| 319 | https://historysoa.com/items/show/319 | The Author, Vol. 09 Issue 03 (August 1898) | <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.+09+Issue+03+%28August+1898%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 09 Issue 03 (August 1898)</a> | | | <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101063829988" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101063829988</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> | 1898-08-01-The-Author-9-3 | | | | | 57–80 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=9">9</a> | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1898-08-01">1898-08-01</a> | | | | | | | 3 | | | 18980801 | Tthe Butbot\<br />
(The Organ of the Incorporated Society Authors. Monthly.)<br />
CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT.<br />
Tol. IX.—No. 3.] AUGUST 1, 1898. [Price Sixpence.<br />
For the Opinions expressed 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 expressing the<br />
collective opinions of the Committee unless<br />
they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br />
Thring, Sec.<br />
THE 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 />
GENERAL MEMORANDA.<br />
FOR some years it has been the praotioe to insert, in<br />
every number of The Author, certain " General Con-<br />
siderations," Warnings, Notices, &c, for the guidance<br />
of the reader. It has been objected as regards these<br />
warnings that the tricks or frauds against which they are<br />
directed cannot all be guarded against, for obvious reasons.<br />
It is, however, well that they should be borne in mind, and<br />
if any publisher refuses a clause of precaution he simply<br />
reveals his true character, and should be left to carry on<br />
his business in his own way.<br />
Let us, however, draw up a few of the rules to be<br />
observed in an agreement. There are three methods of<br />
dealing with literary property:—<br />
I. That of selling it outright.<br />
This is in some respects the most satisfactory, if a proper<br />
price can be obtained. But the transaction should be<br />
managed by a competent agent.<br />
II. A profit-sharing agreement.<br />
In this Case the following rules should be attended to:<br />
(1.) Not to sign any agreement in which the cost of pro-<br />
duction forms a part.<br />
(2.) Not to give the publisher the power of putting the<br />
profits into his own pocket by charging for advertisements<br />
VOL. IX.<br />
in his own organs: or by charging exchange advertise-<br />
ments.<br />
(3.) Not to allow a special charge for " office expenses,"<br />
unless the same allowance is made to the author.<br />
(4.) Not to give up American, Colonial, or Continental<br />
rights.<br />
(5.) Not to give up serial or translation rights.<br />
(6.) Not to bind yourself for future work to any publisher.<br />
As well bind yourself for the future to any one solicitor or<br />
doctor!<br />
(7.) To stamp the agreement.<br />
III. The royalty system.<br />
In this system, which has opened the door to a most<br />
amazing amount of overreaching and trading on the<br />
author's ignorance, it is above all things necessary to know<br />
what the proposed royalty means to both "idea. It is now<br />
possible for an author to ascertain approximately and very<br />
nearly the truth. From time to time the very important<br />
figures connected with royalties are published in The Author.<br />
Headers con also work out the figures themselves from the<br />
"Cost of Production." Let no one, not even the youngest<br />
writer, sign a royalty agreement without finding out what<br />
it gives the publisher as well as himself.<br />
It has been objected that these precautions presuppose a<br />
great success for the book, and that very few books indeed<br />
attain to this great success. That is quite true: but there is<br />
always this uncertainty of literary property that, although<br />
the works of a great many authors carry with them no risk<br />
at all, and although of a great many it is known within a few<br />
copies what will be their minimum circulation, it is not<br />
known what will bo their maximum. Therefore every<br />
author, for every book, should arrange on the chance of a<br />
success which will not, probably, come at all; but which<br />
may come.<br />
The four points which the Society has always demanded<br />
from the outset are:—<br />
(1.) That both sides shall know what an agreement<br />
means.<br />
(2.) The inspection of those account books which belong<br />
to the author. We are advised that this is a right, in the<br />
nature of a common law right, which cannot be denied or<br />
withheld.<br />
(3.) That there shall be no secret profits.<br />
(4.) That nothing shall be charged which has not been<br />
actually paid—for instance, that there shall be no charge for<br />
advertisements in the publisher's own organs and none for<br />
exchanged advertisements and that all discount* shall be<br />
duly entered.<br />
If these points are carefully looked after, the author ma -<br />
rest pretty well assured that he is in right hands. At the<br />
same time he will do well to send his agreement to the<br />
secretary before he signs it.<br />
p 2<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 58 (#70) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br />
I. |j> VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive<br />
Xli advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub-<br />
lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of hie<br />
business or the administration of his property. If the advice<br />
sought is snch 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 snch 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 nouses—the tricks of every publish-<br />
ing firm in the country.<br />
7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society yon<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 Author notes of every-<br />
thing important to literature that yon may hear or meet<br />
with.<br />
9. The Committee have now arranged for the reception of<br />
members' agreements and their preservation in a fireproof<br />
safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con-<br />
fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who<br />
will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:—(1)<br />
To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To<br />
stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon<br />
them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments<br />
due according to agreements.<br />
Communications for The Author should reach the Editor<br />
not later than the 21 st of each month.<br />
All persons engaged in literary work of any kind,<br />
whether members of the Society or not, are invited to<br />
communicate to the Editor any points connected with their<br />
work which it would be advisable in the general interest to<br />
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 ia<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 present location of the Authors' Club is at 3, White-<br />
hall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for<br />
information, rules of admission, .sc.<br />
Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br />
have paid their subscriptions for the year? 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 ont a reminder<br />
Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br />
following warning. 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<br />
five years to come, whatever his oonduct, whether he<br />
was honest or dishonest? Of course they would not.<br />
Why then hesitate for a moment when they are asked to<br />
sign themselves into literary bondage for three or five<br />
years?<br />
"Those who possess the 'Cost of Production'<br />
requested to note that the oost of binding has advanoed 1<br />
per cent." This clause was inserted three or four years ago.<br />
Estimates have, however, recently been obtained which show<br />
that the figures in the book may be relied on as nearly<br />
correct: as near as is possible.<br />
Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br />
in the " Cost of Production" for advertising. Of course, we<br />
have not inclnded 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 />
NOTICES.<br />
111HE Editor of The Author begs to remind members of the<br />
I Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br />
of charge, the oost 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?<br />
FROM THE COMMITTEE.<br />
THE Chairman has resolved to postpone call-<br />
ing a meeting of the Council to consider<br />
the nature of the claims advanced in the<br />
draft agreements issued b_v the Publishers' Asso.<br />
ciation until October after the summer holidays.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 59 (#71) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR. 59<br />
LITERARY PROPERTY.<br />
The Pttblishers' Draft Agreements.<br />
I.<br />
THE following letter has been received by<br />
the secretary from Sir Frederick Pol-<br />
lock :—<br />
"Dear Mr. Thring,—I was preparing an<br />
answer to your letter asking for opinions on the<br />
draft forms of agreement issued by the Pub-<br />
lishers' Association, when I saw the comments<br />
thereon in the current number of the Athenseum,<br />
a journal not suspected, I believe, of undue par-<br />
tiality to authors as against publishers. Those<br />
comments appear to me to suffice for the present.<br />
I feel bound to add that no draft at all like<br />
these forms has ever been proposed to me in<br />
practice, either on my own behalf or as acting for<br />
others.<br />
"I hope the Committee of the Society will not<br />
follow the mistake of the Publishers' Association<br />
utting forward other forms of its own, but<br />
rather obtain permission to publish, with the<br />
omission of names, examples of actual agree-<br />
ments which have been approved by the Com-<br />
mittee or the Secretary.<br />
"My own experience is that, with a reasonable<br />
amount of mutual trust, very simple forms are<br />
enough. "Yours sincerely,<br />
"F. Pollock."<br />
"13, Old-Square, Lincoln's-inn.<br />
"July 11, 1898."<br />
II.<br />
To the Editor of The Author.<br />
I have seen the draft contracts. Nothing that<br />
you, or The A uthor, or the whole Society has ever<br />
done to, or said about, the publisher will condemn<br />
him half as thoroughly as his own notions of<br />
fairness set forth for him, by his own lawyer, in<br />
his own way. Can one say more than that?<br />
Rudyard Kipling.<br />
Eottingdean, July 23, 1898.<br />
III.<br />
Every author in England should be deeply<br />
grateful to the Sub-Committee of the Authors'<br />
Society and " W. B." for their masterly exposure<br />
of the schemes of the Publishers' Association as<br />
set forth in certain draft agreements published at<br />
length in The Author of July 1. I have pub-<br />
lished books by almost every method provided for<br />
by these agreements, and can indorse the criti-<br />
cisms to which these agreements have been sub-<br />
jected. Many men reading these criticisms<br />
would no doubt say, "Ah! These are only fears<br />
of what may happen. Our good champions are<br />
timorous." But, as a matter of fact, authors by<br />
the score—I may say by the hundred—have<br />
already entered into such agreements, and have<br />
been, not to put too fine a point upon it, fleeced.<br />
A publisher of repute once said very candidly<br />
to an author who was sitting in his office, care-<br />
fully working out a form of agreement, " My dear<br />
Sir, it really doesn't matter how careful you are.<br />
If I want to swindle you I can." That being so,<br />
it seems to me that as those firms who are respon-<br />
sible for these draft agreements are evidently<br />
desirous of taking an unfair advantage of authors,<br />
we authors should know their names and care-<br />
fully avoid having any dealings with them. The<br />
time is rapidly coming when authors whose<br />
works have a monetary value will in self-<br />
defence combine together and publish without<br />
the assistance of the gentlemen who charge them<br />
10 per cent. for office expenses, account only for<br />
twelve books out of every thirteen sold, do not<br />
account at all for "overs (copies printed on the<br />
additional sheets of paper found in every ream),<br />
and who, in "half-profit" agreements, make<br />
secret profits. More than one author of repute,<br />
commencing with the veteran novelist, Miss<br />
Braddon, has already given up the old publish-<br />
ing systems and embarked on the far simpler,<br />
and very much more satisfactory, method of<br />
sending MSS. to the printer, and the quires when<br />
printed to the binder, and placing the books<br />
when ready in the hands of a large distributing<br />
agent. This system leaves no possibility of<br />
fraud, unless the distributing agent took the very<br />
serious step of having a special edition of the<br />
book printed for himself, which is not very<br />
likely; the author knows what number of copies<br />
are printed and bound; he knows what they<br />
cost; he gets the advantage of all discounts, and<br />
he knows exactly what is sold. What method<br />
could be simpler? "What method could be more<br />
profitable to the author?<br />
There is much nonsense talked about the value<br />
of a publisher's name to a book. The publisher's<br />
name may aid the young beginner to the sale of<br />
100 copies, for Messrs. Smith, Brown, Jones, and<br />
Robinson, unfortunate booksellers, who are<br />
perhaps greatly in debt to certain firms, can<br />
hardly refuse to take a copy or two when the<br />
traveller goes round and presses them upon him;<br />
but as regards the author who has made a name<br />
I do not believe the publisher's imprint is of the<br />
least assistance. If the public like a book, and<br />
want it, they buy it whoever may be the pub-<br />
lisher, and the booksellers are eager to stock<br />
books which they feel sure will sell.<br />
I would strongly advise authors to on no<br />
account enter into a publishing agreement based<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 60 (#72) ##############################################<br />
<br />
6o<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
on the half-profit system. This was very rightly<br />
termed by an honest publisher of my acquaintance<br />
"a swindle," and invariably works most unfairly<br />
against the author. If the author is supposed<br />
to pay half the cost and receive half the profits,<br />
he as a rule unwittingly pays more than half the<br />
costs, and the publisher takes more than half the<br />
profits under the various pleas of office expenses,<br />
advertising in his own magazines, and so forth.<br />
Even where the publisher pays all expenses, and<br />
agrees to give the author half profits, he fre-<br />
quently makes the book appear in his account so<br />
costly that no profits are shown even when<br />
several thousand copies have been sold.<br />
To sell a book outright is a satisfactory arrange-<br />
ment, but if the author has a large circle of readers<br />
his most profitable course is unquestionably to pro-<br />
duce the book himself, and distribute it to the<br />
trade through the usual channels. There is<br />
nothing to be said against the royalty system, if<br />
the royalty is sufficient, is paid on every copy sold,<br />
and if the publisher renders true returns of sales,<br />
which, it is to be feared, is not always the case.<br />
But as regards the half-profit system, let us have<br />
none of it; it is a trap, and nothing but a trap.<br />
Experience.<br />
IV.<br />
I have read the Draft Agreements with sheer<br />
amazement. Can it be possible that a body of men,<br />
one or two at least of whom have always been<br />
accepted as honourable and upright men, are<br />
daring enough to endorse what appears to the<br />
world at large as simply a scheme of intended<br />
plunder? The Author has been outspoken<br />
enough—too outspoken at times in my former<br />
opinion. We now understand that nothing that<br />
has ever appeared in these columns has been too<br />
strong for the facts of the case. In the whole<br />
history of trade I know of nothing so hopelessly<br />
bad, so inexcusably and phenomenally grasping.<br />
The author creates a property—big or little. The<br />
publisher claims practically the right to the whole<br />
of it. He reserves the right by these agreements<br />
to take all—all. Whatever the success of the<br />
book the publisher may simply, if he likes (by<br />
clauses which Mr. Thring has so ably taught us<br />
to understand), take over everything. Above all<br />
things, the claim to dramatic rights seems to me<br />
the most impudent. Why, the drama is not the<br />
novel: it is the same story, or part of the same<br />
story, treated in a wholly different manner.<br />
I have tried, but ineffectually, to find some<br />
apparent or imaginary justification for this last<br />
shameless grab. There is none. It is simply an<br />
impudent attempt. The publisher cannot pre-<br />
tend to have done anything with or for the drama.<br />
Why does he not claim the very desk on which the<br />
novel was written?<br />
Let us go on our own way. Let us, above all<br />
things, take care that the knowledge of these<br />
agreements and their unscrupulous greed, and<br />
their determination to enslave literature, be<br />
known far and wide. A Novelist.<br />
V.<br />
In the comments made last month upon the<br />
Publishers' Agreements one or two points were<br />
omitted. Thus it has long been a grievance that<br />
advertisements are charged for when nothing is<br />
paid: advertisements in publishers' own organs<br />
and in exchanges. Some people call this practice<br />
by very ugly names: all people agree in calling it<br />
a trick unworthy of any house which calls itself<br />
honourable. Not a single word is said in the<br />
draft agreements against the practice. It is true<br />
that in one clause (p. 39; it is stated that the<br />
"expenses of production shall be taken to mean<br />
the actual cost of . . . and advertising"<br />
. . . but it is not provided that there shall be<br />
an audit of accounts: nor is it provided that<br />
the " actual cost" does not mean what the pub-<br />
lisher chooses to call the cost of advertising in<br />
his own papers.<br />
The chief reason of this grievance is that the<br />
practice enables a rogue to swamp the book with<br />
advertisements. Thus, if he spends .£20 on<br />
advertising it, he may, if he pleases, charge, in<br />
addition, say, .£3 a month in advertising it in his<br />
own magazines, and five times as much in adver-<br />
tising it in other magazines by exchange. So that<br />
his account might come in after a twelvemonth:<br />
£ s. d.<br />
Advertising 20 0 0<br />
Do. in his own magazine 60 0 0<br />
Do. in other magazines .. 180 0 0<br />
260 0 0<br />
This item would appear in a lump sum, without<br />
explanations. Of course so great a charge would<br />
be very unusual, but with the glorious experience<br />
before us who shall say what awaits us in the<br />
future?<br />
Another grievance not touched upon is the<br />
"correction" charge. It is commonly set down<br />
in ordinary agreements that the author shall be<br />
allowed so much a sheet. As he has no means<br />
of connecting money with corrections, he accepts,<br />
and very often pays the penalty in a large charge<br />
under this head. The new scheme makes<br />
matters worse. The author has to pay all charges<br />
for corrections exceeding 25 per cent. of the cost<br />
of composition. This is quite a new way of<br />
putting it, and leaves the author more muddled<br />
than ever. He does not know the cost of compo-<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 61 (#73) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
61<br />
sit ion: does not know how to connect corrections<br />
with that cost: he does not know what each<br />
correction may cost.<br />
Let us see what this may mean. Take the cost<br />
of composition at £2 10s. per sheet of 32 pp.<br />
That will probably appear in the account as<br />
.£3, because, when charges can be falsified with-<br />
out fear of detection, the baser kind will falsify<br />
them.<br />
The author is allowed 25 per cent., that is<br />
15s. for corrections on each sheet of 32 pp. There<br />
are, say, ten sheets, or 320 pages. This makes<br />
£7 1 a*. It seems a handsome allowance, and<br />
if the book were typewritten first, it ought to be<br />
a great deal more than the author would want.<br />
But he knows nothing of what corrections mean:<br />
]ierhaps he goes on altering, and improving, and<br />
running on, till he has run up a large bill, which<br />
in many cases is made a good deal larger still<br />
when the account comes in. W. B.<br />
VI.<br />
Will you allow me to call attention to a very<br />
important point in the Publishers' Agreements,<br />
namely, their silence on the question of advertise-<br />
ments.<br />
There is no trick more common or more in-<br />
defensible than that of charging for advertise-<br />
ments which are not paid for. For my own part<br />
I cannot read the draft agreements without feel-<br />
ing convinced that they have left the question<br />
open with deliberate intent to continue a practice<br />
denounced by the most distinguished lawyers.<br />
I have heard that one firm sweetly assures its<br />
customers that they only charge their authors<br />
half the tariff price for advertisements in their<br />
own organs. They say nothing, however, about<br />
exchanges. Nor do they say anything about the<br />
power which they keep in their own hands of<br />
advertising as largely as they please by displayed<br />
advertisement and whole pages in their own<br />
organs, or about exchanging as much as they<br />
please.<br />
I trust that the members of the Society are<br />
thoroughly alive to the enormity of these de-<br />
mands. Once Bitten,<br />
VII.<br />
I have sometimes thought that The Author<br />
was too hard upon publishers. I think so no<br />
longer.<br />
I am persuaded that you have never allowed a<br />
charge to be brought against them which is not<br />
fully justified by their own agreements, issued by<br />
their own Association, examined by their own<br />
counsel.<br />
What you have denounced in individual pub-<br />
lishers has been now accepted by themselves as<br />
true of publishers in association.<br />
They can no longer cry out upon The Author<br />
for exposing their tricks: they proclaim and<br />
confess their own greed—" We want all."<br />
Half profits, you show, may mean 85 per cent.;<br />
nay, it may mean anything more they please,<br />
because the percentages are kindly left open.<br />
A Member.<br />
VIII.<br />
[From the Athenseum, July 9.]<br />
The draft forms of agreement put forward by<br />
the Council of the Publishers' Association are not<br />
likely to meet with the approbation of authors;<br />
and it is difficult to suppose that their publica-<br />
tion is other than a mistake. One would almost<br />
think that they were a caricature by an em-<br />
bittered author of the demands of the typical<br />
publisher. The proposed royalty agreement<br />
hands over to the publisher all rights of produc-<br />
tion in the United States and the Continent, and<br />
deprives the author of his dramatic rights. He<br />
must not abridge his book, but the publisher<br />
may; and he is forbidden to revise it or alter it<br />
in any way except at the bidding of the publisher.<br />
The royalty is to be paid on thirteen as twelve, or<br />
twenty-five as twenty-four, at the discretion of<br />
the publisher! No author, we fancy, possessed of<br />
common sense would consent to such a bargain<br />
if he could help it, Then the agreement for<br />
sharing profits contains a clause that is quite<br />
inadmissible:—<br />
"The publisher shall account at the customary<br />
trade terms for all copies sold, but in cases where<br />
copies have been sold for export, or at rates below<br />
the customary trade terms, as remainders or other-<br />
wise, such copies shall be accounted for at the<br />
price realised."<br />
That is t < say, the publisher is to have the<br />
power of disposing, for any sum he may choose<br />
to name, of the joint property of himself and his<br />
temporary partner. The proposed agreement for<br />
publishing on commission is not so objectionable,<br />
but it, too, is unjust to the author, for it hands<br />
over to the publisher the entire managemeut of<br />
the sale of the book, although the author pays for<br />
it.<br />
No wonder Sir Walter Besant in The Author<br />
is jubilant. If the Association wished to<br />
convince men of letters generally that there is<br />
foundation for the hard things Sir Walter<br />
has said against the trade, it would hav,, been<br />
difficult to choose a more effectual method than<br />
the production of these agreements, which are<br />
supposed to be approved by the confederated<br />
publishers.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 62 (#74) ##############################################<br />
<br />
62<br />
7 HE AUTHOR.<br />
IX.<br />
[From the J'tiblishers' Circular, July 23.]<br />
As the result of a good deal of correspondence<br />
which has been going on of late between the<br />
Publishers' Association, the Booksellers' Associa-<br />
tion, the Authors' Society, &c., it was decided at<br />
the last meeting of the council of the Publishers'<br />
Association to invite representatives of the various<br />
bodies interested, including the Scotch associa-<br />
tions, to a conference, in the hope of being able to<br />
take a definite step in the direction of helping the<br />
lxioksellers.<br />
SCOTTISH BOOKSELLERS AND THE<br />
SOCIETY.<br />
THE booksellers of Scotland, following the<br />
example of those of the North of England,<br />
have organised themselves into an associa-<br />
tion. This was done at a meeting of the trade<br />
held in Edinburgh on June 28—Mr. Andrew<br />
Elliot, of that city, presiding. The following<br />
resolution was also adopted unanimously, on the<br />
motion of Mr. John Grant, Edinburgh, seconded<br />
by Mr. D. J. Knox (Smith and Sons), Glasgow :—<br />
That this meeting, having heard the Autboi a' report on<br />
the new scheme submitted by the Booksellers' Association,<br />
« ecords its gratification that the Aatbora' Society ban given<br />
its concent to it, accepts the scheme generally, and com-<br />
mends it to the favourable consideration of the Publishers'<br />
Association.<br />
THE CASE OF THE BOOKSELLERS.<br />
ri^HE serious condition of the bookselling<br />
I trade and the threatening extinction, by<br />
processes extremely painful, of the country<br />
bookseller must be again brought before the atten-<br />
tion of the readers of this journal. For it is the<br />
interest—the duty—of every man or woman of<br />
letters to keep the bookseller, if possible, in a<br />
flourishing and contented condition. Therefore,<br />
even at the risk of repetition, it is proposed to<br />
return to the subject in these columns. What is<br />
the present condition? Agricultural depression,<br />
which affects not only the country but all those<br />
towns which are outside the manufacturing dis-<br />
tricts, has been marked by a corresponding depres-<br />
sion in bookselling. Newsagents have started up<br />
everywhere selling cheap books as well as news-<br />
papers: drapers have made cheap books an<br />
attraction of their shops: the stores keep large<br />
supplies of books. The bookseller, who was<br />
formerly able to order every new book of import-<br />
ance, has ceased to supply himself with any but<br />
those books which he is tolerably certain to sell.<br />
He now offers "fancy" things, photographs,<br />
stationery, pens and pencils. If a solid book of<br />
high price is wanted he will get it, but he will<br />
order it at his risk and peril: he will not keep it.<br />
The author thinks, perhaps, that this deterioration<br />
of the bookseller matters nothing to him. It<br />
matters everything to him. There are three or four<br />
persons directly concerned with the production of<br />
a book: the author; the printer; the binder;<br />
the paper maker; and the bookseller. The pub-<br />
lisher, who is in most cases only the distributor,<br />
should have a much smaller interest than these<br />
four, who are all directly interested in the book.<br />
If the bookseller does not exhibit and offer the<br />
book to the public, how is it to get into circula-<br />
tion at all? But he cannot afford to order it.<br />
Therefore the author has no public. It is now<br />
actually true that out of the thousands of new<br />
books issued every year a great number never<br />
get upon the bookseller's shelves at all. That is<br />
to say, they are not published.<br />
Another danger now threatens the bookseller.<br />
At his best he formerly catered for an extremely<br />
limited class—the class with education, culture,<br />
and means, who treated a book as if they loved it.<br />
liked to see it well printed and handsomely bound,<br />
and were content to pay a large price for it. This<br />
feeling of exclusiveness and respectability gave<br />
the bookseller a sense of dignity and self-respect.<br />
The feeling lingers still, but it is now becoming<br />
harmful. The bookseller does not recognise cheap<br />
literature; he will have nothing to do with litera-<br />
ture for the people. Yet, unless the signs of the<br />
times are singularly deceptive, cheap literature will<br />
be upon us before long—in fact, I believe, before<br />
many months—and in an overwhelming flood.<br />
Certain popular books have been put out as an<br />
experiment by two or three publishers at very low<br />
prices. Some of these at 6d. have achieved an<br />
astonishing success, running, it is said, to<br />
200,000 copies and more. The next step will be<br />
the issue of new books—not old books—at this<br />
low price. For my own part I think that cheap<br />
literature is loudly called for. The people have<br />
been reading scrappy penny journals long enough.<br />
They should be ready to take a step higher, and<br />
to buy and read good literature at 6d. The new<br />
books thus issued will of necessity, at first, be<br />
novels: the old books will be those which are<br />
already acknowledged to belong to the literature<br />
of the country; and as for those who now<br />
advocate the reduction of prices from 6s. to half-<br />
a-crown, they may shift their ground, and con-<br />
sider the reduction from 6*. to 6d.<br />
From the bookseller's point of view, the cheap<br />
literature will be at first disconcerting. Let him<br />
boldly throw himself into the movement when it<br />
begins. Let him, by means of circulars and in<br />
every possible way, make himself the bookseller<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 63 (#75) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
of the whole people, not the few. He will<br />
continue to be always the bookseller of the few,<br />
because high-priced books must still be issued,<br />
and cheapness can only be introduced where<br />
popularity is possible.<br />
For the author there is the comfortable reflec-<br />
tion that, even if his book is reduced from 6*. to<br />
6d., and his royalty from is. 3d. to a penny,<br />
15,000 copies at the latter price will bring him in<br />
as much as a thousand at the former; and that<br />
200,000 at the latter means 13,300 at the former<br />
—and unless he is in the front rank of popularity,<br />
he will not probably exceed this figure. Now, with<br />
an improved system of distribution, the cheap<br />
literature will make a bid for millions, not for<br />
thousands. It will also be possible to bring out<br />
a book at 6*. and after two years or so to produce<br />
a cheap sixpenny edition.<br />
What have the publishers proposed in the<br />
teeth of these changes? With all the signs before<br />
them of a demand for cheap literature and a supply<br />
of it, they propose to make the public pay more<br />
instead of less, and, on pretence of giving the<br />
booksellers relief, to put more into their own<br />
pockets. In the teeth of the competition going<br />
on they proposed to bind the unfortunate book-<br />
sellers by an iron and degrading slavery. They<br />
were to have no books at all, or books only at a<br />
prohibitory price, unless they obeyed the orders<br />
of the publisher, who forbade them to sell their<br />
own property at any price they pleased. In the<br />
teeth of the increasing poverty of the trade, they<br />
propose to maintain the system of forcing all<br />
the risks upon the booksellers. With the result<br />
that every year fewer books get the chance of<br />
being offered to the public.<br />
We have now, in conjunction with the Book-<br />
sellers' Association, adopted an alternative scheme<br />
which involves neither coercion nor slavery, but<br />
leaves contract free. It was given in the last<br />
number of The Author at length. It means<br />
simply as follows:<br />
1. Books at 6s, and under to remain as at<br />
present.<br />
2. If a publisher wishes to bring out a book<br />
at net price, and to make any special<br />
conditions with a bookseller, it is a<br />
question of contract for the book only.<br />
There is to be no tyrannical attempt at<br />
boycotting or "punishing" a bookseller<br />
who refuses.<br />
3. Books are to be sent "on sale or return."<br />
4. The " odd copy" is to be abolished, and one<br />
price is to be charged. This clause is<br />
as much in the interest of the author as<br />
the bookseller, because the publisher will<br />
now be relieved of the temptation to<br />
VOL. IX.<br />
pretend that all his arrangements are<br />
13 as 12.<br />
These rules will, it is hoped, if they are accepted<br />
by the publishers or any of them, relieve the<br />
trade very materially. If they are not accepted,<br />
the Society must endeavour to devise some other<br />
way. Meantime the members are earnestly<br />
invited to consider the urgency of the case and<br />
the fact that the publishers are proposing to<br />
make things worse instead of better, and to<br />
suggest any expedient that may occur to them<br />
whereby the bookseller, and especially the country<br />
bookseller, may be assisted to make a livelihood<br />
by a trade which is indispensable to everybody<br />
connected with the production of literature.<br />
POPULAR TASTE IN BOOKS.<br />
WHAT is "the popular taste"? What is<br />
it going to be if, as is whispered, "new<br />
and original" work is brought to market<br />
at a popular price—a shilling or even sixpence<br />
per volume?<br />
This question is so much in the air just now,<br />
that I venture to take up a little space in The<br />
AutJwr with reminiscences of a personal ex-*<br />
perience which may throw some light on the<br />
subject.<br />
In 1886 a library for working men and women<br />
was established which, from its constitution and<br />
management, became as severe a test of the<br />
reception which writers who would cater for "the<br />
proletariate " must expect as anything could well<br />
be.<br />
This library lived and flourished for eight<br />
years, and then died simply because a large rate-<br />
supported free library took its place. It was<br />
situated in Hoxton, and its members were all<br />
residents in the neighbourhood or came from<br />
still poorer parts of East London. It was con-<br />
trolled by a committee of working men, elected<br />
annually by its subscribers, and was unconnected<br />
with any political party, Church, or social "move-<br />
ment."<br />
Those who joined it, and paid their sub-<br />
scriptions to its treasurer, did so, firstly, because<br />
they wanted to read; secondly, because they<br />
found that, if they desired to read a particular<br />
book, that work, if not already in the library,<br />
could be procured for them at short notice. This<br />
is the point upon which I wish to lay most stress.<br />
Out of the eight hundred volumes which the<br />
library gradually acquired, all but a very small<br />
number were chosen by the members without sug-<br />
gestion or hint from anyone as to what they ought<br />
to read.<br />
a<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 64 (#76) ##############################################<br />
<br />
*4<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
Of course the library had generous friends, to<br />
whose kindness, and faith in working men, its<br />
success was largely due.<br />
Through these gentlemen, as the number of the<br />
members increased, consignments of all works<br />
named by any member of the library came into<br />
its possession. Lists were handed to the bbrarian<br />
from time to time, were examined by the com-<br />
mittee, and passed on to the donors. Now and<br />
then some book was mentioned that could only be<br />
of very slight interest, and this was expunged<br />
from the list; but, during the whole eight years<br />
of the library's existence, there were not a score<br />
of these. Thus, month by month and year by<br />
year, was collected a library of a class which<br />
its members, if they could have afforded it,<br />
would have had in their own homes. I hold a<br />
catalogue of these works. All of them have been<br />
read, and well read. Many had to be renewed a<br />
number of times, so eagerly were they sought for.<br />
I will write down these favoured volumes in the<br />
order of their popularity: "Adam Bede," " West-<br />
ward Ho!" "The Golden Butterfly," "Lorna<br />
Doone," Green's "History of England," " David<br />
Copperfield," "Ready Money Mortiboy," "Jane<br />
Eyre," "Wives and Daughters."<br />
In fiction, the favourite authors were: Dickens,<br />
Scott, Besant, Dumas, Miss Braddon, Wilkie<br />
Collins, Mrs. Henry Wood, Bulwer Lytton,<br />
Ouida, Mrs. Gaskell, Charlotte Bronte, Edna<br />
LyalL<br />
In history, Green and Macaulay naturally came<br />
first; but Stubbs's " Constitutional History " was<br />
chosen by a cabinet-maker, and read by many<br />
others. Carlyle was represented by the " Crom-<br />
well Letters" and "The French Revolution."<br />
In science, interest centred round Darwin.<br />
"The Origin of Species " and " Descent of Man"<br />
were chosen early in the day, and much read.<br />
The political economists studied Mill and Jevons,<br />
and Spencer and Ruskin were frequently out.<br />
There were biographies by Ainger, Morley, Leslie<br />
Stephen, Disraeli, and Saintsbury. Travels by<br />
Livingstone, Ballantyne, Sir Samuel Baker, Miss<br />
Bird, and Stanley. Prescott's "Conquests of<br />
Mexico and Peru were very popular. Motley's<br />
"Dutch Republic," Lord Beaconsfield's " Letters,"<br />
"Progress and Poverty," all were there, with more<br />
"standard works" than I have space to name.<br />
And what of the members? There was a rule<br />
that no one might belong whose income exceeded<br />
two pounds a week. Few of the people<br />
reached such luxury. The elder men, our com-<br />
mitteemen and their friends, were mostly com-<br />
positors, cabinet-makers, painters, packers, ware-<br />
housemen, and porters. The younger ones,<br />
apprentices to cabinet work, upholstery, or piano-<br />
makers, printers' layers-on, and labourers of all<br />
kinds. There were afew shop assistants—but not<br />
many of these. The women were mostly work-<br />
girls, of the average Hoxton type, who, to the<br />
number of seventy, greeted the author of "The<br />
Children "of Gibeon"—one concert night—with a<br />
shrill "Melenda" cheer! Tie-makers, feather-<br />
curlers, box-makers, dressmakers, tailoresses—<br />
pale anaemic lasses, earning, on an average, i0s.<br />
to 12*. per week. One of them, representative of<br />
many, told me when she first came that Miss<br />
Braddon was the only author she had ever heard<br />
of. I gave her Miss Braddon until she tired of<br />
that food—and then, as an experiment, presented<br />
"Adam Bede." The result was astonishing. She<br />
was back in less than a week, all smiles. "I say,<br />
let's 'ave another of his books. I ain't ever read<br />
as good a tale before!" In the end, she said that<br />
"The Mill on the Floss" was her favourite<br />
Another girl told me that, until she joined the<br />
"Lib'ery," she always bought a penny novelette<br />
every week. She had never done so since.<br />
It may be said that the library was, after all,<br />
a very small affair. Undoubtedly. But I bold<br />
that in view of its quiet natural growth; the<br />
absence of artificial stimulus; and, above all, the<br />
entire freedom of its members to fill its shelves<br />
with almost any kind of literature they chose—<br />
the record I have given has a very important<br />
bearing on the future of the distribution of litera-<br />
ture in a cheap form. Depend upon it, the<br />
writers of the Penny Dreadful and the Shilling<br />
Shocker hold their own simply from the cheap-<br />
ness of their wares. Place good works within<br />
the reach of men and women who rarely have<br />
more than sixpence or a shilling to spare for<br />
a luxury, and the circulation of the works<br />
of those who write good English: who can<br />
depict real life: draw real characters: and<br />
who have thoughts and ideas worthy of<br />
expression—will utterly swamp and crowd out<br />
the noisome trash which flaunts in the little<br />
East-end book-shop windows to-day. Their<br />
circulation will rise from thousands to hundreds<br />
of thousands: from hundreds of thousands to<br />
millions. Brother authors—take courage! the<br />
"popular taste" is sound to the core.<br />
Arthur Paterson.<br />
THE PENSION LIST.<br />
<br />
IHE Pension List for the year has been<br />
published. It is as follows:<br />
I. LITERATURE.<br />
Rev. Canon Atkinson (Philologist), .£100.<br />
William Chatterton Coupland (Works on<br />
Philosophy), .£50.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 65 (#77) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
65<br />
Dr. Beattie Crozier (Philosophical Re-<br />
searches), .£50.<br />
Rev. Canon Daniel Evans (Writings on<br />
Welsh Literature), .£100.<br />
Rev. J. Cunningham Geikie, D.D., .£50.<br />
(Dr. Geikie is well known as a writer on<br />
theological subjects. Among his books<br />
are "The Life and Words of Christ,"<br />
and "Hours with the Bible.")<br />
William Ernest Henley (late editor of the<br />
National Observer and the New Review,<br />
joint-editor of The Centenary Burns;<br />
author of Poems, &c.), .£225.<br />
II. Literature by Connection.<br />
Mi<,s Janet Mary Oliphant (niece of Mrs.<br />
Oliphant), .£75.<br />
Mrs. Palmer (widow of the late Professor<br />
Arthur Palmer, classical scholar),<br />
.£100.<br />
Two daughters of the late Dr. Leonhard<br />
Schmitz, classical scholar, each .£25.<br />
The daughter of the late Richard Shilleto,<br />
classical scholar, .£50.<br />
III. Music.<br />
Mr. Joseph Robinson, for services to music<br />
in Ireland, .£50.<br />
IV. Art by Connection.<br />
Two daughters of the late Mr. George<br />
Waller, in consideration of his services<br />
to artistic education, each .£25.<br />
V. Science and Art.<br />
Dr. John James Wild, late artist and<br />
secretarv to the Challenger Expedition,<br />
.£50.<br />
VI. No connection with either Literature,<br />
Science, or Art, and therefore no right<br />
to appear in this list.<br />
The widow of one Colonial Governor and<br />
the four daughters of another.<br />
NOTES AND NEWS.<br />
THE Academy, I rejoice to see, quotes Mr.<br />
Turing's opinions on the publishers' draft<br />
agreements. It expresses, further, its regret<br />
at two statements made by myself. The first is to<br />
the effect that the British Public does not care<br />
two straws about the publisher. Well, I am sorry<br />
to advance an opinion or to make any assertion<br />
which is not as plain as an axiom. At the<br />
same time it is most true and certain that<br />
the public cares not one brass farthing for any<br />
publisher: that is to say, it looks at the book<br />
and the author, and carer, no more who is the<br />
publisher than it cares to find out who is the<br />
papermaker. The bookseller cares because he<br />
has to make terms with the publisher. The<br />
public cares nothing. In no other trade is there<br />
such an absolute indifference to the name. So<br />
that I cannot withdraw this statement.<br />
The other statement is concerned with the<br />
question of risk. I first, before making this<br />
statement, carefully separated encyclopaedias,<br />
great dictionaries, and works of a colossal kind.<br />
This separation was cut off the passage quoted<br />
by the Academy, so that I was made to talk<br />
nonsense. I thought the Bogey of Risk was<br />
laid. Let us try again. In general literature<br />
— namely, essays, history, biography, belles<br />
lettres, poetry, novels—there are hundreds of<br />
writers whose works carry no risk whatever, that<br />
is to say, they are certain to circulate enough<br />
to pay the cost of production with a margin of<br />
profit. That is the first fact. J£ a publisher<br />
takes an author who is not among this company<br />
he incurs risk—but he does this voluntarily.<br />
And very few publishers do. That is the second<br />
fact. Next, what is the risk, where any is<br />
incurred? The world, which fancies itself very<br />
clever, replies triumphantly, "Why, the cost of<br />
production, of course. Am I a fool?" Not a fool,<br />
but ignorant. The risk is the difference between<br />
the cost of production and the first subscription.<br />
Some houses send round a traveller to subscribe<br />
the book before it is printed. This gives them<br />
some idea of its chances. Thus, a book is sub-<br />
scribed—say—250 in town. That means a<br />
beginning, perhaps, with the country trade as<br />
well, of 500—never mind the figures, any other<br />
will do just as well to illustrate the method.<br />
Taking our old friend, the 6*. book which has<br />
cost, say, .£80—we have, say, a first subscription<br />
of .£87, which is more than the book costs to<br />
produce. If there is a subscription of 400 copies,<br />
the risk is the difference between .£80, the cost,<br />
and .£70, the subscription, or .£10. That is an<br />
immense risk, is it not?<br />
The Harmsworth Magazine may be taken as an<br />
indication of the increased (the widely-increased)<br />
demand for literature of a kind. While our<br />
shilling and half-crown magazines are crawling<br />
along with a circulation for the most part of a<br />
few thousands, this threepenny rival, splendidly<br />
illustrated and quite as well written as many of<br />
the dearer ones, steps straight into a circulation<br />
reckoned by hundreds of thousands. This is a<br />
great fact which should lead people who are not<br />
publishers, and are only interested in the advance<br />
of culture, to reflect a little. Those gentlemen,<br />
especially, who, from the commanding pinnacle of<br />
the club smoking-room, look round upon man-<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 66 (#78) ##############################################<br />
<br />
66<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
kind and report that what they read is "truck"<br />
or "slush," should look at the success of this<br />
magazine and others nearly as cheap. The next<br />
great fact which concerns us from another point<br />
of view is the cheapness of production. Make<br />
every allowance that can be made for improved<br />
machinery: for working a lot of magazines and<br />
papers together: for cheapness of paper: for a<br />
great mass of advertisements: and yet the<br />
mystery remains how the paper can be produced<br />
at so small a cost. The third great fact is more<br />
important still. It is that cheap and good maga-<br />
zines will be followed by cheap and good litera-<br />
ture. We talk about books at 6s., and i0*. 6d.,<br />
and so forth. We are, it seems to me, on the<br />
verge of the greatest revolution that the history<br />
of Literature has ever seen. Ever since I began<br />
to investigate and to understand the machinery<br />
and the spread of literature, I have become more<br />
and more convinced that the present system of<br />
providing dear books in small numbers, though<br />
it must continue with certain books, will be a<br />
small and an insignificant thing compared with<br />
the literature offered to the world at prices<br />
which seem impossible. Already popular books<br />
are brought out at sixpence and sold by the<br />
hundred thousand. They are all old books of<br />
which the copyrights belong to publishers. Why<br />
should they not be new books? (see p. 62). They<br />
must be offered for sale by newsvendors, at the<br />
stores, as well as the booksellers: the difficulty is<br />
that of distribution and advertisement. This<br />
difficulty will be got over by the three new firms who<br />
have taken possession of the outside mass; when<br />
it is got over by them other publishers will follow.<br />
From the author's point of view it should be<br />
far better to appeal to the general public than to<br />
the limited public. It is objected that he would<br />
have to " write down " to them. Not at all. The<br />
cheap books already offered to them, and eagerly<br />
taken up, at low prices, are not books " written<br />
down" to anybody. Let us see how a cheap<br />
book would affect the author. Take a popular<br />
author whose last book had a circulation of<br />
12,000 copies for which he received a royalty of<br />
is. $d. a copy, or .£750. The same book issued at<br />
6d. with a royalty for himself of 1 j<7. would give<br />
him .£750 by a sale of 144,000. But we are going<br />
to the millions. If 600,000 copies were taken he<br />
would make .£3125. Decidedly it would be to<br />
to the advantage of the author if only that ques-<br />
tion of distribution were settled.<br />
I mentioned last month the remarkable fact<br />
that the Committee of the House of Lords on<br />
Copyright had commenced their proceedings by<br />
calling before them a publisher: then a second<br />
publisher: then a third, and so on: and that<br />
there seemed no sign at all that this illustrious<br />
body had ever heard that there was such a thing<br />
as an author, or had any idea at all that copy-<br />
right was created by the author and was actually<br />
his own property. In this ignorance they were<br />
allowed to remain by the publishers, who all gave<br />
evidence on the tacit assumption—which none of<br />
the noble lords questioned—that copyright was<br />
their own in the nature of thiugs: their own<br />
property by right. A day or two after the para-<br />
graph appeared I found a summons lying on my<br />
table calling upon me to attend and give evidence<br />
that day at half-past two. It was then three,<br />
so that I could not go. It is hardly, I think,<br />
polite or considerate to call upon a man to give<br />
evidence on a most complicated and important<br />
subject at a minute's notice. Moreover, I am<br />
not myself a lawyer: I have never felt called<br />
upon to study copyright law: I hate law and<br />
law books: and I am not therefore com-<br />
petent to give evidence. We have had two sub-<br />
committees on copyright, but I have not been<br />
a member of either. In fact, the branch of<br />
the Society's work which has occupied all the<br />
time that I could afford to give, is that of the<br />
administration of literary property, not that of<br />
copyright law. Mr. Thring has attended the<br />
Committee, representing our sub-committee, and,<br />
I hope, has enabled the Committee to understand<br />
that copyright really does concern authors: that<br />
they are capable of comprehending the question:<br />
and that the opinion of the lawyers and scholars<br />
forming our sub-committee is quite as well worth<br />
hearing as that of the publishers, who speak as<br />
if copyright was their right.<br />
A correspondent sends me a paragraph calling<br />
attention, with some show of indignation, to the<br />
fact that if anyone posts a book to the United<br />
States of America there is an import duty of<br />
one-fourth its value, and that the duty must be<br />
paid before the book is delivered. It seems a<br />
pity that the law is so, but since that is the law<br />
there is no use in being angry. Free trade in<br />
books does not exist in this country: for instance,<br />
it is illegal to expose Tauchnitz books for sale.<br />
Shall we begin by altering our own laws? We<br />
could then call upon the States to alter theirs.<br />
One of the things which the Society could and<br />
should do would be to bring about the reconsidera-<br />
tion of the Resolutions which constituted the<br />
Civil Pension List. All that is wanted is the<br />
abolition of a single clause allowing the pensions<br />
to be bestowed upon persons outside the field of<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 67 (#79) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
57<br />
Literature, Science, and Art " who may be worthy<br />
of Her Majesty's bounty." The grant is not<br />
large, not more than <£i200 a year, and is by no<br />
means sufficient to meet the cases deserving of<br />
relief which are brought before the First Lord of<br />
the Treasury. No one wants to prevent outsiders<br />
from getting the help they want, one only desires<br />
to bind the Government to keep this fund entirely<br />
for the persons for whom it was founded. At<br />
present there is nothing to prevent the list from<br />
being filled up with "persons worthy of Her<br />
Majesty's bounty." It is, for instance, a common<br />
practice to place widows and daughters of colonial<br />
governors on the list. In that of the current<br />
year (see p. 64) there are the four daughters of<br />
one colonial governor and the widow of another.<br />
Cannot the Colonies, between them, create a<br />
pension list for the widows and daughters of<br />
their governors? And is it quite impossible for<br />
the governor of a colony to save a little money<br />
after twenty years of work on a salary ranging<br />
from .£2000 to £ 10,000?<br />
In another column appears one more letter on<br />
the great and crying grievance ,oi keeping MSS.<br />
offered to editors. For my own part I have<br />
always desired to recognise to the utmost the<br />
difficulties of an editor's position: the necessary<br />
keeping back of articles and papers already<br />
accepted. But there are limits. In the case before<br />
us the editor kept articles offered him for two<br />
years, fourteen months, eight months, and three<br />
months! There can be no possible excuse for<br />
such treatment of a contributor. What remedy<br />
is there? One, and one only. Writers will<br />
do nothing for themselves: they are so eager<br />
to be accepted, especially at the outset, that<br />
they will submit to anything and take any<br />
price that is offered. If, then, a contributor<br />
intimates that the MS. must be accepted and paid<br />
for within a certain time, he will probably have<br />
it returned unless the writer's name and the<br />
subject make it an important offer. The only<br />
remedy, therefore, is that the editors who do<br />
these things shall be known. If the writer of<br />
the letter will send me the correspondence in the<br />
.case I will publish his name and the name of the<br />
paper. Of course there is another remedy, but it<br />
qeems hardly worth while to mention it. I mean<br />
that editors should obey the simple rules of<br />
courtesy and good breeding. I have always<br />
found them, as regards myself, both courteous<br />
and kindly. But the letters which we have<br />
published in The Author show that there are<br />
many editors, especially of the smaller fry of<br />
magazines, who are neither one nor the other.<br />
Walter Besant.<br />
vol. IX.<br />
AFTER MANY DATS.<br />
A True Incident.<br />
IAM very sorry, Miss Carlisle; but I am<br />
afraid I cannot use that last story of<br />
yours. It is altogether too depressing.<br />
The public does not want sad stories. Life is<br />
sad enough as it is. No one likes to dwell on<br />
such incidents as you describe in—let me see,<br />
what do you call it ?—' Dead Violets '? Why<br />
the very title is morbid! Dead violets delight<br />
no one; what we want is fair, fresh, sweet-<br />
smelling flowers."<br />
The speaker's looks accorded with his words.<br />
He was a man advanced in life, with hair tinged<br />
with grey and a forehead #hich showed more<br />
than a tendency to baldness; but he had as<br />
bright, open, and cheery a countenance as ever<br />
beamed from an editor's chair. He bore himself<br />
with the easy yet kindly dignity which denotes a<br />
prosperous career.<br />
"I am very sorry," the girl's lips trembled<br />
as she spoke, and it was all she could do to hold<br />
back the starting tears; "I will try to do better<br />
next time." .<br />
She was young, but her face had a worn and<br />
weary look. . There was the suggestion 'of a<br />
happier past in her somewhat shabby, though<br />
perfectly neat, mourning attire. She* had the<br />
appearance of one to whom dead violets might<br />
mean more than freshly gathered roses. The<br />
editor was not unconscious of the pathos of her<br />
expression, nor the tremor of her voice; but he<br />
was above all things a man of business, and he<br />
knew that melancholy stories did not pay.<br />
"That's right," he said, "let it be something<br />
cheerful, ending with the music of marriage bells.<br />
That is what our readers like. I am really<br />
afraid I must send that MS. back to you."<br />
"Very well—if it must be so."<br />
She acquiesced without a murmur, bade him<br />
good morning, and went on her way.<br />
He was sorry for her; but he was far from<br />
guessing how deep a wound he had inflicted.<br />
Edith Carlisle went down the long flight of<br />
stairs from the editorial sanctum, passed into the<br />
Strand, and was lost in the stream of human life<br />
ever flowing along its pavements. Of all the<br />
units that composed that stream, not one perhaps<br />
carried a heavier heart than hers. It was of the<br />
irony of life that the editor should bid her write<br />
a story which "ended with the music of marri-<br />
age bells" just when her own lone story had<br />
come to a disastrous termination.<br />
The sudden and unlooked-for death of her<br />
father had wrought a pitiful change in the cir-<br />
cumstances of Edith Carlisle's life. Tt left her<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 68 (#80) ##############################################<br />
<br />
68<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
mother almost entirely dependent on her<br />
daughter's efforts for a maintenance. Edith<br />
found it incumbent on her to break off her<br />
engagement to a certain good-hearted but by no<br />
means prosperous young man. They bad parted<br />
as she believed for ever, and he had gone abroad;<br />
Edith devoted herself to the care of her mother,<br />
whose failing health caused her much anxiety.<br />
She had a daily teaching engagement, and when<br />
this was over she gave her spare time to the<br />
literary efforts which she had pursued with some<br />
slight success ere her father's death, and the con-<br />
sequent struggle for life, converted what had<br />
been a pure pleasure into a feverish attempt to<br />
produce that which would bring in money.<br />
The new motive did not yield the highest inspi-<br />
ration. Heartbroken at the loss of her lover,<br />
harassed by a thousand petty and humiliating<br />
cares, and depressed by her growing anxiety on her<br />
mother's account, Edith was not in a condition to<br />
conceive the bright fresh stories which delight<br />
editors. Yet never had she been more wishful<br />
for success. So much depended on her earning<br />
money. "Dead Violets " had been written with<br />
the eager hope that it might bring in a sum<br />
sufficient to afford her mother the fortnight at<br />
the sea-side which the doctor declared would do<br />
her more good than any medicine. Edith had<br />
written as her heart dictated, embodying in the<br />
tale somewhat of her own sad experience. She<br />
believed she had written it well. Certainly it was<br />
true to life. And now it appeared that it was too<br />
true to life! People must be amused with false<br />
pictures of impossible happiness. "Dead Violets"<br />
was "morbid" and " depressing."<br />
It was a grievous disappointment; but happily<br />
Edith had not confided her hopes to her mother,<br />
so she alone was disappointed. For a few days<br />
she looked for the return of her MS.; it did not<br />
come, and she soon forgot to expect it. She had<br />
no hope that the story would find acceptance in<br />
any other quarter. She regarded the sentence<br />
passed upon it by the editor of the Weekly<br />
Adviser, in which several of her stories had pre-<br />
viously appeared, as final. Had the MS. come<br />
back into her hands they would have committed<br />
it to the flames.<br />
So there was no summer holiday for Edith<br />
and her mother that year. Mrs. Carlisle's health<br />
failed rapidly in the hot close days, and ere the<br />
cooler weather set in she died. Edith's life was<br />
painfully lonely after her mother's death. She<br />
had lost all knowledge of her lover, and she had<br />
few friends. She sought relief in work. She<br />
worked harder than ever with her pen, and she<br />
worked to good purpose. She began to attain<br />
some literary success. Ten years passed by, and<br />
her position had considerably improved. She<br />
was on the staff of a popular magazine, and she-<br />
had written one or two books for girls which<br />
found a good sale. She had ceased to write for<br />
the Weekly Adviser. The cheery editor who<br />
did not like melancholy stories had gone over to<br />
the majority; she knew nothing of the man who<br />
had succeeded him. Great was her surprise,<br />
therefore, when she one day received through the<br />
post a roll of proofs in a wrapper bearing the<br />
name of that well-known weekly. "This is a<br />
mistake," she said to herself, as she unfolded the<br />
sheets; but as she glanced over the printing a<br />
name here and there caught her eye which struck<br />
her as strangely familiar. The thing was not new,<br />
though it seemed as vague and distant as a<br />
dreain. What could it mean? She turned to<br />
look for the title. "Dead Violets" met her eye.<br />
The story pronounced "too depressing," more<br />
than ten years before, had lain in the office of the<br />
Weekly Adviser ever since, and now, unearthed<br />
by some chance, had found favour with the new<br />
editor, and was set up in type.<br />
With strangely mingled feelings Edith read the<br />
story written so long before. Her heart was<br />
painfully thrilled by the memories it invoked. It<br />
seemed at once better and worse than she had<br />
deemed it in the old days. There were crudities<br />
of style, and a youthful exuberance of expression<br />
which jarred on her more cultured taste; but the<br />
story was alive. It was very sad—depressing, no<br />
doubt—btit yet a bit of real life, written with a<br />
throbbing heart, from the depths of her own<br />
experience. Her first impulse had been to write<br />
and forbid its publication; but on second thoughts<br />
she decided to let it appear with such slight im-<br />
provements as she could make on the proofs.<br />
The revision was painful work. She could not<br />
but think how much it would have meant to her<br />
had the story found acceptance when it was first<br />
submitted to an editor. Who could say? Her<br />
mother's life might have been prolonged—even<br />
saved, perhaps—had she been able at that time<br />
to command the sum which this story would<br />
bring her. But it was vain to dwell on that now.<br />
The story had been written for her mother's sake,<br />
and to her loved memory should its price be<br />
devoted Edith had never yet been able to place<br />
a suitable memorial above her mother's grave in<br />
the crowded London cemetery. For some time<br />
she had been slowly saving with this object in<br />
view; now this story would supply what was<br />
needed to make the amount sufficient.<br />
So, when the editor of the Weekly Adviser<br />
sent his cheque for six guineas, the money went<br />
to complete this fund, and in due time a simple<br />
granite cross marked the mound of earth so<br />
sacred to the author of "Dead Violets." The<br />
associations of that title were full of sadness for<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 69 (#81) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR<br />
69<br />
Edith, but she never blamed the editor who had<br />
rejected the story when fresh from her pen. He<br />
had acted for the best. He was bound to consult<br />
the pleasure of his readers and the interests of<br />
his paper. It was doubtless by accident that the<br />
MS. had never been returned to her. She could<br />
have had it had she cared to apply for it. The<br />
fact of her story's attaining publication after so<br />
many years was just one of those strange chances<br />
which continually attend the fortunes of a literary<br />
career.<br />
*>•«.;<br />
AFTER PUBLICATION—THE FATE<br />
OF A BOOK.<br />
IN the March number of The Author I found<br />
(1) a paragraph relating the troubles of a<br />
member of the Society whose reviews,<br />
although excellent, have failed to circulate his<br />
books; and (2) a sentence, cited from an article<br />
in the Fortnightly :—" I know one bookseller<br />
who, when he finds a eulogistic review of a new<br />
book, instantly cuts it out and displays it in a<br />
conspicuous manner. He tells me the system is a<br />
gratifying success."<br />
We have, in the foregoing, some suggestions<br />
and experiences which may help to throw some<br />
light on that mysterious period of a book's<br />
career—the period when, just hot from the press,<br />
it is as yet undetermined whether it will be a<br />
failure or success.<br />
Let us consider this subject under four<br />
heads: (1) The book and the reviewer, (2) the<br />
review and the public, (3) the book and the book-<br />
seller, (4) the book and the public.<br />
1. The Book and the Reviewer.—It is evident<br />
that there must exist a great disparity between<br />
the careful and exhaustive, if not always unpre-<br />
judiced criticisms of the great quarterlies in<br />
their palmy days, and the hasty rule-of-thumb<br />
"notices" of the thousand and one journals<br />
wedging in a weekly or fortnightly "literary<br />
article" amongst columns of sporting, commer-<br />
cial, fashionable, and other "intelligence." In<br />
the latter case, literature is treated as one only,<br />
and by no means an exceedingly important one, of<br />
the many interests which a daily journal reflects,<br />
and the object is, no doubt, to give the reader an<br />
idea of what is "doing" in the world of letters,<br />
rather than to attempt seriously the work of<br />
instructive and discriminating criticism.<br />
It is of course true, and every author will admit<br />
it, that the views taken by reviewers are as<br />
various and as many as the actual number of<br />
minds concerned in writing the notices in ques-<br />
tion. The demerits cited by one, are considered<br />
"characteristic touches" by another. What one<br />
critic describes as " cheap sarcasm" another will<br />
call "profound psychological analysis," and so<br />
forth. There may be more than one reason for<br />
this. It is no doubt true, as the Editor of The<br />
Author has repeatedly pointed out, that no critic<br />
can afford to exercise reflective judgment on a<br />
work when the result of that judgment has to<br />
be condensed into a few lines, and remunerated<br />
accordingly. But, with every respect to reviewers<br />
as a class, it may be suggested that a great review<br />
can only proceed from a mind specially qualified<br />
by nature and by training for this particular<br />
work, and that to sum up the results of superior<br />
constructive ability intelligently, requires critical<br />
ability of 110 common order.<br />
These considerations lead us to inquire whether<br />
the function of the reviewer as now exercised does<br />
not require modification—whether, in fact, the<br />
whole system of literary notices might not be<br />
organised on an entirely different basis with<br />
advantage to all concerned.<br />
Granted that it is the object of the literary<br />
column in the great provincial journals and in the<br />
more important weeklies, to reflect the current,<br />
activity in the world of letters—to give, as we<br />
have said, an idea of what is " doing " in the way.<br />
of book production—it is clear that this end<br />
might be quite as effectually attained by making<br />
these columns the channels of a flowing stream of<br />
criticism derived from one or more deep artesian<br />
fountains, rather than, as at present, by attempt-<br />
ing an outpouring of not too drinkable water<br />
derived from more shallow wells, sunk on the<br />
premises.<br />
Less metaphorically, why should not the literary<br />
column, instead of attempting to reflect the whole<br />
world of books, confine itself to a summary,<br />
intelligently commented upon, of the said world<br />
as seen through the spectacles of the great critical<br />
journals?<br />
To the ordinary cultivated reader it would be<br />
far more provocative of interest in a particular<br />
book if, in his local journal, say the North of<br />
England Mercury, he should find short sum-<br />
maries of criticism on, say, "The Three Fishes,<br />
a Tale of Grammarye," culled from the Athenaeum,<br />
the Spectator, Literature, &c., &c., instead of<br />
merely the less valuable lucubrations of the local<br />
gentleman who "does" the reviews for that<br />
influential county organ. Possibly in nine cases<br />
out of ten the local gentleman in question would<br />
be by no means averse to the change himself. If<br />
he felt moved to dissent from the opinions of the<br />
greater lights, it would be open to him to prove<br />
them in the wrong. It would also be a light and<br />
pleasing exercise for him to discriminate between<br />
and enlarge upon the spectacle of the Olympians<br />
themselves, utterly at loggerheads over the moral<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 70 (#82) ##############################################<br />
<br />
7o<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
conduct of the "Fisher of Souls " in the above-<br />
mentioned romance.<br />
And what a weary waste of labour he would be<br />
relieved from, in no longer being compelled to<br />
frame platitudes about the worthless thoughts<br />
of commonplace people that, somehow or other,<br />
have got themselves introduced to the world as<br />
"characters" in a so-called novel.<br />
If this change were brought about there would,<br />
of course, still remain the burning question of<br />
the "canons of criticism"—those canons by<br />
which the Olympians themselves are to be guided,<br />
first, in determining if a new book be worthy of<br />
their attention; secondly, in weighing-up the<br />
statements, theories, or positions of the writer.<br />
Mr. Hannigan, in the March Author, has made<br />
a courageous attempt to formulate some of these,<br />
but as by his own admission the Waverley novels<br />
(including "Ivanhoe "?) fall short of his par-<br />
ticular standard, it is to be feared that his formula<br />
needs considerable amendment.<br />
Having regard to the complexity of human life,<br />
and in particular to the fact that progress in<br />
every department of human activity is the final<br />
result of a number of concurrent, heterogeneous,<br />
often conflicting influences, it is evident that no<br />
canon of criticism can hope to include all possible<br />
cases. In modern and present day matters it is<br />
probable that, even were such canon recognised, it<br />
would pass the limits of "the wit of man " to<br />
dispassionately apply it. We must, therefore, as<br />
heretofore, trust to the human element—to the<br />
reflections and judgments of the recognised<br />
critical authorities; and even these will assuredly<br />
often prove to be all wrong, because the human<br />
mind is not an infallible machine.<br />
. For the present, at any rate, we will not attempt<br />
to penetrate the mists that surround Olympus.<br />
We will imagine the review written, disseminated<br />
by means of the "literary column" to the half<br />
million interested in such matters, and served up<br />
with the coffee at the breakfast table. The ques-<br />
tion now becomes, "What is the effect?"<br />
- 2. The Review and the Public.—Each one of<br />
us has, no doubt, in his remembrance an instance,<br />
when, having read the " notice " of a book, a con-<br />
suming desire to have and handle that book has<br />
for a few hours possessed us. Our enthusiasm<br />
And curiosity during this brief phase has been<br />
raised, it may be, to a 10s. 6d. level, or it may<br />
be only to a 6s. pitch. But we have felt toler-<br />
ably certain that, if the much-desired volume<br />
were within reach, we should purchase it at all<br />
hazards, and in defiance of the whispers of<br />
prudence and economy.<br />
This is the first psychological moment in the<br />
history of the " review." When it has died away,<br />
unsatisfied, the review has passed stage one in its<br />
career of usefulness, and has entered on stage<br />
two, in which it is only fit for abstract, and repro-<br />
duction along with others.<br />
The later stage is perhaps a more lasting one.<br />
From a number of " notices " the juice or essence,<br />
not the bitter essence, but the sweet, is extracted,<br />
and the cumulative effect of pithy sentence upon<br />
pithy sentence, each followed by the name of some<br />
great piece amongst the heavy ordnance of<br />
literature, is no doubt very great. The wavering<br />
mind remembering its past and momentary<br />
enthusiasm over this particular work of genius,<br />
greedily responds to the tickling, the gentle<br />
stimulus of so many laudatory phrases, and<br />
arrives at a fixed determination, not necessarily<br />
to buy, but to "look out" for this book. This is<br />
psychological moment No. 2. Whether it bears<br />
fruit depends upon the accessibility of the work,<br />
and this brings us to—<br />
3. The Book and the Bookseller.—-The "publi-<br />
cation" of a book is a very vague expression.<br />
Too often it means the languishing of the<br />
majority of the so-published volumes in the state<br />
of " quires" upon the shelves of an unromantic<br />
warehouse. Now, it is very clear that a book<br />
stands very much in the same light as any other<br />
manufactured article from the point of view of<br />
the person who has to sell it to the public. The<br />
first cry of the would-be purchaser is " samples ";<br />
the second, "samples "; the third, "samples."<br />
It is, of course, obvious that a book, however<br />
large, cannot very well be distributed in small<br />
gratis doses like, for instance, X.'s celebrated<br />
cocoa. And though it is no doubt true that the<br />
whole office of the "review" and the "notice"<br />
is to guide the public taste, yet we must not<br />
forget that X., too, has his "Press notices,"<br />
his "testimonials," and other printed matter<br />
descriptive of the merits of his cocoa, and, in<br />
addition, does not disregard the uses of adver-<br />
tisement, but after all he relies upon |the gratis<br />
sample.<br />
In the opinion of the writer it is not so much<br />
the producing as the distributing system of the<br />
book trade that is out of gear. Publishers them-<br />
selves, those keen business men, seem helpless.<br />
They blame the author, they blame the bookseller,<br />
they groan over the discount system, they cry<br />
out at the burden of the review copy, they pro-<br />
phesy, they menace, but the end of all the stir<br />
is "much cry and little wool." The unsold<br />
"quires" lie limp and lonely upon the warehouse<br />
shelves, the bookseller puts a few copies of<br />
standard authors in his windows, and the pur-<br />
chaser bursting into his shop with enthusiasm,<br />
red-hot from a perusal of the "essence of<br />
review" above mentioned, is met with the cold<br />
and damping remark that "We haven't the<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 71 (#83) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
book in stook, but we can get it." And, in not a<br />
few cases, out he goes again, never to return.<br />
This is not business; it is not even common<br />
sense. It is not encouraging trade, it is stifling<br />
its nascent struggles. And the result is per-<br />
petual recrimination and unrest. Let us now<br />
look at the whole matter from another stand-<br />
point.<br />
4. The Booh and the Public.—Ah, this dear<br />
Public! How noble he is. So unlike a reviewer,<br />
unlike even a publisher. We may bully him to<br />
our heart's content, and he will like us all the<br />
better for it. Each of us feels that, could we<br />
but stand face to face with him, and gain his ear,<br />
he would extend the right hand of fellowship to<br />
us, in sheer admiration of our splendid thoughts.<br />
Faith, it is a strange spectacle, this poor, weary,<br />
jaded Public, ever seeking for some new thing,<br />
and all this galaxy of talent eager to woo his<br />
attention and charm him from his abject melan-<br />
choly. And between, the impalpable shadow of<br />
Destiny, the mocking spectral Fate that keeps him<br />
still with head on hand, writhing with ennui—<br />
whilst our own enthralling work, epic, comedy, or<br />
jeremiad, as the case may be, lies upon the<br />
shelves, chemically decomposing into grainless<br />
dust.<br />
It is easy to understand how a book may be a<br />
great success. Touching, even though only by<br />
accident, on the inmost fibres of the human heart,<br />
will do it, even though every canon of criticism,<br />
and every rule of grammar has been violated in<br />
the doing of it. Perhaps Mr. Vincent Heward<br />
(March Author, p. 269) has not inaptly put it,<br />
when he says " style and form are graceful adorn-<br />
ments, but what of the body they are to adorn?"<br />
Emotion communicates itself like Same. The<br />
reader that has been thrilled is eager that<br />
others shall experience like pleasure. And thus<br />
comes the great success. Merely intellectual<br />
satisfaction the reader is more continent of.<br />
He says "Clever chap that," but the world<br />
does not glow the brighter for a mere sparkle<br />
of the mind. Yet even if we recognise that<br />
there are many kinds of cleverness which<br />
merely stimulate superficially without turning the<br />
reader's nervous system into a red-hot furnace<br />
full of sympathetic flames, it is not easy to say<br />
why books of undoubted merit are often not<br />
merely "not very successful," but, on the con-<br />
trary, total and abject failures.<br />
It would seem that there must be a reason, and<br />
a remediable reason, for this, since it is idle to<br />
blame the public for neglecting a clever work,<br />
because the public's appetite for any sort of<br />
clever work is, there is plenty of evidence to<br />
show, insatiable.<br />
We have seen that a clever work addressed to<br />
the emotions, succeeds, because it is advertised by<br />
the public itself. It spreads like fever, like panic,<br />
or any sort of contagion—and then after a time a<br />
further influence comes into play—it becomes<br />
"fashionable." The obvious corollary is that<br />
works of merit (e.g„ those mentioned on.p. 260)<br />
which are total failures, are only total failures<br />
because, not being of the class that advertise<br />
themselves, they have not in reality been adver-<br />
tised at all. Or to speak with precision, they<br />
have not been brought before the public in a way<br />
that has any practical influence on the public.<br />
And this will still be true, if many scores of<br />
pounds have been spent in advertising, and if<br />
every journal in the kingdom has spoken favour-<br />
ably of the work.<br />
Enter any shop where a large trade is done in<br />
non-copyright books and cheap editions. Observe<br />
the purchasers. In nine cases out of ten the<br />
purchaser goes into the shop with a vague flavour<br />
in his mouth, a half-felt craving for some par-<br />
ticular class of mental stimulus. It may be<br />
adventure by sea, or by land, the mazy thread of<br />
a detective tale, a " society" story, and so on. He<br />
wanders round the well-filled shelves, peeping<br />
into this, reading a few pages, passing on to that,<br />
until at length he finds something to his taste,<br />
pays his money cheerfully, and goes out in<br />
feverish haste to make acquaintance with his new<br />
friends.<br />
The deduction is obvious.<br />
What is really required to give a stimulus to<br />
the profession of the author, to the business of<br />
the publisher, to the trade of the bookseller, is<br />
reorganisation of existing relationships. The<br />
following seem reasonable suggestions. It is<br />
not pretended that they are now offered for the<br />
first time.<br />
(1). Fewer reviews, but those few written by<br />
the best available men, bent,not upon "slashing"<br />
the author, nor expatiating to a disproportionate<br />
extent upon mannerisms and style, nor exhibit-<br />
ing encyclopaedic learning, but on viewing<br />
the constructive work of their contemporaries<br />
as part of the zeit-geist in a calm and philo-<br />
sophic way.<br />
(2.) The abolition, to a large extent, of the<br />
"notice," which at its best is a waste of energy<br />
and space. A short statement of the plot or<br />
purport of the commonplace and generally un-<br />
worthy book might be substituted. Such state-<br />
ment signifying neither praise nor blame.<br />
(3). The introduction of much closer and more<br />
sympathetic relationship between publishers as a<br />
body and booksellers as a body. This is, of<br />
course, a vague and trite remark, and looks at<br />
first sight suspiciously like a pious wish, but it<br />
is the real focus at which all the evolutionary<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 72 (#84) ##############################################<br />
<br />
1*.<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
forces at present working blindly in the world of<br />
books will presently be concentrated. We need<br />
not, however, discuss this from the point of view<br />
of the publisher; we will consider only what the<br />
author wants, whether he gets it directly or in-<br />
directly.<br />
In every large town there should be many, in<br />
every small town there should be one bookseller<br />
who is not merely a tradesman, but an expert—<br />
the guide, philosopher, and friend of the book<br />
buyer. In his shop should be found every book<br />
reviewed by the critical journals, sent there on<br />
"sale or return" by the publisher. Of course this<br />
does not apply to Editions de luxe or specially<br />
expensive works—only to the rank and file of<br />
books that will be purchased by the public at<br />
large. There, too, would be found copies of those<br />
less successful works, open to everyone's examina-<br />
tion; and it can hardly be argued that they would<br />
not be better disposed of in this way than decay-<br />
ing on- the warehouse shelves. An unsold re-<br />
mainder of 500 copies would go a long way dis-<br />
tributed amongst the chief booksellers of the<br />
kingdom. It is very certain that such shops,<br />
established as a recognised and flourishing institu-<br />
tion in every town, selling all kinds of printed<br />
matter, would become the happy hunting ground<br />
of the public in search of a book, and that the<br />
scandal of works of merit proving financially<br />
disastrous, as in the case of our unfortunate<br />
fellow member, would cease to press on our atten-<br />
tion.<br />
The Public, entering the shop, either to behold<br />
with his own eyes that clever work of which he<br />
has just read the advertised "essence of review,"<br />
or, on the other hand, merely desirous of finding<br />
something suitable to his present mood, would<br />
scan eagerly not only the works of A., B., and C.<br />
—celebrated authors—but also of X., Y., and Z.,<br />
coming men, who, however, have not yet arrived.<br />
And it is much more likely that he will invest in<br />
the scintillating wit of X., Y., and Z., after having<br />
had the opportunity of mentally measuring it,<br />
than that he should speculate in the work of an<br />
unknown name on the faith of an advertisement.<br />
Besides, to be told that the books of a particular<br />
writer are not " kept in stock" leads oue, uncon-<br />
sciously, to rank that writer as a second-rate one.<br />
The influence of fashion is often strongest where<br />
it is least visible.<br />
It would appear that the bookseller is de-<br />
serving of the tenderest care at the hands of the<br />
author. He is the advance-guard, the outpost of<br />
literature, and his position should be strengthened<br />
as far as possible. Enlisting his sympathies, the<br />
author has a thousand Argus-eyed auxiliaries<br />
working for him, pointing out his merits, holding<br />
him up to the omnivorous public as a person<br />
whose acquaintance (at the published price) it is<br />
desirable to cultivate.<br />
The idea may be Utopian, but like many<br />
Utopias it is a pleasant one to contemplate.<br />
N. C.<br />
CORRESPONDENCE.<br />
I.—The Civil List.<br />
IN the copy of The Author for July, which has<br />
just reached me, you do not mention the grant<br />
(the pension, rather) of .£20 a year which has<br />
been awarded me from the Civil List. As I owe<br />
it entirely to the action of the Society of Authors,<br />
who most generously signed a petition on my<br />
behalf, I think some acknowledgment should be<br />
made in The Author. I am deeply grateful to<br />
the Society for their kind interest, and for the<br />
effort they made to help me. I may have hoped<br />
for a more generous award, but that does not<br />
affect my lively sense of the sympathy that has<br />
been shown me by my fellow authors, which has<br />
touched me most deeply. I thank them—and I<br />
thank you—most heartily.<br />
Frances Marshall (Alan St. Aubyn).<br />
July 8.<br />
II.—The Struggle for Recognition.<br />
Do unknown authors, with touching faith in<br />
their own creations, and still more touching<br />
expectancy in regard to payment, truly realise<br />
the utter hopelessness, the dreary waste of time<br />
involved in sending out their literary samples to<br />
up-to-date editors or publishers' readers? Do<br />
they quite understand the appalling difficulties in<br />
the path of poverty, with a more than glutted<br />
market to meet—and poverty is always left to the<br />
sweet silence of solitude? To get a serial story<br />
accepted at, say, .£3 weekly in a penny paper is<br />
the most practical way of earning a pittance in<br />
fiction; but even here there are thousands ready<br />
to do the work for half, and to do it remarkably<br />
well. Besides, the relatives of the proprietor or<br />
editor are always delighted to offer their services,<br />
and to steal all the "plums " from any proffered<br />
manuscripts. It is almost invariably the rich<br />
author who succeeds—the man or woman with a<br />
good income, irrespective of any literary earnings.<br />
Money lavished on advertising can make the<br />
dullest seaside story the fashion, and hence<br />
create a run on it. It is the moneyed power<br />
behind a book that will make it " go."<br />
It is the greedy capitalist, without a literary<br />
instinct, commencing perhaps as some shrewd<br />
newspaper clerk, who through lucky chances and<br />
solid backers can buy up papers one after the<br />
other, and ruin their owners, like a huge serpent<br />
swallowing lesser ones.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 73 (#85) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
73<br />
He commands the market. He may, and<br />
probably does, prefer twaddle, because he finds it<br />
sell, so he buys it and backed up by his capital<br />
it goes very well; it is so safe and everyone can<br />
of course understand, and be soothed or cheered<br />
by it. Does the poor and struggling author<br />
quite grasp these hard facts in an age of greed,<br />
of humbug, and of callous commercialism? It<br />
is easier to sell to twenty capitalists than to one.<br />
The wealthy authoress, reclining among her<br />
cushions in Worth's latest tea-gown, glittering in<br />
diamonds, and interviewed by a reporter awed<br />
into respect by her surroundings, has nothing to<br />
fear. Her books will sell because her money,<br />
position, and interest, can make them the fashion,<br />
and guileless reviewers have a singular faculty<br />
for appreciating these apparently hidden mys-<br />
teries. She appeals in some way to their inner<br />
consciousness. The illustrated interviews—the<br />
smart little pars—the advertisements—the large<br />
social connections—the money and the pushing<br />
publisher do the rest. It is precisely the same<br />
with the wealthy author. Let struggling aspi-<br />
rants moved by philosophic doubts ponder well<br />
over the injustice and indifference meted every-<br />
where to the poor. Annabel Gray.<br />
[The above, whose signature commands atten-<br />
tion, deals with the difficulties which beset the<br />
path of young writers. I would willingly believe<br />
that the picture is exaggerated. It is doubtless<br />
true that the difficulties are tremendous ; but does<br />
not the nature of the work—the magnitude of<br />
the prize, which is not, like the prize of trade, one<br />
of money only, but of honour, consideration, and<br />
respect—necessitate these difficulties?<br />
To write seems so easy: when one has written<br />
the product seems to the writer so beautiful: the<br />
success of so many seems so easily achieved: the<br />
literary value of successful work seems to the<br />
young writer so much below his own work: that<br />
not only is the editor bombarded and pelted with<br />
MSS., but the disappointment of the unsuccessful<br />
is keen beyond any other kind of disappoint-<br />
ment. It is bitter for the man with the red<br />
lamp to see his old friend of student days<br />
making his ten thousand a year as a consulting<br />
physician, but it is far more bitter for an<br />
aspirant to see the success of a work which in his<br />
own mind he ranks far below his own. I have<br />
always been of opinion that good work makes its<br />
own way. Even supposing that push and<br />
advertising can advance a book not worth<br />
advertising, there remains the question whether<br />
any fine piece of work can be named which<br />
has failed to make its mark any time<br />
during the last ten years. Again, it is true<br />
that there are thousands who can turn out MSS.<br />
resembling good work and for nothing or next to<br />
nothing; the fact remains that it is not really<br />
good work, and the journals which "go in" for<br />
cheapn- ss do not thrive by cheapness. The only<br />
remedy is patience. When people agree to con-<br />
sider writing as a kind of work that has to be<br />
paid for, like cabinet making, there will spring up<br />
some feeling as to sweating writers, just as there<br />
is about sweating needlewomen. Yet the sweat-<br />
ing will be carried on.<br />
Again, can it be said that MSS. are plundered<br />
of their contents '{ Such a thing might conceiv-<br />
ably take place and with impunity: but it must<br />
be very rare, if only on account of the vast<br />
masses of MSS. which are daily sent into the<br />
editor. Has Annabel Gray any facts in support<br />
of this suggestion?<br />
Then, is it the rich writer who suceeeds? I<br />
should say that it is the successful writer, as a<br />
rule, has nothing except the stimulus of poverty.<br />
Writers as a rule never do have anything to<br />
begin with. One need not quote examples of<br />
living men: of dead men we may mention<br />
Dickens, Leigh Hunt, Douglas Jerrold, Marryatt<br />
—none of them had anything to begin with.<br />
However, this is how it seems to Annabel Gray.<br />
—Ed.] c-=i<br />
III.—The Seamy Side.<br />
Do not your occasional contributors tell us too<br />
much about their grievances and too little about<br />
their success? All publishers arc not necessarily<br />
sharks, and some editors are distinctly human—<br />
as you, Sir, have frequently borne witness. I<br />
personally have had two good doses of disappoint-<br />
ment and disillusion—each one of which my<br />
candid friends have interpreted as Divine warn-<br />
ings that I should take Mr. Grant Allen's advice<br />
and buy a good broom and annex a vacant<br />
crossing, but I am bound to add that I agree<br />
with Mr. Coulson Kernahan, in his preface to<br />
"Sorrow and Song," that for kindness of heart<br />
men of letters have no equal. The gentlemen<br />
who write you frequently profess to be anxious<br />
to assist the young author. Would they not help<br />
him more effectually if they told him some of<br />
the good things that had happened to them?<br />
At present they seem to unite to quench your<br />
cheery optimism, and to make poor beginners like<br />
myself wonder whether any good thing can come<br />
to the producer from the world of books!<br />
Stanhope Sprigg.<br />
IV.—Hard Treatment in Australia.<br />
You may be interested to hear that cases of<br />
hardship to young writers occur in this new land<br />
similar to those published in your columns.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 74 (#86) ##############################################<br />
<br />
74<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
In the months of July and August of last year<br />
an advertisement appeared in the columns of the<br />
Bulletin, which you may know is the leading<br />
paper of its class in the colonies, to the effect<br />
that the Coolgardie Courier (W. A.) would give<br />
prizes of '' six, four, and two guineas for the<br />
three best original stories illustrative of life in<br />
Australasia," and, furthermore, that the pro-<br />
prietors of the paper would make a donation of<br />
one guinea to any tale published other than the<br />
prize winners.<br />
Satisfied that the advertisement signed by such<br />
a well-known proprietor was genuine, I entered<br />
MSS. of two stories for the competition, but from<br />
that time no further reference was made to it in<br />
any paper.<br />
I have obtained a file of the Coolgardie<br />
Courier from July of last year up to date, and<br />
find there is absolutely no mention of any com-<br />
petition in its columns. No stories whatever have<br />
appeared in it but those culled from English and<br />
other journals.<br />
I ascertained from the Bulletin office that the<br />
advertisement was a bond fide one, and then<br />
wrote to the Courier asking an explanation and<br />
for my MSS. The latter arrived this morning<br />
(in a very dilapidated condition), but no letter or<br />
memorandum accompanied it, so the why and<br />
wherefore of the business is still a mystery.<br />
I have also suffered this year at the hands<br />
of a Sydney newspaper, which published tales of<br />
mine in its December and January numbers and<br />
for which I am unable to get payment.<br />
I previously won a prize competition of this<br />
journal which was paid promptly enough. I have<br />
put the present matter into a solicitor's care, and<br />
would like to let you know result.<br />
Ada A. Kidgell.<br />
39, Hunter-street, Sydney.<br />
V.—Proposed Journal tor Amateurs.<br />
Referring to your remarks on amateur produc-<br />
tions, are you not a little unjust to that unhappy<br />
individual? His work is sure to be weak and<br />
flabby, you say, and no one would care to read it.<br />
Consequently an amateur magazine must be a<br />
collection of drivel. Now, I understand an<br />
amateur to be a person who has not had the<br />
good luck to get his or her work accepted, and so<br />
the majority of our distinguished authors for<br />
some period of their lives came under that<br />
category. Their work was not worthless by any<br />
means.<br />
I have been told by a talented LL.D. of keen<br />
critical ability that my work is above the average<br />
of published novels, and, though I am afraid to<br />
believe him, I certainly consider it has redeemed<br />
itself from flabbiness. But, even if it were as<br />
good as your own, that fact would not insure its<br />
acceptance, seeing that there is scarcely room on<br />
the booksellers' shelves for the work of old hands.<br />
There is no earthly reason why an amateur who<br />
has been writing for some time should not be as<br />
good as the average professional, and if there is<br />
the faintest hope of his ever becoming known in<br />
the literary world, he must turn out something<br />
far superior to our usual literary fare.<br />
A few years ago I used to take in an amateur<br />
monthly which contained very good articles by<br />
Mary L. Pendred. This lady has since placed<br />
books on the market and figured in the Idler,<br />
and I should like to know whether she was<br />
"ashamed" of what she had done for the little<br />
amateur when she found herself on the giddy<br />
heights of professionalism. Inconnu.<br />
VI.—Stale MSS.<br />
Your correspondents complain of their MSS.<br />
being kept months for publication—or a year or<br />
two; but I think I can beat the record. One<br />
was six years old when it appeared, but the<br />
editor offered me a larger cheque in consequence.<br />
Two or three have been buried four years, and<br />
when printed T scarcely knew my own produc-<br />
tions. Certainly I felt then that I could have<br />
done better. As these were illustrated articles<br />
5 per cent. interest for four years represents £2!<br />
MSS. ought to be paid on delivery, or else 4 or<br />
5 per cent. charged for credit.<br />
A Patient Scribe.<br />
VII.—Personal.<br />
Nearly all the reviews of " The Actor-Manager"<br />
contain the statement that I am novelist, drama-<br />
tist, and actor in one: "Jack of all trades, and<br />
master of none" will probably be added soon.<br />
May I beg you to serve me by correcting the<br />
misapprehension? My experience as an actor<br />
was very brief, and I left the theatrical profes-<br />
sion when I was three-and-twenty. I am simply<br />
a novelist who has collaborated in two or three<br />
plays. If you would say so, I should be extremely<br />
grateful for your kindness.<br />
Leonard Merrick.<br />
National Liberal Club.<br />
VIII.—Reprints.<br />
Will some reader, well versed in the cautious ways<br />
of publishers, kindly inform me, with as little delay<br />
as possible, why it is that publishers persistently<br />
refuse to reprint books of general interest, chiefly<br />
because their original issue ran to only one<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 75 (#87) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
75<br />
edition of a limited number of copies, and was<br />
not brought well under the notice of the public?<br />
This was, at any rate, the reason given by<br />
several publishers who have had under con-<br />
sideration my book of travels in Cuba which<br />
appeared some years ago under the title of the<br />
"Pearl of the Antilles." It is, I believe, the<br />
only work dealing with social life in Cuba which<br />
has been written, and it was the result of five<br />
years' residence in the island; most of the time<br />
having been passed in the city of Santiago—the<br />
very centre of the pending hostilities between<br />
Spain and the United States.<br />
I was not only a resident at Santiago de Cuba,<br />
but I spent much more than a mauvais quatre<br />
d'heure inside that same Morro Castle at present<br />
being bombarded by the American fleet.<br />
One would have supposed that such experiences<br />
would be of some interest to readers of to-day,<br />
and that to a large majority they would appear<br />
fresh, or as if the book had never been written;<br />
the more so because the work has long since been<br />
out of print, and forgott-n by a limited number<br />
old enough to remember it.<br />
Moreover the volume, though rather extensively<br />
noticed by the Press at the time of its publication,<br />
was never pushed by my publishers, so that the<br />
public knew next to nothing of its existence.<br />
This is another reason given by the publishers<br />
of to-day in explanation of their refusal to<br />
take up a reprint—well revised and written up<br />
to date—of the "Pearl of the Antilles." They<br />
contend that if the book had been a financial<br />
success it would have run to another edition, and<br />
yet another. But they cannot be persuaded to<br />
believe that the subject of the book is of far<br />
more interest to-day than it was the other day,<br />
and that almost anything relating to Cuba just<br />
now, if well brought under the notice of the<br />
public, would perhaps receive attention.<br />
In addition to a careful revise, introducing new<br />
features, I have also offered to supply illustrations<br />
from sketches and designs in my possee-ion—<br />
some of the sketches having been done on the<br />
spot by myself. But in no single instance has<br />
any publisher " caught on " as yet to the idea.<br />
Walter Goodman,<br />
Oranienhof, Kreuznach, Germany.<br />
July 4, 1898. aia<br />
IX.—The Publication of Scientific Educa-<br />
tional Wokks.<br />
I should like to call your attention to a great<br />
disadvantage that the authors of scientific works<br />
that are intended for educational purposes labour<br />
under, viz., the excessive cost of advertisement.<br />
I have written three books and a large number<br />
of articles in the technical Press on the practical<br />
side of electrical engineering, that is to say, books<br />
designed for the use of mining, mechanical, and<br />
marine engineers, mechanics, plumbers, ifcc., who<br />
may have to deal with electrical apparatus but<br />
have no training, and to whom the text-books<br />
which appeal to trained electricians, crammed as<br />
they are with mathematics, would be absolutely<br />
useless.<br />
That there is a field for such books, and a large<br />
one, was proved by the fact that the first edition<br />
of my first book, consisting of 1250 copies, sold<br />
out in four months, and by the fact that this book<br />
is now w.;ll on its third edition, while the others<br />
have achieved nearly as great a success. It has<br />
also been proved in the usual way that most<br />
authors are acquainted with—I am constantly<br />
hearing of my books from all parts of the world.<br />
I have met working colliers away from their<br />
work, carrying my books in their pockets, just as<br />
one does any favourite author.<br />
I have nothing to complain of in my treatment<br />
by my publishers, except in this matter of adver-<br />
tisements. I believe that a very much larger<br />
number of my books would be sold if they were<br />
more advertised. There are probably immense<br />
numbers of mechanics, plumbers, &c., to whom<br />
the books would be of immense value, by enabling<br />
them to deal themselves with most of the troubles<br />
that beset electrical apparatus, and so improve<br />
their own position and save money for then-<br />
employers. These men do not buy my books<br />
simply because they have not heard of their<br />
existence, and when I complain to my publisher<br />
they say that they cannot afford to advertise<br />
more tban they do, the cost is so great in propor-<br />
tion to the returns.<br />
But the most striking feature of the case is, my<br />
publishers assure me, that, though my first book<br />
may presumably be regarded as a success, they<br />
have only recently made anything on it; and the<br />
principal reason given is the excessive cost of<br />
advertisements, though, as I have shown, those<br />
advertisements have failed to touch the great<br />
bulk of possible purchasers.<br />
The Society of Authors has already done a<br />
great deal for authors individually and collec-<br />
tively. Could it not attack the great injustice<br />
involved in this?<br />
Take any technical paper, and consider the<br />
amount paid to the authors employed on it as<br />
against the enormous sums received for the adver-<br />
tisements. The manufacturer and the merchant<br />
have numberless ways of bringing their wares<br />
before purchasers. The author has only one—the<br />
advertisement columns of the Press, after, of<br />
course, the review—the latter only taking place on<br />
each new edition.<br />
Is it not possible to induce proprietors of<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 76 (#88) ##############################################<br />
<br />
76<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
papers to take advertisements of books at a lower<br />
rate, to give authors a better chance of getting<br />
their works known?<br />
It is said, in reply to this, that proprietors of<br />
papers would never surrender a portion of their<br />
profits. As nothing but increased postage rate<br />
prevents proprietors of papers from increasing<br />
their advertisement sheets ad infinitum, it may<br />
fairly be doubted if this is so; but, even if it is,<br />
why should they not? Publishers pursued the<br />
same grinding policy until the advent of the<br />
Authors' Society.<br />
What has been done with publishers might<br />
surely be done with the proprietors of papers.<br />
It should be remembered, too, that the authors<br />
referred to, providing they have really something<br />
to say, are doing a work of national importance.<br />
If this country is to hold its own in the com-<br />
mercial race with Germany and the United States,<br />
it can only be by the education of its artisans in<br />
the technical details of engineering apparatus,<br />
and no education can be so convenient as that<br />
which the artisan can carry in his pocket.<br />
Cardiff. Sydney F. Walker.<br />
X.—Editors and Contributors.<br />
As I have not been able to see The Author for<br />
this mouth I do not know what progress, if any,<br />
has been made with above subject, which is of even<br />
greater importance tn struggling writers than the<br />
subject of publishers' extortions is to their better-<br />
to-do brethren, and which cannot be regarded<br />
as settled, on Enskin's principle that nothing is<br />
settled until it is settled rightly.<br />
The reason I am addressing you now is to give<br />
you an account of the further conduct of the<br />
editor towards me concerning whom I complained<br />
in your May impression. When my letter<br />
appeired I cut it out, together with all the other<br />
matter on the same subject. and forwarded it to<br />
the editor in question, to whom I had been con-<br />
stantly writing previously, asking him to put in<br />
what. MSS. of mine he had in hand. He returned<br />
my inclosures with the simple comment. " Pray<br />
do not trouble to send such matter in future."<br />
On which I wrote him that I must have an answer<br />
as to what he intended to do in the matter of<br />
my MSS., some of which he had kept on hand<br />
upwards of twelve months. Someone on his behalf<br />
then sent me a note that the editor had gone<br />
awav for a holiday, but would answer my letter<br />
on his return. I accordingly patiently waited a<br />
month, during which nothing by me appeared in<br />
his paper, and then began to write to him again.<br />
He took no notice, despite the promise on his<br />
behalf, until last Thursday (July 14), when he<br />
sent me a letter in which he said that he had<br />
gone through all the MSS. of mine he had in<br />
hand, and found that he could use, "at the first<br />
opportunity," four which he named, one of which<br />
he had already kept fourteen months, another<br />
eight months, another three months, and another<br />
nearly two years. On receiving this communica-<br />
tion I wrote expressing satisfaction that some at<br />
least of my pieces were at length going to be<br />
used, and asking that the others he had in hand<br />
should be returned, one of them a tale sent him<br />
with stamped-addressed envelope nearly two years<br />
back.<br />
Instead of complying with my request he<br />
actually sent back the four MSS. only he had<br />
just contracted to use, marked with editorial<br />
notes and corrections, and now says in answer<br />
to my appeals that he derives warrant for so<br />
doing from my letter of July 15, which I have<br />
told him he has misinteqjreted. He obstinately<br />
refuses, however, to either insert my MSS. or give<br />
me any compensation for not doing so, despite<br />
the time he has kept them.<br />
Of course I can send them elsewhere after I'<br />
have re-copied them, but look at the injustice of<br />
the thing.<br />
I have written to the proprietors of the journal<br />
in question, but do not suppose I shall get any<br />
redress from them. Experto Crede.<br />
OBITUARY.<br />
MRS. ELIZABETH LYNN LINTON died<br />
on July 14, at Queen Anne's Mansions,<br />
London, where she had been staying for<br />
some time on a visit to a friend. About six<br />
weeks before she was taken ill with pleurisy; the<br />
complaint developing into double pneumonia.<br />
Mrs. Linton was in her 77th year. Born at<br />
Keswick in the days of the Lake Poets, the<br />
daughter of the Vicar of Crosthwaite, she came<br />
to London when she was twenty-three, and in the<br />
following year under the auspices of Walter<br />
Savage Landor her first book was published.<br />
This was "Amymone: a Romance of the Days<br />
of Pericles." She began to write about this time<br />
for the Morning Chronicle, and subsequently for<br />
the Morning Star; and her career in journalism<br />
thus begun was continued in the Daily News,<br />
Household Words, and All the Year Round.<br />
Journalism was, indeed, her employment for a<br />
few years after 1851, the year in which "Reali-<br />
ties" appeared. In all, Mrs. Linton was the<br />
author of some twenty books. Her method was<br />
one. of extreme painstaking, as an instance of<br />
which it has been recorded that she re-wrote each<br />
of her long stories with her own hand thrice,<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 77 (#89) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
77<br />
making emendations each time. Distinction<br />
came to her in 1872 by her powerful novel "The<br />
True History of Joseph Davidson," the hero of<br />
which is a Cornish carpenter who sets himself to<br />
live the life of Christ. "Patricia Kemball,"<br />
which followed after an interval of two years,<br />
had a reception only little less distinguished.<br />
The book by which she is probably best known<br />
to-day is "The Girl of the Period," issued in<br />
1883, a series of trenchant essays which had<br />
appeared in the Saturday Reriew, and which<br />
displayed Mrs. Linton in the character of a firm<br />
upholder of the sanctities of domestic life. She<br />
had no sympathy with what is commonly called<br />
the "new" woman—what Mrs. Linton herself<br />
called, in a series of essays upon them, the<br />
"shrieking sisterhood." Miss Lynn married in<br />
1858 Mr. William James Linton, the engraver on<br />
wood, but it was not long before Mr. and Mrs.<br />
Linton separated on account of incompatibility<br />
of temper. The husband went to America where<br />
he lived to the age of eighty. Mrs. Linton was<br />
attached to London, in which she lived for fifty<br />
years. She retired a few years ago to Malvern.<br />
One of her last visits w as to the annual dinner of<br />
the Society of Authors nine weeks before her<br />
death. Her circle of friends was very large; she<br />
was a delightful talker, a charming letter writer;<br />
a sympathetic friend to many a struggling aspi-<br />
rant in literature. The remains of the deceased<br />
lady were cremated at Woking two days after her<br />
death.<br />
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.<br />
C^OULD any correspondent kindly tell me<br />
j where "Is the Church of England worth<br />
preserving?" an article by the late Mr.<br />
Gladstone, which appeared some fifteen years<br />
ago, I think, can be found? Also, what is the<br />
reference to an article on Corporate Reunion of<br />
the Church of England with the Church of Rome,<br />
by some Anglican dignitary, giving, I believe, an<br />
account of the consecration of three Anglican<br />
clergymen by Roman Catholic bishops r<br />
Spes.<br />
BOOK TALK.<br />
MR. F. J. JACKSON'S record of the<br />
recent Jackson-Harmsworth expedition<br />
to the polar regions will be published by<br />
Messrs. Harper in the autumn, in two volumes.<br />
A facsimile of the famous Rhind mathematical<br />
papyrus will be issued shortly by the British<br />
Museum. The papyrus deals with such subjects<br />
as the elements of geometrv and the theory of<br />
fractions, and was prepare! for publication by<br />
the late Dr. Samuel Birch several years ago. It<br />
has since been revised, and a special introduction<br />
has been written for it by Dr. Budge.<br />
"Practical Letters to Young Sea-fishers" is<br />
the title of a new book by Mr. John Bickerdyke,<br />
which Mr. Horace Cox, publisher of the Field,<br />
announces. In addition to sea-fishing as a sport,<br />
it deals with fishing-boats, boat-sailing, and life-<br />
saving at sea, and the restoration of the half<br />
drowned. The book is very fully illustrated by<br />
photographs of sea-fishing scenes taken by the<br />
author, sea-fishes drawn by a noted ichthyologist,<br />
the late Dr. Day, and the usual diagrams of<br />
tackle.<br />
Mr. Jerome K. Jerome's new book, a second<br />
series of "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow," will<br />
be published in a few days by Messrs. Hurst<br />
and Blackett, entitled "Second Thoughts of an<br />
Idle Fellow." The first series appeared twelve<br />
years ago.<br />
Early in the autumn season a memoir of<br />
Robert, Earl Nugent, the contemporary and<br />
friend of Pitt, Chesterfield, and Walpole,<br />
will be published by Mr. Heinemann. The<br />
writer is a member of the family, Mr. Claude<br />
Nugent, and a great amount of the earl's<br />
correspondence will be given, as well as illus-<br />
trations from pictures by Gainsborough, Reynolds,<br />
and Kneller.<br />
Miss Nellie Farren is writing the storv of her<br />
life.<br />
Readers will remember the process of unautho-<br />
rised adaptation which a story by Mr. H. G.<br />
Wells recently underwent in order to suit a<br />
locality in the United States. Now it appears that<br />
somewhat similar treatment has been received by<br />
another English author, namely, Mr. H. O. Arnold<br />
Forster, M.P. His little book, "In a Conning<br />
Tower," which has gone through many editions,<br />
has been taken in hand by an "enterprising"<br />
firm in America. The narrative describes the<br />
possible course of an action between two modern<br />
British ironclads. In the American adaptation,<br />
names of American battleships are substituted,<br />
and the work is described as "by a noted<br />
expert."<br />
Mr. Henry James's new novel, " In the Cage,"<br />
will appear from Messrs. Duckworth's in a few-<br />
days.<br />
Mr. E. F. Benson has written a society story,<br />
entitled "The Money Market," which will be<br />
Arrowsmith's Christmas Annual this year.<br />
Mr. J. K. Laughton is making steady progress<br />
with the life of the late Mr. Henry Reeve, the<br />
editor of the Edinburgh Review, which will pro-<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 78 (#90) ##############################################<br />
<br />
78<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
bably be among the most important of this year's<br />
biographies. It will contain some vers-de-sodet6<br />
written by Mr. Reeve in early life.<br />
Mr. Demetrius Boulger, whose large history of<br />
China has just been issu d in a cheaper edition,<br />
has examined the documents of the Congo State<br />
and the work carried on there, and the result will<br />
be a book entitled "The Congo State and the<br />
Growth of Civilisation in Central Africa." It<br />
will be published by Messrs. Thacker in the<br />
autumn.<br />
A volume that will be anticipated with much<br />
ioterest is " Letters by Benjamin Jowett," which<br />
Mr. Evelyn Abbott and Professor Lewis Campbell<br />
are preparing as a supplement to their " Life of<br />
the late Master of Balliol," which was issued by<br />
Mr. Murray last year.<br />
Mr. Clark Russell's new novel, " The Romance<br />
of a Midshipman," will be published on Oct. 5<br />
by Mr. Unwin.<br />
A romance of lower London, by Mr. A. St. John<br />
Adcock, will be published shortly by Messrs.<br />
Skeffington.<br />
General McLeod Innes is writing the life of<br />
another gallant soldier, namely, the late General<br />
Sir Henry Havelock-Allan.<br />
Novels to be published in the autumn by Messrs<br />
Constable include " An Elusive Lover," by Virna<br />
Woods; "A Statesman's Chance," by Mr. J. F.<br />
Charles; and "The Modern Gospel," by Mrs.<br />
H. H. Penrose.<br />
With the July number of the Classical Review<br />
Mr. G. E. Marindin relinquished the post of<br />
editor, owing to pressure of other work. Dr.<br />
Postgate, of Cambridge, has accepted the editor-<br />
ship, and he will be assisted by Mr. A. Bernard<br />
Cook, of Trinity College, Cambridge. Mr.<br />
Marindin has edited the review for five years,<br />
having succeeded Professor Mayor.<br />
Mr. Walter Armstrong, Director of the National<br />
Gallery of Ireland, is writing a book on the<br />
characteristics an < achievements of the painter<br />
Gainsborough, which will be published by Mr.<br />
Heinemann.<br />
Lord Ashbourne is writing a work entitled<br />
"Pitt: Some Chapters of his Life and 1 imes,"<br />
which Messrs. Longman will issue in the<br />
autumn.<br />
"Foreign Courts and Foreign Homes " is the<br />
title of a work by "A. M. F." which is shortly to<br />
be published by Messrs. Longman. It deals<br />
with Hanoverian and French society under King<br />
Ernest and the Emperor Napoleon III., and<br />
contains a fund of anecdote.<br />
Mr. W. G. Collingwood is being assisted by<br />
Professor Jon Stefansson, of Copenhagen Univer-<br />
sity, the well-known Icelander, in preparing an<br />
elaborate volume on the topography and scenery<br />
of the Sagas, so far as they relate to Iceland.<br />
It will be illustrated by 200 water-colour drawings<br />
taken by Mr. Collingwood last year in the Faroe<br />
Islands, Iceland, and the Northern Seas.<br />
Professor Murison is writing the volume on Sir<br />
William Wallace for the Famous Scots Series.<br />
July witnessed the appearance of a threepenny<br />
popular monthly, entitled the Harmsworth Maga-<br />
zine. It is published by the well-known firm of<br />
Harmsworth. Considerable discussion has arisen<br />
upon the question of whether the newsagents can<br />
afford to sell it at the price it is offered to them.<br />
Messrs. W. H. Smith and Son declined to sell it<br />
on their bookstalls, and there has been a lengthy<br />
altercation between the two firms on this score.<br />
Mr. Harmsworth, the principal of the firm, says<br />
that the magazine can only be produced at the<br />
price becatise it is but "a small incident in an<br />
organisation controlling four daily journals and<br />
nearly thirty weekly periodicals; because we<br />
already possess and are now building printing<br />
machinery of an entirely novel and labour-saving<br />
nature."<br />
The following are among the novels which are<br />
announced for early publication: "God's Out-<br />
cast," by Mr. Silas K. Hocking (Warne); "A<br />
Girl of Grit," by Major Arthur Griffiths (Milne J;<br />
a novel by Mr. J. A. Barry (Macqueen); "A<br />
Lotus Flower," by Mr. J. Morgan de Groo<br />
(Blackwood); "The Secret of the King," by Mr.<br />
Charles Hannan; "The Pathway of the Gods,"<br />
by Mrs. Mona Caird; •' The Laurel Walk," by<br />
Mrs. Molesworth (Isbister); and "The Queen's<br />
Cup," by Mr. G. A. Henty."<br />
"The Ways of a Widow," by Mrs. Lovett<br />
Cameron; and "Heart and Sword," by John<br />
Strange Winter, will be published by Messrs.<br />
White, who also have in preparation new stories<br />
by Mrs. Alexander and Miss Florence Warden.<br />
The Rev. Arthur Jenkinson, minister of the<br />
parish of Innellan, Argyllshire, has written a<br />
novel, in collaboration with his daughter, the<br />
scenes of which are laid in some of the wildest<br />
parts of the West Highlands. The story is<br />
entitled "Fiona Mclver: A Romance of the<br />
Western Isles," and will be published immediately<br />
by Messrs. Hutchinson and Co. Miss Jeukinson,<br />
who is still very young, has already accomplished<br />
a considerable amount of literary work.<br />
The executive committee of the Stevenson<br />
Memorial now report that a fund of about .£1400<br />
has been raited through local committees in New<br />
Zealand, the United States, London, Liverpool,<br />
Manchester, Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh,<br />
Glasgow, Dundee, and Aberdeen. A mural<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 79 (#91) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
79<br />
monument in bronze will be placed in the Moray<br />
Aisle of St. Giles's Cathedral, Edinburgh. It wiil<br />
be done by Mr. St. Gaudens, the American<br />
sculptor, who has studied Stevenson from the life.<br />
If the funds permit, it is also proposed to erect a<br />
handsome red granite seat upon some point on<br />
the Calton Hill, overlooking the Firth of Forth.<br />
Miss E. M. Cope is translating from the Nor-<br />
wegian a personal life of Marie Antoinette,<br />
written by Miss Clara Tschudi, who was recently<br />
presented by King Oscar with a gold medal in<br />
recognition of her historical researches. Messrs.<br />
Swan Sonnenschein and Co. will publish the<br />
book.<br />
Dr. Joseph Parker, of the City Temple, is<br />
writing a review of his Lifetime amongst the<br />
Dissenters, which will probably appear in the<br />
autumn. The proposed title of the book is<br />
"Paterson's Parish: A Book of Scenes, Thoughts,<br />
Dialogues, and Revelations." No publisher has<br />
yet been named.<br />
"Estrina," written by C. H. Malcolm, has just<br />
been published by Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.<br />
(2*. 6d.).<br />
A play entitled "Edgar Harissue," by Messrs.<br />
C. H. Malcolm and Arthur Grahame, was played<br />
at the Ladbroke Hall on Tuesday, July 19, and<br />
was much appreciated.<br />
THE BOOKS OF THE MONTH.<br />
[June 24 to July 23.—217 Books.]<br />
Ames, J. S. Theory of Physics. 10/- Harper.<br />
Ames. J. S. and Bliss, W. J. A. A Manual of Experiments in Physics.<br />
10/- Harper.<br />
Anderson, P. J Records of Marischal College and University,<br />
Aberdeen. 1593-1840. 21/- New Spalding Club.<br />
Andom, B Martha and I 3/6 Jarrold.<br />
Andrews, S. J. Christianity and Anti-Christianity in their Final<br />
Conflict. 9/- Putnam.<br />
Andrews, W. Literary Bywavs. 7/6. Andrews.<br />
Anonymous (An Inspector of Schools). Principles of Arithmetic.<br />
3 6. McDougall.<br />
Anonymous. Conquest of Constantinople hy the Crusaders: A Song<br />
of Israel and Other Poems. 2/6 net. Paul.<br />
Anonymous (B. L. L.) Doctrine of Energy. 2/6 net. Paul.<br />
Anonymous. An Indictment of the Bishops. 1/- Church Association.<br />
Anonymous. History as Taught in India. 1/- T. G. Johnson.<br />
Armstrong, A. Tales of the Temple and Elsewhere. 1/-<br />
St. Sames's Gazette Office.<br />
Bailey, G. H. Metals and their Compounds. Part I. 1/6. Clive.<br />
Baskett, J. N. At You-alTs House. 6/- Macmillan.<br />
Raynee. Herbert. Ideals of the East. 5/- Sonnenschein.<br />
Relfort, Roland. The Colonial Cable Peril. 1/- R. Belfort.<br />
Bell. R S W. The Pupa Papers, and Some Stories. 2 - Richards.<br />
Blake, A. H. Photography. Simple Chapters for Beginners. 1-<br />
Routledge.<br />
Bland. E. A. Alice Courtenay's Legacy. 1/- Stoneman.<br />
Roas. F. The Social Organisation and the Secret Societies of the<br />
Ka aklutl Indians. 12/- net. Wesley.<br />
Booth, J. L. O. Sporting Rhymes and Pictures. 3/6. Paul.<br />
Brebner, Mary. Method of Teaching Modern Languages in<br />
Germany. 1/6. Clay.<br />
Bridges, G. J. Imaginations in Verse. I/- Exeter: Pollard.<br />
Briggs, W. and Stewart, R. W. Chemical Analysis. 3/6. Clive.<br />
Brodie, S. Poetical Stories. 3/6 net. Digby.<br />
brown, J. D. Library C'assiflcation and Shelf Arrangement. 4 -<br />
net. Library Supply Co.<br />
Brnnker, H. M. S. Memoranda and Formula): Fortification aud<br />
Topography. 3/- Th acker.<br />
Bullock, C. William Ewart Gladstone: a non-political Tribute, ij.<br />
Horn? Word**<br />
Campin, F. Iron and Steel Bridges and Viaducts. 3 6 Lockwood.<br />
Carrlngton, Henry The Siren. 3/6. Stock.<br />
Chipp, H. Lawn Tennis Recollections 2/- Merritt an I Ha'cher.<br />
Clarke, h. H. The Shipping Ring and South Africtn Trade I -<br />
Ward and Lock.<br />
Clarke, Henry. Billy: and other Sketches. 3/6. Simpkin<br />
Cleevrf, L. The Monks of the Holy Tear. 6/- White.<br />
Coleridge, ChrisUbel. The Thought-Rope. 1/- Hurst.<br />
Coleridge, E. H. Poems. 3/6. net. L*ne.<br />
Oollinson's History of Somerset, Index to, edited by F. W. Weaver<br />
and E. H. Bates. 20/- net Taunton: Barnicott and Pearce.<br />
Oolquhoun. A. R. Chin* in Transformation. 16/- Harper.<br />
Colton, B. H. Physiology, Experimental and Descriptive. 6,'-<br />
ScientifiY Press.<br />
Courtois, R. Christ's Teaching and our Religious Divisions. 1/6-<br />
Art and Book do.<br />
Crompton, A. (tr.). One Hundred Sonnets of Petrarch, together with<br />
his Hymn to the Virgin Italian Text, with an English trans-<br />
lation. 5/- net. Paul.<br />
Cross, F. W. History of the Walloon and Huguenot Church at<br />
Canterbury. Prlv-tely printed for the Huguenot Society.<br />
Crouch, A. P. For the Rebel Cause. 3/6. Ward and L.<br />
Cushing, P. The Shepherdess of Treva. A novel, '6 - Thacker.<br />
Cuthbertson, W. (ed.). Pansies, Violas, and Violets. 1/6.<br />
Cripps, H. Ovariotomy and Abdominal Surgery. 2", -<br />
Dall, G. (tr. by Sarah Cazaly) Christine Myriane. 6/-<br />
D'Arcy, Ella. Modern Instances. 3/6.<br />
Davey, Richard Cuba, Past and Present. 12 -<br />
Davies, H. The Cerebellum. 2/6.<br />
Davis. A. Umbandine: A Romance of Swaziland. i;.-<br />
Day, Thomas Fleming. Songs of Se* and Sail. Yachtsman Office.<br />
Douglas, W. S. Cromwell's Scotch Campaigns, 1650-51. 10,6.<br />
Stock.<br />
By Shamrock and Heather. 6, -<br />
, and White, H. A. (trs.). Levi tic u<br />
Macmillan.<br />
Churchill.<br />
Digby<br />
Lane*<br />
Chapman<br />
Nichols,<br />
On win.<br />
Digby.<br />
(Polvchrome<br />
Clarke.<br />
Simpkin.<br />
E. Wilson.<br />
Low.<br />
Obfatto,<br />
1 - net.<br />
Downe. W.<br />
Driver. 8. R..<br />
Bible.)<br />
Dutt, W. A. By Sea Marge, Marsh, and Mere.<br />
Easton, H. T. The Work of a Bank. 2 net.<br />
Ebers, G. (tr. by Mary J Safford). Arachne. 6 -<br />
Edwards, G. S. Snazellepirilla. 3/6.<br />
Edwards, R. Mechanical Engineer's Handy Office Compinion.<br />
Lockwood.<br />
Ellice, E. C. Place Names in Glengarry and Glenquoich. 2/6.<br />
Sonnenschein<br />
Ellison, M. A. A Manual for Students of Massage 3/6 net.<br />
Builliere,<br />
Escott, T. H. S. Personal Forces of the Period. 6,- Hurst.<br />
Eyton, Canon. The Heritage of a Great Life [Gladstone's]. 1- Paul.<br />
Ferguson, Robert. Dulcissima! Dilectissima! Stock.<br />
Filon, A. (tr. by J. E. Hogarth). The Moder n French Drama. 7/6.<br />
Chapman.<br />
Flint, G, Marching with Gomez. 6/- net. iJay.<br />
Fryer, A. Potamogetons (Pond Weeds) of the British Isles. Parts<br />
1-3 21/- net. L. Reeve.<br />
Gairdner, J. Richard the Third Revised edition. 8 6. Clay.<br />
Garland, Hamlin. Jason Edwards and A Little Norsk. 6 - Thacker.<br />
Gautier, T. (tr. by E. M Beam). Captain Fracasse. 5/- Duckworth,<br />
Gay, Mgr. C. (tr. by O. S. B ). The Roligious Life and the Vowb. .,,-<br />
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