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348	https://historysoa.com/items/show/348	The Author, Vol. 12 Issue 05 (December 1901)	<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.+12+Issue+05+%28December+1901%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 12 Issue 05 (December 1901)</a>			<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015006979390" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015006979390</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>	1901-12-01-The-Author-12-5					53–80																		<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=12">12</a>											<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1901-12-01">1901-12-01</a>							5			19011201	The Author.<br /> (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.)<br /> Vol. XII.—No. 5.<br /> DECEMBER 1, 1901.<br /> [PRICE SIXPENCE.<br /> CONTENTS.<br /> PAGE<br /> PAGE<br /> ...<br /> 53<br /> ...<br /> ...<br /> 53<br /> 54<br /> General Memoranda ...<br /> Warnings to Dramatic Authors<br /> How to Use the Society<br /> The Reading Branch ...<br /> Notices ... ... ...<br /> The Pension Fund of the Society of Authors<br /> From the Committee ... ... **<br /> Authorities ... ... ....<br /> Author and Literary Agent ...<br /> How to make Plays Readable<br /> Literary, Dramatic, and Musical Property<br /> Publishers&#039; Methods and the Society&#039;s Action ...<br /> Memorial to R. D. Blackmore<br /> The Sixpenny Book ... ...<br /> Kipling v. Putnam .<br /> Neufeld v. Chapman &amp; Hall, Ltd. ...<br /> Mr. Harry Quilter and the Society of Authors<br /> Judgment in Fiction ... ...<br /> The Autumn Season ...<br /> Publishers&#039; and Editors&#039; Delays ...<br /> The Method of the Future ...<br /> The Authors Club<br /> Book and Play Talk ...<br /> Correspondence...<br /> :::::::<br /> ::::::::::::<br /> PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY.<br /> 1. The Annual Report for the current year. ls.<br /> 2. The Author. A Monthly Journal devoted especially to the protection and maintenance of Literary<br /> Property. Issued to all Members gratis. Price to non-members, 6d., or 58. 6d. per annum,<br /> post free. Back numbers from 1892, at 108. 6d. per vol.<br /> 3. Literature and the Pension List. By W. MORRIS COLLES, Barrister-at-Law. 38.<br /> 4. The History of the Société des Gens de Lettres. By S. SQUIRE SPRIGGE. 18.<br /> 5. The Cost of Production. (Out of print.)<br /> 6. The Various Methods of Publication. By S. SQUIRE SPRIGGE. In this work, compiled from the<br /> papers in the Society&#039;s offices, the various forms of agreements proposed by Publishers to<br /> Authors are examined, and their meaning carefully explained, with an account of the<br /> various kinds of fraud which have been made possible by the different clauses in their<br /> agreements. 38.<br /> Addenda to the Above. By G. HERBERT THRING. Being additional facts collected at<br /> the office of the Society since the publication of the “Methods.” With coinments and<br /> advice. 28.<br /> 7. Copyright Law Reform. An Exposition of Lord Monkswell&#039;s Copyright Bill of 1890. With<br /> Extracts from the Report of the Commission of 1878, the Berne Convention, and the<br /> American Copyright Bill. By J. M. LELY. 18. 6d.<br /> 8. The Society of Authors. A Record of its Action from its Foundation. By WALTER BESANT<br /> ( Chairman of Committee, 1888--1892). 1s.<br /> 9. The Contract of Publication in Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Switzerland. By ERNST<br /> LUNGE, J.U.D. 28. 6d.<br /> 10. Forms of Agreement issued by the Publishers&#039; Association; with Comments. By<br /> G. HERBERT THRING, and Illustrative Examples by Sir WALTER BESANT. 2nd Edition. ls.<br /> [All prices net. Apply to the Secretary, 39, Old Queen Street, Storey&#039;s Gate, S.W.]<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 52 (#436) #############################################<br /> <br /> ADVERTISEMENTS.<br /> To LTERARY AGENCY<br /> SALE OF MSS. OF EVERY KIND.<br /> Literary Advice, Revision, Research, etc.<br /> ARRANGEMENTS<br /> FOR<br /> Printing, Publishing, Illustration, Translation, etc.<br /> THE LITERARY AGENCY OF LONDON,<br /> 5, HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.<br /> G. H. PERRIS.<br /> C. F. CAZENOVE.<br /> In 1 volume, Crown 8vo, Discount price, 28. 8d., Cloth.<br /> KING HELGE.<br /> ASLOG.<br /> Dramas based on the Norse Sagas. By F. I. WINBOLT.<br /> “These versions are pleasant reading both in respect of style and tenor. The legends<br /> of the Norsemen will not soon be divested of interest.”—Dundee Advertiser.<br /> In the Press, price as above,<br /> FRITHIOF THE BOLD,<br /> LONDON: SWAN, SONNENSCHEIN &amp; CO., LIMITED.<br /> by the same Writer.<br /> TYPEWRITING COMPANY, Oswald House, Queen Victoria Road, Coventry.<br /> Typewriting of every description, from Ninepence per Thousand Words<br /> (including good paper). Specimens on application.<br /> Special Work undertaken_(not necessarily for publication); neatly and carefully executed<br /> in Two Colours, at Special Charges.<br /> Testimonial.—&quot; Undoubtedly the finest piece of work I have ever seen produced on a Typewriter.&quot;<br /> &quot; REMINGTON STANDARD&quot; up-to-date Instruments.<br /> DARLINGTON&#039;S HANDBOOKS<br /> W<br /> MRS. GILL,<br /> TYPE-WRITING OFFICE,<br /> 35, LUDGATE HILL, E.C.<br /> (ESTABLISHED 1883.)<br /> Authors&#039; MSS. carefully copied from 1s. per 1000 words. Duplicate<br /> copies third price. Skilled typists sent out by hour, day or week.<br /> French MSS. accurately copied, or typewritten English translations<br /> supplied. References kindly permitted to Messrs. A. P. Watt &amp; Son,<br /> Literary Agents, Hastings House, Norfolk Street, Strand, W.C.<br /> THE WEST KENSINGTON TYPEWRITING AGENCY.<br /> SIKES and SIKES,<br /> 23Wolverton Gardens, Hammersmith Road, W.<br /> ESTABLISHED 1893.<br /> Authors&#039; MSS. carefully and promptly copied. Usual Terms.<br /> Legal and General Copying. Typewritten Circulars by Copying Process.<br /> LESSONS GIVEN. AUTHORS&#039; REFERENCES.<br /> &quot;Sir Henry Ponsonby is<br /> commanded by the Queen to<br /> be thank Mr. Darlington for a<br /> * copy of his Handbook.&quot;<br /> “Nothing better could be wished for.&quot;-Britisu WEEKLY.<br /> “Far superior to ordinary guides.&quot;-LONDON DAILY CHRONICLE.<br /> Edited by RALPH DARLINGTON, F.R.G.S. 1s. each. Illustrated.<br /> Maps by JOHN BARTHOLOMEW, F.R.G.S.<br /> THE ISLE OF WIGHT.<br /> THE CHANNEL ISLANDS.<br /> THE VALE OF LLANGOLLEN.THE NORFOLK BROADS<br /> BRECON AND ITS BEACONS. THE SEVERN VALLEY.<br /> BOURNEMOUTH AND THE NEW FOREST. THE WYE VALLEY<br /> BRIGHTON, EASTBOURNE, HASTINGS, AND ST. LEONARDS<br /> ABERYSTWITH, TOWYN, BARMOUTH, AND DOLGELLY.<br /> MALVERN, HEREFORD. WORCESTER, AND GLOUCESTER.<br /> LLANDRINDOD WELLS AND THE SPAS OF MID-WALES.<br /> BRISTOL, BATH, CHEPSTOW, AND WESTON-SUPER-MARE.<br /> LLANDUDNO, RHYL, BANGOR, CARNARVON, ANGLESEA.<br /> CONWAY, COLWYN BAY, BETTWS-Y-COED, FESTINIOG,<br /> SNOW DON.<br /> &#039;THE AUTHOR.&quot;<br /> SCALE FOR ADVERTISEMENTS.<br /> (ALLOWANCE TO MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY 20 PER CENT.)<br /> :<br /> :<br /> Front Page<br /> ... ...£4 0 0<br /> Other Pages<br /> ... ... ... 3 0<br /> Half of a Page ...<br /> 0<br /> .. ... 1 100<br /> Quarter of a Page<br /> ... 0 15 0<br /> Eighth of a Page<br /> ... 0 7 6<br /> Single Column Advertiseme<br /> per inch 0 6 0<br /> Bills for Insertion<br /> per 2,000 3 0<br /> Reduction of 20 per cent. made for a Series of Sir and of 25 per cent. for<br /> Twelve Insertions.<br /> Advertisements should reach the Office not later than the 20th for<br /> insertion in the following month&#039;s issue.<br /> All letters respecting Advertisements should be addressed to the I<br /> ADVERTISEMENT MANAGER, The Author Office, 39, Old Queen Street,<br /> Storey&#039;s Gate, S.W.<br /> &quot;The best Handbook to London ever issued.&quot;- LIVERPOOL DAILY Post,<br /> &quot;THE Handbook to London-- it very emphatically tops them all.&quot;<br /> DAILY GRAPHIC.<br /> 3rd Edition, Revised, 6s. 60 Illustrations, 24 Maps and Plans.<br /> LONDON AND ENVIRONS.<br /> By E. C. Cook and E. T. Cook, M.A.<br /> Fcap. 8vo. 15. THE HOTELS OF THE WORLD.<br /> A Handbook to the leading Hotels throughout the world.<br /> Llangollen : DARLINGTON &amp; Co. London: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL &amp; Co.<br /> LID. Railway Bookstalls and all Booksellers.<br /> PHOTOGRAPHS.-BIRTHDAY and SEASON CARDs from negatives by<br /> Ralph DARLINGTON, F.R.G.S., of Scenery, Ruins, &amp;c., in Italy, Greece,<br /> ot, ls., 1s. 6il., 25., and 2s. 6d. List, post free, of<br /> DARLINGTON &amp; CO., LLANGOLLEN.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 53 (#437) #############################################<br /> <br /> The Author.<br /> (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.)<br /> FOUNDED BY SIR WALTER BESANT.<br /> VOL. XII.-No. 5.<br /> DECEMBER 1ST, 1901.<br /> [PRICE SIXPENCE.<br /> GENERAL MEMORANDA.<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 /> WARNINGS TO DRAMATIC AUTHORS.<br /> ITERE are a few standing rules to be observed in an<br /> agreement. There are four methods of dealing<br /> with literary property :<br /> I. 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, or with the advice of the<br /> Secretary of the Society.<br /> II. A Profit-Sharing Agreement (a bad form of<br /> 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 without the strictest investigation.<br /> (2.) Not to give the publisher the power of putting the<br /> profits into his own pocket by charging for advertisements<br /> in his own organs, or by charging exchange advertise-<br /> ments. Therefore keep control of the advertisements.<br /> (3.) Not to allow a special charge for “office expenses,&quot;<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 /> III. The Royalty System.<br /> It is above all things necessary to know what the<br /> proposed royalty means to both sides. It is now possible<br /> for an author to ascertain approximately and very nearly<br /> the truth. From time to time the very important figures<br /> connected with · royalties are published in The Author.<br /> Readers can also work out the figures themselves from the<br /> “Cost of Production.&quot;<br /> IY. A Commission Agreement.<br /> The main points are :-<br /> (1.) Be careful to obtain a fair cost of production.<br /> (2.) Keep control of the advertisements.<br /> (3.) Keep control of the sale price of the book,<br /> General.<br /> All other forms of agreement are combinations of the four<br /> above mentioned.<br /> Such combinations are generally disastrous to the author.<br /> Never sign any agreement without competent advice from<br /> the Secretary of the Society.<br /> Stamp all agreements with the Inland Revenue stamp.<br /> Avoid agreements by letter if possible.<br /> The main 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 /> VOL. XII.<br /> TEVER sign an agreement without submitting it to the<br /> Secretary of the Society of Authors or some com-<br /> petent legal authority.<br /> 2. It is well to be extremely careful in negotiating for<br /> the production of a play with anyone except an established<br /> manager.<br /> 3. There are three forms of dramatic contract for PLAYS<br /> IN THREE OR MORE ACTS :-<br /> (a.) SALE OUTRIGHT OF THE PERFORMING RIGHT.<br /> This is unsatisfactory. An author who enters<br /> into such a contract should stipulate in the con.<br /> tract for production of the piece by a certain date<br /> and for proper publication of his name on the<br /> play-bills.<br /> (6) SALE OF PERFORMING RIGHT OR OF A LICENCE<br /> TO PERFORM ON THE BASIS OF PERCENTAGES<br /> on gross receipts. Percentages vary between<br /> 5 and 15 per cent. An author should obtain a<br /> percentage on the sliding scale of gross receipts<br /> in preference to the American system. Should<br /> obtain a sum in advance of percentages. A fixed<br /> date on or before which the play should be<br /> performed.<br /> (c.) SALE OF PERFORMING RIGHT OR OF A LICENCE<br /> TO PERFORM ON THE BASIS OF ROYALTIES (i.e.,<br /> fixed nightly fees). This method should be<br /> always avoided except in cases where the fees<br /> are likely to be small or difficult to collect. The<br /> other safeguards set out under heading (6.) apply<br /> also in this case.<br /> 4. PLAYS IN ONE ACT are often sold outright, but it is<br /> better to obtain a small nightly fee if possible, and a sum<br /> paid in advance of such fees in any event. It is extremely<br /> important that the amateur rights of one-act plays should<br /> be reserved.<br /> 5. Authors should remember that performing rights can<br /> be limited, and are usually limited, by town, country, and<br /> time. This is most important.<br /> 6. Authors should not assign performing rights, but<br /> should grant a licence to perform. The legal distinction is<br /> of great importance.<br /> 7. Authors should remember that performing rights in a<br /> play are distinct from literary copyright. A manager<br /> holding the performing right or licence to perform cannot<br /> print the book of the words.<br /> 8. Never forget that AMERICAN RIGHTS may be exceed-<br /> ingly valuable. They should never be included in English<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 54 (#438) #############################################<br /> <br /> 54<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 8. Many agents neglect to stamp agreements.<br /> must be done within fourteen days of first execution.<br /> Secretary will undertake it on behalf of members.<br /> This<br /> The<br /> 9. Some agents endeavour to prevent authors from<br /> referring matters to the Secretary of the Society; so do<br /> some publishers. Members can make their own deductions<br /> and act accordingly.<br /> agreements without the author obtaining a substantial<br /> consideration.<br /> 9. Agreements for collaboration should be carefully<br /> drawn and executed before collaboration is commenced.<br /> 10. An author should remember that production of a play<br /> is highly speculative : that he runs a very great risk of<br /> delay and a breakdown in the fulfilment of his contract.<br /> He should therefore guard himself all the more carefully in<br /> the beginning.<br /> 11. An author must remember that the dramatic market<br /> is exceedingly limited, and that for a novice the first object<br /> is to obtain adequate publication.<br /> As these warnings must necessarily be incomplete on<br /> account of the wide range of the subject of dramatic con-<br /> tracts, THOSE AUTHORS DESIROUS OF FURTHER INFORMA.<br /> TION ARE REFERRED TO THE SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY.<br /> THE READING BRANCH.<br /> CEMBERS will greatly assist the Society in this<br /> branch of their work by informing young writers<br /> of its existence. Their MSS. can be read and<br /> treated as a composition is treated by a coach. The term<br /> MSS, includes NOT ONLY WORKS OF FICTION, BUT POETRY<br /> AND DRAMATIC WORKS, and when it is possible, under<br /> special arrangement, technical and scientific works. The<br /> Readers are writers of competence and experience. The<br /> fee is one guinea.<br /> HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br /> NOTICES.<br /> M HE Editor of The Author begs to remind members of<br /> T the Society that, although the paper is sent to them<br /> free of charge, the cost of producing it would be a<br /> very heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br /> many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br /> 58. 6d. subscription for the year.<br /> Communications for The Author should be addressed to<br /> the Offices of the Society, 39, Old Queen Street, Storey&#039;s<br /> Gate, S.W., and should reach the Editor NOT LATER<br /> THAN THE 21st 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 /> 1. D VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive<br /> V advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub-<br /> lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his<br /> business or the administration of his property. If the<br /> advice sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor,<br /> the member has a right to an opinion from the Society&#039;s<br /> solicitors. If the case is such that Counsel&#039;s opinion is<br /> desirable, the Committee will obtain for him Counsel&#039;s<br /> opinion. All this without any cost to the member.<br /> 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br /> and publishers&#039; agreements do not generally fall within the<br /> experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br /> to use the Society.<br /> 3. Send to the Office copies of past agreements and past<br /> accounts, with a copy of the book represented. The<br /> Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new<br /> or old, for inspection and note. The information thus<br /> obtained may prove invaluable.<br /> 4. BEFORE SIGNING ANY AGREEMENT WHATEVER, send<br /> the document to the Society for examination.<br /> 5. Remember always that in belonging to the Society<br /> you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you<br /> are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are<br /> advancing the best interests of literature in promoting the<br /> independence of the writer.<br /> 6. The Committee have now arranged for the reception<br /> of members&#039; agreements and their preservation in a fire-<br /> proof safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as<br /> confidential documents to be read only by the Secretary,<br /> who will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:<br /> -(1) To read and advise upon agreements and to give<br /> advice concerning publishers. (2) To stamp agreements<br /> in readiness for a possible action upon them. (3) To keep<br /> agreements. (4) To enforce payments due according to<br /> agreements.<br /> 7. No contract should be entered into with a literary<br /> agent without the advice of the Secretary of the Society.<br /> Members are strongly advised not to accept without careful<br /> consideration the contracts submitted to them by literary<br /> agents, and are recommended to submit them for inter-<br /> pretation and explanation to the Secretary of the Society.<br /> For the Opinions expressed in papers that are signed<br /> or initialled the Authors alone are responsible.<br /> None of the papers or paragraphs must be taken<br /> as expressing the opinion of the Committee unless<br /> such is especially stated to be the case.<br /> COMMUNICATIONS AND LETTERS ARE INVITED BY THE<br /> EDITOR on all subjects connected with literature, but on<br /> no other subjects whatever. Every effort will be made to<br /> return articles which cannot be accepted.<br /> THE SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY begs to give notice<br /> that all remittances are acknowledged by return of post,<br /> and he requests members who do not receive an<br /> answer to important communications within two days to<br /> write to him without delay. All remittances should be<br /> crossed Union Bank of London, Chancery Lane, or be sent<br /> by registered letter only.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 55 (#439) #############################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 55<br /> Society<br /> .<br /> .<br /> .<br /> .<br /> ·<br /> CHANGE OF ADDRESS.<br /> At the meeting of the Committee held on<br /> November 18th twenty new members and<br /> associates were elected.<br /> The office of the Incorporated Society of Authors The Committee have the pleasure of congratu-<br /> has been removed to-<br /> lating the Society on the judgment obtained by<br /> 39, OLD QUEEN STREET,<br /> Mr. Neufeld against Chapman and Hall.<br /> STOREY&#039;S GATE, S.W.<br /> The further business transacted was as follows :<br /> It was decided to take counsel&#039;s opinion on<br /> another important case regarding the rights of a<br /> member of the Society to prohibit the dramatic<br /> NOTICE.<br /> recitation of his work.<br /> And, secondly, owing to the favourable opinion<br /> expressed by counsel on the case mentioned last<br /> M HE EDITOR begs to inform members of the<br /> month, the Committee will support the member<br /> 1 Authors&#039; Society and other readers of The<br /> whose property is involved, and, if necessary, carry<br /> Author that the cases which are from time the case throngh the Con<br /> to time quoted in The Author are cases that have<br /> A few other minor matters referring to disputes<br /> come before the notice or to the knowledge of the between Authors and Publishers were gone into<br /> Secretary of the Society, and that those members<br /> and settled.<br /> of the Society who desire to have the names of<br /> the publishers concerned can obtain them on<br /> application.<br /> Besant Memorial.<br /> Donations from Members of the Council.<br /> THE PENSION FUND OF THE SOCIETY Meredith, George, President of the<br /> OF AUTHORS.<br /> . .£10 0 0<br /> à Beckett, A. W.<br /> . 1 1 0<br /> Barrie, J. M. .<br /> . . . . 5 5 ()<br /> M HE following is the total of donations and Bateman, Robert<br /> 5 0 0<br /> 1 subscriptions promised or received up to Beddard, F. E..<br /> 2 0 0<br /> the 9th November, 1901.<br /> Bonney, Rev. T. G. .<br /> Further sums will be acknowledged from month Clodd, Edward . .<br /> to month as they are received, as it has been con Colles, W. M. .<br /> 5 5 0<br /> sidered unnecessary to print the full list with Collier. The Honble. John<br /> every issue.<br /> Conway, Sir W. Martin<br /> . 1 1 0<br /> Donations ..................<br /> ......£1439 16 6 Craigie, Mrs. .<br /> Subscriptions .................... 107 8 6 Dobson, Austin . .<br /> Doyle, A. Conan.<br /> 15 0<br /> Dubourg, A. W..<br /> DONATIONS.<br /> Foster, Sir Michael, M. P., F.R.S.<br /> Nov. 9, Dale, Miss ......<br /> 2 11 0 Freshfield, D. W.<br /> Oct. 10, Harrison, Mrs. (Lucas Malet) 5 5 0 Garnett, Richard<br /> Oct. 15, Rossi, Miss L. ....<br /> 0 10 6 Gosse, Edmund .<br /> Oct. 25, Potter, M. H. ......<br /> 0 12 0 Grundy, Sydney.<br /> 2 2 0<br /> Oct. 30, Stanley, Mrs. .......<br /> Haggard, H. Rider .<br /> Hardy, Thomas .<br /> Harrison, Mrs. (Lucas Malet)<br /> Hawkins, A. Hope<br /> 0 0<br /> FROM THE COMMITTEE.<br /> Jerome K. Jerome .<br /> . 2 2 0<br /> Keltie, J. Scott . .<br /> 1 1 0<br /> Kipling, Rudyard .<br /> 2000)<br /> The Work of the Society.<br /> Lely, J. M.<br /> . 1 1 0<br /> The Committee have deemed it advisable, owing Loftie, Rev. W.J. .<br /> . 1 1 0<br /> to certain information they have received, to take Middleton Wake, Rev. C.<br /> Rev. C. H. . . 2 2 0<br /> no further steps for the present touching the Norman, Henry .<br /> petition it had been proposed to lay before the Parker, Gilbert ..<br /> • . 3 3 0<br /> Board of Trade with regard to Copyright Pinero, A. W..<br /> . 5 5 0<br /> Legislation.<br /> Pollock, Sir F..<br /> . 1 1 0<br /> ལ་<br /> · ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> · · ·<br /> ·<br /> · ·<br /> NOOT<br /> OINN<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> · ·<br /> ·<br /> 10<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> · ·<br /> ·<br /> · ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> · ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> · ·<br /> ·<br /> 3<br /> · ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> 3<br /> 0<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> 108-107NCO N Coco er NET N<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> · ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> · · ·<br /> 1<br /> 1<br /> ·<br /> · ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> ·<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 56 (#440) #############################################<br /> <br /> 56<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Rose, Edward .<br /> £220 Although the piracy of books goes on to a some-<br /> Scoones, W. Baptiste. .<br /> 1 1 0 what similar extent, it is much more difficult for<br /> Sims, George R.. · · ·<br /> ... 5 0 0 the publisher to escape detection, and to benefit<br /> Sprigge, S. S. . .<br /> 2 2 0 by the piracy, without running the risk of subse-<br /> Ward, Mrs. Humphry .<br /> 5 0 0 quent retribution, as he generally possesses an<br /> office and has a “ local habitation.” Not so the<br /> The list of subscriptions set out above, amounting dramatic pirate. Should every colony pass a law<br /> in all to £137 18s., comprises the contributions of<br /> on the lines suggested, it would do a great deal to<br /> the Council so far received in answer to the circular stop the infringement of dramatic rights<br /> issued from the office.<br /> There are many people who would run the risk<br /> The Committee now lay the matter before all the of performing a play if only subject to the payment<br /> members of the Society, and would ask all those to<br /> of a remote pecuniary damage who would be pre-<br /> subscribe who value the work of the founder of the<br /> vented from doing the same thing if they were<br /> Society and have benefited by his ungrudging liable to imprisonment.<br /> devotion and unselfish labours. A short state-<br /> In England, which is a small country, there is<br /> ment was made in last month&#039;s Author as to the<br /> very little difficulty in tracing performances of a<br /> arrangements that have been made, with Lady play : but in some of the towns and cities in the<br /> Besant&#039;s full approval, and with the sanction of West of America, in the depths of Cape Colony, or<br /> the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul&#039;s. To this in the back part of Australia it to?<br /> members are again referred. Cheques should be for news to travel to the writers of the play and<br /> made payable to the Incorporated Society of to the holders of the copyright.<br /> Authors, and crossed London and Joint Stock<br /> Bank, Westminster Branch.<br /> We see that Mr. Hall Caine has taken up politics<br /> in the Isle of Man, and that he has been elected a<br /> member of the House of Keys by a majority of<br /> AUTHORITIES.<br /> 267 at a bye-election for the town of Ramsey.<br /> We congratulate him on his success.<br /> The theme of politics is not one which is very<br /> ULTE have much pleasure in inserting a state- popular among writers of fiction, though of late<br /> ment of the judgment in Neufeld v. vears sundry novelists have stood for Parliament,<br /> Chapman and Hall. The matter has been some without success and some with success.<br /> supported throughout by the action of the Com- Mr. Gilbert Parker is M.P. for Gravesend. Dr.<br /> mittee of the Society of Authors, and the decisions Conan Doyle stood unsuccessfully for Edinburgh.<br /> that have been come to under the judgment have Mr. H. Rider Haggard was unsuccessful in Norfolk.<br /> amply justified the action of the Society in the matter. and Mr. A. Hope Hawkins would have stood at<br /> All those who read the judgment will see that the last election but was debarred from doing so<br /> there are one or two very important points to on account of ill-health.<br /> authors which came forward for decision.<br /> Though the Author is not a political paper, it<br /> may interest many of the members to have a brief<br /> statement of Mr. Hall Caine&#039;s propaganda-we<br /> The following cutting is taken from the Hobart<br /> extract from the article in the Daily Mail :-<br /> Mercury (Australia) :-<br /> COPYRIGHT IN PLAYS.-A movement is on foot among<br /> 1. To re-establish the credit of the island.<br /> leading theatre managers to get an Act passed by the<br /> 2. To prevent a recurrence of financial disaster-<br /> Federal Parliament similar to the law existing in America,<br /> (a) by nationalising certain industries of the island ;<br /> making the appropriating and using of plays, operas,<br /> (6) by establishing a principle of co-operation in<br /> musical pieces, or any portion thereof, an offence punishable<br /> others.<br /> by imprisonment.<br /> 3. To float the Isle of Man on that great wave of social<br /> and economic reform which is passing over the free<br /> If this is true, the action is one of considerable and enlightened peoples of the world.<br /> importance to all dramatic authors, and should be<br /> strongly supported. The piracy of dramatic works<br /> In the same article Mr. Caine proceeds to discuss<br /> in the Colonies and in America is, we regret to<br /> how he hopes to attain some of these objects.<br /> say, a very crying evil. It is so exceedingly easy<br /> On the other side of the water also we are<br /> to have a performance of a play without being<br /> informed from a paragraph in Literature that<br /> found out by the author of the play. Many months<br /> Samuel L. Clemens (“ Mark Twain”) is taking<br /> pass, and then when the matter comes to the up politics, and has been speaking forcibly in<br /> author&#039;s ears there is no chance left of obtaining opposition to Tammany doctrines in New York.<br /> damages for the infringement.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 57 (#441) #############################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 57<br /> A certain firm of publishers who hold a high<br /> SOMETHING TO BE THANKFUL FOR.<br /> position amongst publishing houses in England<br /> I like the Fret-ful Por-cu-pine.<br /> has a custom of writing letters to authors, and<br /> De-cep-tion is not in his line ;<br /> upon the author demanding a formal agreement, of<br /> With him there is no Make-be-lieve;<br /> replying that they consider their letters good as<br /> He wears his Thorns up-on his Sleeve.<br /> Un-like some Hu-man Por-cu-pines,<br /> an agreement if accepted in their entirety.<br /> Who care-ful-ly Conceal their Spines,<br /> We fear this firm must be suffering from<br /> His Bad Points stick out eve-ry-where.<br /> heredity, and cannot free itself from the unbusi-<br /> &#039;Tis true he&#039;s Fret-ful as a Bear,<br /> nesslike habits of the publishing trade in years<br /> And Vain-er than a Pop-in-jay;<br /> Yet has he One Re-deem-ing Trait<br /> gone by. Several of these letters which embody<br /> That to my heart en-dears him Quite :<br /> the terms of the agreement have been laid before<br /> Though full of Quills, he Does Not Write.<br /> the secretary of the Society.<br /> - Century Magazine.<br /> With due acceptance by the authors they<br /> certainly become binding contracts as far as<br /> they go, but the curious part of the whole case<br /> The Editor of the “Literary Year Book” has<br /> is, that there are many clauses omitted which are<br /> forwarded us the following note :-<br /> customary in all agreements, not only benefiting<br /> “The sixth issue of the Literary Year Book&#039;<br /> the author but also the publisher.<br /> is now in active preparation.<br /> From constant experience it appears that nearly<br /> “Authors who have not received forms for the<br /> all complications arising between author and<br /> Directory of Authors are requested to send their<br /> publisher are brought about owing to the lack<br /> names to the Editor. It is intended to develop<br /> of finality in the contracts. If, therefore, there<br /> this portion of the Year Book&#039; by inserting<br /> is any method calculated to arouse complications, it<br /> fuller details of literary activity, and the Editor<br /> is the method of writing a letter as suggested<br /> will be grateful for any assistance. All communica-<br /> by the publishing firm referred to, and merely<br /> tions should be addressed to the Editor of the<br /> obtaining an acceptance from the author.<br /> *Literary Year Book,&#039; 156, Charing Cross Road,<br /> If the letter was in the form of an agreement, wau.<br /> and was drawn up on a legal basis, and contained<br /> We have much pleasure in giving prominence to<br /> all the clauses that were necessary to cover all<br /> this announcement, as the “ Literary Year Book”<br /> the contingencies that might arise, then nothing<br /> has, under its present editor, become a matter of<br /> further could be said. The contract would be<br /> interest to all authors, and it is of importance that<br /> final, clear, and decisive.<br /> a work of reference of this kind should be made as<br /> But unfortunately the letters are far from being<br /> perfect as possible.<br /> drafted along these lines. Not bad so far as regards<br /> the points they deal with, they are full of omissions<br /> rather than commissions. The mistake is a great<br /> one, and even the publisher&#039;s reputation cannot<br /> cover the delinquency.<br /> We see it stated that Mr. Andrew Lang thinks<br /> We cannot help thinking, therefore, that the the biographies of authors are of little use; that<br /> matter is the result of heredity, which is a most we know enough of an author who is merely an<br /> stubborn disease and most difficult to subdue. author from his works or from his letters, if he<br /> If not in this generation, we hope it may be himself has deemed them worthy of publication.<br /> rooted out in the next.<br /> The question of biographies is one that needs<br /> careful consideration. Men who have made their<br /> name by their actions as great commanders, as<br /> We níust congratulate Miss Netta Syrett on great diplomatists, as great civil administrators,<br /> having her play accepted in the competition as great politicians—these men deserve a biography<br /> arranged by the Playgoers&#039; Club.<br /> for the benefit of the world in general and their<br /> We regret that the announcement was too late compatriots in particular, in order that the methods<br /> to place in the last number of the Author.<br /> by which they attained to greatness may be made<br /> Miss Netta Syrett&#039;s literary record has been put patent to all members of the human race, and<br /> forward in nearly every literary paper. It is may urge forward others to follow or avoid their<br /> sufficient to say that she has written many examples. But those who have come to greatness<br /> short stories, and has produced one or two by the writing of fiction, by scientific discoveries<br /> novels.<br /> embodied in their works, by poems, or by musical<br /> We hope that her play will have the success composition—these and others of a like kind are<br /> which a knowledge of her stories would seem to much better without biographies. In many cases<br /> augur.<br /> the stories of their lives, the many details of their<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 58 (#442) #############################################<br /> <br /> 58<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> They continue that their personal relations with<br /> Mr. Stevenson were those of unclouded cordiality<br /> to the day of his death.<br /> On investigation, we find that “ Treasure Island”<br /> has been published in the following editions in<br /> England : 58., 38. 6d., 6d., 6s., 12s. 6d., and 3s.6d.,<br /> illustrated.<br /> Taking 58. as an average price, we find that<br /> 10 per cent. on 80,000 copies amounts to £2,000.<br /> From Messrs. Cassell&#039;s point of view the “un-<br /> clouded cordiality” is readily explained.<br /> G. H. T.<br /> everyday existence, the sordidness of their motives,<br /> and sometimes the pettiness or harshness of their<br /> nature, take away from them the glory which they<br /> have deservedly obtained from the world in general<br /> in another line.<br /> It is not a kindness to write a biography of<br /> these men. It is mere idle curiosity on the part<br /> of the public which stimulates the desire for such<br /> biographies—curiosity that should not be gratified.<br /> The relation of these details—this sordidness and<br /> pettiness—cannot arouse their fellow-mortals to go<br /> and become famous in a path of life which brought<br /> them fame, for there is no connection between the<br /> public fame and the private misery; but the relation<br /> of a life of action may easily have an invigorating<br /> and ennobling effect, and may act as a life tonic.<br /> While thoroughly agreeing, therefore, with Mr.<br /> Lang that the biographies of authors are of little<br /> use, we go further and say that the biographies of<br /> those men obtaining their fame and their greatness<br /> by other means than a life of action are of little<br /> use, nay, may do a great deal of harm by damaging a<br /> brilliant reputation deservedly obtained ; and lastly,<br /> that the biographies of living men, whether men<br /> of action or men of thought, should, under no<br /> circumstances, be tolerated.<br /> AUTHOR AND LITERARY AGENT.<br /> I.<br /> The King of Italy, judging from the following<br /> cutting, is about to become an author :-<br /> The King of Italy is about to be added to the list of<br /> authors, a distinction not shared by many of the members<br /> of Royal Houses. He is learned in coins, and the title of<br /> his book will be, not“ Corpus Numinorum Italicorum,&quot; as<br /> a contemporary gravely assures its readers, but “ Corpus<br /> Nummorum Italicorum.&quot; It ought to be a mighty tome,<br /> for there have been in all some 250 different mints in the<br /> Peninsula.<br /> The subject is no doubt a difficult one, and must<br /> entail an amount of research for which it would be<br /> thought a reigning monarch had scarcely time.<br /> As far as royal authors are concerned, we should<br /> not forget that the late Queen added some inter-<br /> esting books to the output of English literature,<br /> and that other royalties have also entered the field<br /> of writing. President Roosevelt, again, is a man<br /> of considerable literary distinction, as the record of<br /> his book production shows.<br /> W E have written to sundry publishers since<br /> Mr. Heinemann&#039;s article appeared in the<br /> Author, asking them if they would do us<br /> the honour of writing on the subject which is of<br /> interest to all parties. We regret to say, however,<br /> that so far they have all made excuses; but Mr.<br /> C. J. Longman has kindly written a short note<br /> stating that it would be impossible for him to<br /> spare the time to discuss the question with the<br /> requisite detail, but putting forward his views as<br /> follows :<br /> “(1) I see no reason why an author who feels<br /> himself incompetent to carry on the business side<br /> of his calling should not employ an agent, as is<br /> done universally by land-owners, in dealing with<br /> farmers, labourers, public bodies, and so forth.<br /> “(2) The danger of employing an author&#039;s agent<br /> is the possibility that direct communication be-<br /> tween the author and the publisher should become<br /> less frequent and less intimate, to the serious loss<br /> of both parties.<br /> “(3) If the business is properly conducted by the<br /> author&#039;s agent, this danger ought to be avoided.<br /> The fact that pecuniary questions never come up<br /> for discussion seems to me to tend to increase<br /> the probability of intimacy between author and<br /> publisher, and my experience bears out this view.&quot;<br /> One important point that Mr. Longman makes<br /> is the fact that the discussion of financial questions<br /> being left to the publisher and the agent tends to<br /> make the intimacy between the publishers and the<br /> author, in many cases so necessary for the proper<br /> production of a book, stronger, more efficacious.<br /> Without betraying any confidence we may quote<br /> an instance which occurred with Mr. Longman&#039;s<br /> firm of which he may perhaps be personally<br /> unacquainted.<br /> A writer of considerable position came to the<br /> society for advice as to what agent to entrust with<br /> negotiations with Messrs. Longman, for the very<br /> In a letter of Messrs. Cassell &amp; Co., Ld., to the<br /> Times, they repudiate the idea, suggested appa-<br /> rently from one of Stevenson&#039;s letters published<br /> in the new “Life of Stevenson,&quot; that £100 only<br /> was paid to Stevenson for the copyright of “ Trea-<br /> sure Island,” and state that the amount paid up<br /> to the present time is upwards of twenty times<br /> that amount (i.e., £2,000).<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 59 (#443) #############################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 59<br /> II.<br /> III.<br /> reason that, being a personal friend of Mr. Longman, I therefore decided to negotiate my MSS.<br /> he had no desire to discuss the financial side of myself, and by a judicious selection of the most<br /> the question with him. The result was satisfactory suitable channels I successfully disposed of every-<br /> in every way. The book was produced without thing I wrote. An increasing output of literary<br /> friction between the parties and with the happiest matter, and other pressure on my time, decided me<br /> results.<br /> to again offer my wares to a literary agent for<br /> disposal, and I sent them to a gentleman who<br /> charged me a heavy “booking fee” above the<br /> usual commission terms. Now I am beginning to<br /> WITH regard to the controversy concerning<br /> regret my employment of this agent, who, in spite<br /> authors, publishers, and agents, it must be surely<br /> of the fact that he declared at the outset that he<br /> better for an author to be safeguarded by a good<br /> was well acquainted with my work, and knew the<br /> agent who is a capable man of business, their<br /> right channels in which to set it afloat, has, after<br /> interests being identical. At the same time, should<br /> several months, secured no results. Query : Can<br /> difficulties arise with a publisher or an agent who<br /> I demand the return of my booking fee ?<br /> may be hostile to an author, it is very unwise, if<br /> The antipathy of some publishers to the literary<br /> not ungrateful, to throw over the protection of the<br /> agent I can also illustrate. I am about to publish<br /> Society of Authors and withdraw from membership.<br /> a book which I personally offered to a London<br /> I can only say that, personally, I have received<br /> firm. Terms were proposed by the publisher, and<br /> every kindness and much assistance from the<br /> I informed him that my agent would arrange the<br /> Society of Authors on many occasions where<br /> details on my behalf. Thereupon the publisher,<br /> otherwise a lawyer must have been employed, and<br /> evidently not having hitherto expected that I was<br /> probably a heavy bill of costs run up.<br /> represented by a business man, treated me to a<br /> ANNABEL GRAY. short discourse on the disadvantages of employing<br /> a literary agent from what, he wished nie to under-<br /> stand, was the author&#039;s point of view, but which I<br /> knew was really from his own, and in the end<br /> THE Perusal of several interesting letters on declined my book.<br /> the value of the literary agent in the last two My early experiences of the ways of the literary<br /> numbers of The Author has infected me with an agent make me feel justified in borrowing a phrase<br /> attack of cacoethes scribendi.<br /> from Mr. Benson&#039;s letter in your last issue, in<br /> My complaint against the literary agent is that signing myself<br /> he does not lay himself out to introduce an<br /> “A Poor BLEATING LAMB !”<br /> unknown author to publishers and public. I will<br /> illustrate. A friend of mine wrote to a well-known<br /> literary agent, asking him to act as her business<br /> representative. She had published several fugitive<br /> HOW TO MAKE PLAYS READABLE.<br /> essays and papers on popular subjects, but she<br /> was comparatively unknown. As she could not<br /> produce newspaper testimonials she was politely VIVE years ago every publisher who was<br /> refused as a client. About the same time another<br /> approached with a view to publishing a<br /> lady friend, who had published two books, asked<br /> p lay at once said, “No use : people won&#039;t<br /> the same agent to represent her. She showed him read plays in England.&quot; This was unfortunate,<br /> several very formidable reviews of her two novels, because the economic conditions of theatrical enter-<br /> was able to prove her success, and he at once prise had by that time made it impossible to ask<br /> accepted her as a client.<br /> à manager (except with a deliberate view to his<br /> A few years ago a literary agent was asked to ruin) to produce any but very widely popular plays;<br /> represent me by a well-known novelist for whom and if neither the managers nor the publishers<br /> he acted as business representative. I, also, will touch the higher stratum of dramatic art, what<br /> was only known to the reading public through is to become of the unfortunate authors whose gifts<br /> occasional papers and short stories I had published lie in that stratum ? Must they relapse into novel<br /> in certain newspapers, reviews, and magazines. writing, or depend on the fact that though the<br /> This agent&#039;s excuse for not wishing to represent production of really philosophic plays at the com-<br /> me was that he was too busy with other clients&#039; mercial theatres is an economic impossibility in<br /> work to undertake mine. Yet, shortly after, when the present state of popular culture, yet the thing<br /> a popular author, with whom I am acquainted, may actually occur from time to time, either as a<br /> made a similar suggestion on his own account, pure error of judgment on the managers part, or<br /> it was not in vain.<br /> in one of those emergencies created by the failure<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 60 (#444) #############################################<br /> <br /> 60<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> of the supply of popular plays, when, having to facts for our business paper, not as &quot;green-room<br /> choose between an experiment in high art or the gossip.&quot;<br /> closing of his theatre, the manager accepts what is Of course, if I had foolishly and snobbishly stood<br /> to him the less of the two evils ? I have dissuaded sneering at Ibsen, at the Independent Theatre, at<br /> managers from committing these acts of despera- the New Century Theatre, at the experiments of<br /> tion with plays of my own often enough to convince Charrington, Grein, Waring, Miss Farr, Miss<br /> me that a capable dramatic author can get any sort Robins, and the other pioneers, instead of seizing<br /> of play, however excellent (or the reverse), pro- the opportunity to help dramatic literature and<br /> duced at one time or another, provided he is ready train myself as a practical playwright at the same<br /> to take advantage of the manager&#039;s infatuation, time, all this would not have happened to me. But<br /> his artistic enthusiasm, his ambition to be regarded the fact that it did happen, not only to me, but to<br /> as an intellectual connoisseur, or his occasional others in proportion to their activity as uncom-<br /> destitution in the matter of new plays. But as mercial playwrights, seems to me to prove that it<br /> no honorable author will take up dramatic work is quite worth any young author&#039;s while to peg<br /> seriously on the chance of being enabled, by acci- away at the superpopular drama with a reasonable<br /> dent at some uncertain date, to add to the losses certainty of gaining sufficient stage experience and<br /> of a cornered or too appreciative manager, imme- newspaper renown to ensure him a place among<br /> diate acceptance and success at the commercial the commercially successful dramatists, if he<br /> theatres may be left out of the question by the chooses afterwards to turn his apprenticeship to<br /> writer of plays which are “ above the head of the account by writing what the managers and the<br /> public&quot;: that is, the sort of head represented by public want.<br /> the greatest common measure of, say, 75,000 But since this road to fame lies partly through<br /> metropolitan playgoers.<br /> the publication of plays, of what use is it to point<br /> On the other hand, 2,000 purchasers or so, at it out if the publishers say, “No use : in England<br /> six shillings, less threepence in the shilling, will people dont read plays”? Well, of course they<br /> pay for the publication of a volume of plays, and dont; but pray, whose fault is that? I suggest<br /> leave, perhaps, £100 for the author, which sum, that it is the fault of the playwrights who delibe-<br /> eked out with a little journalism, will at least rately make their plays unreadable by flinging<br /> save him from the starvation threatened by the repulsive stage technicalities in the face of the<br /> unmarketable nature of his genius. The play, once public, and omitting from their descriptions even<br /> published, will probably get performed by the Stage that simplest common decency of literature, the<br /> Society or by Mr. Grein, and thus procure for the definite article ? I wonder how many readers<br /> author some practical experience of the stage, and Charles Dickens would have had, or deserved to<br /> give him a good advertisement into the bargain, have, if he had written in this manner :-<br /> leading possibly to a commercial commission for a (SYKES lights pipe—calls dog—loads pistol with<br /> popular play “as you [the populace] like it,&quot; as newspaper—takes bludgeon from R. above fireplace<br /> soon as he has learnt how to write one.<br /> and strikes NANCY. NANCY: Oh Lord, Bill !<br /> A striking contemporary instance of this process (Dies. SYKES wipes brow—shudders — takes hat<br /> is Hauptmann, who came to the front as a dramatist from chair 0.P.-sees ghost, not visible to audience<br /> through single performances of his plays in Germany —and exit L.U.E.).<br /> by dramatic clubs like the Stage Society, and by This sort of thing, in which literary people<br /> their publication. I myself have published ten trying their hand at the drama for the first time<br /> plays. Seven of them may be classed commercially revel as ludicrously as amateur actors revel in<br /> as unacted. But of these seven, five have been flagrant false hair, misfitting tunics and tin spears,<br /> performed at London theatres with the same is not a whit less dishonoring to literature and<br /> ceremonies of first-night celebration, press notices, insulting to the public than an edition of Shake-<br /> and—what is far more important—the same spear would be if it were cut down in this<br /> experience of the stage gained by the author at fashion :-<br /> rehearsal as if they had been built by Mr. Pinero, Sc. 2. Change to carpenters&#039; scene and set room in<br /> Mr. Jones, or Mr. Cecil Raleigh to run a thousand<br /> the Tower behind. RICHARD on prompt to centre.<br /> nights. Through that experience and advertise-<br /> ment I was enabled to write and find a manager<br /> RICHARD. Now is winter of our discontt.<br /> for a melodrama which brought me in from America<br /> Made glorious summer by sun of York<br /> alone more money than I could have earned at<br /> And all clouds th, lowered, &amp;c.,<br /> journalism in the time it took me to write all my<br /> In deep bosom of ocean buried.<br /> ten plays. My two unperformed plays are in that If the reader&#039;s imagination may be quenched,<br /> condition for special reasons which do not affect the his taste offended, and his good sense revolted<br /> argument. I chronicle these matters as business merely to save the author&#039;s time in describing the<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 61 (#445) #############################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 61<br /> action of a piece, why should not the same thing pains to commit just such outrages. The fact is,<br /> be done in handling the dialogue ?<br /> the actor and the reader want exactly the same<br /> But there is another party to be considered thing, vivid strokes of description, not stage<br /> besides the author and the reader. There is the manager&#039;s memoranda or impertinent instructions<br /> actor (who is nowadays the manager also), an in the art of acting from literary people who<br /> exceptionally susceptible, imaginative, fastidious cannot act. It is true that most authors consider<br /> person, easily put out by the slightest incongruity, themselves born actors, and that most actors<br /> easily possessed by the slightest suggestion. His consider themselves born authors; but these weak-<br /> work is so peculiar and important; its delicacy nesses should be confessed under seal of rehearsal,<br /> depends so much on the extent to which a play not proclaimed to a derisive world. To do the<br /> can be made real to him and the technical conditions actor justice, he tries not to carry the stage about<br /> reduced to unnoticed matters of habit ; above all, with him wherever he goes, whereas the would be<br /> it is so necessary to his self-respect that the playwright never lets you escape from it, even in<br /> obligation he is under to make himself a means to print. If the reader attempts to forget that what<br /> the author&#039;s end should not be made an excuse he is reading is fiction, he promptly has a pin<br /> for disregarding his dignity as a man, that an stuck into him by the statement that such and<br /> author can hardly be too careful to cherish the such a piece of furniture is R. or L. or “near the<br /> actor&#039;s illusion and respect his right to be ap- front of the stage,” or that the masterpiece of<br /> proached as a professional man and not merely painting on the easel, which the villain or adven-<br /> ordered to do this or that without knowing why. turess will presently slash with a knife, is “ turned<br /> Imagine, then, the effect of handing an actor a part, away from the audience.” It is just as if a<br /> or an actor-manager a play, drawn up exactly like novelist were to write, “A keen pang shot through<br /> a specification for a gasfitter! How can any man the mother&#039;s heart ; for she saw at a glance that<br /> or woman of letters be so foolishly inconsiderate as her child had not many chapters to live,&quot; or<br /> to suppose that an actor-manager, at the moment “When we left Grimwood, he had just dealt the<br /> when he is full of curiosity and hope as to the coward&#039;s blow that stretched young Alton Dale a<br /> opportunity of striking the public imagination corpse three lines from the foot of the first page of<br /> offered him by a writer whom he can only judge signature c.” A dramatist&#039;s business is to make<br /> according to his or her power of imaginative and the reader forget the stage and the actor forget<br /> vivid description, really likes to receive a silly the audience, not to remind them of both at every<br /> amateur attempt to imitate a fiyman&#039;s scene plot turn, like an incompetent “extra gentleman” who<br /> and a prompter&#039;s memorandum of positions and turns the wrong side of his banner towards the<br /> list of &quot;props&quot; ? When I read the prompt copies footlights. Every such reminder is a betrayal in<br /> that are not only sent in to managers for accept art and a solecism in manners. Why should<br /> ance, but actually to the printers for the delectation novices advertise their inexperience by sedulously<br /> of the unprofessional public, I often wonder how committing them on every page, and even clinging<br /> many managers or readers would ever get as far as to the “exits” and “exeunts” which survive from<br /> the second page in “Hamlet &quot;if it were presented to the time when dramatists like Chapman wrote all<br /> them in so loathly a fashion.<br /> their stage directions in Latin, perhaps to avoid<br /> Let me give an example of a stage direction of spoiling the illusion by them, perhaps only to show<br /> my own which has been rebuked as a silly joke off their scholarship.<br /> by people who do not understand the real relations The safe rule is, Write nothing in a play that you<br /> of author and actor. It runs thus : “ So-and-So&#039;s would not write in a novel ; and remember that<br /> complexion fades into stone-grey; and all movement everything that the actor or the scene-painter shows<br /> and expression desert his eyes.” This is the sort of to the audience must be described -- not technically<br /> stage direction an actor really wants. Of course specified, but imaginatively, vividly, humorously,<br /> he can no more actually change his complexion to in a word, artistically described--to the reader by<br /> stone-grey than Mr. Forbes Robertson can actually the author. In describing the scene, take just as<br /> die after saying, “ The rest is silence.” But he much trouble to transport your reader there in<br /> can produce the impression suggested by the imagination as you would in a narrative. Your<br /> direction perfectly. How he produces it is his imaginary persons must not call &quot; off the stage”;<br /> business, not mine. This distinction is important, your guns must not be fired “behind the scenes”;<br /> because, if I wrote such a stage direction as “ turns you must not tell the public that “ part of the<br /> his back to the audience and furtively dabs vaseline stage is removed to represent the entrance to a<br /> on his eye-lashes &quot; instead of “his eyes glisten with cellar.” It will often strain your ingenuity to<br /> tears,&quot; I should be guilty of an outrage on both describe a scene so that though a stage manager<br /> actor and reader. Yet we find almost all our can set it from the printed description, yet not a<br /> inexperienced dramatic authors taking the greatest word is let slip that could remind the reader of the<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 62 (#446) #############################################<br /> <br /> 62<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> author&#039;s personal friends) one copy of a new<br /> play when they order several hundred copies of a<br /> new novel.<br /> G. BERNARD SHAW.<br /> LITERARY, DRAMATIC, AND MUSICAL<br /> PROPERTY.<br /> footlights. But it can be done; and the reward<br /> for the trouble is that people can read your plays –<br /> even actor-managers, who suffer just as much from<br /> the deadening, disillusioning, vulgarising effect<br /> of the old-fasbioned stage direction as other<br /> people do.<br /> I may add here parenthetically that if some of<br /> our novelists would work out the stage manage-<br /> ment of their scenes, they would be heavily taken<br /> aback at the number of physical impossibilities<br /> their descriptions involve. Not that it matters in<br /> a novel ; but it does matter very much when the<br /> novelist takes to play-writing.<br /> Finally, do not drop into the Elizabethan tradi-<br /> tions of play publication. Remember that on<br /> Shakespear&#039;s stage descriptive recitation did a<br /> great deal that is now done by stage business and<br /> scenery. “Before my body,&quot; says Macbeth, “I<br /> cast my warlike shield ” ; but the modern leading<br /> man cannot very well say “I take my revolver out<br /> of my pocket and pull the trigger.” The scene<br /> between Richard and Lady Anne at the funeral of<br /> Henry VI. is full of action; and so is the scene<br /> between Falstaff and the Lord Chief Justice. Yet<br /> they do not need stage directions. “Lo, here I<br /> lend thee this sharp pointed sword . ... and<br /> humbly beg the death upon my knee,&quot; says<br /> Richard. “Go pluck him by the elbow : I must<br /> speak with him says the Lord Chief Justice.<br /> Shakespear, who had no faith in “inexplicable<br /> dumb show,&quot; used all his cleverness to make his<br /> plays tell their own story ; and the modern play-<br /> wright should use his cleverness to the same end,<br /> though he cannot use Shakespear&#039;s methods,<br /> because the modern actor, on his pictorial stage,<br /> does things which Burbage, with his platform<br /> crowded by spectators, could only have described<br /> himself as doing. Therefore the modern play<br /> wright, if the reader is to see the play in his<br /> mind&#039;s eye as well as to read the dialogue, must<br /> interpolate strokes of description which in Shakes-<br /> pear&#039;s works form part of the dialogue. Most<br /> modern plays would be incoherent and consequently<br /> only half intelligible without such descriptive<br /> interpolations; and why authors should assume,<br /> as they generally do, that these interpolations<br /> need have no artistic character—which means that<br /> they are to be unreadable except by stage carpenters<br /> as a matter of business can only be explained as<br /> a survival from the time when the proportion of<br /> interpolated description to dialogue was, as in<br /> “ King Lear,” perhaps one to a thousand. There<br /> are modern plays in which one to four would be<br /> nearer the mark ; and as long as authors persist in<br /> issuing books that are one quarter unreadable, and<br /> the rest unintelligible without that unreadable<br /> quarter, they must not be surprised if Mudie<br /> and Smith order (under pressure from the<br /> I.-Performing Rights at the Cape.<br /> TN the Supreme Court at the Cape, before the Acting<br /> 1 Chief Justice (Sir John Buchanan) and Mr. Justice<br /> Maasdorp, Sir H. Juta, K.C., again mentioned the<br /> matter of Sass v. Wheeler. This matter originally came<br /> before the Court on a motion calling on the respondent to<br /> show cause why he should not be restrained from playing<br /> in any part of this Colony the play “ Magda.&quot; The appli-<br /> cation stood over for further affidavits. The affidavit of<br /> James Murray Wilson was now produced. He said he was<br /> sub-manager in Cape Town for Mr. Edward Sass, who is<br /> now in Natal. Mr. George Alexander, of St. James&#039;s Theatre,<br /> London, was the bolder of the English-speaking rights of<br /> “Magda,&quot; and Sass held from him the sole right of perform-<br /> ance in South Africa for one year, under an agreement<br /> dated September 9, 1900. The applicant objected to the<br /> production of “Magda&quot; in Cape Town by the respondent,<br /> and said it was his intention to produce the play on his<br /> return to Cape Town in October.<br /> Mr. Searle, K.C., on behalf of the respondent, read the<br /> affidavit of Frank Wheeler, theatrical manager, who stated<br /> that his firm were the lessees of the Good Hope Hall, and<br /> they had come to an arrangement whereby the O&#039;Neil<br /> Company were allowed to use the hall. As far as he could<br /> understand Mr. McKee Rankin held the rights of production<br /> of “ Magda &quot; in South Africa,<br /> Mr. McKee Rankin, in his affidavit, described the success<br /> of Herr Suderman&#039;s play when produced in Germany some<br /> ten years ago, and its subsequent translation into English,<br /> under the title of &quot; Magda,&quot; and its production in America.<br /> The author copyrighted the play in America, and a person<br /> named Lederer was appointed as Herr Suderman&#039;s agent<br /> in America. Since 1998 Miss O&#039;Neil had produced the<br /> play all over the United States, Australasia and Canada,<br /> and when he undertook the management of her tour he<br /> secured from Lederer the sole rights of production of the<br /> play &quot; Magda &quot; in Australia and South Africa. Lederer<br /> informed him that the English rights were confined to<br /> Mr. George Alexander, but he understood that this only<br /> meant the rights of production in the British Isles.<br /> Sir H. Juta suggested that seeing that the play had<br /> been already played, this matter should stand over. It<br /> was only a question of costs at present.<br /> Mr. Searle objected on the ground that the applicant<br /> had made out no case for an interdict.<br /> After argument, the Acting Chief Justice, in giving<br /> judgment, said the applicant held under cession from Mr.<br /> Alexander the English-speaking rights of the play. The<br /> respondents advertised that they were going to perform<br /> this play in South Africa. Thereupon the applicants wrote<br /> to them stating their rights and claiming that they would<br /> give an assurance that they would not do so. The respon-<br /> dents, after communications, refused to give this assurance,<br /> and the applicants gave notice that they would apply to<br /> the Court for an interdict. Meanwhile, before they could<br /> get the interdict, the respondents proceeded with the play,<br /> and played it several times in Cape Town. The play not<br /> now being further advertised, the applicant was willing<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 63 (#447) #############################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 63<br /> that the question of costs should stand over until the action spoke. The Attorney-General, in reply, said that<br /> for damages was heard. Under these circumstances, no<br /> he would convey all that had transpired to the<br /> interdict would now be granted, but as applicant had very<br /> President of the Board of Trade, in whose care the<br /> strong prima facie rights, the question of costs would stand<br /> over until the action was heard.<br /> contemplated new Copyright Bill is. He would<br /> also, in the event of a fresh application to him for<br /> his fiat, consider the same afresh.<br /> II.- Piracies of Copyright Music.<br /> From The Times, November 6th.<br /> III.-- Australasian Copyright.<br /> A DEPUTATION of music publishers from the SENATOR KEATING has given notice in the Senate<br /> Music Publishers&#039; Association and the music of his intention to move for leave to bring in a<br /> trade section of the London Chamber of Com- Bill relating to copyright. The object of the<br /> merce waited on the Attorney-General (Sir Robert measure is to simplify the copyright laws existing<br /> Finlay, M.P.) by appointment, on the subject of in the different States, and make one uniform Act<br /> “ piracies of copyright music.” The following for the Commonwealth. It will be divided into<br /> formed the deputation : Mr. Edwin Ashdown five parts—literature, music, art, the drama, and<br /> (President of the Music Publishers&#039; Association),<br /> newspapers—and will seek to give a measure of<br /> ayton (President of the music section protection not before possible.<br /> of the London Chamber of Commerce), Mr. Arthur<br /> Boosey, Mr. Emile Ascherberg, Mr. Cosmo Pavona<br /> (Messrs. Ricordi and Co.), Mr. David Day, Mr.<br /> Philip J. Rutland (Messrs. Francis, Day, and PUBLISHERS&#039; METHODS AND THE<br /> Hunter&#039;s solicitor), and Mr. George Dixey (secre-<br /> SOCIETY&#039;S ACTION.<br /> tary of the Music Publishers&#039; Association). Mr.<br /> Ashdown drew the Attorney-General&#039;s attention to<br /> the seriousness of the systematic pirating of copy M HE case we are about to describe was one<br /> right songs by street hawkers, and the great injury 1 which the Society was able to settle out of<br /> sustained by music publishers, as also by music<br /> Court, but we think well to deal with it at<br /> dealers, authors, and composers. Mr. Day said some length, on account of its general interest to<br /> that an application was made, but without success, authors as an example and a warning.<br /> as far back as 1895 to the then Attorney-General In the spring of 1898 an author who was<br /> (Sir R. T. Reid), on behalf of his firm, through desirous of publishing a series of books was<br /> their solicitor, and by him through Mr. Hammond introduced to the literary adviser of a certain<br /> Chambers, Q.C., for his fiat to allow criminal pro- publisher. This gentleman undertook, on behalf<br /> ceedings being taken under the Newspaper Act, the of the author, to make arrangements for the pub-<br /> piracies having been issued without any printer&#039;s lication of these books, and not long afterwards<br /> name or address. Applications for assistance had the following terms were put before the author :-<br /> been made to the Commissioner of Police of the That the publisher would produce the books on<br /> Metropolis, the Commissioner of the City Police, a royalty of 12per cent., to rise to a further per-<br /> and the Home Secretary, but with no satisfactory centage if the books were a “success, i.e., after a<br /> result. The Music Publishers&#039; Association and the certain number had been sold.” It was also stated<br /> music trade section of the London Chamber of that a certain number would probably be sold<br /> Commerce had drawn up suggested clauses for without royalty, such number depending upon the<br /> incorporation in the new Copyright Bill that was amount spent in the cost of production.<br /> being prepared, providing for summary remedies It will be seen how delightfully vague and<br /> for such piracies. Mr. Day added that at the uncertain the terms of the proposed contract<br /> International Congress of Publishers held at were. The author then wrote to the publisher,<br /> Leipzig in June last he attended and read a paper who, in the first instance, had been acting through<br /> on the subject, when a resolution was unanimously his literary adviser, and obtained from him an<br /> passed by that body recommending the adoption of acknowledgment of the terms set out above. In<br /> these clauses to the attention of the authorities. his answer he stated that the royalty should not<br /> Mr. Clayton urged that the proposals for summary commence until a certain number had been sold,<br /> proceedings with respect to such piracies were fully such number depending upon the ainount of money<br /> supported by the Royal Commission on Copyright. he had to outlay for the art work; but this he<br /> He also suggested that the Newspaper Act might asserted was a minor matter, and he promised, as<br /> be made to apply, and, further, that a charge of soon as he heard from the artist, to lay the matter<br /> criminal conspiracy might be brought against those clearly before the author—a promise which was<br /> engaged in this nefarious trade. Mr. Rutland also never carried out.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 64 (#448) #############################################<br /> <br /> 64<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> The whole of the negotiations so far are delight matter into Court at the expense of the Society,<br /> fully wanting in exactitude and definitionbut considering the case to be one of importance to<br /> the author was given to understand that the authors generally, as well as one where, without<br /> letter was sufficient guarantee for the terms, and the help of the Society, the author was in danger<br /> that the final agreement would be settled later. of losing his rights.<br /> Without drawing up and submitting a formal Before stating the proceedings taken in Court,<br /> document, the publisher proceeded to produce an it will be interesting to put forward in detail some<br /> enormous number of each of the books, which of the positions taken by the publisher in the course<br /> were placed on the market in the beginning of of the prolonged negotiations :-<br /> 1899.<br /> (1) In addition to registering himself at<br /> The author had also written a separate book Stationers&#039; Hall as the owner of the copyright<br /> explanatory of the series, which was accepted and as above mentioned, the publisher copyrighted<br /> published by the publisher without any business the books in America in his own name, though<br /> arrangement at all, beyond a vague understanding he had not even obtained from the author a right<br /> (never reduced to writing) that it was to carry a to publish them.<br /> similar royalty.<br /> (2) The books were very elaborately illustrated,<br /> In February of the same year, after their pub- the illustrations being an important adjunct to<br /> lication, a form of agreement was laid before the the system propounded. In these illustrations,<br /> author, who was much surprised at the large for which the publisher had paid (as he had for<br /> number of books it was proposed to sell before the the other expenses of publication), he claimed the<br /> payment of any royalty. In addition, no mention full art copyright. The artist himself denied that<br /> whatever was made of the promised rise in royalty he had conveyed the copyright to the publisher,<br /> in the event of a “success.&quot; The author protested stating that he only conveyed the right of repro-<br /> against the large postponement and on other points,<br /> but the publisher showed no disposition to meet The Society&#039;s solicitors several times asked the<br /> him, and took such a personal line that the author publisher and his solicitor to produce his title to<br /> felt unable to deal, and accordingly joined the the copyright in the illustrations. The publisher<br /> Authors&#039; Society on the suggestion of one of his and his solicitor, however, refused to produce the<br /> friends.<br /> artist&#039;s letters, on which they relied, which were<br /> In the autumn of the year the secretary sug- admittedly in their possession.<br /> gested that the case should be placed in the (3) On the author&#039;s advisers calculating the<br /> lawyer&#039;s hands, in the hope that the matter would amount of the royalties the publisher proposed to stop<br /> be satisfactorily settled when the publisher saw on account of the“ outlay for the art-work,&quot;it became<br /> that it was the intention of the Society to take apparent that by this means the publisher would<br /> the matter up in earnest. The first result of the be repaid the full amount he had paid to the artist<br /> author mentioning that he would act through a with liberal interest. Nevertheless, the publisher<br /> solicitor was that the publisher stated he should continued to claim the pictures as his sole property,<br /> withdraw any concession he had made on the and that he could use any of them in any way he<br /> agreement, and hold to it as drafted without any chose, although they had been specially designed as<br /> amendment, whatever. It is needless to add that a series to illustrate the books in question. The<br /> he did not persevere in this frame of mind, but publisher then set up that by “ art-work ”he meant<br /> took the more sensible course of calling in his own the cost of printing off the pictures.<br /> solicitor to act for him.<br /> (4) The publisher demanded a postponement of<br /> Negotiations on the draft agreement then pro- royalty on the explanatory book above mentioned,<br /> ceeded for a good deal over a year without a settle- although the artist bad drawn no pictures for it.<br /> ment being arrived at. At an early stage of these (5) Whenever the publisher was brought to bay<br /> negotiations it transpired that the publisher had (as by an intimation of Court proceedings) he always<br /> registered the books at Stationers&#039; Hall as his came forward with some proposition for parting<br /> own copyright, and set up that this gave him an with his venture. These proposals were on a<br /> indisputable title. When called on at a later date diminishing scale, which is very instructive. First<br /> to explain his action on affidavit in Court, the he required to be compensated not only for the<br /> publisher could set up nothing but an “under- stock in hand, but “ for the enormous amount of<br /> standing” that he was to have copyright in the labour spent upon it&quot;; then he wished to be com-<br /> first edition in consequence of his great outlay. pensated “ for any material loss.&quot; Later he offered<br /> This “understanding” was never mentioned to accept out-of-pocket expenses, and last of all to<br /> before, and the author entirely denied it.<br /> take 10 per cent. off the cost of production.<br /> As a reasonable arrangement appeared to be This sounded an eminently satisfactory proposal,<br /> impossible, the Committee decided to take the but when it came to the settlement of the terms<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 65 (#449) #############################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 65<br /> love and honour the author of “The Maid of<br /> Sker” and “ Lorna Doone.”<br /> Subscriptions should be sent to R. B. Marston,<br /> Esquire, hon. secretary of the Blackmore Memorial<br /> Fund, St. Dunstan&#039;s House, Fetter Lane, London,<br /> E.C., who will gladly send a full copy of the circular<br /> to all readers of The Author who desire a more<br /> detailed statement of the action that it is proposed<br /> to take.<br /> “I have been asked to act as hon, secretary and hon<br /> treasurer of a fund to be raised with the object of placing<br /> a memorial of the late Mr. R. D. Blackmore in Exeter<br /> Cathedral, and, having known Mr. Blackmore intimately<br /> for nearly thirty years, and enjoyed the great privilege of<br /> his hearty friendship, I need hardly say that in accepting<br /> the position I do so with the feeling that whatever work it<br /> may entail will indeed be a labour of love.<br /> &quot;It is probable that the Subscription Fund will be more<br /> than sufficient for the erection of a suitable memorial in<br /> Exeter Cathedral, and I have proposed, with the sanction of<br /> Mr. Blackmore&#039;s representatives, that any surplus should be<br /> invested for the benefit of the Authors&#039; Benevolent Fund,<br /> which has recently been established in connection with the<br /> Society of Authors.<br /> “I am, yours faithfully,<br /> “R. B. MARSTON.&quot;<br /> again the publisher proved himself exceedingly<br /> difficult. He began by refusing to give a detailed<br /> statement of the amount expended, and afterwards<br /> asked a sum which appeared to the author and his<br /> advisers to be exorbitant. However, whether this<br /> was the case or not, the sum was subsequently<br /> reduced by the publisher ; but even then the price<br /> asked was considerably more than the author<br /> felt inclined to give, or to induce any other pub-<br /> lisher to give for the right of publication.<br /> In the end the Society decided to put the<br /> dispute, as before mentioned, to the arbitrament<br /> of the Law Courts, and (on the advice given<br /> them) in the first instance to raise the question<br /> whether the publisher was within his legal rights<br /> in registering himself as the owner of the literary<br /> copyright. An application was accordingly made<br /> by the author, supported by affidavit, for the rectifi-<br /> cation of the register.<br /> On the very day in the summer of this year) on<br /> which the motion was going to be heard, the pub-<br /> lisher, through his counsel, made overtures to the<br /> author, and in the result the agreement of publica-<br /> tion was arranged between the counsel on both<br /> sides on the basis of the agreement approved of by<br /> the solicitors of the Society, with some additional<br /> stipulations designed to make the terms still more<br /> clear and definite. An order of the Court was then<br /> taken by consent to rectify the register, and<br /> directing the publisher to pay the costs of the<br /> motion.<br /> This was the best arrangement for the author,<br /> but from other points of view it would have been<br /> exceedingly interesting to have had discussed in<br /> open Court the whole course of the negotiations,<br /> and the publisher&#039;s lengthened action for over three<br /> years.<br /> A satisfactory result has in the end been<br /> achieved, but at the cost of a considerable amount<br /> of money and great friction and loss of time. The<br /> publisher is of course the heavier sufferer, in money<br /> expended at any rate, and if in the first place he had<br /> not tried to claim more than his rights, all this might<br /> have been avoided. In the present instance the<br /> author has got a satisfactory settlement, due to the<br /> intervention of the Society.<br /> THE SIXPENNY BOOK.<br /> M HE question of book production in sixpenny<br /> form is naturally a question of vital import-<br /> ance to the author. As we pointed out in<br /> our last number the final settlement of the price of<br /> the book must lie with the producers.<br /> The first question is whether the sixpenny book<br /> can be placed on the market so that by its sale it<br /> will make a profit for the publisher, bookseller,<br /> and the author. After several attempts made by<br /> different publishers it has been found impossible<br /> to produce a book direct from the author&#039;s pen at<br /> the price of sixpence, and at the same time to<br /> obtain an adequate return for all parties. This<br /> statement of course refers not to trashy sixpenny<br /> works, but to works from the large number of<br /> writers whose books stand in the ranks of literature<br /> above mere sentimental gush or melodramatic<br /> humbug. We well know that there is still such a<br /> thing as a penny novelette, but this type of book<br /> does not come within the scope of the argument.<br /> The next question that arises is whether it is<br /> possible and profitable (because the possibility must<br /> depend upon the question of profit) to produce<br /> novels from our better class writers in sixpenny<br /> form at any time. On looking through the book<br /> lists and on reading various statements, this seems<br /> to have been carried out with success in a great<br /> many cases lately. The fact appears to be that the<br /> production in sixpenny form touches a different<br /> MEMORIAL TO R. D. BLACKMORE.<br /> M<br /> H E following letter has been forwarded to the<br /> I office of the Society referring to the memorial<br /> to R. D. Blackmore. We have much pleasure<br /> in publishing it in the columns of our paper, both<br /> because of the fact that Mr. Blackmore was for many<br /> years a member of the Society, and also because we<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 66 (#450) #############################################<br /> <br /> 66<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> public from the one that has already perused the Messrs. Warne, and others have issued a great number<br /> book in its six shilling issue, and that therefore, as of sixpenny books which have sold and are still<br /> it would be impossible to touch this public by any selling in their hundreds of thousands. These books<br /> other means, the additional price that the author are principally non-copyright books and books<br /> and publisher obtain is an addition to and not a whose copyright has expired-such popular and<br /> diminution from the profits that might have been well-known authors as Lytton, Marryat, Ainsworth,<br /> obtained.<br /> Dickens, &amp;c., &amp;c. These and many other authors<br /> The next side of the question is the discussion always have had and always will have a steady sale in<br /> that has arisen in the papers as to whether the their sixpenny form. During the last two or three<br /> sixpenny book should be sold at a discount or net. years the sixpenny novel has made great advances<br /> This point embraces the whole of the net system, into public favour ; nearly every publisher has<br /> which is a question rather too long and too intricate entered into competition and produced a large<br /> to be discussed in a mere paragraph, and has been number, until, unfortunately, the public are begin-<br /> dealt with elsewhere. But certain writers in the ning to expect that the very latest and the very<br /> public Press, pretending to represent the public best of our novels will appear in the sixpenny form,<br /> interest, assert that if the discount system is given and I am constantly told, when I am asked for the<br /> up with regard to the sixpenny novel the privileges latest book by any popular author, that they will<br /> of the great public are threatened. A similar note wait until it appears in the sixpenny edition. For<br /> has been struck in one or two letters to the papers this reason I use the word “unfortunately,&quot; as so<br /> from different pens.<br /> many good books have lately appeared in a sixpenny<br /> This way of putting the matter is, of course, form that the public imagine they can get every and<br /> absurd. The question is simply a trade question any book of note in this form ; probably they will<br /> of supply and demand, and if it is impossible to if they wait long enough—that is to say, until the<br /> obtain a sufficient profit out of the book subject to copyright expires. The publication of a new novel<br /> the usual discounts, the book will go off the market, at sixpence that has never appeared in any other<br /> and if the public do not submit to the sixpenny form before is a mistake. An older novel that has<br /> net they will get no sixpenny book at all, so that made a name always sells readily, therefore I think<br /> the outcry that is being raised against the abolition that any author who contemplates bringing out his<br /> of the discount system might tend to deprive the newest story in sixpenny form to gain thus a much<br /> public of the actual thing that they are clamouring larger public than if he brought it out at 6s., had<br /> for, namely, good literature in cheap form.<br /> better disabuse his mind at once of the idea, as it will<br /> There is no doubt that the book trade is still never pay him or his publisher. Take, for instance,<br /> passing through a period of evolution. What the the excellent series of sixpenny novels issued by<br /> ultimate issue may be must depend upon a wide Messrs. Chatto &amp; Windus. These novels have gradu-<br /> trade question, and the wide principles of political ally run down the gamut of price, first issued in the<br /> economy. One form will be thrown off the market old form, three volumes 31s. 6d., then 6s., then<br /> if it is found not to pay, and in its stead another 3s. 6d., then 2s., and lastly 6d. ; each edition has in<br /> form will be substituted. If sixpenny books cannot no way clashed with the other ; there is and<br /> be produced subject to the usual discounts, and always will be a public for each (except the obsolete<br /> make a sufficient return, they will be produced at three volume 31s. 6d. circulating library edition).<br /> net prices. If then the return is insufficient, some So I am sure the author of the future will have no<br /> other evolution is bound to take place; but to talk reason to fear the sixpenny edition. If the book is<br /> of the rights of the public to insist on a certain by an author of reputation, it will sell much better<br /> form at a certain price is like insisting that your in the six shilling edition than in any other or cheaper<br /> tradesman should provide you with food at the form. After it has had its day (which year by<br /> price which is convenient for you to pay, and not year gets shorter owing to the multiplicity of new<br /> at a price which will return a fair profit to the novels issued) the reissue in a cheaper form will<br /> tradesman.<br /> G. H. T. give it a fresh lease of life and bring it before a<br /> larger public. Only one firm, I think, has been<br /> daring enough to bring out an original novel in<br /> II.-A Bookseller&#039;s Notes.<br /> the first instance at sixpence, and I fancy it has<br /> For very many years past there has been a six- no intention of continuing the scheme, as it has<br /> penny novel. It is no new idea ; there has been and proved that older novels, which have previously sold<br /> always will be a large section of the public who will in higher-priced form, are much more successful in<br /> not buy a book above the published price of sixpence, the sixpenny edition than an entirely new work by<br /> and these people always have and always will insist a first, second, or third-rate author.<br /> upon having it at the discount price of fourpence- To bring out future novels at a net price of<br /> halfpenny. For many years past Messrs. Routledge, sixpence and not allow any discount will, I am sure,<br /> --<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 67 (#451) #############################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 67<br /> editions come out so soon after the higher-priced<br /> ones, the public prefer to wait for the former<br /> instead of purchasing the latter.<br /> KIPLING v. PUTNAM.<br /> be a great mistake. The public who will not buy a<br /> higher priced book than sixpence are the very people<br /> who insist upon having a discount, and I am quite<br /> convinced that any novel issued at net price will<br /> prove a mistake. Is not a novel a luxury? You<br /> cannot, anyway, say it is a necessity; therefore,<br /> make it as cheap as possible by giving the public<br /> a discount and thus hold out an inducement for<br /> them to buy the six-shilling (or any other price)<br /> novel at a cheaper rate than the advertised price.<br /> They will then think they are saving money and<br /> will and do buy more freely.<br /> Is it not so in all trades? Can you deny that<br /> Messrs. Linen &amp; Cotton, the well-known drapers,<br /> by largely advertising a sale, all prices marked<br /> down, their 30s. bonnets sale price 258., and so on,<br /> do not offer an inducement to the ladies to flock<br /> to their shop and buy things they would not if this<br /> inducement was not offered ? Undoubtedly it is<br /> so in all trades. What will be the result if this<br /> net system grows ? Why, the second-hand book<br /> seller will find his trade flourishing, as the public<br /> rather than pay the published price (that is, the<br /> top price) would say, “ I&#039;ll get it second hand,” and<br /> in the case of novels would not Messrs. Mudie &amp;<br /> Smith reap the advantage by increased demands<br /> for their surplus books ? and would this do the<br /> author any good ? Rather let the discount be cat<br /> down to 4d. in the ls. if the number of copies<br /> sold is to be the desired end. Who can deny that<br /> the greater the competition the brisker the sales and<br /> demand ?<br /> With professional and technical books it is quite<br /> another question. No one will buy these unless<br /> they are absolutely required for their education,<br /> and thus they are the “ tools of their trade,&quot; and<br /> should undoubtedly be net in price. But with<br /> novels and general literature produced for the<br /> amusement or entertainment of the book-buying<br /> public, it certainly goes without saying that small<br /> profits and quick returns are best for the three<br /> parties concerned, author, publisher, and<br /> Yours obediently,<br /> THE BOOKSELLER.<br /> E regret that in the October number of<br /> The Author it was stated, with regard to<br /> this case, as follows: “Does the purchase of a copy-<br /> right book in sheets by a publisher or bookseller<br /> entitle the purchaser to add to that book, without<br /> the author&#039;s consent, such additional copyrighted<br /> matter or illustrations as he may think of interest<br /> to the public at the time, or of advantage to his<br /> own interests ? &quot;<br /> This statement is, owing to a misprint, inaccu-<br /> rate, and we have been asked by Mr. Kipling to<br /> correct it. To those who have read the article<br /> carefully it is evident that the paragraph should<br /> have run as follows :-<br /> “Does the purchase of a copyright book in sheets<br /> by a publisher or bookseller entitle the purchaser<br /> to add to that book, without the author&#039;s consent,<br /> such additional uncopyrighted matter or illustrations<br /> as he may think of interest to the public at the<br /> time, or of advantage to his own interests ?&#039;<br /> We tender our apologies to Mr. Kipling for<br /> omitting this note from the November number.<br /> -ED.<br /> NEUFELD v. CHAPMAN AND HALL, LTD.<br /> III.<br /> The Council of the Associated Booksellers wish<br /> to call attention to the great increase in the issue<br /> of sixpenny editions, and more particularly to the<br /> early publication at that price of books having a<br /> good sale in the 6s. form. The Council are of<br /> opinion that the sale of the higher-priced issues<br /> is greatly interfered with by the premature<br /> publication of sixpenny editions, and they hope<br /> that publishers will take steps to prevent the<br /> market from being deluged with the cheap copies.<br /> They also desire to point out that as the sixpenny<br /> M HIS action was brought by Mr. Charles<br /> Neufeld for an account of all sums due<br /> to him in respect of the publication of<br /> his book entitled “The Prisoner of the Khalifa,”<br /> for royalties and otherwise, and for a sum of £60,<br /> part of a larger amount alleged to have been paid<br /> by him for photographs supplied to the defendants.<br /> It appeared from the evidence given that Mr.<br /> Neufeld had been kept in captivity for some twelve<br /> years by the Dervishes, and on his release in 1898<br /> by Lord Kitchener he was approached by a large<br /> number of publishers who were desirous that he<br /> should write an account of his experiences whilst<br /> he was a prisoner.<br /> The defendants were among the number who<br /> requested him so to do, and eventually an unsigned<br /> agreement was sent to the plaintiff, who was then<br /> in Egypt, by the defendants at the end of 1898,<br /> but the agreement was not signed until July, 1899.<br /> The agreement was as follows:<br /> “Indenture made the day of December, 1898,<br /> between Charles Neufeld of the one part and<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 68 (#452) #############################################<br /> <br /> 68<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Chapman and Hall, Limited, of 11, Henrietta The plaintiff alleged that he had expended a<br /> Street, Covent Garden, in the City of London, sum of £207 in and about obtaining photographs,<br /> of the other part. Witnesseth, that in considera- and he claimed £60, being part of the costs so<br /> tion of the sum of £800 and a royalty of 15 per cent incurred by him for the photographs, some of<br /> upon the published price of all copies sold beyond which were used by the defendants to illustrate<br /> the number of 4,000 (reckoning 13 as 12), that the book.<br /> Charles Neufeld hereby grants and assigns to The defendants, by their defence, said that by<br /> Chapman and Hall, Ltd., the copyright in the the terms of the agreement the royalty of 15 per<br /> work written by him relating the story of his cent. was payable only upon copies of the work<br /> captivity, part of the manuscript of which is now which were published and sold by the defendants.<br /> in the hands of Chapman and Hall, Ltd., and They denied that they were liable to pay any<br /> the residue whereof the said Charles Neufeld royalty upon the serial publication in the Wide<br /> hereby undertakes to forward as soon as possible. World Magazine, but they paid into Court, with a<br /> And it is hereby agreed between the parties denial of liability, a sum equal to 15 per cent.<br /> hereto that the aforesaid assignment is intended upon the purchase price received from Messrs.<br /> by the said Charles Neufeld to convey and assign, Newnes.<br /> and in the case of dispute shall be considered as They also said that they were under no liability<br /> conveying and assigning, to Chapman and Hall, to pay any royalty in respect of copies sold by the<br /> Ltd., the entire manuscript of the said work and German publishers in Germany, but they paid into<br /> the sole and exclusive right to publish the said Court, with a denial of liability, a sum equal to<br /> work, whether in serial or book form, in Great 15 per cent. on the amount received from the<br /> Britain or elsewhere, and for the purpose of German publishers.<br /> effectuating this intention the said Charles With regard to the copies sold to American<br /> Neufeld covenants not to grant the right of publishers they pleaded that the plaintiff had<br /> publication to any other company, person, or verbally agreed with them that he should only<br /> persons in any country whatsoever, and upon receive 15 per cent. upon the price at which the<br /> request to execute any further assurance or do defendants actually sold the copies to the American<br /> any further act that may be necessary for carrying publishers, but they eventually paid into Court a<br /> his intention into effect. Lastly, it is agreed that sum equal to 15 per cent. upon the full published<br /> this Indenture shall be construed according to price, and this sum was taken out of Court by the<br /> English Law.”<br /> plaintiff before the trial.<br /> The book was published in England by the With reference to the photographs the defendants<br /> defendants in October, 1899, but before that time denied that the plaintiff procured the photographs<br /> an agreement had been made by the defendants, for them or that they authorised the alleged<br /> in February, 1899, with Messrs. Newnes &amp; Co., expenditure, and whilst denying liability they paid<br /> giving them the right, for £250, to publish £23 into Court in full satisfaction of the claim.<br /> copies of the work in the Wide World Magazine. In the alternative the defendants counter-claimed<br /> The publication of the work in the Wide World for a rectification of the agreement upon the ground<br /> Magazine commenced in June, 1899, and was that it did not carry out the intention of the<br /> completed in eight numbers. Certain portions of parties and was entered into under a common<br /> the work were left out, but substantially it was a mistake.<br /> copy of the whole book.<br /> The action was tried before Mr. Justice Walton<br /> About the month of July, 1899, the defendants without a jury on the 30th October last, when Mr.<br /> also agreed to sell to certain German publishers the Scutton, K.C., and Mr. W. 0. Hodges (instructed<br /> right of publishing copies of the work in Germany by Messrs. Field, Roscoe &amp; Co.) appeared for the<br /> for a sum of about £242.<br /> plaintiff, and Mr. J. Eldon Bankes and Mr.<br /> In cross-examination, the plaintiff said he did Montague Shearman (instructed by Messrs. Baxter<br /> not suggest that his royalty was payable on the &amp; Co.) for the defendants. Mr. Justice Walton,<br /> total price of the magazine, but suggested that the after stating the facts and reading the agreement,<br /> royalty ought to be calculated upon the proportion gave judgment as follows :-<br /> which his story bore to the whole number of pages “Two questions arise upon the construction of the<br /> of the magazine—i.e., if the magazine contained agreement : first, whether the plaintiff, Mr.<br /> 200 pages and his story took 50 pages, he was Neufeld, is entitled to royalties upon the copies of<br /> entitled to his royalty on one-fourth of the price his work which have been sold in Germany by<br /> of the magazine.<br /> German publishers under the authority which they<br /> The defendants had also sold a large number of acquired from Messrs. Chapman and Hall. It<br /> copies to American publishers under the agreed is contended on behalf of the defendants that they<br /> published price.<br /> are not liable for the copies so sold. They say<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 69 (#453) #############################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 69<br /> they are orly liable for copies at any rate published with some other treatise added by some other<br /> and sold by themselves, and that they are not liable author-suppose they published Mr. Neufeld&#039;s<br /> for royalties upon copies sold by German publishers work and something else in a single book--it could<br /> in Germany. It can scarcely be doubted that scarcely be doubted that Mr. Neufeld would be<br /> Messrs. Chapman and Hall, if they had thought fit entitled to his royalties on the sale of the copies of<br /> to transfer their rights to other English publishers his work so published, and I feel unable to dis-<br /> and the other English publishers had published tinguish that kind of case from the case of a<br /> copies of the work, that Messrs. Chapman and publication of what undoubtedly was, and admittedly<br /> Hall would have been responsible to Mr. Neufeld was, a copy of his work in a serial form.<br /> for royalties upon the copies sold by the other “But there is a difficulty, because what he is<br /> English publishers under the authority or licence entitled to is 15 per cent. of the published price of<br /> given to them by Messrs. Chapman and Hall. the copies sold, and it is difficult no doubt to say<br /> “Now, Messrs. Chapman and Hall had exactly the what was the published price of the copies of his<br /> same right to publish in Germany which they had work which were in fact published and sold in the<br /> to publish in England, and if what I have said is Wide World Magazine. There was a published<br /> correct with regard to copies published by other price—that is, the price of the magazine--but that<br /> publishers who bought a right to publish from price is a price for something more than the copy<br /> Messrs. Chapman and Hall in England, I do not of Mr. Neufeld&#039;s work.<br /> see how it makes any difference that Messrs. “But again, of course, the same thing might<br /> Chapman and Hall, who had the exclusive right to happen, as I have said, in publishing the work in<br /> publish copies in Germany just as they had in book form with something else added.<br /> England, transferred that right to publishers in “Is Mr. Neufeld deprived of his royalty because<br /> Germany ; and it seems to me that in one case as the publishers, the defendants, who are the persons<br /> in the other Mr. Neufeld must be entitled to his who can do just as they please, choose to publish<br /> royalties upon the copies sold whether in Germany his work with something else at a price which<br /> or elsewhere under a grant or licence or authority includes both ? I think that cannot be so. There<br /> given by Messrs. Chapman and Hall.<br /> is a published price.-whatever the price is—of the<br /> “That is the first question, and therefore with magazine, and 15 per cent. of the published price<br /> regard to that my judgment is that Mr. Neufeld is of the copy of Mr. Neufeld&#039;s work in the maga-<br /> entitled to an account of the sales so made.<br /> zine must be arrived at in some way.<br /> “Now, the second question, with regard to which “It is included in the published price of the<br /> I had very much more difficulty, is whether Mr. magazine, and how to precisely analyse that price<br /> Neufeld is entitled to a royalty upon the copies of and say how much of it ought to be attributed to<br /> his work which have been published and sold in Mr. Neufeld&#039;s work, and how much to the other<br /> the Wide World Magazine.<br /> articles, is no doubt extremely difficult to deter-<br /> “What was published and sold in the Wide mine ; but taking one number with another, I<br /> World Magazine did consist substantially and suppose the interest of other articles in the<br /> certainly for the purposes of the Copyright Acts of different numbers of this magazine as compared<br /> copies of Mr. Neufeld&#039;s work, and if he is to have with the interest of the plaintiff&#039;s work would<br /> 15 per cent. upon the price of all copies sold of his vary—sometimes there may have been other<br /> work--and that is what I think the word &#039;copies&#039; articles more attractive ; at other times the<br /> means in the contract--I have not heard any plaintiff&#039;s may have been the principal attraction-<br /> sufficient reason for not including in that right and I think, taking the eight numbers all round,<br /> the right to have a royalty upon copies sold in probably the fairest way of dealing with the<br /> serial form.<br /> matter, and perhaps the only way of dealing with<br /> “Messrs. Chapman and Hall could have published it, is to allow to Mr. Neufeld so much of the pub-<br /> this book in parts ; it was entirely at their dis- lished price of the magazine as the pages of his<br /> cretion ; they could do what they liked ; they could article are of the total matter in the magazine. I<br /> publish it in parts, and if they had done so, I do do not see how I can arrive at it in any other way,<br /> not think for a moment they could have disputed and that is the way I think upon which the<br /> their liability to pay royalties.<br /> plaintiff&#039;s claim is put forward.<br /> “They could publish, if in parts, together with “Now with regard to the photographs, there is<br /> other matter if they chose. They were open to do really very little evidence either that Mr. Neufeld was<br /> it by the rights which they had acquired from the asked to obtain them, or that there was any con-<br /> plaintiff ; and I do not see that because they tract at all to pay him for them. Apparently some<br /> chose to add other matter therefore the plaintiff&#039;s of his photographs have been used, and the pub-<br /> right to his royalty is taken away.<br /> lishers have-I think, very fairly—said that they are<br /> “Suppose they published the book in cheap form willing to pay £23 for them. That is the figure<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 70 (#454) #############################################<br /> <br /> 70<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> which they have paid into Court, and I think that annual subscription, or what definite purpose is<br /> £23 is quite enough.<br /> achieved by the Society—these are things few<br /> “Therefore the plaintiff will have judgment for people understand.”<br /> the £23, and he will be entitled to an account of Here Mr. Quilter once more shows either a<br /> the copies sold upon the basis which I have woful ignorance or a lack of understanding. All<br /> indicated.<br /> those who are concerned with the benefits which<br /> “ With regard to the ratification there is no the Society gives understand accurately the policy<br /> evidence before me upon which I can act.”<br /> of the Society and its work. If Mr. Quilter is one<br /> Judgment was accordingly entered for the of those people who does not understand, it is<br /> plaintiff upon the claim and counter-claim, with because he has never taken the trouble to obtain<br /> costs, the plaintiff to have no costs of the issue as the necessary information, or because he is lacking<br /> to the £23 after the date of payment in.<br /> in mental calibre.<br /> Mr. Eldon Bankes applied for a stay of execution These are trivial matters, but later on in the<br /> pending an appeal, upon the ground that the case article Mr. Quilter states as follows : “There is no<br /> was one of importance, and the learned judge club-house, and the only privilege that the members<br /> granted the application, remarking that it was one possess, so far as we can ascertain, is that of con-<br /> of some difficulty.<br /> sulting the society on any question of agreement,<br /> in which case a formal letter is generally received<br /> suggesting that the company&#039;s solicitor should be<br /> employed to advise upon the matter-at, of course,<br /> MR. HARRY QUILTER AND THE SOCIETY the client&#039;s expense.&quot;<br /> OF AUTHORS.<br /> The fact that there is no club-house is merely<br /> because the Society is a business body and not a<br /> social one. The latter part of the quotation, how-<br /> M R. HARRY QUILTER, with a great ever, is a charge against the Society of a more<br /> M f anfare of trumpets, has produced a book serious kind, as there is no foundation for it in<br /> called “What&#039;s What.” As far as the fact. If Mr. Quilter had been sincerely interested<br /> Authors&#039; Society is concerned, it might, with much to find the rights and wrongs of the case, he<br /> more reason, have been called “What&#039;s Not.” would not have recklessly libelled the Society and<br /> The criticisms in other papers have been fully its work.<br /> exposing the faults of this book as a book of As all the members of the Society know, it is<br /> reference. Here it is only necessary to deal with never the general custom of the secretary to refer<br /> the article on the Society.<br /> letters to the society&#039;s Solicitors. As a rule he<br /> In a book of reference accuracy in statement of gives advice and answers the questions in the<br /> fact as the result of careful research is supposed member&#039;s letter without any such reference. If<br /> to be combined with soundness of judgment in the matter is referred to the Society&#039;s solicitors it<br /> criticism from wide and general knowledge ; but never has been at the client&#039;s expense. One of the<br /> Mr. Harry Quilter, from flagrant inaccuracy and first principles of the Society is that a member is<br /> gross misstatement of fact, the result clearly of entitled to the opinion of the Society&#039;s solicitors<br /> no adequate research, has made, as would be gratis on payment of his subscription.<br /> natural, a criticism as worthless as it is erroneous, Mr. Quilter tries to save his position by saying<br /> and exhibits a lack of knowledge simply appalling. “80 far as we can ascertain.&quot; This statement<br /> It is not difficult to knock Mr. Quilter from his I deny emphatically, as he could have ascertained<br /> pedestal of universal information in the case of the information had he desired to do so with con-<br /> the Society ; his falsehoods must almost be apparent summate ease. It is only another instance of<br /> to those who have never heard of its existence. Mr. Quilter&#039;s slipshod methods. Some of the<br /> For example, he commences by calling us “ the other statements contained are equally unfounded<br /> Royal Incorporated Society.&quot;<br /> and absurd. He states that in sixteen years of<br /> It is a matter of common knowledge that the the Society&#039;s existence it has done absolutely<br /> word “ Royal ” is never permitted to be applied to nothing. What efforts has Mr. Quilter made to<br /> a contentious body. The very life of the Society find out what the Society has done or has not<br /> is its fighting force.<br /> done ? What reason has Mr. Quilter for putting<br /> He talks of Sir Martin Conway as Secretary of forward this valueless string of falsehoods ?<br /> the Society. If he had taken the trouble to During the last three years the Society&#039;s solici-<br /> enquire for any of the Society&#039;s pamphlets or tors&#039; bill has averaged between £300 and £400<br /> reports, he would have known the statement to be a year in obtaining advice and support for its<br /> untrue.<br /> members. During the same period the secretary<br /> He goes on to state, “What is done with the of the Society has settled on behalf of the members<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 71 (#455) #############################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 71<br /> between 300 and 400 cases. This statement does ment in fiction. Those opinions, whatever their<br /> not include the numerous letters of advice that the value, have at least the distinction of being<br /> secretary writes daily in answer to the many queries perfectly disinterested. That is to say, they are<br /> put before him, nor does it include cases that have the opinions, arrived at without bias, of a plain<br /> been settled by the Society&#039;s solicitors, either by reader with no vested interests at stake but those<br /> action in court or otherwise, nor does it include of an admirer of good literature, who wishes to<br /> those cases in which the Society obtains counsel&#039;s have as much of it as he can get, and who there-<br /> opinion, either for the benefit of the individual fore looks for guidance in its pursuit to those who<br /> author or for the benefit of the collective body of<br /> occupy high places in the courts of criticism.<br /> members.<br /> From this frankly confessed standpoint my views<br /> With regard to the letters of advice the secre may perchance have some slight interest in the<br /> tary writes on an average four or five a day, or in columns of the representative organ of English<br /> the year about 1,500, thus giving gratis to members authorship.<br /> 1,500 legal opinions, the secretary himself being a The subject of criticism is by no means a new<br /> solicitor.<br /> one, but some of its later developments in relation<br /> With regard to the cases which the Society takes to fiction, the predominant literary force of our<br /> through the Courts, these amount to between twenty time, leave me in bewilderment; and I find myself<br /> and thirty a year. With regard to the counsels&#039; compelled to ask the primary question, Is it, or is<br /> opinions, putting it very low, they would average it not, possible to tell a good novel from a bad<br /> five a year.<br /> one? And yet that is too tame a way of putting it.<br /> In an airy fashion Mr. Quilter ends his article Rather let us say, given a book purporting to be a<br /> by saying: &quot;We shall be glad to revise our opinion work of creative imagination, is it conceivable<br /> if it can be shown to be a practical and business that one class of critic should honestly mistake<br /> like undertaking.”<br /> it for drivel, whilst another declares it to be a<br /> He ought to have made this enquiry before he great and vital production ? I am not dealing<br /> started writing his tissue of fabrications. But he with a merely hypothetical case, as I will presently<br /> has gone further than merely stating that the show. Meanwhile let me emphasise the question.<br /> society is unbusinesslike. He suggests that the I am quite aware that criticism is not a fixed<br /> funds of the Society have been improperly used. science; but surely this does not mean that it has<br /> Here again, had he made proper research, he no laws, no standards, no touchstoneg—that it is<br /> would have been able to see the statement of all purely a matter of idiosyncrasy and personal<br /> accounts which is issued yearly to all members, and standpoint. If it meant that, the term “ classic,&quot;<br /> is again placed before them at the general meeting;<br /> for example, and indeed the term “ literature”<br /> but once more it appears that his ignorance is as itself, would have no definite significance ; such,<br /> gross as his assertions are strong.<br /> accordingly, must be an impossible supposition.<br /> It is hardly worth while taking much further What, then, are the inferences to be drawn from<br /> notice of Mr. Quilter&#039;s aspersions on the work of some recent manifestations of the reviewer&#039;s art ?<br /> the Society, and on the action of the committee The most serious of these, as it seems to me, is.<br /> who deal with its funds, amongst whom are included the indication that we are entering upon a period<br /> some of the best-known authors in England.<br /> of critical decadence, and that the methods and<br /> It remains to say that if the other articles in the temper of present-day anonymous reviewing are<br /> book are written with as great a disregard for truth reverting to those of a century ago. In those<br /> as the article on the Society of Authors, then the days the literary world was more or less dominated<br /> book is worse than useless—it is a lylng guide. by the great “Empire of Dulness&quot; of which the<br /> G. HERBERT THRING.<br /> early reviewers were the critical kings. Their<br /> usages and influence are matters of history. The<br /> sceptres they wielded were yard-sticks of the most<br /> artificial rigidity, failing which they had recourse<br /> to the bludgeon or the tomahawk. Living in a<br /> JUDGMENT IN FICTION.<br /> great creative era, they were blind and deaf to its<br /> fertility and power. They focussed everything<br /> through an inverted telescope. They never dreamt<br /> NTOT being a member of the Society of Authors, of judging an anthor by his intention, or conceived<br /> IV and having no pretensions to the equipment that his standpoint could be other than their own.<br /> of a professional critic, it is with some of fundamental aim and central motive as qualities<br /> sense of temerity that I venture to invoke the which might inspire and energise a work of creative<br /> hospitality of The Author&#039;s pages for the expression literature they had simply no conception. Their<br /> of a few personal opinions on the subject of judg. delight was to seize upon irrelevant trivialities of<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 72 (#456) #############################################<br /> <br /> 72<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> detail and magnify their method of treatment into essence or ethical intention, have the defects been<br /> a criminal offence, alike ignoring any fresh breadth indicated with insight, sincerity, and moderation ?<br /> of mental aspect and sneering at any new evidence Let us see.<br /> of artistic originality. And when, as not infre. From the mass of reviews which might be cited<br /> quently occurred, the critic was seized with a I select three-—those, namely, which appeared in<br /> special accession of intellectual impotency, he made the Spectator, Saturday Review, and Academy, and<br /> up for the defect by his redoubled virility with the treat them in summary. We find Mr. Hall Caine<br /> cudgel and an increased effusion of personal spleen therein described as an “orotund and oleographic<br /> upon the head of the luckless possessor of a genius master,&quot; who is “lavish of emotional outbursts,&quot;<br /> which it was not even in his nature to comprehend. of “unctuous ecstasy,” and “luscious sentiment-<br /> Had the bark of these critical watch-dogs been ality.” In “ The Eternal City&quot; he sets up a<br /> obeyed, the splendour of Scott&#039;s achievement and “whole apparatus of blood-and-thunder melo-<br /> the delightful art of Jane Austen would never have drama.&quot; He writes “ drivel,” and “fills 600<br /> realised their consummation.<br /> pages to the satisfaction of fools and ignoramuses.&quot;<br /> Now what do we find to substantiate my conten- His hero, David Rossi, is a “perfectly Christian<br /> tion of a reversion to those “old, unhappy, far-off young man, living with anarchists and directing<br /> things”? We find, as I am driven to think, the their operations, with the intention of establishing<br /> same obliquity of vision, the same petty enlarge- forth with Christ&#039;s Kingdom on earth by means of<br /> ment on minor details, the same misconception of bombs and daggers.&quot; His heroine, Roma Volonna,<br /> the author&#039;s fundamental aims, the same sinister is a “wicked and beautiful young woman &quot; who<br /> note of personal abuse. Especially vigorous is the “sets out to seduce the good young man.&quot; Alto-<br /> treatment meted out to the writer who makes any gether the novel is “wildly impossible,&quot; &quot;unthink-<br /> attempt to combine moral purpose with artistic able,&quot; contains &quot; no humanity,&quot; &quot; no genuine<br /> intention. A man may tell stories, but what right observation of life,&quot; and is “sentimental and<br /> has he to enforce principles ? A novelist may melodramatic to the verge of crudeness.” And<br /> touch life at every point of its surface, but let him so forth, the important fact which remains to be<br /> beware of the problems beneath. He may work noted being that in regard to no single one of the<br /> wonders with incident, but the moment his incident charges here alleged is there the slightest attempt<br /> bases itself on motive he becomes falsely psycho- to substantiate it, by quotation, by illustration, by<br /> logical and vulgarly melodramatic. Such at least constructive argument, or by any shred of proof<br /> are some of the deductions which appear to me whatsoever—with the solitary exception of the<br /> inevitable from certain recent pronouncements. Academy, which adduces two short extracts, making<br /> I take for illustration the outstanding book of 20 lines in all, as sufficient to dispense with<br /> the moment in the province of fiction-Mr. Hall “ analytic criticism” in relation to a book of more<br /> Caine&#039;s “ Eternal City.” Here is a writer whose than 600 pages! Neither is there the smallest effort<br /> works have placed him in the front rank of his to grasp the author&#039;s intention, or to cultivate that<br /> compeers. His early promise was warmly recog- sympathy of standpoint which Coleridge declared<br /> nised by such masters of the craft as R. D. to be the first qualification for sanity of judgment<br /> Blackmore, Wilkie Collins, and Sir Walter Besant; in matters of literature. The critics simply stalk<br /> and the promise has been redeemed by a series of solemnly forth and fling broadcast their pompous<br /> triumphs which have brought him world-wide objurgatory inanities as in the brave days of old.<br /> fame. At the height of his career he devotes four How far the principle of anonymity may be respon-<br /> years to the writing of a book which, upon its sible for the style of reviewing here exhibited would<br /> appearance, commands instant and universal atten- form a suggestive inquiry. At all events, it is only<br /> tion. What has been the reception accorded to a consummation of the reader&#039;s bewilderment on<br /> this book by prominent journals which readers turning from this series of anonymously oracular<br /> could formerly consult in the certainty of meeting verdicts, which would simply exclude “ The Eternal<br /> therein broad and reasoned judgments on any im- City” from the pale of literature altogether, to find<br /> portant contribution to literature—verdicts which the same book so differently characterised by men of<br /> might be unfavourable, and even strongly condem- position and achievement in the craft of letters.<br /> natory, but which usually did the writer the justice “I cannot understand,” says Mr. Coulson Kernahan,<br /> of understanding him ? Have these critics tried “the attitude of mind of those who are unmoved<br /> to gain even an elementary comprehension of the by the magnificent humanity of one of the noblest<br /> work in question ? Have they treated it on such characters in fiction. The character of David<br /> lines of intelligent exposition as the character and Rossi could only have been conceived by a man of<br /> standing of the author and the great constituency great heart and great ideals.&quot; The book, declares<br /> of his readers might alike in fairness expect? Mr. Clement Scott, “is so fascinating that once<br /> And if found wanting in any quality of literary taken up it cannot readily be set down.&quot; Dr.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 73 (#457) #############################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 73<br /> Robertson Nicoll asserts that the novelist “has professiona pronouncement and popular response,<br /> respected, and that deeply, his message, his art, the meaning of which I submit to be this: that<br /> and his readers,” and says that “ if The Eternal the professional literary tribunal must mend its<br /> City&#039; is an immense popular success, our novelists manners and readjust its code, if there is not to<br /> may take courage and give the public their very ensue a complete severance of its interests from<br /> best.&quot; Dr. Joseph Parker affirms that Mr. Hall those of the public whose intellectual welfare it<br /> Caine “always succeeds in being great,&quot; and assumes to guard. There must be a reversion<br /> undertakes out of this book “ to bring pictures to first principles and established precedents ; a<br /> enough to crowd the walls of the Royal Academy renouncement of the luxury of personal abuse ; a<br /> itself.” Sir Edward Russell discerns in Roma “a clearing of the mind from cant, and of the mouth<br /> feast of fair things—sound, sincere, holy, refined,” from its phrases. There must be a cultivation of<br /> and in David Rossi one who “besides being in the spirit of sanity in appreciation, and of fairness<br /> politics an able and serene enthusiast, masterly by and sincerity even in condemnation. In short,<br /> ability, is also of knightly devotion to his love,” there must be a willingness of disposition to “see<br /> and describes the book as a whole as “a great things as in themselves they really are.&quot;<br /> novel, revealing the author at the very zenith of<br /> his gift.” And Ian Maclaren finds in it “not one<br /> HIRAM TATTERSALL.<br /> or two but a dozen scenes of profound emotion and<br /> intense dramatic interest.&quot;<br /> I need not further multiply examples. Those<br /> THE AUTUMN SEASON.<br /> already given will serve to indicate the position to<br /> which we are brought. Here is a work of fiction<br /> which, on the one hand, meets in the pages of TN a number of Literature issued in October<br /> anonymous, if representative, journalism with the<br /> I there is a long Supplement containing a classi-<br /> most concentrated opprobrium, and which, on the fied list of Publishers&#039; Announcements for the<br /> other, is greeted by men of name and standing in Autumn Season.<br /> the world of letters with the utmost warmth of Those who may be interested in the details of<br /> enthusiasm. What is the upsophisticated reader the autumn publications cannot do better than<br /> to think? Can both classes of exponent be right refer to this list. We have taken the liberty of<br /> -or both wrong? I revert to the question with totalling the number of books under each heading.<br /> which I started. Granted two types of critic, of as the literary output at any period cannot but be<br /> common honesty and intelligence ; is it consonant a matter of extreme concern to all members of the<br /> with, let us say, elementary common sense that Society.<br /> one should bodily condemn a book as mere catch- The details as they stand afford subject for<br /> penny rubbish, and the other proclaim it with instructive comment. Fiction stands at the head<br /> equal unanimity an accomplishment of high artistic with an output of 367 books, almost 150 more<br /> merit ? The dilemma would seem to be really too than any other form of production,<br /> absurd, and vet it is the problem with which Interesting figures as to the number of readers<br /> modern criticism confronts us.<br /> of fiction might be deduced from this output.<br /> What, meanwhile, of the general public—that Taking it that each volume has a circulation of at<br /> public to whose intellectual guidance the exalted least 500 copies, which on the whole ought to be<br /> organs of opinion above referred to are supposed a low estimate, and each copy circulated has at<br /> to devote themselves ?. Within a month of the least five readers, giving again a low average, the<br /> appearance of “ The Eternal City &quot; they have total would come out at a reading public of<br /> bought and read the book by scores of thousands. 917,500. No account is here made of the fact<br /> Burke declared that to impeach a nation was that a great many of these people might read at<br /> ridiculous ; is it not at least equally so to arraign least one-quarter of the number of books issued ;<br /> a whole world of readers ? They wait no longer but under any circumstances that there should be<br /> for the fiat of such journals as the Spectator, the such an output shows that the fiction-reading<br /> Saturday Review, and the Academy. They calmly public must attain extremely large proportions.<br /> ignore them and go their own way, selecting their That this is the case, the figures that have been<br /> books for themselves. And why? Because, so reached in the circulation of some of the more.<br /> far as they are concerned—and they form the popular books of late gears go to prove.<br /> “collective voice” to which all appeal must Did not Mr. Hall Caine&#039;s novel, “The Eternal<br /> ultimately be cast — anonymous criticism has City,” go to press with an edition of 100,000<br /> become a discredited thing, a mere crackling of copies ? Has not Mr. Anthony Hope&#039;s “ Prisoner<br /> thorns under the pot.<br /> of Zenda” had an enormous sale ? Some of Mr.<br /> Thus we see an emphatic dislocation between Robert Louis Stevenson&#039;s books have reached<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 74 (#458) #############################################<br /> <br /> 74<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 80,000 and 90,000 copies. “ Called Back&quot; sold It would be interesting to make a detailed study of<br /> half a million copies in a very short space of time; the whole list, dealing with the subject from many<br /> and Mr. Jerome&#039;s “ Three Men in a Boat” having standpoints. But though by this means a work both<br /> reached 160,000 copies, is, we understand, still recondite and erudite might be produced, it would<br /> selling.<br /> hardly be suitable for this periodical, or of sufficient<br /> Again, look at the figures of some of the books interest to any but the student of human nature.<br /> produced by American writers—“Richard Carvel ” The total number of books appears, however, to<br /> 365,000, “The Choir Invisible,” 213,000. “David be very high—1,772 volumes. Is this in excess of<br /> Harum” must have nearly broken the record with other years ? or is it an average yield ? Truly of<br /> 400,000 copies.<br /> the making of books there is no end. How many<br /> What may be the effect upon the human rące of of the one thousand seven hundred will be on the<br /> this greed for devouring fiction it is perhaps early market ten years hence ? How many twenty<br /> at present to consider, but in the meantime there years ? Perhaps one hundred, perhaps ten. It is<br /> is the feeling that authors whose business is a sign of the times. In the rush for existence<br /> properly conducted will be able to live free from sometimes a genius may be trampled under foot by<br /> the generosity of their patrons.<br /> the coarse-grained cad, and the seed that he has<br /> It is somewhat astonishing to note that the down by the labour of his hands may never bear<br /> next item on the list is Theology, which it appears fruit.<br /> reaches an output of 220 volumes. We hardly The serious side of the subject must be dealt<br /> dare to prophesy for these so large a reading with by others ; here only is room for a statement<br /> public as for the works of fiction.<br /> of facts.<br /> Books for the Young come third with 205 issues.<br /> TOTALS OF THE CLASSIFIED LIST OF PUBLISHERS&#039;<br /> This is also a sign of the times and of the progress<br /> AUTUMN ANNOUNCEMENTS.<br /> of modern education. Children&#039;s books nowadays<br /> nonood in hoontifin formand full of Archæology ............... 7<br /> are produced<br /> and full of<br /> in beautiful form<br /> Lettres .......<br /> Architecture ............<br /> 4 Medical<br /> interesting matter.<br /> Art ........<br /> ... 50 Miscellaneous ............<br /> The only point which seems to be surprising is Biography ..<br /> Music ...<br /> that the books for children should not have sur Books for the Young... 205 Natural History and<br /> passed the issue of fiction at this time of year.<br /> Classical .................<br /> 17 Gardening ............<br /> Drama .....................<br /> 12 Oriental ..................<br /> It is possible perhaps that the two overlap, that<br /> Economics and Soci.<br /> Philosophy<br /> the catalogue is not quite accurate.<br /> ology .................<br /> Poetry .....................<br /> The item that comes next, strange to say, is Educational............... 92 Political ..................<br /> Biography. There are to be published 110 books ungineering ............<br /> Reprints ..................<br /> Fiction ........... ...... 367<br /> of biography. Is it possible that there are so many<br /> Science and Mathema.<br /> Folklore and Anthro-<br /> tics ....<br /> as 110 illustrious individuals in Great Britain<br /> pology ...........<br /> Sport........................ 23<br /> whose lives are worth recording in one autumn ? History and Geography 72 Theology .................. 220<br /> Perhaps the number is swollen by the pride of the<br /> Law Books ...............<br /> ...... 30 Topography and Travel 73<br /> Literature and Belles-<br /> writers when living, and the relations of the writers<br /> 1,772<br /> when dead.<br /> How many of these biographies will reach the<br /> circulation of 3,000 copies? How far will the PUBLISHERS&#039; AND EDITORS: DELAVS<br /> British public, as a public, have any interest in<br /> their production ? These are questions which it<br /> is impossible to answer, but in many cases no DROBABLY many would agree with me in<br /> answer is needed if the love of a relative is I thinking that the most interesting pages<br /> satisfied by a printed record of the friend that is of The Author are those which frankly<br /> gone.<br /> give the experiences of different writers. Whether<br /> Educational works are high up in the list, but these are happy or the reverse, they touch a sym-<br /> compared with the other numbers the total is pathetic chord. I suppose we like to read even of<br /> small.<br /> misfortunes and failures which some of us know<br /> Perhaps the Autumn Season is not the best only too well, and a real success gives us new hope<br /> season for the publication of educational books, and courage. With the object of contributing to<br /> and this reason may account for the deficit. In the general store, I should like to relate some<br /> a country teeming with good, bad and indifferent experiences of what is, perhaps, one of the greatest<br /> education, among a people constantly demanding hardships a writer has to bear the publishers&#039;<br /> from the educational theorists something new, it is delay.-<br /> indeed a wonder that the educational market does I began to write before I was out of my teens<br /> not produce a larger result than even that of fiction. (now, alas ! a long time ago), and then first became<br /> 9<br /> 10<br /> 48<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 75 (#459) #############################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 75<br /> acquainted with some of the publishers&#039; little ways. educational books, even though these books are<br /> Chiefly, I suppose, from my upbringing in a clergy- generally at a disadvantage, as they have to be<br /> man&#039;s family, I turned instinctively to the religious sold, in order to keep the market, at a particularly<br /> press. A huge publishing society accepted my work low price.<br /> more than ouce, and paid for it; but the period Again, a book published at the author&#039;s expense<br /> between acceptance and payment was the dis- with a publishing house that does not confine itself<br /> couraging part of the transaction.<br /> to commission publishing, is naturally handicapped,<br /> Once, I remember, I sent an article to an as the publisher desires to cover the return of his<br /> American religious periodical. Months passed own capital, and to sell those books for the cost of<br /> away, when, by accident, after I had given up producing which he has had to pay. Yet with<br /> all hope of ever seeing it again, I came across all these disadvantages books so published have<br /> a copy of the paper containing my article. I brought in, and do bring in, under certain circum-<br /> promptly wrote for payment, which was sent to stances, an excellent return to the author.<br /> me. In this the American editor acted more Why, then, do authors not adopt the system ?<br /> honourably than an English editor, who, having There are many reasons. Firstly, it is very<br /> accepted and printed an article of mine about the difficult to upset the old-established trade routes.<br /> same time, was requested to forward his usual rate Secondly, authors are in many cases timorous and<br /> of remuneration, when his only reply was an abusive fearful of losing some portion of their income by a<br /> letter.<br /> new venture. Thirdly, it does not appear that any<br /> All this was in the bad old time before the publisher has as yet entered the market with such<br /> Society of Authors had come into being ; but, a grip of the literary world, the publishing and<br /> even now, much more recent experiences convince book trades, as to get the necessary backing.<br /> me that this very real evil is by no means banished. If a young and energetic publisher would start<br /> To prove this, let me tell you my treatment by a a business confining himself (this is an essential)<br /> well-known paper with an enormous circulation, to book publishing on commission, and if he could<br /> which is, I suppose, one of the most valuable obtain the support of the right kind of author, the<br /> properties of the kind in existence. A short success of the enterprise is assured.<br /> article, accepted, and printed in this paper on Where is that author with courage and<br /> November 1st, 1900, was paid for in January of enterprise ?<br /> the following year. Another article printed early Where is the publisher with energy and<br /> in August this year remains unpaid for.<br /> knowledge ?<br /> This is the delay after the thing has been The following figures, compiled by one who is<br /> printed and published. How can such a delay eminently capable of dealing with matters of this<br /> be justified ? Having accepted an article, what kind, whose knowledge of the printing and publish-<br /> right has the editor or publisher to keep the, ing trades is undoubted, will show what results<br /> probably poor, author waiting for months before may be obtained.<br /> ħe pays for it ? Failure and hope deferred the This is not fiction : it is a fact. A publisher<br /> writer has to bear with what philosophy he may, but starting under these conditions does not even need<br /> why should his very success be embittered by this to ask for money from the author, but&#039; merely a<br /> heartless system of deferred pay? If the Society guarantee of a minimum circulation.<br /> of Authors could devise some remedy for this The estimates are based on a uniform volume of<br /> gross injustice, it would do another real service 320 pp., small pica type, of about 100,000 words;<br /> to the struggling author.<br /> selling price 6s., trade price 3s. 4d.<br /> It will be seen that the estimates are if anything<br /> slightly against rather than in favour of the<br /> author.<br /> THE METHOD OF THE FUTURE.<br /> 2,000 COPIES.<br /> NE of the late Sir Walter Besant&#039;s ideas was<br /> £ 8. d. £ 8. d.<br /> the publication of books at the author&#039;s ex- 2,000 copies 68., net 38. 4d. .........<br /> 333 6 8<br /> pense on commission, the publisher merely Less :<br /> Cost of production, as below......... 95 1<br /> acting as an agent and being paid a percentage on<br /> 8<br /> Advertising, about ............. ...... 40 00<br /> the returns.<br /> Publisher&#039;s commission, 15 per cent.<br /> That such a publication is possible and will pay on £333 68. 8d....<br /> ....... 50 0 0<br /> the author considerably more than he would be<br /> 185 18<br /> likely to receive under existing circumstances, is<br /> Author receives ...... ,<br /> £148 5 0<br /> abundantly clear from the instances that have come<br /> before the secretary of the Society. At present (Or over 1s. 520. per copy, say<br /> the examples chiefly arise from the publication of 25 per cent., 13 as 12.)<br /> C. P.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 76 (#460) #############################################<br /> <br /> 76<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Note.-Cost of production as above :<br /> £ 8. d.<br /> Composition, 320 pp. small pica, 96,000 words 23 5 0<br /> Moulding, 53 by 31 at 3d. ............<br /> 4 0 0<br /> Printing, 20 reams quad crown at 128. ............ 12 0 0<br /> Paper, 20 reams quad crown, 90lbs., at 3d....... 22 10 0<br /> Binding, 4d, per copy .........<br /> 33 6 8<br /> €95 1 8<br /> Note.-Cost of production as above:<br /> £ 8. d.<br /> Composition, 320 pp. small pica, 96,000 words 23 5 0<br /> Stereotyping, 58 by 3), at 9d............ ............ 12 00<br /> Printing, 100 reams quad crown, at 78............. 35 00<br /> Paper, 100 reams quad crown, 90 lbs., at 3d. ... 112 10 0<br /> Binding, 4d. per copy .........<br /> ... 166 13 4<br /> £349 8 4<br /> 3,000 COPIES.<br /> £ 8. d. £ 8. d.<br /> 3,000 copies 6s., net 38. 4d. .........<br /> 500 0 0<br /> Less :<br /> Cost of production, as below ...... 127 2 6<br /> Advertising, about ..................... 50 0 0<br /> Publisher&#039;s commission, 15 per cent.<br /> on £500..<br /> 75 0 0<br /> 252 2 6<br /> Author receives ......<br /> £247 17 6<br /> (Or 18. 8d. per copy.)<br /> Note.-Cost of production as above :<br /> £ $. d.<br /> Composition, 320 pp. small pica, 96,000 words 23 5 0<br /> Moulding, 59 by 31, at 3d. ...<br /> 4 0 0<br /> Printing, 30 reams quad crown at 108. 9d. ...... 16 2 6<br /> Paper, 30 reams quad crown, 90lbs., at 3d....... 33 15 0<br /> Binding, 4d. per copy .................................... 50 0 0<br /> £127 2 6<br /> 50,000 COPIES.<br /> £ 8. d. £ $. d.<br /> 50,000 copies 68., net 38. 4d. ......<br /> Less :<br /> Cost of production..................... 1,557 0 0<br /> Advertising, about..................... 150 0 0<br /> Publisher&#039;s commission, 10 per cent.<br /> on £8,333 68. 8d. ......<br /> 833 00<br /> — 2,540 0 0<br /> Author receives ......<br /> £5,793 6 8<br /> (Or over 28. 31d. per copy.)<br /> From these figures it is clear that on the sale of<br /> 2,000 copies only an author might obtain about<br /> 25 per cent.<br /> Again, on the sale of 5,000 the author receives<br /> ls. 10d. per copy—a much larger percentage than<br /> any publisher would offer.<br /> Neither has the publisher any cause to complain.<br /> He obtains £125, and has risked but little.<br /> On the sale of 10,000 copies and over the author<br /> obtains a sum which even the most successful<br /> modern author may wonder at.<br /> These are facts.<br /> In some cases already—as has been stated<br /> above—the method has proved thoroughly suc-<br /> cessful. Given a fair chance it ought to have a<br /> wider success with the publication of fiction.<br /> Trade opposition would be strong, as the publisher<br /> always resents any scheme that may cause him to<br /> lose his grip on the throat of the author—that is<br /> one reason he objects to the agent. But a good<br /> cause is worth fighting for, and stimulates virility,<br /> and virility is life.<br /> It is to be hoped, then, that at no distant date<br /> not only the publisher will spring up, but that he<br /> will get the support of the author, and that the<br /> full results of a successful experiment may be laid<br /> bare in the pages of this periodical.<br /> G. H. T.<br /> 5,000 COPIES.<br /> £ 8. d.<br /> 5,000 copies 6s., net 38. 4d. .........<br /> Less :<br /> Cost of production, as below......... 196 1 8<br /> Advertising, about ..................... 600 0<br /> Publisher&#039;s commission, 15 per cent.<br /> on £833 68, 8d. .........<br /> 125 00<br /> £ 8. d.<br /> 833 6 8<br /> 381<br /> 1<br /> 8<br /> Author receives ......<br /> £452 5 0<br /> (Or about 18. 10d. per copy.)<br /> Note.-Cost of production as above :<br /> £ $. d.<br /> Composition, 320 pp. small pica, 96,000 words 23 5 0<br /> Stereotyping, 54 by 3 at 9d. ........................ 12 0 0<br /> Printing, 50 reams quad crown, at 88. 6d ........ 21 5 0<br /> Paper, 50 reams quad crown ........................ 56 5 0<br /> Binding, 4d. per copy ...........<br /> 836 8<br /> £196 1 8<br /> $. d.<br /> £ $. d.<br /> 1,666 13 4<br /> 10,000 COPIES.<br /> £<br /> 10,000 copies 6s., net 38. 4d. ..........<br /> Less :<br /> Cost of production, as below ......... 349<br /> Advertising, about ..................... 100<br /> Publisher&#039;s commission,12} per cent.<br /> on £1,666 138. 40. .................. 208<br /> THE AUTHORS&#039; CLUB.<br /> 8<br /> 0<br /> 4<br /> 0<br /> 6<br /> 8<br /> 657 15<br /> 0<br /> Author receives ......<br /> N Monday, November 4th, the Authors&#039; Club<br /> opened its autumn season by giving a<br /> dinner to Admiral Sir Edward Seymour, G.C.B.,<br /> who has recently returned from China. Though<br /> the night was one of the most foggy that has been<br /> £1,008 18<br /> 4<br /> (Or over 28. per copy.)<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 77 (#461) #############################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 77<br /> known in London for many years, there was,<br /> nevertheless, a large attendance to meet the<br /> distinguished guest.<br /> Lord Monkswell took the chair, and after the<br /> health of the King had been drunk, proposed the<br /> toast of “ The Guest of the Evening.&quot;<br /> Admiral Seymour, after returning thanks, spoke<br /> seriously about the magnitude of the international<br /> competition which was bound to take place in the<br /> course of the present century, and put before his<br /> audience the great importance of the Navy to the<br /> English people. He also stated that he thought it<br /> would be a mistake to overbuild ships at any given<br /> time, as those which were suitable for to-day&#039;s<br /> needs might be practically useless ten years hence.<br /> His remarks with regard to the friendly relations<br /> that he had held with the other nations represented<br /> in Chinese waters were most interesting. He<br /> stated how—happening to be the senior admiral-<br /> it fell to his lot to take command of the cosmo-<br /> politan force, among which the greatest harmony<br /> had existed in their endeavour to reach the Legation<br /> at Pekin.<br /> Dr. Conan Doyle, the Chairman of the Club, and<br /> Mr. Poulteny Bigelow also spoke.<br /> BOOK AND PLAY TALK.<br /> is one of this season&#039;s notable publications. This<br /> vivid man-Tennyson calls him a “jolly, vivid<br /> man-vivid as lightning”-eager, unresting, who<br /> never spared himself, was influenced by the teach-<br /> ing of F. D. Maurice, took Holy Orders, and for<br /> nine years laboured in the East End and at Hoxton.<br /> What time he could snatch from strenuous work<br /> among his people he spent at the British Museum.<br /> For years he was a regular contributor to the<br /> Saturday Review&#039;.<br /> Green, who died learning, was a born historian,<br /> and he knew it. His fascinating “ Short History<br /> of the English People” had an extraordinary<br /> success. Like Louis Stevenson, Green was a con-<br /> sumptive. Mrs. Humphry Ward thus describes<br /> sumptive. Mrs. Humphry Ward<br /> him as he was towards the end of his life :-<br /> &quot;There in the corner of the sofa sat the thin, wasted<br /> form, life flashing from the eyes, breathing from the merry<br /> or eloquent lips, beneath the very shadow and seal of death<br /> -the eternal protesting life of the intelligence. ... There<br /> was in him a perpetual eagerness, an inexhaustible power<br /> of knowledge, that were ever putting idler or emptier<br /> minds to shame.”<br /> Mrs. J. R. Green has written a memorial sketch<br /> of her friend the late Miss Mary Kingsley for the<br /> first number of the African Society&#039;s Quarterly<br /> Journal. The African Society was founded<br /> in commemoration of Miss Kingsley and her<br /> work.<br /> Another notable publication is the “Life of<br /> Pasteur,&#039; translated from the French of René<br /> Vallery-Redot by Mrs. R. L. Devonshire. It is<br /> in two volumes with a portrait (Constable, 32s.),<br /> and is a comprehensive biography. Louis Pasteur,<br /> who was one of the greatest observers of his century,<br /> and possessed a constructive imagination as well,<br /> lived only for his work. He stopped an annual<br /> waste of many millions of francs in the silkworm<br /> industry through his exhaustive researches into<br /> the cause of the pebrine epidemic among silkworms.<br /> The wine and beer industries also benefited by<br /> his labours.<br /> This great man, whose name is connected with<br /> the discovery of a cure for rabies, was of a loving<br /> and tender nature, while his sensibility to pain in<br /> others was extreme. Often he went home sickened,<br /> even ill, from the operating theatres. Lister wrote<br /> to Pasteur, generously acknowledging that the<br /> “principle upon which alone the antiseptic system<br /> could be carried out” he owed to the great<br /> Frenchman&#039;s researches.<br /> Then there is “ The Life and Letters of Lady<br /> Sarah Lennox, 1745—1826,” edited by the<br /> Countess of Ilchester and Lord Stavordale, 2 vols.,<br /> 32s. net. Mr. John Murray is the publisher.<br /> Lady Sarah Lennox, fourth daughter of the second<br /> Duke of Richmond, after her divorce from Sir<br /> HE publication of a new volume of poems by<br /> Mr. Thomas Hardy is one of the important<br /> literary events of this season. In his little<br /> Preface to “ Poems of the Past and the Present &quot;<br /> (Osgood, 68.), Mr. Hardy says :<br /> &quot;Of the subject-matter of this volume which is in other<br /> than narrative form, much is dramatic or impersonative<br /> even where not explicitly so. Moreover, that portion<br /> which may be regarded as individual comprises a series of<br /> feelings and fancies written down in widely differing moods<br /> and circumstances, and at different dates. It will prob-<br /> ably be found, therefore, to possess little cohesion of<br /> thought or harmony of colouring. I do not greatly regret<br /> this. Unadjusted impressions have their value, and the<br /> road to a true philosophy of life seems to be in humbly<br /> recording diverse readings of its phenomena as they are<br /> forced upon us by chance and change.&quot;<br /> There are some ninety-eight poems in the<br /> volume. The first set are called “War Poems ;”.<br /> then come “Poems of Pilgrimage”;“Miscellaneous<br /> Poems” follow; “Imitations” include half-a-<br /> dozen poems ; in “Retrospect” there are three.<br /> Of these, the last is a specially significant expres-<br /> sion of the author&#039;s attitude towards Life and its<br /> Maker.<br /> “ The Letters of John Richard Green” (Mac-<br /> millan, 158. net), edited by Mr. Leslie Stephen,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 78 (#462) #############################################<br /> <br /> 78<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Charles Bunbury, married the Hon. George Napier. Dr. Selwyn defends the genuineness of the Second<br /> One of her sons was Sir Charles Napier, the Epistle of St. Peter, develops his theory that<br /> conqueror of Scinde ; another was Sir William, St. Luke wrote that Epistle for St. Peter at Rome,<br /> the author of &quot; The History of the Peninsular and identifies Luke with Silas.<br /> War.&quot;<br /> Over sixty thousand parts of the “Twentieth<br /> Dean Hole has lately published, through Messrs. Century New Testament” have been sold. The<br /> Hutchinson &amp; Co., a book which he calls “ Then chief aim of this new translation is to rely upon<br /> and Now&quot; (168. net). It is full of amusing stories. simple modern English, all words and phrases not<br /> Dean Hole in 1892 presented His “ Memories” to used in the English of to-day being excluded. A<br /> the reading public, and in 1895 he published company of about twenty translators has been<br /> “More Memories.&quot;<br /> engaged upon the work for ten years.<br /> Mr. F. G. Kenyon, of the British Museum, is Dr. Richard Garnett has contributed an interest-<br /> publishing through Messrs. Macmillan a “ Roman ing introduction to “ What Makes a Friend,&quot; a little<br /> Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New volume compiled by Volney Streamer (Truslove,<br /> Testament,” designed for students. Mr. Kenyon Hanson and Comba). It consists of a selection of<br /> gives an account of the available textual material; the best of what has been said upon friendship<br /> ancient versions in various languages and quota- by those whose moral and intellectual rank entitles<br /> tions from it in the early Christian writers. At them to a hearing.<br /> the head of each chapter is a list of authorities Messrs. Macmillan are the publishers of a work<br /> most likely to be useful to the student who wishes by Mr. B. Seebohm Rowntree. This important<br /> to push enquiry further. Copious indices are given, contribution to practical sociology contains the<br /> and there are sixteen full-page facsimiles (reduced)<br /> results of a thorough investigation into the con-<br /> from MSS. of first to eighth centuries.<br /> ditions of life and labour in New York, somewhat<br /> Miss Adeline Sergeant. the prolific novelist and on the lines of Mr. Charles Booth&#039;s great work on<br /> story writer, is one of the contributors to “ Roads “Life and Labour in London.” It seems that<br /> to Rome.” a volume which contains personal records over twenty thousand souls in New York live in a<br /> of some of the more recent converts to the Catholic state of chronic poverty. The broad result of Mr.<br /> Faith. Cardinal Vaughan has written an Intro Rowntree&#039;s investigations goes to show that there<br /> duction, and it is compiled and edited by the is an almost identical proportion of poverty in the<br /> author of “ Ten Years in Anglican Orders”<br /> provincial city of New York and the Metropolitan<br /> (Longmans, 78. 6d. net).<br /> City of London.<br /> Miss Adeline Sergeant&#039;s novel, “ The Mission of<br /> Messrs. Swan, Sonnenschein &amp; Co. publish this<br /> month a new poetical drama entitled “Frithiof the<br /> Margaret,” will be published on December 2nd by<br /> Bold,” by F. ). Winbolt, author of “King Helge&quot;<br /> John Long, price 6s.<br /> and “ Aslog.” Its price is 3s. 6d.<br /> Mr. Murray is the publisher of “ Old Diaries,<br /> aries, Mr. G. H. Perris has just published through Mr.<br /> 1881–1900,&quot; by Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower.<br /> Grant Richards a volume called “The Life and<br /> Lord Ronald Gower has selected from the diaries<br /> Teaching of Leo Tolstoy.&quot; It is a book of extracts,<br /> kept during the last twenty years passages relating with an introduction of more than ordinary interest.<br /> to the distinguished men and women whom he<br /> Says Mr. Perris :-<br /> met in this country and abroad. These include<br /> “ Tolstoy is stimulating as much by his insistence upon<br /> reminiscences of H. M. the late Queen Victoria, the<br /> the superior importance of moral over material progress as<br /> Empress Frederick, Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Glad-<br /> by his marvellous power of depicting the drama of the<br /> stone, Lord Dufferin, Cardinal Rampolla,“ Ouida,&quot; inner life. His attempt to formulate a moral dynamic<br /> J. A. Symonds, and Mr. Swinburne.<br /> is open to criticism, but it voices a hunger that is spreading<br /> and deepening in every country where machine industry<br /> The Memoir of Sir George Grey, G.C.B., 1799 and plutocracy are the governing conditions of the popular<br /> -1882, by Dr. Mandell Creighton, the late Bishop<br /> life .... He will not be canonised by any Church, and it<br /> is only after long years of laborious growth into complete<br /> of London, is just out (Longmans). This is a<br /> self-possession and self-expression that this rare mind<br /> reprint of a volume privately printed in 1884. shows us, reflected, all the agonising search and struggle of<br /> Sir George Gray held offices in the Ministries of the soul of our time.&quot;<br /> Lorá Melbourne, Lord John Russell, and Lord Mr. Aylmer Maude is editing a revised edition<br /> Palmerston. He was Home Secretary during the of Tolstoy&#039;s works. The most scrupulous care has<br /> Chartist troubles of 1848.<br /> been taken to present reliable versions. The first<br /> Dr. Selwyn, the Headmaster of Uppingham, has volume, “Sevastopol,” translated by Louise and<br /> written a sequel to his work “The Christian Pro- Aylmer Maude, has appeared. Mr. Grant Richards<br /> phets,” entitled “St. Luke the Prophet.” In it is the publisher.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 79 (#463) #############################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 79<br /> “La Chartreuse de Parme,&quot; translated from the In this second edition of “The Lectures and<br /> French of De Stendhal, by the Lady Mary Loyd, is Essays &quot;two essays belonging rather to the domain<br /> the first volume of the series of French romances of mathematics are omitted.<br /> being published by Mr. Heinemann. Mr. Maurice Mr. S. Baring Gould&#039;s famous West of England<br /> Hewlett has written the introduction. It is a<br /> romance “ John Herring&quot; is the latest addition<br /> handsome volume in blue and gold, with four<br /> to Mr. George Newnes&#039; sixpenny series. Mr. F.<br /> dainty coloured plates, a frontispiece portrait of Anstey&#039;s well-known “ Vice Versâ.&quot; John Oliver<br /> Stendhal, and six portraits of him at various Hobbes&#039; “ The Herb Moon,” Mrs. Humphry Ward&#039;s<br /> ages.<br /> “ Robert Elsmere ” and “The History of David<br /> In his new novel, “ Marietta—a Maid of Venice,&quot; Grieve,” Mr. Rider Haggard&#039;s “ She” and “ Jess,&quot;<br /> Mr. Marion Crawford has collected, and used with and six of Dr. Conan Doyle&#039;s novels are included in<br /> his usual skill, a mass of curious and picturesque this series.<br /> knowledge about Venetian glass-blowing. He has<br /> There was an interesting meeting of the Play-<br /> drawn on fifteenth century records of a certain<br /> goers&#039; Club in the Victoria Hall at the Hotel Cecil<br /> Zorzi Ballarin, who, being taken into the office of<br /> on the evening of November 17th, when Miss Nella<br /> Angelo Beroviero, a great craftsman in the art of<br /> Syrett presided, and Mr. F. Norreys Connell read<br /> glass-blowing, shows such aptitude for the art, that<br /> a paper on “Should Novelists write Plays ? &quot; It<br /> he is admitted to the practice of it, in defiance of<br /> provoked an animated discussion. Mr. Connell<br /> the law which forbids any foreigner to learn and<br /> said that the novelist whose sole concern was to<br /> practise the art in Venice. .<br /> tell a story could write plays easily. But to the<br /> Mr. Eden Phillpotts&#039; new novel, “ Fancy Free” novelist whose story was also a serious criticism of<br /> (Methuen, 6s.), is a humorous medley, illustrated life the stage offered no opportunities. Two of thuse<br /> by Mr. J. A. Shepherd and others.<br /> who took part in the discussion said that novelists<br /> “The Making of a Marchioness,&quot; by Mrs. Hodg needed to learn the art of play construction, and<br /> son Burnett, has lately been issued by Messrs. that most novelists were deplorably ignorant of<br /> Smith Elder (68.). It is a story of modern English stage requirements.<br /> life, and makes pleasant reading.<br /> Mr. and Mrs. Kendal and Mrs. Tree are playing<br /> Mr. A. E. W. Mason&#039;s new novel “Clementina ” at the St. James&#039; Theatre in Mr. W. K. Clifford&#039;s<br /> is a stirring historical romance. It is doing well. successful drama, “The Likeness of the Night,”<br /> Messrs. Methuen are the publishers (6s.).<br /> which has been played in the provinces and at<br /> “ Light Freights,&quot; by Mr. W. W. Jacobs, is<br /> Fulham. A version of it appeared in the Anglo-<br /> another of the same firm&#039;s successful publications.<br /> Saxon Review; it is also published in volume<br /> Mr. Jacobs is happy in being able to give the<br /> form.<br /> public an amusing book, for such books are greatly Mr. George Alexander is to resume the run of<br /> in demand just now.<br /> Mr. H. V. Esmond&#039;s “The Wilderness” at the<br /> Miss F F Montrésor&#039;s new novel “ The Alien ” St. James&#039; Theatre this month, and he will give<br /> is in its second edition : so. too. is Mr. B. M. matinées during the Christmas holidays of Mr.<br /> Croker&#039;s novel “ Angel,” Mr. Eden Phillpotts&#039; R. C. Carton&#039;s pretty comedy “Liberty Hall.”<br /> “ The Striking Hours,&quot; Dorothea Gerard&#039;s “The Mr. Sydney Grundy&#039;s latest adaptation from the<br /> Million,&quot; and Mr. Baring Gould&#039;s“ Royal Georgie.” French will be produced at the Haymarket on the<br /> Mr. Rudyard Kipling&#039;s &quot; Kim” has been selling 10th inst. The cast includes Miss Emery, Miss<br /> at the rate of about 500 copies a day, and is still Ellis Jeffreys, and Mr. Cyril Maude.<br /> going remarkably well.<br /> Mr. Edward Martyn, the author of “The Heather<br /> The editor of the Cornhill Magazine has been Field,” has just published two plays through Mr.<br /> fortunate enough to secure the serial publication of Fisher Unwin. They are “ The Tale of a Town”<br /> Mr. Anthony Hope&#039;s new novel. Messrs. Harper and “ An Enchanted Sea.” Mr. Martyn is an<br /> Bros. will publish it simultaneously in America in Irishman.<br /> one of their magazines. It will be remembered “Aladdin ” is to be the pantomime at the Hippo-<br /> that “ Tristram of Blent&quot; appeared serially in the<br /> drome, while Mr. Arthur Collins is providing a<br /> Monthly Review.<br /> gorgeous spectacular display at Drury Lane. A<br /> “ The Lectures and Essays of the late Professor property elephant, resembling that on which Miss<br /> W. K. Clifford&quot; forms a welcome addition to the Edna May rode in “ An American Beauty,” is to<br /> Eversley Series (Macmillan, 2 vols.). Mr. Leslie be an important feature of the pantomime. A<br /> Stephen is the editor. There is a sympathetic troupe of elephants hailing from Paris may take<br /> biographical introduction by Sir Frederick Pollock. part in the proceedings.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 80 (#464) #############################################<br /> <br /> 80<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> CORRESPONDENCE.<br /> and social position; those who admit exceptions<br /> agree that such exceptions are congenital idiots.<br /> In truth—and this is the underlying fact-not one<br /> PUBLISHERS AND MSS.<br /> writes from the point of view of art. Not one even<br /> SIR,– My experience of“ really good houses” in the refers to the attitude of mind necessary for a man<br /> matter of defacing MSS. exactly accords with that of to give the world honest, lasting achievement. All<br /> “Member” in the last issue of the Author. After write from the point of view of the writer, and of<br /> submitting MS. of a work to which I had devoted what is advisable for him personally.<br /> much time and research to two of the best houses May 1, cynically, suggest that your correspon-<br /> in the trade, I happened to open the MS. in a part dents write honestly ? May 1-also cynically-<br /> I had not carefully examined when returned on the suggest that it is this tradesman-like spirit per-<br /> former occasion, and found the page lined with vading literature which accounts for the fact that<br /> pencil marks and the notation “not true&quot; appended -except as to the works of one living man-<br /> to statements of fact. Unfortunately, I could not fix no modern romance has any chance of more than<br /> the guilt on any one of these firms, or I should ephemeral life?<br /> have given the “ gentleman” a bit of my mind.<br /> Your correspondent, who wrote from an excep-<br /> After this experience of publishers&#039; readers I tional point of view, affirmed that no man can<br /> invariably affix to the front of my MSS. the possibly achieve living success who does not write<br /> appended notice, which has had an excellent from sheer love of writing. He suggested that one<br /> effect:-<br /> pound a week is sufficient for such a man to live on,<br /> “ As this manuscript is private property, the pub- and he further suggested that to succeed in depict-<br /> lishers and their readers are requested to treat it ing humanity a man must live face to face with<br /> in an honourable manner, in the same way as they humanity, and not peer at it through the spectacles<br /> would expect their own property to be treated when of a class, however admirable in manner and dress.<br /> “ lent on approval ” with a view to sale ; and not Did this correspondent say that not one single<br /> to turn down the corners or otherwise damage it, man born to wealth and high rank has given the<br /> or return it in a filthy condition, as is sometimes world one single work of genius in romance ?<br /> done by dishonourable firms and their employées.”<br /> As this ridiculous world is constituted, the writer<br /> November, 12th, 1901.<br /> H. N. S.<br /> must write for money to clothe his back and fill his<br /> stomach. Success may give him social position.<br /> OLD AND YOUNG REVIEWERS.<br /> But for living work he must write from sheer love<br /> of work ; wealth and position must be simply inci-<br /> To the Editor of THE AUTHOR.<br /> dental. The man who writes for the admiration of<br /> SIR,--I do not agree with “ Judas Quilldriver.” a class must keep his finger on the pulse of that<br /> Twenty years ago any contributor to the old<br /> class—he loses the pulse of humanity.<br /> Saturday Review under Mr. Philip Harwood, or to<br /> In trying to turn the old Bohemian republic of<br /> the old Pall Mall Gazette under Mr. Greenwood or<br /> literature into an aristocracy with rewards of<br /> Mr. John Morley, would have acted altogether at<br /> wealth and position, the twentieth century is making<br /> his peril if he had made a practice of reviewing a deadly mistake. Humanity is swamped ; criticism<br /> books without reading them. Also the practice of becomes a criticism of clothes ; language and con-<br /> throwing in the book as part of the reviewer&#039;s<br /> struction are looked to, not the ideal.<br /> reward was certainly not uniform then.<br /> We may laugh at Hall Caine or Marie Corelli for<br /> ANOTHER OLD REVIEWER.<br /> their huge circulation. But they touch humanity.<br /> November 14th, 1901.<br /> Regarding literature from the shopkeeper&#039;s point of<br /> view, I do not believe that one single writer can<br /> attain a huge circulation without writing from<br /> MONEY AND LITERATURE.<br /> sheer love of work. Mere inhuman refinement of<br /> SIR,—Though it is as ridiculous for the cynic to language and perfection of construction may gain<br /> come out of his tub and discuss a question of art as the critic&#039;s applause and some measure of readers ;<br /> it is dangerous for a free-born Briton to suggest genius may fail ; in the races of literature the best<br /> that the destruction of nationalities is not Christ- horse may be shut out and an outsider win. But be<br /> like, I cannot resist writing a few words touching sure of this : no man ever attained the position of<br /> one fact which underlies your published corre- a Shakespeare, Molière, Alexandre Dumas, or, to<br /> spondence on the above subject.<br /> come to the present, the position of the one man I<br /> With one remarkable exception, all your corre. have referred to, who did not write from sheer love<br /> spondents deal with the question of reward from a of writing. And no man absorbed in a class of<br /> severely practical and personal point of view. Some humanity ever has or ever will achieve a work of<br /> say that all men without exception write for reward genius.<br /> CYNICUS.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 80 (#465) #############################################<br /> <br /> ADVERTISEMENTS.<br /> ESTABLISHED)<br /> (XVIII. CENT.<br /> The Athenæum Press, Taunton.<br /> BARNICOTT &amp; PEARCE<br /> INVITE ENQUIRIES RESPECTING PRINTING.<br /> ESTIMATES OF COST, AND OTHER DETAILS, PROMPTLY GIVEN.<br /> Monthly, 3d.<br /> » Post free to any address in the United<br /> Kingdom, 4s. per annum.<br /> A MONTHLY JOURNAL FOR LITERARY PEOPLE.<br /> Devoted to the interests of Book-buyers, Booksellers, Authors and Readers. 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S.W.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. 80 (#466) #############################################<br /> <br /> ADVERTISEMENTS.<br /> LADY FLORENCE DIXIE&#039;S<br /> NEW BOOK.<br /> F NOW READY.<br /> “The Songs of a Child”<br /> BY<br /> DARLING<br /> (Lady Florence Douglas.)<br /> LORD<br /> YTTON a<br /> Written in Childhood.<br /> mmmmmmmm<br /> Dedicated to the first LORD LYTTON and containing lines addressed by him to<br /> the Child Author recording his first meeting with her.<br /> Published for the first time.<br /> Popular Edition, 2s. 6d.<br /> FIRST EDITION EXHAUSTED.<br /> SECOND EDITION READY IMMEDIATELY.<br /> Edition de Luxe, 7s.6d.<br /> Both contain Coloured Portrait Frontispiece of the Author as a Child.<br /> PUBLISHERS :<br /> THE LEADENHALL Press, 50, LEADENHALL STREET, E.C.<br /> CHARLES SCRIBNER AND Sons, NEW YORK.<br /> N<br /> DEN<br /> &quot;REE<br /> Printed by BRADBURY, AGNEW, &amp; Co. LD., and Published by them for THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS (INCORPORATED),<br /> at 10, Bouverie Street, London, E.C.	https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/348/1901-12-01-The-Author-12-5.pdf	publications, The Author