
is not unlike that of the Century. Besides their<br />
enormous book-publishing business, Harper and<br />
Brothers issue also four periodicals—the magazine<br />
and three weeklies. Mr. Henry M. Alden, author<br />
of “God in His World,” is editor-in-chief of<br />
Harper's Magazine. Mr. John D. Adams is his<br />
assistant ; and at the head of the art department<br />
is Mr. Horace Bradley. The other periodicals<br />
are Harper’s Young People, edited by Mr. J. H.<br />
Sears; Harper's Weekly, edited by Mr. Henry L.<br />
Nelson, with Mr. Henry Gallup Paine as managing<br />
editor; and Harper's Bazaar, a weekly, princi-<br />
pally intended to appeal to a feminine audience,<br />
but really containing so much of general interest<br />
as not to be restricted to one sex, and edited by<br />
Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster.<br />
In 1887, Charles Scribner's Sons started a<br />
magazine of their own, and placed it under the<br />
editorship of Mr. Edward L. Burlingame. It<br />
was a new publication in every sense, and in no<br />
way a revival of any tradition of the past. Mr.<br />
Robert Bridges is associate editor, and the art<br />
department is in the hands of Mr. A. F. Jaccacci.<br />
The magazine (with the rest of the publishing<br />
business of Charles Scribner and Sons) has<br />
recently been moved to a new building on Fifth-<br />
avenue, near Madison-square, which is one of the<br />
best built and best equipped edifices ever erected<br />
for exclusive use of a publishing firm.<br />
Mr. Charles Dudley Warner is spending the<br />
winter just outside of Florence in Landor's Willa,<br />
as the guest of Professor Willard Fiske.<br />
Mr. A. M. Palmer has made arrangements with<br />
Mr. Du Maurier to have Mr. Paul Potter dramatise<br />
“Trilby,” and it will shortly be produced at Mr.<br />
Palmer's own theatre. This dramatisation shows<br />
how, in one respect, American copyright is more<br />
favourable to foreign authors than the British<br />
law. In the United States the novelist has<br />
reserved to him the right to dramatise, whereas<br />
z 2<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 234 (#248) ############################################<br />
<br />
234<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
in Great Britain he has to give an absurd regis-<br />
tering performance of his dramatisation before the<br />
novel appears. Thus a British author having a<br />
novel successful in America can reap the profit of<br />
the play taken therefrom ; but an American<br />
author having a novel successful in England<br />
would stand little chance of making anything<br />
from the dramatisation ; and, as a fact, Mrs.<br />
Stowe never received a penny from England for<br />
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin " as a play.<br />
Mr. Laurence Hutton, than whom no American<br />
has more friends in Great Britain, and whose<br />
father and mother were Scotch, refused to act<br />
as treasurer of the American committee for<br />
the purchase of Carlyle's house in Chelsea,<br />
seeing no reason why any American should<br />
help to make a monument for a contemporary<br />
British author like Carlyle, who certainly never<br />
showed any goodwill towards the United States.<br />
In one of his Literary Notes in Harper's for<br />
January—notes unfortunately not included in<br />
the London edition of the magazine—Mr. Hutton<br />
gives vent to his feelings as follows: “There<br />
seems to exist in the mother country a curious<br />
notion that while we have shaken off all personal<br />
and national allegiance to the British Crown, we<br />
are still rank Tories and Royalists in our loyalty<br />
and devotion to British literature ; that while we<br />
are politically a free and independent people, we<br />
are still an intellectual province of Great Britain;<br />
and that we must still pay taxes to the great<br />
and royal British mind! They would laugh to<br />
scorn any effort on our part to raise money, in<br />
England, for the Curtis memorial in New York,<br />
or for the preservation of Poe's home at Fordham,<br />
even if we were willing to ask others to help us,<br />
in a pecuniary way, to honour our own dead;<br />
and they do mock our generosity in contributing<br />
to the building of a memorial theatre to Shakes-<br />
peare at Stratford, to the buying of a bust for<br />
Pepys in St. Olave's, or to the raising of stained<br />
glass windows to the memory of Raleigh and<br />
Izaak Walton in St. Margaret's and St. Dunstan's.<br />
Shakespeare and Pepys and Walton and Raleigh<br />
are ours, as well as theirs; and it is our right,<br />
as well as our privilege, to show our respect and<br />
affection for our own ; but we ought to throw the<br />
tea into Boston Harbour once more, before we<br />
consent to pay tribute to a class of post-revolu-<br />
tionary British heroes who paid no tribute to us;<br />
or before we offer to help the Britons to glorify their<br />
own land by erecting monuments—in their land—<br />
to poets and scholars who in their lifetime never<br />
cared to glorify anything, or anybody, but Great<br />
Britain or themselves.”<br />
It may be suspected that Mr. Hutton thus<br />
voices a feeling not ucommon among American<br />
men of letters. HALLETT ROBINSON.<br />
LETTER FROM PARIS,<br />
NEVER felt more confirmed in my pre-<br />
ference for an artistic life as contrasted<br />
to the pursuit.of politics, never did I so<br />
cordially agree with what Daudet has written<br />
about his detestation of politics, than as I sat at<br />
breakfast on Thursday last in the grand hall of<br />
the Hotel des Reservoirs at Versailles, just before<br />
the opening of the Congress for the election of<br />
a new President. The room was full of senators,<br />
deputies, political journalists, and all the vague<br />
camp followers of all great political events. And<br />
what a crowd it was, a mass of strangely dressed,<br />
noisy, red-faced individuals, with greedy twinkling<br />
eyes and fevered gestures, and the strangest<br />
manners at table. When one looked at them and<br />
thought of the man of letters, of the poet, of the<br />
painter, or the musician, and the ambitions of<br />
these as compared with the longings of those,<br />
one might well say—and be no Pharisee at that<br />
—that one thanked God not to be as these.<br />
I am asked to announce that Monsieur Léon<br />
Daudet will very shortly commence the publica-<br />
tion of a series or “cycle” of three novels, which<br />
will be as “The Battle of Dorking of the Social<br />
Revolution,” and an attempt to give, in anticipa-<br />
tion, pictures of that great event, whose comin<br />
is so eagerly expected, and so fondly hoped for<br />
by not a few. The first of these novels will be<br />
called “De Precurseur,” and will describe a kind<br />
of Tolstoi apostle, visiting the faubourgs, helping<br />
the poor, and preaching the gospel of Revolt.<br />
The second will be called “Les Porteurs du Feu,”<br />
and the action of this book will take place in<br />
Tondon, Amsterdam, and Paris. The third<br />
novel will be called “The City of Bread and of<br />
Fire.” Monsieur Léon Daudet is at present<br />
arranging for their appearance in serial form in<br />
England and America, previous to their publica-<br />
tion in book-form in France.<br />
Monsieur Jules Massenet is at present engaged<br />
on an opera to be called “Griselidis,” the libretto<br />
of which has been drawn by Armand Silvestre<br />
from the romantic play of the same name which<br />
was performed with so much success at the<br />
Comédie Française, of which Monsieur Armand<br />
Silvestre was co-author.<br />
Speaking about composers, it may be of interest<br />
to note that in France authors’ royalties in an<br />
opera are divided equally between the composer<br />
of the music and the writer of the libretto. Nor<br />
does this rule apply only in the matter of grand<br />
operas, but even in songs, a system which for the<br />
benefit of our minor poets might profitably be<br />
introduced into England. Only the very best<br />
writers of words for songs in England can hope<br />
for as much as four, or at the outside, five guineas<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 235 (#249) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
235<br />
for their words, whilst the average price paid to<br />
the poet is, I believe, 5s. In France the poet<br />
takes half the royalties, and the author of the<br />
music the other half. The royalties on musical<br />
works are, of course, not so large as on literary<br />
productions. Thus the royalties paid to the<br />
authors on a grand opera, never exceed 6 per cent.<br />
of the receipts. Of this the composer takes half,<br />
or 3 per cent., and the librettist the other half.<br />
With a successful opera both musician and<br />
librettist may count on an average receipt of<br />
£1.8 per performance.<br />
Speaking of theatrical matters, it was amusing<br />
to learn from what transpired the other day in<br />
one of the Paris Police-courts that a person who<br />
recently contributed the dramatic criticisms to<br />
La Cocarde used to pay £16 a month to the pro-<br />
prietors of this paper for doing so. It is fair to<br />
add that this was before M. Maurice Barrés took<br />
over the management and proprietorship of this<br />
paper. I have heard of similar things in<br />
England.<br />
A certain London publishing firm has inaugu-<br />
rated a system of paying for contributions to its<br />
various periodicals with cheques, on the back of<br />
which is printed a statement that the payee<br />
acknowledges receipt of amount on the other side<br />
for contributions and copyright of same. His<br />
signature forms the indorsement to the cheque,<br />
and, of course, if he will not indorse the cheque<br />
it cannot be cashed. I am not clear about the<br />
legality of such a contract, but I understand that<br />
the matter is going to be looked into by the<br />
Institute of Journalists. For my part, I never<br />
will sign away copyright.<br />
The other day I met a gentleman who holds a<br />
high official position in Turkey, and we had a<br />
long talk together about life in Constantinople.<br />
I was much interested to hear that the favourite<br />
book in the harem was—what would you say P-<br />
Ringsley’s “Westward Ho!” in translation.<br />
To-morrow, Jan. 25, is the fortieth anniversary<br />
of the suicide of poor Gerard de Nerval, in the<br />
Rue de la Vieille Lanterne, a street which, thanks<br />
to Baron Haussmann, has long since disappeared<br />
from the face of Paris. It was a horrible and a<br />
sinister street this Rue de la Vieille Lanterne, a<br />
street about which a French writer, wise in Paris<br />
street lore, has written as follows: “Ah! this<br />
street above all was most sinister amongst the<br />
most sinister, most hideous amongst the most<br />
hideous. In the thirteenth century it was called<br />
Scorching-street, later on, Washing-street, and<br />
in the nineteenth as in the thirteenth century<br />
it more resembled a sewer than a public way. As<br />
a matter of fact little traffic passed through it,<br />
its inhabitants being reputed the most dangerous<br />
malefactors. The ground, unceasingly drenched<br />
by rain and the overflow of the gutter, formed a<br />
thick black mud, which oozed up under-foot<br />
between the cobble stones that paved this leprous<br />
street. At one end, towards Rue de la Tuerie<br />
(Killing-street), it had a broken-down flight of<br />
steps, which led up from darkness into light, from<br />
filth to what is clean. Up and down this flight of<br />
steps all day long there hopped gravely and with<br />
dignity a black crow. At the foot of the steps<br />
an iron grating rather more than of man’s stature<br />
in height rose, and opposite was a stable which<br />
was the nightly refuge of nameless vagabonds,<br />
while a few paces lower down was a police sus-<br />
pected furnished hotel, or common lodging-house.<br />
Further, nothing save houses wrapped in silence,<br />
ominous and gloomy, and dead walls sweating<br />
forth misery and abjection.”<br />
It was here on the morning of Jan. 25, 1855,<br />
that there hanged himself on that iron grating<br />
the exquisite poet, whose name was Gerard<br />
de Nerval. He was not dead when he was<br />
discovered by one of the “workmen’’ who issued<br />
forth at an early hour from the common lodging-<br />
house, and might have been saved but for the<br />
fear of the mob which gathered round him, as he<br />
hung choking and wriggling, lest murder might<br />
be charged against them. So he was allowed to<br />
continue his hideous and convulsive dance of<br />
death. His feet were but two inches from the<br />
muddy soil.<br />
The onlookers recognised from the man’s head<br />
and hands and face that this was a gentleman in<br />
spite of the fact that his dress was ragged and<br />
Sordid beyond the raggedness of the extremest<br />
and most sordid poverty. Papers of manuscript<br />
peeped out from his torn pockets, and these, con-<br />
sidered together with certain stains of ink on the<br />
dirty blouse and the fingers, revealed in the<br />
victim a man of letters. It is reported that once<br />
or twice the struggling man raised his hand to<br />
his neck in feeble mute appeal, as though to<br />
point out to them, miserable dullards, what was<br />
torturing him, what was the life of him. But no<br />
response was made. It was a crowd of men wary<br />
and cautious of habit. I think that in its public<br />
shame, this death, with all its surroundings of<br />
all that is vile in man and in the works<br />
of man, was a hundred times more sad than<br />
even the arsenic convulsions of that starving<br />
boy in his paper-littered garret in the Holborn<br />
bye-way; aye, a hundred times more sad than<br />
even the final fall in the weakness of hunger and<br />
in the fever of alcohol of Edgar Allan Poe. In<br />
this case as in that there was no help possible.<br />
There was no hand near to stay or help, nor any<br />
land in sight. But from de Nerval’s hideous<br />
pillory, his so accessible gallows, what easy rescue<br />
might have been made. When at last the police<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 236 (#250) ############################################<br />
<br />
236<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
arrived, and the man was cut down, life was<br />
extinct. In his pockets were found various<br />
manuscripts, notably part of a serial story which<br />
Gerard de Nerval was then writing. But no<br />
papers allowing of his identification. So the<br />
body was sent to the Morgue, there to lie on a<br />
dripping slab, with a vagabond, killed in a<br />
brawl, on the one side of him, and a self-drowned<br />
woman of the town on the other. Poor Gerard<br />
de Nerval. Poor poets.<br />
I hear that Mr. Rowland Strong, the able<br />
correspondent in Paris of the Morning Post, is<br />
oc, upying such leisure as journalism leaves him<br />
in writing a novel on Parisian life, with which<br />
he is very well acquainted indeed. The novel<br />
ought to be a very good one, for Mr. Strong is<br />
master of a most excellent style, as the readers of<br />
the Paris correspondence of the Morning Post<br />
have long observed, and, moreover, a man of<br />
wide reading, caustic wit, and great powers of<br />
observation. One is always glad to chronicle the<br />
endeavour on the part of the journalist to produce<br />
purely original work, in spite of the fact that<br />
many critics in London will not admit that a<br />
man who has written for the press is capable of<br />
literary production. It is a strange theory, for<br />
in France at least every successful writer began<br />
his career, with the exception, perhaps, of<br />
Alphonse Daudet, by writing for the press.<br />
I hear that the proprietor of a leading and<br />
successful American magazine has just left Paris<br />
for London to arrange for the writing of a new<br />
“Life of Christ” for publication in his magazine.<br />
Mr. Zangwill is in Paris studying life amongst<br />
the art students in the Montparnasse quarter, in<br />
preparation for a novel on this subject. He may<br />
be seen daily dining—not without heroism—in a<br />
miserable little crémèrie near the Rue de Rennes,<br />
where the rapin and his womankind take their<br />
scanty meals. His note-book is filling apace, but<br />
I fear, in my knowledge of the kind of fare pro-<br />
vided at the Parisian crémèries, that at times he<br />
must regret the fleshpots of Israel. Mark Twain<br />
is also in Paris.<br />
Madame Juliette Adam is writing her Memoirs.<br />
They will be invaluable to the student of the<br />
political and literary histories of France under the<br />
Third Republic.<br />
- RoBERT H. SHERARD.<br />
I 23, Bd. Magenta, Paris, Jan. 24, 1895.<br />
BOOKS PUBLISHED IN 1894,<br />
HE Publishers' Circular gives its customary<br />
analytical table of the new books of<br />
1894 :—<br />
<br />
1893. I894.<br />
New New New New<br />
Books. Editions. [Books. |Editions.<br />
Divisions.<br />
Theology, sermons, Bibli-<br />
cal, &c. .................. 459 74 476 8O<br />
Educational, classical,<br />
and philological ...... 518 IO4 615 I27<br />
Juvenile works and tales 659 36 269 29<br />
Novels, tales, and other<br />
fiction .................. 935 393 1315 337<br />
Law, jurisprudence, &c. 27 23 I 26 23<br />
Political and social eco-<br />
nomy, trade and com-<br />
II101"Ce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 I4. I4 I 2 I<br />
Arts, sciences, and illus-<br />
trated works............ 86 37 98 3O<br />
Voyages, travels, geo- -<br />
graphical research ... 247 72 282 68<br />
History, biography, &c. 269 65 256 58<br />
Poetry and the drama ... 197<br />
Year-books and serials in<br />
37 I6O 2 I<br />
volumes . ............... 37O I 328 2<br />
Medicine, surgery, &c. ... 93 58 97 59<br />
Belles-lettres, essays, mo-<br />
nographs, &c. ......... 96 I I 370 II 5<br />
Miscellaneous, including<br />
pamphlets, not sermons I IO2 328 767 2I 5<br />
5 I:29 I 253 53OO | I 185<br />
5 I:29 53OO<br />
6382 6485<br />
—Times, Jan. 4.<br />
The number of books published in the year<br />
1894 reaches an amazing total of 6485. If,<br />
however, we examine the list a little we shall<br />
find crumbs of comfort. For instance, 981 of<br />
them are “miscellaneous, including pamphlets.”<br />
Strike them out ; we will not read them. Tech-<br />
nical, scientific, professional, and trade books—<br />
all three which belong to the business of life—<br />
numbered 596. Strike them out. Those will<br />
read them who must. Religious books, 856. I<br />
think we may strike them out in considering<br />
literature. The medicine of the soul is as<br />
“scientific ’’ as the medicine of the body. Educa-<br />
tional books number 742. Strike them out,<br />
because they are the tools and instruments<br />
necessary for the conduct and business of life.<br />
Year-books and serials are surely not literature.<br />
Strike out 330. Boys’ and girls' books, 297.<br />
Strike them out. There remain novels, voyages<br />
and travels, history and biography, poetry, and<br />
belles lettres. Of novels there were 1315 new<br />
books and 337 new editions. Now, every novel<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 237 (#251) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
237<br />
worth anything goes into a new edition. These<br />
figures mean, therefore, IOOO failures in novel<br />
writing; they also mean a great many books paid<br />
for by the foolish writers after their work has<br />
been declined. Further, they mean that in this<br />
period of depression and “tightness” there are<br />
thousands who try whether they, too, cannot join<br />
the company of the successful. They cannot,<br />
but they will always try. These figures also<br />
mean that, seeing the enormous success of<br />
certain novels and the impossibility of discover-<br />
ing why some of them have succeeded, a few<br />
publishers are “plunging ” in hope of securing a<br />
“boom.” On the whole, we need not be alarmed<br />
by the figures. Again, the ephemeral nature of<br />
many apparently solid books, as those of travel<br />
and of history, is shown by the fact that there are<br />
538 new books of the kind and only 126 new<br />
editions. Of poetry there is a sad falling off.<br />
Only 160 new books of verse against 190 of last<br />
year. Only 2 I new editions against 37 of last<br />
year.<br />
The most remarkable increase is under the head<br />
of “belles lettres, essays, monographs, &c.” In<br />
1893 there were 96 new books under this head<br />
and II reprints. In 1894 there were 370 new<br />
books and I 15 reprints | What does this mean?<br />
First, we should like to see a list of these new<br />
books and reprints. Probably we should have to<br />
strike out a good many as irrelevant. I take two<br />
columns of book advertisements from the Times.<br />
In one I find two such books; in the other, three.<br />
What are they—these 370 books of belles lettres?<br />
Here is a theory which I advance with hesitation,<br />
but it may account for some. The production of<br />
a book of essays or of criticism is an excellent<br />
method by which a young man ambitious of<br />
literary work may introduce himself. If his book<br />
attracts notice either for style or for scholarship,<br />
he is a man to be noted and remembered by<br />
editors. And the number of such young men is<br />
increasing every day. The congestion of the pro-<br />
fessions; the apparent ease and pleasantness and<br />
freedom of the work; the large incomes made by<br />
successful journalists and critics — these, with<br />
many other reasons, attract the young men of<br />
Oxford and Cambridge. I imagine that this<br />
theory would account for some of the 370<br />
volumes. But what about the rest ? I do not<br />
know.<br />
On further consideration of these figures, it<br />
occurred to me to compare them with those<br />
obtained from the lists issued day by day in the<br />
leading journals. For instance, there is published<br />
every day in the Times a list of the day's<br />
publications. In this list we may certainly<br />
assume that every book of the least importance<br />
or pretensions is announced. The following are<br />
the numbers of publications, month by month.<br />
Since the first two columns are difficult to keep<br />
apart, let us add them together. It will be seen<br />
that the numbers are about half those given in<br />
the Circular. We have, that is to say, 770 novels<br />
and children’s story books announced in the<br />
Times against I 594 reported in the Circular :<br />
New. Children’s. Reprint.<br />
January ......... 65 ...... I 7 . . . . . . 7<br />
February ......... 34 . . . . . . 2 . . . . . . 3<br />
March ............ 37 . . . . . I . . . . . . 8<br />
April............... 3I . . . . . I . . . . . . 6<br />
May ............... 45 . . . . . . O . . . . . . 8<br />
June ............... 47 . . . . . . 4 . . . . . . 8<br />
July ............... 64 ...... 4 . . . . . . I3<br />
August ............ 34 . . . . . . 3 . . . . . . 6<br />
September ...... 25 . . . . . . O . . . . . . 5<br />
October. . . . . . . . . . . . 43 . . . . . . I . . . . . . 7<br />
November. . . . . . . . . 86 . . . . . . 4O . . . . . . I 2<br />
December . . . . . . ... I 23 . . . . . . 63 . . . . . . 35<br />
634 I36 II 8<br />
We need not in the least attack the correctness<br />
of the figures in the Circular. We may, however,<br />
understand that a good half of the books making<br />
up that portentous total were quite unimportant<br />
and trivial works.<br />
Further examination proves that out of the 634<br />
novels there were at least 200 or even 250 also<br />
quite trivial and unimportant. This class is<br />
made up chiefly of those novels published at the<br />
author's own expense. There are paltry houses—<br />
call them rather hovels—which do nothing except<br />
produce trash at the author's expense. “Our<br />
reader reports so favourably of the work that we are<br />
prepared to offer you the following exceptionally<br />
favourable terms, &c.,” according to the formula.<br />
These deductions made, we are left with a very<br />
fair number of novels—by no means too many<br />
for the reading of the English-speaking world—<br />
Written by about 250 known novelists and about<br />
I5O aspirants.<br />
* * *<br />
NOTES AND NEWS.<br />
E have lost in Sir John Seeley one of the<br />
greatest writers of our time—if by<br />
“great” we mean one who is powerful<br />
enough to mould and influence his time. The<br />
man who so far influenced the Anglican Church<br />
as to sweep away old shibboleths and to clothe<br />
the old doctrines with fresh meanings; the man<br />
who revived in his country the Imperial idea,<br />
making of Great Britain not only the Mother of<br />
Empire, but the Mistress and Empress; the man<br />
who taught the world how the New Germany was<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 238 (#252) ############################################<br />
<br />
238<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
created and by whom ; that man, surely, deserves<br />
the name of great.<br />
My own acquaintance with Seeley took place<br />
towards the close of the fifties. He was some three<br />
years my senior, so that my earliest knowledge of<br />
him is that of a young Bachelor of Arts, Senior<br />
Classic. He was as a young man habitually grave,<br />
yet by no means without humour; no one who knew<br />
him then would speak of him as dry. Serious<br />
he certainly was ; his mind was then, as ever<br />
since, filled with the great and lofty themes of<br />
which he afterwards treated. To talk with him<br />
was, to a lad of twenty, an education ; he filled<br />
one with new thoughts; he gave one suggestions;<br />
he made one thirsty and hungry for more know-<br />
ledge; he made one careful of speech on account<br />
of a certain Socratic method by which he con-<br />
vinced the foolish speaker of his folly—yet gently<br />
and never with any joy over the humiliation of<br />
the other man. He took little interest in the<br />
things so much beloved by the average under-<br />
graduate ; he seldom asked, I am sure, where the<br />
college boat was ; he was not present at boat<br />
suppers; perhaps he never witnessed the University<br />
boat race; and he never showed up at Lord's. A<br />
modest and sober walk of four or five miles gave<br />
him all the exercise he wanted, and the rest of<br />
his time was chiefly spent in his own rooms.<br />
It is pleasing to remember that one of his<br />
closest friends and greatest admirers was a man<br />
wholly unlike him in every particular—Charles<br />
Stuart Calverley. I have heard Calverley dis-<br />
course on the virtues and qualities of Seeley most<br />
generously (for they were sometimes thought to<br />
be rivals) and eloquently.<br />
Seeley was the son of a man of deep religious<br />
feeling, which he himself inherited. The inevitable<br />
revolt of the son against the father's narrow<br />
Calvinism, which generally takes the form of<br />
aggressive agnosticism, in his place became a<br />
Christianity on broader foundations with new<br />
meanings and more Catholic enclosures. He was<br />
always religious in his thoughts and religious in<br />
his daily life.<br />
I have never heard him lecture or speak. I<br />
can readily believe that as in his books so in his<br />
lectures, the personal element was entirely re-<br />
pressed. Perhaps he was dry. Yet he taught.<br />
He was born to teach, and he was full of things<br />
to teach. He made the most of himself too.<br />
Quite early in life he realised that for such work<br />
as his, German was necessary. He went to<br />
Dresden for three months and came back a<br />
master of the German language. Later on it<br />
became necessary for him to know Italian and to<br />
study Rome. He went to Rome for the summer<br />
months, staying there three months, and return-<br />
ing a master of Italian and of Roman topography.<br />
He is a standing example that the strongest and<br />
best faculties—intellect of the rarest—-memory<br />
—scholarship—linguistic gift–power of expres-<br />
sion—are worth nothing without industry.<br />
I well remember a certain letter which came<br />
to me across the sea, one day a long time ago,<br />
when I was abroad. It was from a man who<br />
knew Seeley better than was my good fortune;<br />
who saw a great deal more of him. This man<br />
sent me a copy of “Ecce Homo,” just then<br />
published. “Read the book,” he said. “It is<br />
Seeley's, though the world does not yet know it.<br />
Read the book. He stands out already, as I<br />
always said he would—ávač divöpóv—a king of<br />
men’’—And so he did.<br />
That Seeley joined our Society at the outset;<br />
that he gave us his name as a Vice-President<br />
first, and a member of Council afterwards; that<br />
he strongly approved of our work and our aims—<br />
this has always been to me, at times when it<br />
seemed as if all our efforts for self-protection<br />
were likely to be in vain, a great encouragement<br />
and support.<br />
•-º-º-º-º-<br />
At the first meeting of the committee held in<br />
the year, on Monday, Jan. I4, it was RESOLVED,<br />
that the best thanks of the committee be con-<br />
veyed to Sir Frederick Pollock, for his services to<br />
the society as chairman of the Committee of<br />
Management during the year 1893 and 1894.<br />
I hear of complaints among members that<br />
their books are not mentiomed in “Book Talk”<br />
of the month. Will every one make a note that<br />
we very much desire to hear of every new work<br />
produced by our members; that we cannot<br />
promise to hunt among the advertisements and<br />
the announcements for these new books; that if<br />
members will inform us of their new books they<br />
may depend upon the notice being inserted;<br />
and that, as regards a short review or expression<br />
of opinion upon the book, it must be left to the<br />
writer of the columns called “Book Talk.” It is,<br />
of course, impossible for the editor to promise,<br />
or for the members to claim, even a short review<br />
in these pages.<br />
The question of Canadian Copyright is sus-<br />
pended for the time, owing to the death of Sir<br />
John Thompson. Meanwhile we have reprinted<br />
in another column (p. 228) an article on the<br />
subject, from the Montreal Weekly Witness,<br />
which shows that public opinion is not all on one<br />
side.<br />
In another place (p. 248) will be found a report<br />
of Mr. Stedman’s address on the occasion of the<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 239 (#253) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
239<br />
Stevenson memorial meeting at New York. The<br />
occasion was memorable. One of the few writers<br />
who in their lifetime are recognised as belonging<br />
to the common literature of the English-speaking<br />
races—not the local provincial literature of Great<br />
Britain, of the States, of Canada, of Australia,<br />
but the common possession of all—was dead. The<br />
meeting was held in honour of that man; he was<br />
a Scotchman by birth ; he was not a dweller in<br />
the United States, but he was acknowledged to<br />
belong to the States, to be part of the honour<br />
and glory of the States just as much as Lowell<br />
was claimed to belong to us, although a<br />
Republican and an American to the finger tips.<br />
It was not only a memorable occasion, but the<br />
chairman's eulogy, here reproduced, is fully worthy<br />
of the occasion. Had I not heard Leslie Stephen's<br />
address on the completion of the Lowell memorial<br />
in Westminster Abbey, I should have said that<br />
I did not know a single English author capable of<br />
such an address, so dignified, so beautiful, so<br />
worthy of the writer whom it illustrated. And<br />
now that it is too late, what, one asks, were we<br />
ourselves doing that we held no such meeting P<br />
Why was it left to the Americans to show us how<br />
we should honour our writers? Alas! so little<br />
accustomed are we to any recognition of letters<br />
that we do not even remember to pay the tribute<br />
of a funeral oration on the departure of our<br />
worthiest and our best<br />
Among the letters of the month will be found a<br />
proposal by Mr. Thomas Macquoid that a<br />
memorial to Louis Stevenson should be esta-<br />
blished. The letter does not propose any form of<br />
memorial. Not a statue, says the writer, but<br />
perhaps the founding of some institution con-<br />
nected with literature. I willingly give admission<br />
to Mr. Macquoid’s letter and proposal, and if the<br />
suggestion commends itself to members, I shall<br />
be very glad to receive their opinions on the<br />
subject, and to forward them to the secretary for<br />
the consideration of the committee. There are<br />
two points for consideration: (1) Whether it is<br />
desirable that such a memorial shall be instituted;<br />
(2) if so, what form it should take.<br />
Now, as to the first point. I have no doubt<br />
whatever that some of Stevenson’s work will live<br />
and form part of the glorious Corpus of English<br />
Literature. In the general chorus of praise and<br />
lamentation following on the death of this writer,<br />
it seems ungenerous to hint that any part of his<br />
work may die. At the same time, we must<br />
remember that posterity will be principally<br />
occupied with its own writers, and that it is a<br />
selection only—a very small selection—of dead<br />
men's work, that is allowed to remain and to be<br />
read. It is the next generation that pronounces<br />
the verdict upon a man, and from that verdict<br />
there is no appeal. Perhaps, therefore, it would<br />
be safer to let a dead man remain without honour<br />
for twenty-five years. In that time his greatness<br />
will be established or will be extinguished.<br />
However, if it be thought best to form some<br />
memorial to Robert Louis Stevenson, why<br />
should it not be a statue? The only statues<br />
to men of letters in London are those of<br />
Shakespeare in Leicester-square, and Dr. Johnson<br />
in St. Paul’s. There are also certain busts in<br />
Westminster Abbey and elsewhere. Yet nothing<br />
more honours a man than a statue. It is public ;<br />
it is always present ; it is enduring ; every passer<br />
by recalls the man and his works; it stands as<br />
an outward and visible sign of a nation’s recog-<br />
nition. Poets have their corner in the Abbey;<br />
only a corner; most of the space is given up to<br />
the Great Obscure or the Obscure Great. Let us<br />
make a beginning : let us teach the people that<br />
it is time to honour our great writers as we<br />
honour our statesmen; in the same open way.<br />
Only when we uncover the statue to Louis<br />
Stevenson, in Trafalgar-square, let it be done in<br />
the presence of the people, by invitation; the<br />
people on the omnibuses; the passengers engaged<br />
in their daily calling ; the great common public<br />
who read his “Treasure Island.”<br />
I have seen an advanced copy of the report of the<br />
Society for the year 1894. There is one point<br />
which I venture to anticipate. There are over 12oo<br />
members at this time of writing. Now, out of the<br />
I2OO one-half, or 600, had occasion it seems, during<br />
the year, to consult the Secretary on some point of<br />
difficulty or doubt in the conduct of their business<br />
affairs. Now, consider what would have happened<br />
with these difficulties had the Society not been<br />
in existence. The author would have gone to his<br />
lawyer, who certainly knew nothing about the<br />
subject ; and he would have incurred legal ex-<br />
penses for no good purpose; or he would have<br />
allowed his publisher to put his own interpreta-<br />
tion on the matter. Now the Secretary, who does<br />
know the subject, gives his advice or information<br />
for nothing. In cases where money has to be<br />
recovered, the author has only to put the papers<br />
into the Secretary’s hands, when action is taken<br />
immediately, and for nothing. The knowledge of<br />
this fact generally causes payment to be made<br />
immediately. And—again—remark the propor-<br />
tion of authors who do find it necessary to seek<br />
advice in the year—50 per cent. '<br />
Members will please to note that the committee<br />
have now arranged for the reception of their<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 240 (#254) ############################################<br />
<br />
24O<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
agreements and their preservation in a fireproof<br />
safe. They will, of course, be regarded as confi-<br />
dential documents to be read only by the Secre-<br />
tary, who will keep the key of the safe. The com-<br />
mittee now offer<br />
(I) To read and advise upon agreements and<br />
publishers.<br />
(2) To stamp agreements in readiness for a<br />
possible action upon them. -<br />
(3) To keep agreements.<br />
(4) To enforce payments due according to agree-<br />
ments.<br />
Once there was a member—a lady—who could<br />
not get in her accounts or the money due to her.<br />
She came to the Secretary, who promptly pro-<br />
cured the account and the cheque, of course at no<br />
expense to her. There was no suspicion of a<br />
fraudulent return of books sold. Contrary, how-<br />
ever, to reasonable expectation, the lady received<br />
the cheque with considerable temper. She said<br />
that she had looked for a much larger sale; and if<br />
this was all the Society could do for her, she<br />
should withdraw. And she did. What can be<br />
done for people who look to the Society to find<br />
them a public P<br />
Another very unreasonable and selfish person<br />
is the man or woman who stands aloof from us,<br />
Or even joins in the diffusion of the usual unvera-<br />
cities which that kind of publisher who desires<br />
darkness loves to spread around, until the time of<br />
trouble, when he makes haste to bring his papers<br />
and to become a member in order to get his case<br />
settled for him. An extreme form of this kind<br />
was illustrated by a certain man who brought a<br />
case and became a member. His case cost the<br />
Society 3815, but it was successfully conducted.<br />
The grateful member thanked the Secretary for<br />
what he had done, and said that he should now<br />
resign. So we were gainers of one guinea, his<br />
year's subscription, and losers by £15 in costs<br />
in the case. We did not even get kööos, because<br />
he was rather ashamed of his own simplicity and<br />
did not talk about it.<br />
Mr. Laurence Hutton’s remarks on the<br />
American respect for English literature (see the<br />
New York Letter, p. 234) seem to me exaggerated.<br />
We have not asked the Americans to subscribe<br />
for the preservation of Carlyle's house ; the<br />
committee have only signified their willingness to<br />
accept American contributions if any are offered.<br />
We should most certainly not “laugh to scorn”<br />
any proposal that Englishmen should join in<br />
honouring Poe ; nor do we–so far as I know—<br />
“mock the generosity’ of Americans in building<br />
a theatre at Stratford. The ancient literature of<br />
this country belongs to America as much as to<br />
ourselves. As regards a modern writer, when the<br />
Americans adopt him, so to speak; when they<br />
receive him into their libraries; welcome him ;<br />
learn from him ; delight in him; he becomes an<br />
American as well as an English writer. The<br />
question about Carlyle, is simply whether he is,<br />
in this sense, an American writer. Have they<br />
adopted him P Do they learn from him P Let<br />
us remember that there is a small modern current<br />
literature belonging to and common to all English<br />
speaking countries. For instance, we place Tenny-<br />
son and Browning in this our common literature,<br />
together with Lowell and Longfellow. There is<br />
also a current local or national literature in every<br />
English speaking country consisting of minor<br />
poets, minor novelists, minor essayists, who do not<br />
cross the frontiers of their own country. The<br />
influence of Carlyle in this country has been<br />
enormous. It would appear from Mr. Laurence<br />
Button’s remarks, that it has not been great in<br />
America. Perhaps, then, Carlyle does not belong<br />
to the current common literature.<br />
The following is from the Westminster Gazette:<br />
In our last number there appeared a letter calling<br />
attention to the strange appearance of two lines<br />
by Miss Procter in Mr. John Davidson's new<br />
volume of poems. The editor of this paper ought<br />
to be severely castigated for admitting a charge<br />
of plagiarism without verifying it, especially when<br />
it could be tested so easily and so readily. His<br />
only excuse is that the case was adduced as a<br />
remarkable instance of unconscious plagiarism, a<br />
thing more common than is generally believed.<br />
It did not occur to the editor that Mr. Davidson<br />
could be accused of a thing so monstrous and at<br />
the same time so inconceivably foolish as to<br />
“lift” two whole lines from Miss Procter. May<br />
the curtain of the “Fifth Act ’’ be a curtain of<br />
oblivion :<br />
An absurd comedy of errors has been acted in the<br />
columns of the Spectator and in our own. Mr. John<br />
Davidson has been accused of a trick of “sub-conscious<br />
memory,” for including in his “Ballad of a Nun’ the lines—<br />
“And yet,<br />
We lost it in this daily jar and fret,<br />
And now live idle in a vain regret.”<br />
But neither the lines, nor any like them, are in Mr.<br />
Davidson's poem at all ! The following is the development of<br />
the comedy :— -<br />
Act. I. The Spectator, reviewing Mr. Davidson’s poem,<br />
said it was a new version of “A Legend of Provence,” and<br />
quoted Miss Procter's lines as above.<br />
Act II. A correspondent of the Spectator, misunder-<br />
standing, and thinking the quotation was made from Mr.<br />
Davidson, writes and says, “Why, but Mr. Davidson has<br />
been unconsciously reproducing Tennyson’s<br />
“Love is hurt with jar and fret,<br />
Love is made a vague regret.”<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 241 (#255) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
24. I<br />
Act III. We quote this correspondent's remarks in our<br />
columns; whereupon another correspondent writes and says,<br />
“Why, this man has not only echoed Tennyson, but actually<br />
lifted into his poem two lines solidly from Miss Procter.”<br />
Several other correspondents write to like effect.<br />
Act IV. At last it occurs to somebody to consult Mr.<br />
Davidson’s poem itself, and to look up the references<br />
generally—with the result shown in the outset of this note.<br />
Act W. Curtain, please !<br />
WALTER BESANT.<br />
*- A -º<br />
* *<br />
FEUILLETON,<br />
A LITERARY BUBBLE.<br />
N journalism all roads lead to London. A<br />
carefully worded advertisement in the Times,<br />
offering a sub-editorship to a lady or gentle-<br />
man of education in return for a premium of sixty<br />
guineas, drew me, a young and untried member<br />
of the profession, into the metropolitan whirlpool<br />
in the summer of 1893.<br />
The preliminaries duly arranged, though not<br />
without some natural misgivings on the part of<br />
more cautious relatives and friends, I left to make<br />
the acquaintance of the editor-proprietor of the<br />
“high class weekly journal” with whose fortunes<br />
(and misfortunes) 1 was shortly to become identi-<br />
fied. My first interview with this gentleman took<br />
place in the editorial sanctum one sunny after-<br />
noon in May. He was courteous and affable,<br />
and expressed surprise at my diminutive stature<br />
and virgin countenance, my handwriting having<br />
led him to expect a bearded Hercules. From his<br />
grin of satisfaction, however, I gathered that he<br />
was not altogether displeased to find his ideal<br />
upset. Then we talked about journalism. Had<br />
I thought of turning my attention to light or<br />
serious literature ? I replied, diplomatically,<br />
that one might temper gravity with wit. He<br />
was delighted. I was a born journalist he felt<br />
sure, and only required a course of his gentle<br />
tuition to shine as a planet in the literary firma-<br />
ment. His attention knew no bounds. He must<br />
find me lodgings, take me to the Derby (this fell<br />
through (), and make me thoroughly at home in<br />
my new quarters. Meanwhile, would Itake some<br />
books with me for review P. Thus we parted on<br />
excellent terms with each other, and with our<br />
own particular selves.<br />
I had arrived on a Friday, and the high class<br />
weekly was due to appear on the Saturday. It<br />
did not reach the office until late on Monday<br />
afternoon, and, tyro as I was, my heart sank as<br />
I gazed at the insignificant pile of papers which<br />
then lay carefully stacked upon the counter. If<br />
there were 500 copies, the maximum was surely<br />
reached. Just then the proprietor bustled in.<br />
My reviews were glanced at, approved, and the<br />
great man, with almost paternal solicitude, pressed<br />
upon my acceptance a cheque for a pound, a half<br />
week's salary. I ought here to explain that my<br />
contract provided for remuneration at the rate of<br />
£2 per week, and the repayment of a proportionate<br />
amount of the premium if the engagement were<br />
closed within twelve months from the signing of<br />
the agreement. The cheque was crossed, and,<br />
having no bank account in London, I attempted<br />
to cash it through a friend in the provinces. It<br />
was returned marked “refer to drawer,” and I<br />
immediately called the attention of my Gamaliel<br />
to the matter. He hemmed and hawed, consulted<br />
his cheque-book, and finally paid me in gold,<br />
being unable to account for the “mistake.”<br />
For the next two or three weeks my two<br />
sovereigns came in with commendable regularity;<br />
then thirty shillings appeared as the price of my<br />
labour, my employer coolly explaining that he<br />
had spent the odd ten shillings on a Turkish<br />
bath. The arrears were not forthcoming till the<br />
following week, when a cheque (open, at my<br />
request) for £2 accompanied the lagging half-<br />
sovereign. On inquiry at the bank, I discovered<br />
that the cheque would not be honoured. My<br />
literary tutor was not in the least abashed when<br />
I returned with this intelligence. He smiled, and<br />
said he detected some dissimilarity between the<br />
indorsement and the name in the body of the<br />
cheque. That, he felt sure, accounted for my<br />
rebuff. Still, he pocketed the erring paper, and<br />
the arrears began to accumulate in an alarming<br />
fashion, while any actual payment was very<br />
grudgingly tendered.<br />
Meanwhile, the paper had been going from bad<br />
to worse, and the struggle to make both ends<br />
meet resulted in acts of glaring dishonesty. On<br />
one occasion, the funds having run short, and the<br />
stony heart of the printer being unmoved by<br />
promises of future payment, a week passed with-<br />
out publication. To hoodwink the advertisers,<br />
the contents of the previous week's issue were<br />
inclosed in covers bearing the current date, and<br />
forwarded to advertisers only. Whether or not<br />
this fraud was exposed I never learned. Another<br />
ingenious device was the “puffing” of minor<br />
celebrities, who, in return for an eulogistic<br />
description of their virtues, and a correspondingly<br />
convenient omission of their vices, purchased a<br />
few hundred copies of the paper from the enter-<br />
prising publisher. In the case of one “eminent,”<br />
when his order of 500 copies was found to have<br />
exhausted the available supply, a hundred or<br />
more back numbers were inserted at the bottom<br />
of the pile to complete the amount.<br />
But I should fill many columns of the Author<br />
if I attempted to describe all the tricks and<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 242 (#256) ############################################<br />
<br />
242<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
subterfuges employed by this scoundrel to stave<br />
off his creditors, and to figure in the eyes of the<br />
world as a man of unblemished and unimpeachable<br />
character. He practised as a barrister, and was<br />
extremely anxious that I should, under his<br />
auspices, embrace the legal as well as the jour-<br />
nalistic professions. Had I been so weak as to<br />
yield to his wishes, he would undoubtedly have<br />
pocketed a considerable share of the fees. But I<br />
had gauged his character by this time, and<br />
forbore.<br />
I had not been long in his office before I dis-<br />
covered that I was by no means the only “pupil.”<br />
connected with the establishment. There were<br />
two or three besides myself, and I soon heard<br />
grievous complaints of growing arrears and dis-<br />
honoured cheques. My own salary, from putting<br />
in an appearance in driblets, ceased altogether,<br />
and neither by persuasion or threats did I succeed<br />
in extracting another penny from my employer,<br />
who was, in effect, a bankrupt.<br />
The paper died in due course, and we then dis-<br />
covered that the pseudo-proprietor had long since<br />
assigned the property to others. Nor could we<br />
obtain any redress. I had unfortunately neglected<br />
to have my agreement stamped, but had this been<br />
otherwise, an action at law would only have<br />
resulted in throwing good money after bad. I<br />
returned to the provinces a sadder if a wiser man;<br />
and, having lately been elected an associate of the<br />
Society of Authors, have good reason to hope<br />
that I shall henceforth be free from the predatory<br />
attacks of such wolves in sheep's clothing as the<br />
pretended proprietor of a certain “high-class<br />
London weekly.” If the publication of my own<br />
experience should succeed in placing others upon<br />
their guard, I shall at least have derived some<br />
consolation for my own unfortunate commence-<br />
ment. G. F. O.<br />
*~ - –”<br />
,-- - --><br />
RUSTIC READING,<br />
ESPITE all our vaunted spread of educa-<br />
tion, it cannot yet be said that Hodge has<br />
developed much literary taste, or has<br />
taken keenly to the study of fiction, except,<br />
indeed, as a personal accomplishment. In our<br />
large towns, to judge from the statistics issued<br />
by the free libraries, the working classes devour<br />
novels in enormous quantities, nor are they alto-<br />
gether bad judges of quality, for the authors most<br />
in request with them are also among the favourites<br />
of those who subscribe to Mudie’s. And the<br />
urban labourer has come to regard the Sunday<br />
paper as no less a necessary of existence than his<br />
pipe. But in the country matters are very diffe-<br />
rent. Partly from want of taste, partly from lack<br />
of opportunity, nine out of every ten farm-hands<br />
never open a book at all, and confine their reading<br />
to the single beer-stained copy of the local paper<br />
that goes from hand to hand in the bar of the<br />
public-house.<br />
This is partly due, as we have said, to lack of<br />
taste. It is almost startling to find how many<br />
there are among our village-folk who cannot read<br />
at all. A few of them have never learned to do so,<br />
the greater number acquired the art painfully and<br />
by dint of many thwacks at school, promptly to<br />
forget it when, at the age of fifteen or so, they<br />
left school for good, and began to work in the<br />
fields. Let anyone who has almost entirely for-<br />
gotten his Greek endeavour to imagine what<br />
pleasure it would give him to read Thucydides in<br />
the original, by way of beguiling his leisure<br />
hours after a hard day’s work, and he will cease to<br />
wonder at Hodge's apathetic attitude towards<br />
literature. Again, those who can read easily<br />
enough do not find much to interest them in the<br />
newspapers, while books hardly ever come into<br />
their hands. They do not—we are speaking<br />
of entirely rural districts—take the faintest<br />
interest in politics, nor do they care about trade<br />
unions, strikes, agitations, or reforms, all of<br />
which are so dear to the mind of the London<br />
artisan. You may put it down to sluggishness<br />
and stupidity if you will, and it is quite<br />
true that your rustic is not easily aroused<br />
in the direction of any reform, desirable<br />
or otherwise. But yet there is a good deal of<br />
shrewd wisdom underlying this apparent in-<br />
difference, and it proceeds not a little from the<br />
fact that in the calm, peaceful atmosphere of<br />
country life it becomes easier to see these agita-<br />
tions in just perspective, to realise more accu-<br />
rately their importance, to be less readily swept<br />
away by each fresh enthusiasm, than it is for<br />
the fevered town-dweller, overpowered by the<br />
blatant noises of rival fad-mongers, and not<br />
allowed a moment of quiet in which to think for<br />
himself. Of course there are exceptions; in<br />
every village there is the Radical workman,<br />
regarded with humorous and good-natured in-<br />
difference by the rest, who spends all his spare<br />
time in what he conceives to be the study of<br />
politics, and who is always prepared to tell you<br />
how the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary<br />
ought to act. He is great at Socialistic<br />
prophecies, and his confidence in foretelling the<br />
future is only equalled by his ignorance con-<br />
cerning the present and the past. But he is the<br />
exception, not the rule; the typical rustic is a<br />
perfect Gallio as regards politics.<br />
It is interesting to notice a use which Hodge<br />
makes of the copy of the local paper which he<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 243 (#257) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
243<br />
enjoys with his pipe and beer sitting outside the<br />
Spotted Dog on a summer's evening. First, he<br />
reads carefully the title and the date, to guard<br />
against wasting his intellect on ancient history.<br />
Then, in most cases, he will turn to the cricket<br />
news. It is astonishing how keen is the interest<br />
taken in county cricket by the agricultural<br />
classes in our southern districts; many a man<br />
who has never handled a bat in his life can tell you<br />
nearly all the first-class averages for the last five<br />
years. In the north, even more attention is<br />
doubtless given in winter to the football news,<br />
but cricket is by far the greater favourite<br />
in the south. Having read out the scores, with<br />
eloquent comments, to his companions, he glances<br />
through the rest of the paper for any attractive<br />
headlines speaking of murders, fires, or inquests.<br />
Having found one of these charming accounts,<br />
he absorbs it slowly and reverently, running a<br />
finger along the print lest he lose the thread of<br />
sanguinary narrative. After this he scorns to<br />
read of the doings of Parliament or the news<br />
from foreign countries; with a sigh of satisfied<br />
contentment he hands on the paper to his next<br />
neighbour, whose study of it is conducted on<br />
precisely similar lines. And this performance,<br />
repeated once a week, represents the whole of the<br />
attention given to literature by the majority of<br />
our agricultural labourers.<br />
Mrs. Hodge's reading is a little more extensive.<br />
The good soul studies her Bible, and wonderful<br />
indeed are her interpretations of its more difficult<br />
passages. In about half the cottages, too, by the<br />
side of the Bible you will find a well-thumbed<br />
copy of the “Pilgrim's Progress,” with alarming<br />
illustrations used to terrify the children into the<br />
paths of virtue. The pictures in Fox’s “Book of<br />
Martyrs” are also employed for this purpose, and<br />
are found even more effectual) nor does Mrs.<br />
Hodge ever realise the cruelty and gross folly of<br />
this system of intimidation. The rest of the<br />
literature of the cottage will perhaps be made up<br />
of an ancient number of the Graphic (the<br />
illustrations from which are pinned about the<br />
walls), a cookery book, and the current number<br />
of the parish magazine. If the family includes a<br />
Miss Hodge of sixteen or so, that young lady is<br />
nearly sure to possess a little work on fortune-<br />
telling and another on dreams. And such is the<br />
range of the cottage library.<br />
But this almost total neglect of literature<br />
amongst the country people is due, as we said at<br />
the outset, not only, or even chiefly, to want of<br />
taste, but also to lack of opportunity. Give a<br />
country labourer a good book of adventure by a<br />
popular author, and if you can once prevail upon<br />
him to begin reading it, he will continue it and<br />
enjoy it hugely. And Mrs. Hodge, in default of<br />
better things, reads with great eagerness the<br />
mawkish and sentimental stuff found in most of<br />
our parish magazines. So that there really are<br />
symptoms of a taste for literature, were the<br />
opportunity for cultivating it only to be supplied.<br />
But the cheap editions, so accessible to the<br />
Londoner, are never seen here, never a book of<br />
any kind is on sale in the village shop. Amongst<br />
the bacon and the cheese lie copies of a dress-<br />
making journal and the local newspaper, and that<br />
is all. Surely something could and should be<br />
done to promote the sale of good and cheap<br />
literature in the country.<br />
Of course, village lending libraries have been<br />
established in many places. Sometimes they have<br />
succeeded, more often they have failed, because<br />
the books have not been wisely selected, and are<br />
of the aggressively “improving ” order. Hodge<br />
has a healthy hatred of “goody-goody "litera-<br />
ture, and it is this feeling that makes him fight<br />
shy of the lending library. But once conviuce<br />
him that you are not offering him a tract in dis-<br />
guise, and he will be willing enough to read,<br />
while to encourage and foster such a taste is a<br />
work that may safely be commended to those who<br />
are desirous of doing something towards bettering<br />
the condition and brightening the monotonous<br />
lives of our agricultural labourers.<br />
*- - --"<br />
g- > -s;<br />
BOOK TALK,<br />
HE month of January, 1895, will ever be<br />
memorable in bookish circles for the revival<br />
of the issue of books by metropolitan daily<br />
newspapers. Many years ago the Weekly Dispatch<br />
issued an atlas in parts to its readers; and of a<br />
series of illustrations of picturesque parts of the<br />
world, a number of newspapers of the second<br />
rank in England and on the continent have<br />
recently distributed no fewer than eight million<br />
copies. But the great London dailies have<br />
hitherto declined all such offers. The Daily<br />
Chronicle, however, has now taken the lead by<br />
announcing an encyclopaedic dictionary, in forty-<br />
two parts, at 6d. each. This is nothing else than<br />
Cassell’s “Encyclopædic Dictionary,” printed from<br />
a new set of plates; and as it was originally sold<br />
at seven guineas, the reduction in price is certainly<br />
striking. The Chronicle expects a sale of 200,000<br />
copies.<br />
The Chronicle's new departure was received<br />
with great surprise, but the surprise was more<br />
than doubled when two days later the Times<br />
announced that in April it would issue an atlas in<br />
fifteen parts, at Is. each. This, in its turn, is also<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 244 (#258) ############################################<br />
<br />
244.<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
a publication of Messrs. Cassell's. It is the<br />
German-produced atlas, offered first at 31s. 6d.<br />
net, and afterwards at two guineas with the<br />
customary discount. We understand it is owned<br />
|by a syndicate of persons, of whom Mr. Arnold<br />
Forster is the chief. The Times, by the way, is<br />
also about to publish a serial work of fiction in<br />
its weekly edition. It remains to be seen what<br />
the publishers will say to this journalistic rivalry.<br />
When one newspaper publishes a dictionary,<br />
another an atlas, another a history of England,<br />
another a history of English literature, and so on,<br />
a series of severe blows will have been dealt at<br />
publishing firms all round.<br />
The book of the month, if it should be<br />
reached in February, will no doubt be Lord<br />
Roberts’s “Reminiscences of India.” No man<br />
living knows certain aspects of India and the<br />
Indian people so well as Lord Roberts, and the<br />
British public has good reason to feel the<br />
deepest interest in everything that he says. He<br />
fought through the entire Mutiny, and he has<br />
either shared in or directed every military move-<br />
ment or reform in India during the last thirty-<br />
five years. On some problems now pressing for<br />
solution his word should close the controversy.<br />
It goes without saying that the greatest success<br />
awaits his book if it presents any adequate<br />
picture of himself and his career.<br />
The present Tsar made a tour through the<br />
Far East in 1891, in the course of which, as will<br />
be remembered, he was only saved by the timely<br />
assistance of Prince George of Greece from assas-<br />
sination at the hands of a fanatic Japanese police-<br />
man. He had of course remarkable opportunities<br />
for seeing Eastern festivals and sights not com-<br />
monly shown, and unless the record of his travels<br />
is too severely edited, it should form an enter-<br />
taining picture. He did not, however, visit China,<br />
as the Emperor of China could not be induced to<br />
receive him with proper honours, and he would<br />
not go to Peking under other circumstances. The<br />
illustrated account of his travels will be published<br />
by Messrs. Arch. Constable and Co. within a few<br />
weeks.<br />
A book of travels and studies, to be published<br />
early in February is Mr. Henry Norman's long-<br />
promised work on the Far East. It will be called<br />
“The Peoples and Politics of the Far East,” and<br />
will contain a series of chapters on each territorial<br />
or ethnological division of that part of the world<br />
—the British Empire, France, Russia, Spain, and<br />
Portugal in the Far East; and China, Japan,<br />
FCorea, Siam, and Malaya. In all these places<br />
Mr. Norman spent a considerable time, and one<br />
part of the Far East which he explored has not<br />
been visited by any white man either before or<br />
since his journey. The book will contain sixty<br />
illustrations, chiefly from his own photographs,<br />
and four maps, and will be published in one large<br />
volume, probably at a guinea, by Mr. T. Fisher<br />
Unwin.<br />
Messrs. Bliss, Sands, and Foster, a very young<br />
firm of publishers, have hit upon a useful idea in<br />
their series to be called “Public Men of To-day.”<br />
The following are already in preparation :-Li<br />
Hung Chang, by Professor Robert K. Douglas ;<br />
the Right Hon. Cecil Rhodes, by Edward Dicey,<br />
C.B.; the Ameer, by S. E. Wheeler; the German<br />
Emperor, by Charles Lowe ; Senor Castelar,<br />
by David Hannay. Later on we shall have<br />
President Cleveland, Signor Crispi, Lord Cromer,<br />
and M. Stambuloff,<br />
The past month has been an eventful one for<br />
Theosophists, so far as the world of publishing is<br />
concerned. Not only have the Westminster Gazette<br />
and the Daily Chronicle treated the subject,<br />
but Dr. Walter Leaf has published, through<br />
Messrs. Dongmans, an abridged translation, on<br />
behalf of the Society for Psychical Research, of<br />
M. Solovyoff's book, “A Modern Priestess of<br />
Isis.” This, it need hardly be said, is an exposure<br />
of Mme. Blavatsky; while Mr. Arthur Lillie's<br />
“Mme. Blavatsky and her Theosophy,” published<br />
by Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein and Co., is<br />
another stout volume devoted to “the most suc-<br />
cessful creed-maker of the last three hundred<br />
years.”<br />
University men, both of this country and the<br />
United States, should read Dr. George Birkbeck<br />
Hill’s “Harvard College, by an Oxonian.” It is<br />
an admirable account of the great American<br />
University, and, considering that it is the work of<br />
a visitor, it is a marvel of research and insight.<br />
The American Press has praised it highly, and<br />
we are astonished to see it dismissed by the<br />
Athenæum in one line.<br />
A special word is due to the completion of<br />
Professor Skeat's Oxford edition of Chaucer. It<br />
is dangerous to prophesy finality for any work,<br />
but it hardly seems likely that any edition of<br />
Chaucer in English can supersede this ideal one.<br />
The last volume is the sixth, but there is still to<br />
be a supplementary volume containing “The<br />
Testament of Love,” and other works which have<br />
been generally attributed to Chaucer.<br />
Mr. Douglas Sladen's volume on Canada will<br />
appear during February. It is not a discussion<br />
of the political questions or economic prospects in<br />
Canada, but a picturesque description of Canada<br />
as a part of the imperial route round the world.<br />
That is, it will deal chiefly, we understand, with<br />
the Canada of the Canadian Pacific Railway.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 245 (#259) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
2.45<br />
Messrs. Ward, Lock, and Bowden are the pub-<br />
lishers, and the book will be lavishly illus-<br />
trated.<br />
Two modern novels to appear during the<br />
coming month will be looked for with interest.<br />
One of them is “The Woman Who Did,” by<br />
Mr. Grant Allen, to be published by Mr. John<br />
Lane. Mr. Allen has hitherto consulted, in<br />
writing his fiction, what he has believed to be<br />
the taste of the public ; in this book he is under-<br />
stood to have consulted his own. He has been<br />
chaffed a good deal for having said that under<br />
present conditions of book-producing, a novelist<br />
was prevented from writing a work of art. In<br />
this book he has, we believe, defied the conven-<br />
tions sufficiently at all events to show his idea of<br />
a work of art in fiction, The curious title, by the<br />
way, is suggested by a conversation which occurs<br />
in the narrative, one man remarking that no<br />
woman would do such a thing, and the other<br />
retorting that he knew a woman who did.<br />
The second novel, called “Gallia,” by Miss<br />
Ménie Muriel Dowie, is the first book she has<br />
written since “A Girl in the Karpathians.”<br />
Gallia, the heroine, is the daughter of a Secre-<br />
tary of State for the Colonies, and the novel is a<br />
study of the character of one type of modern<br />
woman under such circumstances as those in<br />
which the life of his daughter would necessarily<br />
be spent. It is a one-volume novel, and will be<br />
published by Messrs. Methuen at 6s.<br />
The Queen has been pleased to accept the<br />
iatest volume of the new Sussex magazine, called<br />
Southward Ho / with a presentation poem by<br />
Mr. Charles William Dalmon. -<br />
Our readers will be interested to hear of some<br />
results of publishing one's own book that have<br />
just come to our knowledge. We are not at<br />
liberty at present to give the name of the book or<br />
the author, but we may say that it is a large<br />
volume, printed in admirable and almost lavish<br />
style, and sold by one of the first firms of London<br />
publishers for the author, on commission. The<br />
price is 18s., and the first edition, consisting of<br />
1500 copies, has now practically been sold. The<br />
cost of production was, roughly, 3:300, and the<br />
net profit to the author, who has given away an<br />
extravagant number of copies, will be £300 also.<br />
In fact, his balance-sheet will be better than<br />
this, for the cost of production is rather less<br />
than we have stated, while the returns will even-<br />
tually be rather more. Ten per cent. On 1500<br />
copies at 18s. would be £135. Verbum sap.<br />
A new style of literary advertisement has made<br />
its appearance this month. Mr. Fisher Unwin has<br />
issued a booklet, costing a shilling, called “Good<br />
Reading: About Many Books, mostly by their<br />
Authors.” It is, indeed, more than a booklet,<br />
for it contains 252 pages and upwards of forty<br />
portraits. The publisher has requested the<br />
authors of the principal books he has issued<br />
this season to send him an account of how, when,<br />
and why their book, &c., and they have responded<br />
liberally. Their contributions and photographs<br />
form the little volume. Among the contributors<br />
are John Oliver Hobbes, S. R. Crockett, Sir<br />
Chas. Gavan Duffy, Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner, Dr.<br />
Jessopp, Swift MacNeill, M.P., W. M. Conway,<br />
Henry Norman, Grant Allen, J. J. Jusserand,<br />
Alfred Perceval Graves, Louis Becke, Richard<br />
Watson Gilder, and George R. Sims. The book<br />
is, of course, intended to advertise the wares of<br />
the firm, but many of his authors have paid<br />
their publishers the compliment of sending him<br />
long and interesting reminiscences. It is addressed<br />
“To the Booksellers,” to remind them how<br />
important it is that merely “cheap reading”<br />
should not oust “good reading ” from the home<br />
shelves.<br />
Good Words begins in its present issue a series<br />
of papers by Mr. John Murray, called “Some<br />
Authors I have known.” It is needless to remind<br />
our readers how many of the greatest modern<br />
authors Mr. John Murray has known, either<br />
as his own friends or his father's. Some day,<br />
perhaps, an author will write on “Some Publishers<br />
I have known.”<br />
Mr. John Lane announces “The Story of Venus<br />
and Tannhäuser,” by Mr. Aubrey Beardsley,<br />
with twenty full-page illustrations. The subject<br />
obviously lends itself to both the merits and the<br />
gross defects of Mr. Beardsley’s style, and we<br />
can only hope that for this occasion at least he<br />
will have chosen to fling away the worser half of<br />
his talent. -<br />
Messrs. Longumans and Co. have in preparation<br />
a volume by Mr. Wilfred Ward on “Cardinal<br />
Wiseman’s Life and Times,” to which Mr.<br />
Gladstone, Lord Acton, and Cardinal Vaughan<br />
will contribute. Mr. Ward's volumes on cognate<br />
personalities have been among the most interest-<br />
ing volumes of their class that have been<br />
published for many years. -<br />
Messrs. Macmillan announce a new series of<br />
“Illustrated Standard Novels,” attractively<br />
printed, and priced at 3s. 6d. Every novel will<br />
have a prefatory notice by a critic of distinction,<br />
and will contain some forty illustrations. Among<br />
the first announcements are : “Castle Rackrent ‘’<br />
and “The Absentee,” by Maria Edgeworth,<br />
with introduction by Mrs. Thackeray Ritchie;<br />
“Japhet, in Search of a Father,” by Captain<br />
Marryat, introduction by David Hannay; “Tom<br />
Cringle's Dog,” by Michael Scott, introduction by<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 246 (#260) ############################################<br />
<br />
246<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
Mowbray Morris; “Maid Marian * and “Crotchet<br />
Castle,” by Thomas Love Peacock, introduction<br />
by George Saintsbury; “Lavengro.” by George<br />
Borrow, introduction by Augustine Birrell, M.P.;<br />
“Sense and Sensibility,” by Jane Austen, intro-<br />
duction by Austin Dobson.<br />
The month of February may possibly see the<br />
illustrated “Life and Correspondence” of the<br />
late Dante G. Rossetti. Messrs. Ellis and Elvey<br />
will publish the correspondence, which extends<br />
practically over Rossetti's entire lifetime.<br />
“A Year of Sport and Natural History,”<br />
edited by Mr. Oswald Crawfurd, and published<br />
by Messrs. Chapman and Hall at a guinea, will<br />
appear in February. It is to be a sort of<br />
Badminton Library in one volume, and will treat<br />
of shooting, hunting, fishing coursing, &c.,<br />
classified according to the months of the year in<br />
which these sports are pursued.<br />
Mr. Sonnenschein’s “Supplement” to his well-<br />
known and indeed invaluable work on “The Best<br />
Reading ” is now due. It is unnecessary to speak<br />
of the importance of this work. Everybody who<br />
is engaged in research of any kind has constant<br />
recourse to it.<br />
Mr. Frankfort Moore, author of “A Grey Eye<br />
or So?’ and “I forbid the Banns,” is about to<br />
change the subject of his fiction. Messrs.<br />
EIutchinson and Co, announce for immediate<br />
publication a novel by him called “The<br />
Secret of the Court,” dealing with life in the<br />
East.<br />
The daughter of the Archbishop of Canterbury,<br />
Miss Margaret Benson, has written a small<br />
volume, illustrated by herself, of sketches and<br />
studies of animals in their domestic relations. It<br />
is entitled “Subject to Vanity,” and Messrs.<br />
Methuen are the publishers. The daughter of<br />
Lord Salisbury, by the way, Lady Gwendolen<br />
Cecil, is now stated to be the author of the ghost<br />
story, “The Closed Cabinet,” in last month’s<br />
Blackwood.<br />
Everybody who writes for the press should<br />
procure a copy of the tiny pamphlet called “Rules<br />
for Compositors and Readers,” compiled by Mr.<br />
Horace Hart, printer to the University of Oxford,<br />
and giving definite and technical instructions<br />
regarding spelling, punctuation, and type-setting<br />
of disputed and doubful words and expressions,<br />
founded upon the “New English Dictionary.”<br />
Mr. Hart offers to send a copy to any printer's<br />
reader who applies for one, but no doubt other<br />
people could secure copies by a very small pay-<br />
ment. It is in the highest degree desirable that<br />
such authoritative uniformity should be intro-<br />
duced into our books and newspapers.<br />
Mr. John Lane has issued privately a very<br />
charming reprint, by Messrs. T. and A. Constable,<br />
of Edinburgh, of the “Life of Sir Thomas<br />
Bodley, written by Himself,” after whom Mr.<br />
Lane has named his publishing house. In a<br />
preface he gives an account of the founding of his<br />
business with Mr. Mathews, and its development<br />
into its present form.<br />
M. Pierre Loti has just issued in Paris another<br />
of his dreamy descriptions of the East, under the<br />
title of “Le Désert.” Although it is not yet<br />
issued to the public, it bears upon its title-page<br />
the legend, “twenty-eighth edition.”<br />
The third volume of the complete “Edinburgh<br />
Stevenson " has just appeared. It is the second<br />
volume of the sub-division “Travels and Excur-<br />
sions.” -<br />
Mr. E. F. Knight, well known for his admirable<br />
book on the Pamirs, called “Where Three Empires<br />
Meet,” has published through Messrs. Longmans,<br />
at 2s. 6d., an interesting description of the condi-<br />
tion and prospects of Matabeleland and Mashona-<br />
land, under the title “Rhodesia of To-Day.”<br />
In it he promises a history of the Chartered<br />
Company.<br />
The principal books of the past month are:–<br />
“The Life and Correspondence of Sir Bartle<br />
Frere,” by Mr. John Martineau (2 vols.: Murray);<br />
the late Mr. Walter Pater’s “Greek Studies: a<br />
Series of Essays * (Macmillan); Mr. G. A. Sala's<br />
“Reminiscences” (2 vols. : Cassell); Mr. Percy<br />
Fitzgerald’s “Memoirs of an Author’’ (2 vols. :<br />
Bentley); Mr. Gosse's new edition of Smith's<br />
“Nollekens and His Times,” with an essay on<br />
Georgian Sculpture by the editor (Bentley);<br />
“Forty Years at the Post-office,” by Mr. F. E.<br />
Baines, C.B. (2 vols. : Bentley); Mr. Horatio<br />
F. Brown’s “John Addington Symonds " (2 vols. :<br />
Nimmo); volume II. of the “State Papers<br />
relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada,”<br />
edited by Professor Laughton for the Navy<br />
Records Society; “The Hillyars and the Burtons,”<br />
the second volume in the reprint of Henr<br />
Kingsley, edited by Mr. Clement Shorter (Ward,<br />
Lock, and Co.); and Mr. George Saintsbury's<br />
“Corrected Impressions: Essays on Victorian<br />
Writers ” (Heinemann).<br />
Mr. Edward Clodd, the President of the Folk-<br />
lore Society and of the Omar Khayyam Club,<br />
whose two little books on “The Childhood of the<br />
World” and “The Childhood of Religions” have<br />
been almost classics for years, will be represented<br />
among the authors of February by two new<br />
works of a similar size and character. The first,<br />
“A Primer of Evolution,” will be published by<br />
Messrs. Longmans; and the second, “The Story<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 247 (#261) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
247<br />
of Man,” will form one of a series in preparation<br />
for George Newnes Limited. The first of these<br />
affords an illustration of the practical working<br />
of the American Copyright Act, as it is being<br />
manufactured in America for the British market.<br />
“A Blameless Woman’’ is the title of John<br />
Strange Winter's next novel, to be published, in .<br />
one volume, at 6s., by Messrs. F. W. White and<br />
Co. early in February. It is by far the longest<br />
story that the author of “Bootle's Baby" has<br />
yet written, being her first novel of three-<br />
volume length. The story is mainly a study<br />
In marriage.<br />
Messrs. Ward, Lock, and Bowden, Limited, will<br />
publish innmediately a new volume by Mr. George<br />
Meredith, entitled “The Tale of Chloe ; and other<br />
Stories.” It will consist of the famous “Lost<br />
Stories” of Mr. Meredith, without which, Mr.<br />
J. M. Barrie has said, no edition of his works<br />
can pretend to be complete. The publishers<br />
will also issue an édition de luate of the same<br />
volume, beautifully printed on hand-made paper,<br />
and artistically bound, half-parchment. Price<br />
25s. net. A unique feature of this large-paper<br />
edition is that it will contain as a frontispiece a<br />
recent privately taken portrait of Mr. Meredith,<br />
reproduced by the photogravure process by<br />
Messrs. Walker and Boutall; also a photogravure<br />
of the Châlet at Box Hill, where Mr. Meredith<br />
does the great part of his literary work. The<br />
edition, will consist of 250 numbered copies only<br />
for England and America.<br />
The author who writes under the name of<br />
“Hilarion ” has in the press a new book entitled<br />
“Greece : Her Hopes and Troubles.” A short<br />
story, entitled “Teddy,” by the same writer,<br />
appeared in the December number of “The<br />
Monthly Packet,” and his novel, “A Jersey<br />
Witch,” has been translated into Swedish, and is<br />
now running as a serial in Norra Skane one of<br />
the chief newspapers of Sweden, in which “Gräfin<br />
Kinsky,” also by “Hilarion,” appeared some<br />
time ago.<br />
The author of “A Forgotten Great English-<br />
man,” Mr. James Baker, is about to contribute a<br />
series of articles upon Egypt to some important<br />
journals, and has just left England for that<br />
country. He sailed on the 12th ult. from<br />
Plymouth by the ss. Austral.<br />
Sir William Charley, Q.C., D.C.L., has just<br />
published (Sampson Low, Marston, and Com-<br />
pany) a historical vindication of the House of<br />
Lords, which should be read by everybody<br />
interested in the subject—by those who defend<br />
the House of Lords, and by those who wish to pull<br />
it down ; the former will find arguments, the<br />
latter will learn to moderate their statements. It<br />
is, indeed, astonishing how loose and ignorant is<br />
the common kind of talk about the House of Lords.<br />
What is claimed to be the most complete<br />
history of modern art which has ever been<br />
attempted, will shortly be published by Messrs.<br />
Henry and Co. It is from the pen of Dr.<br />
Richard Muther, keeper of the Royal collection of<br />
prints and engravings at Munich, and will be a<br />
work of considerably over two thousand pages.<br />
The title will be “The History of Modern<br />
Painting.” The story opens with the English<br />
art of the eighteenth century, and treats at<br />
length of the English painters and illustrators<br />
of the present century. France, Germany,<br />
Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Italy, Norway,<br />
Sweden, and Spain occupy a share of the<br />
author's space ; America and American painters<br />
living abroad come in for due notice ; and even<br />
the influence of Japan on European art has not<br />
been overlooked. The work will be profus-ly<br />
illustrated. It will be issued both in parts and<br />
volumes.<br />
“The Old Pastures” is the pleasant and<br />
attractive title given by Mrs. Leith Adams to<br />
her new serial story, which will begin in House-<br />
hold Words On Jan. 26<br />
In the sonnet by the Rev. John Lascelles,<br />
quoted in our last number, there is an error.<br />
In the last line, “and stooped and kissed the<br />
dust” should be “and stooped and kissed my<br />
dust.”<br />
Mr. Headon Hill, the author of “The Rajah's<br />
Second Wife, &c., is correcting the proofs of a<br />
new volume of short stories shortly to be issued<br />
by Messrs. Ward, Lock, and Bowden Limited.<br />
The same author has also just completed and<br />
delivered a serial novel, written to the order of<br />
Mr. C. Arthur Pearson, of Pearson's Weekly,<br />
which will commence in August, and run through<br />
twenty issues of that journal.<br />
The “Confessions of a Poet’” (Hutchinson and<br />
Co.), by Prof. Harald Williams, is a volume of<br />
verse, the third volume which this poet has pro-<br />
duced. Most modern poets appear with a little<br />
dainty volume of tiny poems. Prof. Williams<br />
comes with a volume of closely printed lines, 500<br />
pages in length. We cannot in these pages<br />
review it as it deserves, but those of our readers<br />
who buy and read new books of verse we recom-<br />
mend to make a note of this, and not to be<br />
deterred by its length.<br />
Mr. Percival H. Almy will produce imme-<br />
diately a volume of verse called “Scintilla<br />
Carminis.” The publisher is Mr. Elliot Stock.<br />
The price of the work will be 3s. 6d.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 248 (#262) ############################################<br />
<br />
248<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
AN AMERICAN TRIBUTE TO STEVENSON.<br />
(From the New York Daily Tribune, Jan. 5.)<br />
HE Robert Louis Stevenson memorial<br />
meeting at Music Hall last night proved<br />
to be a worthily appropriate expression of .<br />
the grief that the death of the great romancer<br />
has caused among his numerous readers and<br />
friends in this city.<br />
On the stage were the president of the<br />
evening, Edmund Clarence Stedman, and most of<br />
the vice-presidents, among whom were included:<br />
William Dean Howells, Frank R. Stockton,<br />
Laurence Hutton, Professor George Woodberry,<br />
Moncure D. Conway, David Christie Murray,<br />
Joseph B. Gilder, Brander Matthews, Professor<br />
William M. Sloane, Richard Watson Gilder,<br />
FI. C. Brunner, Charles A. Dana, Professor T. R.<br />
Lounsbury, William Winter, Rudyard Kipling,<br />
Richard Henry Stoddard, George W. Cable, E. L.<br />
Godkin, Henry Marquand, Professor Francis H.<br />
Stoddard. George Parsons Lathrop, Edward<br />
Eggleston, Walter H. Page, and many others.<br />
Mr. Stedman’s address was as follows: “Such<br />
an assemblage—in the chief city in the Western<br />
World—is impressive from the fact that we<br />
have not come together for any civic, or<br />
political, or academic purpose. I have been<br />
thinking of its significance in view of con-<br />
siderations quite apart from the sorrowful cause<br />
of our gathering. But of these this is not the<br />
time to speak. On its face, this demonstration<br />
is a rare avowal of the worth of literary invention.<br />
It shows a profound regard for the career of a<br />
writer who delighted us, a sense of loss instan-<br />
taneously awakened by the news of his death.<br />
For the moment we realise how thoroughly art<br />
and song and letters have become for us an<br />
essential part of life—a common ground where-<br />
upon we join our human love and laughter and<br />
tears, and at times forego all else to strew laurel<br />
and myrtle for one who has moved us to these<br />
signs and emotions. Yes, we are brought together<br />
by tidings, almost from the Antipodes, of the<br />
death of a beloved writer in his early prime. The<br />
work of a romancer and poet, of a man of insight<br />
and feeling, which may be said to have begun<br />
but fifteen years ago, has ended, through fortune's<br />
sternest cyllicism, just as it seemed entering upon<br />
even more splendid achievement. A star surely<br />
rising, as we thought, has suddenly gone out. A<br />
radiant invention shines no more ; the voice is<br />
hushed of a creative mind, expressing its fine<br />
inaginings in this, our peerless English tongue.<br />
His expression was so original and fresh from<br />
Nature's treasure-house, so prodigal and various<br />
its too brief flow, so consummate through an<br />
inborn gift made perfect by unsparing toil, that<br />
mastery of the art by which Robert Louis<br />
Stevenson conveyed those imaginings to us so<br />
picturesque, yet wisely ordered, his own romantic<br />
life—and now, at last, so pathetic a loss which<br />
rene WS<br />
The Virgilian cry<br />
The sense of tears in mortal things<br />
that this assemblage has gathered at the first<br />
summons in tribute to a beautiful genius, and to<br />
avow that with the putting out of that bright<br />
intelligence the reading world experiences a more<br />
than wonted grief.<br />
Stevenson was not of our own people, though<br />
he sojourned with us and knew our con-<br />
tinent from east to west as few of this large<br />
audience can know it. But a British author now,<br />
by statutory edict, is of our own. Certainly his<br />
fame is often made by the American people—yes,<br />
and sometimes unmade. Theirs is the great<br />
amphitheatrum. They are the ultimate court of<br />
review. All the more we are here “for the honour<br />
of literature;” and so much the more it is mani-<br />
fest that the writer who lightens our hearts, who<br />
takes us into some new wonderland of his dis-<br />
covery, belongs, as I say, to the world. His name<br />
and fame are, indeed, a special glory of the<br />
country that bore him, and a vantage to his<br />
native tongue. But by just so much as his gift<br />
is absolute, and therefore universal, he belongs in<br />
the end to the world at large. Above all, it is<br />
the recounter—and the Greeks were clear-headed<br />
in deeming him a maker, whether his story be<br />
cast in prose or verse—who becomes the darling<br />
of mankind. This has been so whether among the<br />
Grecian isles, or around the desert camp fires, or<br />
in the gardens of Italy; and is so when he brings<br />
us his romance, as in our modern day, from Our<br />
Pacific Eldorado, or from Indian barracks and<br />
jungle, or from the land of the Stuarts, or, like<br />
Stevenson and our own Melville before him,<br />
from palm-fringed beaches of the Southern<br />
Sëa,S.<br />
Judged by the sum of his interrupted work,<br />
Stevenson had his limitations. But the work was<br />
adjusted to the scale of a possibly long career.<br />
As it was, the good fairies brought all gifts, save<br />
that of health, to his cradle, and the gift-spoiler<br />
wrapped them in a shroud. Thinking of what<br />
his art seemed leading to—for things that would<br />
be the crowning efforts of other men seemed<br />
prentice-work in his case—it was not safe to<br />
bound his limitations. And now it is as if Sir<br />
Walter, for example, had died at forty-four, with<br />
the Waverley novels just begun. In originality,<br />
in the conception of action and situation, which,<br />
however fantastic, are seemingly within reason,<br />
once we breathe the air of his Fancyland; in the<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 249 (#263) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
249<br />
union of bracing and heroic character and adven-<br />
ture; in all that belongs to tale-writing pure and<br />
simple, his gift was exhaustless. No other such<br />
charmer, in this wise, has appeared in this gene-<br />
ration. We thought the stories, the fairy tales,<br />
had all been told, but “Once upon a time” meant<br />
for him our own time, and the grave and gay<br />
magic of Prince Florizel in dingy London or<br />
Sunny France. All this is but one of his provinces,<br />
however distinctive. Besides, how he buttressed<br />
his romance with apparent truth ! Since Defoe,<br />
none had a better right to say: “There was one<br />
thing I determined to do when I began this long<br />
story, and that was to tell out everything as it<br />
befell.”<br />
One or two points are made clear as we look at<br />
the shining calendar of Stevenson's productive<br />
years. It strengthens one in the faith that work<br />
of the first order cannot remain obscure. If put<br />
forth unheralded it will be found out and will make<br />
its way. In respect of dramatic force, exuberant<br />
fancy and ceaselessly varying imagination, on the<br />
one hand, and on the other of a style wrought in<br />
the purest, most virile and most direct temper of<br />
English narrative prose, there has been no latter-<br />
day writing more effective than that of Stevenson's<br />
longer fictions—“Kidnapped,” with its sequel,<br />
“David Balfour; ” “The Master of Ballantrae,”<br />
and that most poetic of absolute romances,<br />
“Prince Otto.” But each of his shorter tales<br />
as well, and of his essays — charged with indi-<br />
viduality —has a quality, an air of distinction,<br />
which, even though the thing appeared without<br />
signature, differentiated it from other people's<br />
best, set us to discovering its authorship, and<br />
made us quick to recognise that master-hand<br />
elsewhere.<br />
Thus I remember delighting in two fascinating<br />
stories of Paris in the time of Francois Willon,<br />
anonymously reprinted by a New York paper from<br />
a London magazine. They had all the quality, all<br />
the distinction, of which I speak. Shortly after-<br />
ward I met Mr. Stevenson, then in his twenty-<br />
ninth year, at a London club, where we chanced<br />
to be the only loungers in an upper room. To<br />
my surprise he opened a conversation—you know<br />
there could be nothing more unexpected than that<br />
in London—and thereby I guessed that he was<br />
as much, if not as far, away from home as I was.<br />
He asked many questions concerning “the<br />
States; ” in fact, this was but a few months<br />
before he took his steerage passage for our shores.<br />
I was drawn to the young Scotsman at once. He<br />
seemed more like a New Englander of Holmes's<br />
Brahmin caste, who might have come from<br />
Harvard or Yale. But as he grew animated I<br />
thought, as others have thought, and as one<br />
would suspect from his name, that he must have<br />
Scandinavian blood in his veins—that he was of<br />
the heroic, restless, strong and tender Viking<br />
strain, and certainly from that day his works and<br />
wanderings have not belied the surmise. He told<br />
me that he was the author of that charming book<br />
of gipsying in the Cevennes, which just then<br />
had gained for him some attentions from<br />
the literary set. But if I had known that he<br />
had written those two stories of sixteenth<br />
century Paris—as I learned afterwards when<br />
they reappeared in the “New Arabian Nights”<br />
—I would not have bidden him goodbye as<br />
to an “unfledged comrade,” but would have<br />
wished indeed to “grapple him to my soul with<br />
hooks of steel.”<br />
Another point is made clear as crystal by his<br />
life itself. He had the instinct, and he had the<br />
courage, to make it the servant, and not the<br />
master, of the faculty within him. I say he had<br />
the courage, but so potent was his birth-spell<br />
that doubtless he could not otherwise. Nothing<br />
commonplace sufficed him. A regulation stay-at-<br />
home life would have been fatal to his art. The<br />
ancient mandate, “ Follow thy Genius,” was well<br />
obeyed. Unshackled freedom of person and<br />
habit was a pre-requisite; as an imaginary artist<br />
he felt—Nature keeps her poets and story-tellers<br />
children to the last—he felt, if he ever reasoned<br />
it out, that he must gang his own gait, whether<br />
it seemed promising, or the reverse, to kith, kin,<br />
or alien. So his wanderings were not only in the<br />
most natural but in the wisest consonance with<br />
his creative dreams. Wherever he went, he<br />
found something essential for his use, breathed<br />
upon it, and returned it fourfold in beauty and<br />
worth. The longing of the Norseman for the<br />
tropic, of the pine for the palm, took him to the<br />
South Seas. There, too, strange secrets were at<br />
Once revealed to him, and every island became an<br />
“Isle of Voices.” Yes, an additional proof of<br />
Stevenson's artistic mission lay in his careless,<br />
careful, liberty of life; in that he was an artist<br />
no less than in his work. He trusted to the<br />
impulse which possessed him—that which so many<br />
of us have conscientiously disobeyed, and too late<br />
have found themselves in reputable bondage to<br />
circumstances.<br />
But those whom you are waiting to hear will<br />
speak more fully of all this—some of them with<br />
the interest of their personal remembrance—<br />
with the strength of their affection for the man<br />
beloved by young and old. In the strange and<br />
sudden intimacy with an author's record which<br />
death makes sure, we realise how notable is the list<br />
of Stevenson's works produced since 1878; more<br />
than a score of books—not fiction alone, but also<br />
essays, criticism, biography, drama, even history,<br />
and, as I need not remind you, that spontaneous<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 250 (#264) ############################################<br />
<br />
250<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
poetry which comes only from a true poet.<br />
None can have failed to observe that, having<br />
recreated the story of adventure, he seemed in<br />
his later fiction to interfuse a subtler purpose—<br />
the search for character, the analysis of mind<br />
and soul. Just here his summons came. Between<br />
the sunrise of one day and the sunset of the<br />
next he exchanged the forest study for the<br />
mountain grave. There, as he had sung his own<br />
wish, he lies “under the wide and starry sky.”<br />
If there was something of his own romance, so<br />
exquisitely capricious, in the life of Robert Louis<br />
Stevenson, so, also, the poetic conditions are<br />
satisfied in his death, and in the choice of his<br />
burial-place upon the top of Pala. As for the<br />
splendour of that maturity upon which we<br />
counted, now never to be fulfilled on sea or<br />
land, I say—as once before, when the great New-<br />
England romancer passed in the stillness of the<br />
night:<br />
What though his work unfinished lies P<br />
The rainbow’s arch fades out in upper air ;<br />
The shiming cataract half-way down the height<br />
Breaks into mist; the haunting strain, that fell<br />
On listeners unaware,<br />
Ends incomplete, but through the starry night<br />
The ear still waits for what it did not tell.<br />
Half bent<br />
*- As 2-se<br />
r- - -e<br />
CORRESPONDENCE<br />
I.—How LONG TO WAIT P<br />
J.<br />
OUILD not all editors agree upon a certain<br />
C set of rules, such as these ?<br />
All MSS. to be sent with stamped<br />
addressed envelopes, months allowed for<br />
reading and decision. A proof sent upon accept-<br />
ance, and the MS. paid for at the end of the month<br />
(or some other given time). Where MSS. are<br />
not returned let a certain time be stated, after<br />
which the author may conclude that his work<br />
is cremated; or, when rejected MSS. are not<br />
returned, let it be noted that acceptance will<br />
be notified to the author within a given time,<br />
otherwise he may conclude that the MS. is<br />
destroyed.<br />
It certainly is a grievance that authors have<br />
no means of ascertaining how long they must<br />
wait for news, good or bad, of their MSS., or<br />
when they are to consider that, having a copy,<br />
they may sent it elsewhere. *<br />
II.<br />
“If I send a contribution to a paper which<br />
declines to return rejected communications, how<br />
am I to know whether it is relegated to the waste<br />
paper basket or reserved for future use? And<br />
am I at liberty, after a month say, to offer my<br />
jeu d'esprit elsewhere, or must it be lost for<br />
ever ??”<br />
[There is no custom by which a contributor<br />
may be guided in such a case. The best way<br />
would be (1) always to keep a copy; (2) to write,<br />
after a month or so, and inform the editor that<br />
the author of such a paper will send it to another<br />
editor unless he hears that it is accepted. A copy<br />
of this letter should be kept.]<br />
II.-A MEMORIAL TO ROBERT Louis<br />
STEVENSON.<br />
I wish to call your attention to the following<br />
letter, which appeared in the Westminster Gazette<br />
of the 17th ult., in reference to a memorial to<br />
Robert Louis Stevenson.<br />
As “a rider” to the letter, may I suggest<br />
that a committee be at once formed, say, of<br />
half a dozen or more, of the best living names in<br />
literature, to discuss and carry out the scheme,<br />
which I think must commend itself to the<br />
followers of literature and to the public.<br />
Will you, Sir, set the ball still further rolling P<br />
THOMAS R. MACQUOID.<br />
The Edge, Tooting Common.<br />
Robert Louis Stevenson’s inimitable work will keep his<br />
memory green ; but his countless readers owe him for this<br />
work a large debt of gratitude, which they are bound to pay<br />
to his memory.<br />
This tribute, I think, should be paid not in the form of a<br />
statue or of any work of art, but rather by the founding of<br />
some institution connected with literature—which has been<br />
made so much richer by this master's work. Will not some<br />
of our leading authors and others form a committee to<br />
carry out this idea, and when a sufficient sum is collected to<br />
determine on the nature of the memorial P<br />
It seems to me a large sum would soon be raised, even by<br />
small contributions, from Stevenson’s admirers.<br />
THOMAS R. MACQUOID.<br />
The Edge, Tooting Common, Jan. I5.<br />
III.-A WHOLE ARTICLE QUOTED.<br />
Some years ago, my friend, the editor of the<br />
North China Daily News at Shanghai, requested<br />
me to write for him an account of a visit paid by<br />
me to Lord Tennyson at Farringford House,<br />
Freshwater. The article was published in due<br />
course, and the editor sent me a few reprints of<br />
it in proof form, which I have kept by me ever<br />
Sll) Ce,<br />
One evening last December I happened to take<br />
up a copy of Galignani’s Messenger. Conceive<br />
my astonishment at finding in it my own article<br />
headed “Reminiscences of Tennyson,” and intro-<br />
duced by a statement that “A correspondent<br />
sends us the following interesting account of a<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 251 (#265) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
25 I<br />
visit,” &c. l I immediately wrote to the editor<br />
claiming the article as my own, inclosing slips of<br />
the original reprint from the North China Daily<br />
News, signed B., together with my card, and<br />
requesting the insertion of my protest. No notice<br />
whatever was taken, After waiting more than a<br />
week I wrote again, with precisely the same<br />
result.<br />
Now, if the editor of Galignani’s Messenger<br />
had been duped by his “correspondent,” he would<br />
surely have lost no time in exposing the fact, and<br />
doing justice to the real author. As he did not<br />
do so, am I unreasonable in attributing his dis-<br />
courtesy to the very possible fact that my article<br />
was simply “conveyed ” to the columns of the<br />
Messenger in his own office, and that his obliging<br />
“Correspondent,” is a myth?<br />
FREDERIC H. BALFOUR.<br />
Willa, Carlandrea, San Remo,<br />
Jan. 1895.<br />
Since the above was written, the following<br />
paragraph has appeared in Galignani :<br />
We are requested to state that Mr. Frederic H. Balfour,<br />
formerly of Shanghai, was the author of the interesting<br />
article entitled “Reminiscences of Tennyson,” published in<br />
our columns on the 26th ult.<br />
This explanation explains nothing. It does<br />
not acknowledge the fact that the paper was taken<br />
from the North China Daily News, and it makes<br />
it appear as if Mr. Balfour had sent the article to<br />
the Messenger.<br />
IV.-AMERICAN REPRINTs.<br />
The other day a friend, who has occasion to see<br />
some of the American papers, saw in one of them<br />
the announcement of a New York publisher offer-<br />
ing several recent successful English novels at 20<br />
cents, a copy. He wrote for four—“The Yellow<br />
Aster,” “Dodo,” “Esther Waters,” and another.<br />
I told him he had thrown his money away, but,<br />
much to my astonishment, he has just received<br />
the books. They have come through the post in<br />
an ordinary wrapper. One would like to know<br />
(1) whether this sort of thing is done to any<br />
extent; (2) whether there is any way of stopping<br />
H. J. A.<br />
it.<br />
W.—EARLY EDITIONS OF By RoN.<br />
May I ask through the columns of the Author<br />
if first or early editions of Byron's works are<br />
scarce or of any value P I have what appears to<br />
be a first edition of “The Prisoner of Chillon,”<br />
in a brown paper cover, and published in 1816.<br />
It contains an advertisement “Published this<br />
day, in 8vo., 5s. 6d., a Third Canto of ‘Childe<br />
FIarold.’” With “The Prisoner of Chillon’’ are<br />
published a “Sonnet,” “Stanzas to —,”<br />
5<br />
“Darkness,” “Churchill's Grave,” “The Dream,”<br />
“The Incantation,” and “Prometheus.” I have<br />
also editions of “The Bride of Abydos,” and<br />
“The Giaour;” the former a second edition, the<br />
latter a fifth, published in 1813.<br />
In my edition of “Mazeppa,” which appears<br />
with “The Ode to Venice,” there is appended a<br />
weird story in prose called “A Fragment,” and<br />
dated June 17, 1816. It deals with a strange<br />
and mysterious incident, which would seem to<br />
have happened to Lord Byron himself, as it is<br />
told in his own person. I should like to know<br />
if this “Fragment” is generally bound up with<br />
Lord Byron's poems ? It is not to be found in<br />
a complete edition which I have. I do not<br />
remember seeing it anywhere else than at the<br />
end of this poem of “ Mazeppa,” printed in<br />
1810.<br />
# may be that some readers of the Author<br />
may be able and willing to give the information<br />
I seek.<br />
CHARLES D. BELL.<br />
The Rectory, Cheltenham,<br />
Jan. I I, I895.<br />
VI.-IIITERARY PENSIONs.<br />
Would it be going outside the province of the<br />
Author, or I may say the Society of Authors,<br />
if they strive to bring before Parliament the<br />
question of literary pensions, both as regards the<br />
inadequacy of the amount at present distributed<br />
and the way it is apportioned P<br />
This matter has been forcibly brought to my<br />
mind through the call at my office some time<br />
back of a technical writer asking for a donation<br />
owing to his destitute circumstances. This<br />
gentleman some years ago wrote several impor-<br />
tant engineering books, which were accepted as<br />
standard works, and I have no hesitation in<br />
saying that they have been of absolute money<br />
value, not only to this country but to the world<br />
at large. Owing to the necessarily limited circu-<br />
lation of purely technical works it is impossible<br />
for the writers thereof to make much money<br />
directly from them, and if they have no other<br />
vocation they may, if lucky, develop into a<br />
technical publisher's literary hack—if not, starve,<br />
In a wealthy country like England the amount<br />
set apart for literary pensions, and for helping<br />
such cases as I have described, appears to me to<br />
be absolutely beggarly, and a standing disgrace<br />
when we bear in mind the vast sums that are<br />
annually lavished in other ways. Is there no<br />
way of altering this, or at any rate trying to ?<br />
M. PowIS BALE.<br />
*º-º-º-º-e<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 252 (#266) ############################################<br />
<br />
252<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
VII.-REVIEWING.<br />
I trust you will not consider it an impertinence<br />
on my part in writing to you upon a subject<br />
which, after all, has some importance with respect<br />
to the vast reading community of England. I mean<br />
the art of criticism, and more particularly that<br />
section of it which has to do with modern fiction.<br />
It is a custom in these days, in lieu of careful and<br />
legitimate criticism, to provide a mere summary<br />
of a book, to lay bare the plot and motive of the<br />
story—the very soul and nervous system. To<br />
illustrate my point I will refer only to “The<br />
Manxman,” the thorough appreciation of which<br />
has been quite spoilt for me owing to the fact that<br />
I have already gathered from certain newspaper<br />
reviews of the story, a concise précis thereof,<br />
and in this case one's chagrin and disappointment<br />
is especially keen, because “The Manxman ’’ is<br />
unquestionably one of the noblest efforts in fiction<br />
of the present generation. Now this certainly<br />
seems to me utterly unfair, both to the author and<br />
his readers, for it must, to some extent at all<br />
events, detract from the popularity and kudos<br />
that would otherwise accrue to the former, as it<br />
very certainly lessens the ardour and interest of<br />
the latter, who is forewarned of every turn of<br />
event, and consequently misses one half of the<br />
interest in the development of character and plot<br />
as the story progresses.<br />
Surely, it is not beyond the wit of man to<br />
estimate a novel, to decide upon its quality and<br />
claims for popular favour, and so forth, without<br />
undraping and laying bare its very skeleton.<br />
*- a -º<br />
a- - -<br />
THE LATE JOHN O'NEILL,<br />
E have to record the death of a member<br />
of the Society who took the deepest<br />
interest in its work, and has from time<br />
to time communicated papers of great interest to<br />
these columns. Only a few days before his death<br />
he offered the editor a collection of notes on<br />
literary matters. The following notice of his life<br />
and work is from the Times of Jan. 2 I :<br />
Mr. John O'Neill, who died a few days ago at<br />
Selling, in Kent, was a man of rare and recondite<br />
erudition. He began his career in the War Office,<br />
where his ability caused him to be often selected<br />
for difficult work lying outside the routine of the<br />
department. After retiring on his pension he<br />
was selected by the Foreign Office as Accountant-<br />
General to the newly appointed British Govern-<br />
ment of Cyprus. He solved to the complete<br />
satisfaction of Sir Garnet Wolseley, the first<br />
Governor, the difficult problem of evolving order<br />
out of the complicated fiscal difficulties left by the<br />
Ottoman administration of the island. Eleven<br />
different currencies had to be dealt with and<br />
reduced to a common denomination, without<br />
injury to the revenues, to commerce, or private<br />
interests, and this task Mr. O'Neill most success-<br />
fully achieved. Endowed with an exceptional<br />
faculty for mastering languages, he made a<br />
special study of Japanese, and the grammar he<br />
compiled in that difficult tongue was adopted by<br />
the Government of the Mikado when the work of<br />
reconstituting the educational system of Japan<br />
was resolved upon. For many years Mr. O'Neill<br />
was a constant contributor to philological and<br />
literary journals in London and Paris; he was a<br />
recognised authority on Provençal literature and<br />
the Provençal languge, as well as on the medieval<br />
literature of France. Recently he published,<br />
through Mr. Quaritch, the first volume of “The<br />
Night of the Gods,” a work in which he em-<br />
bodied the results of his lifelong study of the<br />
origins of religions, not only among the Aryan<br />
and Semitic races, but among the Chinese, Japa-<br />
nese, and Mexicans. The second and concluding<br />
volume of this work is in the press, and will<br />
shortly be published.<br />
*– 2 --><br />
-*<br />
THE REWARDS OF LITERATURE.<br />
I have just heard from Smith and Elder about<br />
the publication of my two volumes on the Catholic<br />
Revival. They offer me 3150. In respect to<br />
“Renaissance in Italy,” I have already received<br />
£950. When, then, I have brought out these two<br />
volumes, I shall have had in all 31 IOO for this<br />
long bit of work. Allowing for periods in which<br />
I was unfit to work, periods in which I sought a<br />
change of work, I find that I have spent eleven<br />
years upon this task, and pretty hard years of<br />
daily labour. The education which enabled me to<br />
attempt it was a very costly one, and the abilities<br />
which qualified me for it, though not first-rate,<br />
were at least unusual in their combination of<br />
many-sided intelligence with acquired knowledge<br />
and literary style. I have then been paid at the<br />
rate of £100 per annum; but I must deduct at<br />
least £50 per annum from my gains for books and<br />
travel, quite indispensable to the production. This<br />
I reckon as really far below the just allowance.<br />
Say, then, I have received £50 a year during the<br />
eleven best years of life for the eaecution of a<br />
laborious work, which implied an earpensive educa-<br />
tion and unusual cast of intellect. The pay is<br />
about equal to the wages of a third-class merchant's<br />
clerk or a second class butler, the latter being also<br />
found in food and lodging.—From the “Life of<br />
John Addington Symons. | https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/273/1895-02-01-The-Author-5-9.pdf | publications, The Author |