| 459 | https://historysoa.com/items/show/459 | The Author, Vol. 04 Issue 09 (February 1894) | <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.+04+Issue+09+%28February+1894%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 04 Issue 09 (February 1894)</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> | 1894-02-01-The-Author-4-9 | | | | | 319–354 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=4">4</a> | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1894-02-01">1894-02-01</a> | | | | | | | 9 | | | 18940201 | Che #utbor.<br />
<br />
(The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.)<br />
<br />
CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Vou. IV.—No. 9.]<br />
<br />
FEBRUARY 1, 1804.<br />
<br />
[Price SIXPENCE.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
For the Opinions expressed in papers that are<br />
signed or initialled the Authors alone are<br />
responsible. None of the papers or para-<br />
graphs must be taken as expressing the<br />
collective opinions of the committee unless<br />
they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br />
Thring, Sec.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all<br />
remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and<br />
requests that all members not receiving an answer to<br />
<br />
important communications within two days will write to him<br />
without delay. All remittances should be crossed Union<br />
Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered<br />
letter only.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on<br />
all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub-<br />
jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are<br />
returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS.<br />
<br />
es<br />
<br />
WARNINGS AND ADVICE.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
T is not generally understood that the author, as the<br />
vendor, has the absolute right of drafting the agree-<br />
ment upon whatever terms the transaction is to be<br />
<br />
carried out. Authors are strongly advised to exercise that<br />
right. Inevery other form of business, the right of drawing<br />
the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or has the<br />
control of the property.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
EADERS of the Author and members of the Society<br />
are earnestly desired to make the following warnings<br />
as widely known as possible. They are based on the<br />
<br />
experience of nine years’ work by which the dangers<br />
to which literary property is especially exposed have been<br />
discovered :—<br />
<br />
I, Serrat Ricuts.—In selling Serial Rights stipulate<br />
that you are selling the Serial Right for one paper at a<br />
certain time only, otherwise you may find your work serialized<br />
for years, to the detriment of your volume form.<br />
<br />
2. Stamp your AGREEMENTS. — Readers are most<br />
URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements<br />
immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected<br />
for two weeks, a fine of £10 must be paid before the agree-<br />
ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every<br />
case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter<br />
<br />
VOL. IV.<br />
<br />
which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The<br />
author may be assured that the other party to the agree-<br />
ment never neglects this simple precaution. The Society,<br />
to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of<br />
members stamped for them at no expense to themselves<br />
except the cost of the stamp.<br />
<br />
3. ASCERTAIN WHAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES TO<br />
BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.—Remember that an<br />
arrangement as toa joint venture in any other kind of busi-<br />
ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party<br />
refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he<br />
reserved for himself.<br />
<br />
4. LireERARY AGENTS.—Be very careful. You cannot be<br />
too careful as to the person whom you appoint as your<br />
agent. Remember that you place your property almost un-<br />
reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting<br />
the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience<br />
of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone.<br />
<br />
5. Cost or PropucTion.—Never sign any agreement of<br />
which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part,<br />
until you have proved the figures.<br />
<br />
6. CHoIcE oF PUBLISHERS.—Never enter into any cor-<br />
respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad-<br />
vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced<br />
friends or by this Society.<br />
<br />
7. Future Worx.—Never, on any account whatever,<br />
bind yourself down for future work to anyone.<br />
<br />
8. RoyattTy.—Never accept any proposal of royalty until<br />
you have ascertained what the agreement, worked out on<br />
both a small and a large sale, will give to the author and<br />
what to the publisher.<br />
<br />
9. PERsonAL Risx.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or<br />
responsibility whatever without advice.<br />
<br />
10. ResgectED MSS.—Never, when a MS. has been re-<br />
fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises<br />
they may put forward, for the production of the work.<br />
<br />
11. AMERICAN Riauts.—Never sign away American<br />
rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any<br />
agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the<br />
publisher, unless for a substantial consideration. If the<br />
publisher insists, take away the MS. and offer it to<br />
another.<br />
<br />
12. CEssION or CopyricHT.—Never sign any paper,<br />
either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright,<br />
without advice.<br />
<br />
13. ADVERTISEMENTS.—Keep control over the advertise-<br />
ments, if they affect your returns, by a clause in the agree-<br />
ment. Reserve a veto. If you are yourself ignorant of the<br />
subject, make the Society your adviser.<br />
<br />
ca?<br />
320<br />
<br />
14. Never forget that publishing is a business, like any<br />
other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy,<br />
charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with<br />
business men. Be yourself a business man.<br />
<br />
Society’s Offices :—<br />
4, PorTUGAL STREET, Lincoun’s Inn FIELDs.<br />
<br />
ee:<br />
<br />
HOW TO USE THE SoOcrIETY.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
rE VERY member has a right to advice upon his<br />
<br />
agreements, his choice of a publisher, or any<br />
<br />
dispute arising in the conduct of his business or<br />
the administration of his property. If the advice sought<br />
is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member has<br />
a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the<br />
case is such that Counsel’s opinion is desirable, the Com-<br />
mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this<br />
without any cost to the member.<br />
<br />
2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br />
and publisher’s agreements do not generally fall within the<br />
experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br />
to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually<br />
engaged upon such questions for us.<br />
<br />
3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past<br />
accounts with the loan of the books represented. This isin<br />
order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree-<br />
ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively<br />
so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any<br />
agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor-<br />
mation thus obtained may prove invaluable.<br />
<br />
4. If the examination of your previous business trans-<br />
actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should<br />
take advice as to a change of publishers.<br />
<br />
5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro-<br />
posed document to the Society for examination.<br />
<br />
6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in<br />
the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish-<br />
ing firm in the country. Remember that there are certain<br />
houses which live entirely by trickery.<br />
<br />
7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you<br />
are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are<br />
reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing<br />
the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen-<br />
dence of the writer.<br />
<br />
8. Send to the Editor of the Author notes of everything<br />
important to literature that you may hear or meet with.<br />
<br />
eee<br />
<br />
THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE.<br />
<br />
\ | EMBERS are informed :<br />
1. That the Authors’ Syndicate takes charge of<br />
the business of members of the Society. With, when<br />
necessary, the assistance of the legal advisers of the Syndi-<br />
cate, it concludes agreements, collects royalties, examines<br />
and passes accounts, and generally relieves members of the<br />
trouble of managing business details.<br />
<br />
2. That the expenses of the Authors’ Syndicate are<br />
defrayed solely out of the commission charged on rights<br />
placed through its intervention. Notice is, however, hereby<br />
given that in all cases where there is no current account, a<br />
oooking fee is charged to cover postage and porterage.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
3. That the Authors’ Syndicate works for none but those<br />
members of the Society whose work possesses a market<br />
value.<br />
<br />
4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiation<br />
whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia-<br />
tions are placed exclusively in its hands, and that all<br />
communications relating thereto are referred to it.<br />
<br />
5. That clients can only be seen by the Editor by appoint-<br />
ment, and that, when possible, at least four days’ notice<br />
should be given. The work of the Syndicate is now so<br />
heavy, that only a limited number of interviews can be<br />
arranged.<br />
<br />
6. That every attempt is made to deal with the corre-<br />
spondence promptly, but that owing to the enormous number<br />
of letters received, some delay is inevitable. That stamps<br />
should, in all cases, be sent to defray postage.<br />
<br />
7. That the Authors’ Syndicate does not invite MSS.<br />
without previous correspondence, and does not hold itself<br />
responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice.<br />
<br />
It is announced that, by way of a new departure, the<br />
Syndicate has undertaken arrangements for lectures by<br />
some of the leading members of the Society; that a<br />
“Transfer Department,’ for the sale and purchase of<br />
journals and periodicals, has been opened ; and that a<br />
“Register of Wants and Wanted” has been opened.<br />
Members anxious to obtain literary or artistic work are<br />
invited to communicate with the Manager.<br />
<br />
There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services<br />
will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It<br />
is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the<br />
Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in<br />
the Syndicate.<br />
<br />
see<br />
<br />
NOTICES.<br />
<br />
HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the<br />
Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br />
of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very<br />
<br />
heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br />
many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br />
6s. 6d. subscription for the year.<br />
<br />
The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and<br />
communications on all subjects connected with literature<br />
from members and others. Nothing can do more good to<br />
the Society than to make the Author complete, attractive,<br />
and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this<br />
work send their names and the special subjects on which<br />
they are willing to write?<br />
<br />
Communications for the Author should reach the Editor<br />
not later than the 21st of each month.<br />
<br />
All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether<br />
members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate<br />
to the Editor any points connected with their work which<br />
it would be advisable in the general interest to publish.<br />
<br />
Members and others who wish their MSS. read are<br />
requested not to send them to the Office without previously<br />
communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable<br />
despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in<br />
which they are received. It must also be distinctly under-<br />
stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances,<br />
undertake the publication of MSS.<br />
<br />
The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at<br />
3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary<br />
for information, rules of admission, &c.<br />
<br />
Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br />
have paid their subscriptions for the year? If they will do<br />
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gE OR Oe<br />
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THE AUTHOR. an<br />
<br />
this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker’s<br />
order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him' the<br />
trouble of sending out a reminder.<br />
<br />
Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br />
warning numbered (7). It is a most foolish and a most<br />
disastrous thing to bind yourself to anyone for a term of<br />
years. Let them ask themselves if they would give a<br />
solicitor the collection of their rents for five years to come,<br />
whatever his conduct, whether he was honest or dishonest?<br />
Of course they would not. Why then hesitate for a moment<br />
when they are asked to sign themselves into literary bondage<br />
for three or five years ?<br />
<br />
Those who possess the “Cost of Production” are<br />
requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15<br />
per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble<br />
of “doing sums,’ the addition of three shillings in the<br />
pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding<br />
is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be<br />
added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands at<br />
£9 4s. The figures in our book are as near the exact truth<br />
as can be procured; but a printer’s, or a binder’s, bill is so<br />
elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be arrived at.<br />
<br />
Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br />
in the “ Cost of Production” for advertising. Of course, we<br />
have not included any sums which may be charged for<br />
inserting advertisements in the publisher’s own magazines,<br />
or in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too<br />
often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from<br />
sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket,<br />
by inserting any number of advertisements in his own<br />
magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are<br />
who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those<br />
who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Co ye<br />
LITERARY PROPERTY.<br />
<br />
I.—Tue Wornine or THE AMERICAN Copy-<br />
RieHT Law.<br />
R. G. H. PUTNAM, of New York, was<br />
\ one of the most stalwart workers for the<br />
International Copyright Act. He wrote<br />
for it, spoke for it, argued for it, expended an<br />
enormous amount of trouble in its cause, and<br />
finally saw it succeed. Since the passing of the<br />
Act he has narrowly watched the working of the<br />
Act. No one is better qualified to speak on the<br />
subject. We therefore welcome his paper in<br />
the January number of the Morwm as an autho-<br />
ritative presentment of the case up to the present<br />
moment. We may also take this opportunity of<br />
adding that what Mr. Putnam has written on<br />
the general question of the relations between<br />
author and publisher, although we may not<br />
always agree with him, has been marked by a<br />
moderation in tone and an absence of exaggera-<br />
tion which are sadly wanting in most of those<br />
who have rushed into the field.<br />
The following is his notes of the case as set<br />
forth in last month’s Forum:<br />
<br />
What were the Changes made by the Law?<br />
The most important changes in the law (omitting from<br />
present consideration a few matters of technical detail)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
were as follows—First: Its provisions, previously limited<br />
to the works of authors (under which term I include for con-<br />
venience artists and composers) who were “residents of the<br />
United States,’ were extended to cover the productions of<br />
non-résidents on condition that such non-resident author<br />
was a resident of a country which should concede to American<br />
authors similar privileges. Second: All editions of the<br />
works copyrighted must be entirely manufactured in the<br />
United States. This provision imposed a new restriction<br />
upon American authors, who had previously been at liberty<br />
to have their books manufactured on either side of the<br />
Atlantic. Third: The book, to secure American copyright,<br />
must be published inthe United States not later than the<br />
date of its publication in any other country. The pro-<br />
visions of the Act became operative between the United<br />
States and any foreign state only when the President had<br />
made announcement, by proclamation, that the necessary<br />
conditions of reciprocity had been fulfilled by such State.<br />
The proclamation of July 1, 1891, specified that the Act<br />
was in force with Great Britain, France, Switzerland, and<br />
Belgium. Since that date the following countries have<br />
been brought within the operations of the Act: Germany,<br />
in April, 1892; Italy, in October, 1892; Portugal, in July,<br />
1893 ; and Spain and Denmark subsequently.<br />
<br />
By the close of 1892, according to the report of the<br />
Librarian of Congress, more than nineteen thousand copy-<br />
rights had been granted to foreign authors, composers,<br />
and designers. The figures for 1893 are not yet available.<br />
<br />
How the new Law affects Authors.<br />
<br />
American publishers are now in a position to give to<br />
American fiction a larger measure of favourable attention<br />
than was possible when such volumes had to compete with<br />
English stories that had not been paid for; and the<br />
removal of this disturbing factor must have proved a<br />
definite advantage to American novelists, and especially to<br />
the newer writers. This advantage has, however, been<br />
lessened or delayed by the fact that during the<br />
last year large stocks of “remainders” of the novels<br />
issued by the “reprinting” firms that have become<br />
bankrupt have been crowded upon the book- stands<br />
and offered at nominal prices. The disappointment of<br />
English authors with the results of the copyright law has<br />
been keener than that of their American brethren, because<br />
their expectations were so much larger. During the half<br />
century in which international copyright has been talked<br />
about, many statements had been put into print and talked<br />
over in English literary circles, setting forth the enormous<br />
circulation secured in “the States” for unauthorised<br />
editions of English books, and particularly of English<br />
fiction; and large estimates were arrived at as to the great<br />
fortunes that were being made out of these editions by the<br />
piratical publishers.<br />
<br />
There has been, nevertheless, a substantial advance. The<br />
authors of the first rank (using the term simply for com-<br />
mercial importance) have certainly very largely increased<br />
the receipts from their American sales, while for authors of<br />
the second grade there has doubtless also been a satisfactory<br />
gain. I think it probable—though on such a point exact<br />
statistics are unobtainable—that in one division of litera-<br />
ture, that of third-class or lower-grade fiction, there has<br />
been a decrease in the supply taken from England for<br />
American readers. There never had been any natural<br />
demand in America for English fiction of this class, and it<br />
had been purveyed or “appropriated” chiefly in order to<br />
supply material for the weekly issues of the cheap “libraries.”<br />
The lessening of the supply of this class of literary pro-<br />
vender may be classed as one of the direct gains from<br />
international copyright.<br />
<br />
English authors have to-day the satisfaction that they<br />
322<br />
<br />
are able to place their books before their American readers<br />
with a correct and complete text. Before the amended<br />
Copyright Law, English books had to be reprinted on what<br />
might be called a “scramble system.” It was often not<br />
practicable to give to the printing of the authorised editions<br />
sufficient time and supervision to insure a correct typo-<br />
graphy, while the unauthorised issues were not infrequently<br />
—either through carelessness or for the sake of reducing<br />
the amount and the cost of the material—seriously garbled.<br />
The transatlantic author, who was then helpless to protect<br />
himself, can now, of course, arrange to give at his leisure<br />
an “author’s reading” to his proofs.<br />
<br />
Opinion of the Librarian of Congress.<br />
<br />
The first great benefit of international copyright has been<br />
the gradual decline in the price of standard foreign works.<br />
Before the passage of the Act—when, for instance, an Eng-<br />
lish publishing house could not be protected in its editions<br />
of important medical and scientific works by foreign<br />
authors—the only course to pursue was to charge<br />
avery high selling price for a limited market, which rarely<br />
extended beyond Great Britian. Works of this class are<br />
now, however, planned to secure a market on both sides of<br />
the Atlantic, and the result is much larger sales at popular<br />
prices. This brings a substantial advantage to the more<br />
scholarly readers of the community, who are able to secure,<br />
at lower pricesthan heretofore, editions of scientific works<br />
which have been carefully printed to meet their own special<br />
requirements. The dread that the bill would create pub-<br />
lishing monopolies proves to have been entirely unfounded.<br />
One of the most noteworthy results of the law, from the<br />
American standpoint, has been the cleansing effect upon<br />
the character of reprinted fiction. By far the larger pro-<br />
portion of the cheap novels of an undesirable character with<br />
which the market has been flooded during the past fifteen<br />
years were the work of English or French authors. <A<br />
group of publishing houses in the United States, which made<br />
a specialty of cheap books, vied with each other in the busi-<br />
ness of appropriating English and Continental trash, and<br />
printed this under villainous covers, in ty pe ugly enough to<br />
risk a serious increase of ophthalmia among American readers.<br />
<br />
Should the Act be allowed 2<br />
<br />
While the Copyright Act is defective as well in its bearing<br />
upon the interest of Continental authors as in sundry other<br />
respects, and ought in my judgment certainly to be amended,<br />
Iam of opinion that it would be unwise at this time to make<br />
any effort to secure such amendments. The public opinion<br />
which creates and directs legislative opinion is not yet<br />
sufficiently assured in its recognition of the rights of<br />
literary producers, to be trusted to take an active or intelli-<br />
gent interest in securing more satisfactory protection for<br />
such producers. There would be grave risk that, if the<br />
copyright question were reopened in the present Congress,<br />
we might, in place of developing or improving the copyright<br />
system, take a step backward, and lose the partial measure<br />
of international copyright that it has taken the efforts of<br />
half a century to secure.<br />
<br />
The provision establishing international copyright is only<br />
a clause in the general Copyright Act, and the whole Act<br />
ought before many years to be carefully revised. Work of<br />
this kind, instead of being referred at the outset to a Con-<br />
gressional committee, whose interest in the subject or ability<br />
to consider it intelligently could not with certainty be<br />
depended upon, ought to be intrusted to a commission of<br />
experts selected for the purpose, which should be instructed<br />
to take evidence and to submit a report to serve as a basis<br />
for legislation. This is the system that has been pursued<br />
with the copyright legislation of England, France, Germany,<br />
and Italy, and is what might be termed the scientific method<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
of arriving at satisfactory legislation on subjects of intricacy<br />
or complexity.<br />
<br />
Among the recommendations that would be placed before<br />
such a commission would be one for the lengthening of the<br />
term of copyright. The present term (twenty-eight years,<br />
with aright of renewal to an author, to his widow, or to his<br />
children, for fourteen years) is shorter than that of any<br />
civilised country. The British term is forty-two years, or<br />
the life of the author and seven years, whichever term be<br />
the longer ; the German, the life of the author and thirty<br />
years; the French, the life of the author and fifty years.<br />
The amended British law now pending in Parliament (the<br />
Monkswell Bill) accepts the German term, the life of the<br />
author and thirty years.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Il.—Tue Ricuts anp Liasinities or Epitors<br />
AND CONTRIBUTORS WITH REGARD TO ARTICLES<br />
oF Passine INTEREST.<br />
<br />
A question is often raised as to what is the<br />
precise position of a writer who has sent to a<br />
periodical a contribution upon a topic of<br />
ephemeral interest, has heard no more of it, and<br />
has perhaps seen an issue, in which he might<br />
reasonably have expected it to appear, come out<br />
without containing it. Is he at liberty to send it<br />
elsewhere? Obviously, if he does so, the first<br />
editor may still bring it out late in the day; and<br />
it may, if accepted by the second, appear in two<br />
different places at once, a result which will<br />
certainly annoy both editors, and probably place<br />
the writer at a disadvantage, both in the matter<br />
of future dealings with each of them and as to<br />
the question of payment for the particular article ;<br />
while, if he does not send it to the second, or<br />
possibly third, editor, he will probably have<br />
written it in vain. What is the writer’s position,<br />
legally and otherwise?<br />
<br />
The legal aspect of the question must vary<br />
with the facts of each particular case, and gener-<br />
ally the uninvited contributor is at a disadvantage,<br />
in that there are plainly-printed notices in most<br />
newspapers and - periodicals which effectually<br />
protect the editor, should he require protection,<br />
which is doubtful. At best he only can be bound<br />
to use reasonable care to return contributions or<br />
answer letters within a reasonable time, and in all<br />
well-conducted offices he does so, if his rules as<br />
to forwarding stamps, &c., are complied with. He<br />
may be bound by the rules of courtesy, or justice,<br />
or the kindly consideration that one man should<br />
have towards another, to see that an obviously<br />
perishable article may have a chance elsewhere<br />
if he cannot use it, but that is quite another thing<br />
from his being under a legal obligation to read<br />
and return it at once. Besides which, in many<br />
cases, he keeps it on the chance of being able to use<br />
it if he has space, a condition which the writer<br />
would in most cases accept if it were put before<br />
him. If the writer may hazard a suggestion, he<br />
would say that in the case of many offices, if the<br />
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<br />
THe AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
author were to send in a civil note asking for the<br />
article to be returned by bearer if not to be used,<br />
the request would be acceded to, while there is<br />
the obvious possibility of appending to the con-<br />
tribution a request or a condition.<br />
<br />
Let us see what editors themselves say. In a<br />
recent issue of To-Day, in answer to a correspon-<br />
dent, Mr. J. K. Jerome is responsible for the fol-<br />
lowing, which we quote verbatim, with thanks for<br />
the hint :—<br />
<br />
When writers send to an editor matters of a topical<br />
character, the interest of which is momentary, why should<br />
they not say something like this? ‘ As this article is only<br />
valuable just now, unless accepted within days, I shall<br />
feel at-liberty to offer it elsewhere.” If copies of all contri-<br />
butions were kept, and something of this sort mentioned,<br />
both editors and contributors would be saved much time<br />
and trouble.<br />
<br />
What has been written above applies chiefly<br />
to newspapers, daily or weekly, where the loss of<br />
a day, or sometimes of an hour, in learning the<br />
fate of a contribution may mean the loss of all<br />
possible profit to its author. With magazines it<br />
is slightly different, but their topics may be pro-<br />
portionally as ephemeral; that is to say, what<br />
would be relevant and of interest in one month<br />
would be out of date the next, but there is much<br />
more time to deal with them; and an editor who<br />
has taken no notice of a letter asking for a reply as<br />
to the fate of an MS. or its return, cannot in law<br />
or justice (two totally different things) complain<br />
if it is sent elsewhere. Whether he or the other<br />
editor, in the event of dual publication or other<br />
mishap befalling, will be likely to bear an appreci-<br />
able grudge to the author, is a matter for the<br />
private consideration of that individual, and if<br />
such matters are of moment to him he will do<br />
well to be careful. On the whole, taking their<br />
opportunities and advantages into consideration,<br />
editors of magazines are more inconsiderate of<br />
their uninvited contributors than are editors of<br />
newspapers, and it is consoling to reflect that<br />
jurors are usually business men, quite capable of<br />
properly estimating and dealing with unbusiness-<br />
like habits and actions.<br />
<br />
Looking at the case from the editor’s point of<br />
view, it would probably be held in a court of law<br />
that the sending of the manuscript implied an<br />
offer of the exclusive use of it, the answer to<br />
which would have to be that the non-user of it<br />
within a reasonable time was an implied refusal.<br />
Probably the matter could not be taken further<br />
on either side. Inner TEMPLE.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
IIL.—Tue Queen v. Rivineton, RucistRar oF<br />
CopyRiIGHTs.<br />
Queen's Bench Division.<br />
(Before Lord Cotzriper and Mr. Justice Day.)<br />
This was an application made on Nov. to<br />
<br />
373<br />
<br />
last, on the part of one Alexander Charles<br />
Tayleur, for a mandamus to Mr. Rivington, the<br />
Registrar of Copyrights, to register him as<br />
proprietor of the Whitehall Review under the<br />
Copyright Act of 1842. As the Registrar ad-<br />
mitted under the Act, the proprietor may apply<br />
to him to be registered and he may require him<br />
at any time to register an assignment of the<br />
copyright under sect. 13 of the Act. It appeared<br />
that in October last one Maritz was the registered<br />
proprietor of the Whitehall Review, and he<br />
assigned it to Mr. Dillon O’Flynn. Then one<br />
Pakeman gave notice of an assignment of the<br />
copyright to him, and by him to Mr. Tayleur<br />
the applicant. But the Registrar had notice of<br />
an Injunction to restram Mr. O’Flynn from<br />
changing or parting with the copyright, the<br />
order bemg made in an action by Messrs. Spot-<br />
tiswoode again Mr. O’Flyun, and the Registrar<br />
declined to enter the assignment until he had<br />
notice of the withdrawal of the injunction, espe-<br />
cially as a receiver of the copyright had been<br />
appointed. Pakeman, it is to be observed, was<br />
not registered proprietor when he made the<br />
assignment to Tayleur, and under the circum-<br />
stances the Registrar refused to register the<br />
assignment without legal authority to do so. On<br />
Nov. 10 there was a rule nist for a mandamus,<br />
against which<br />
<br />
Mr. Finlay, Q.C., and Mr. Scrutton now showed<br />
cause upon three grounds—(1) that the Registrar<br />
was not to exercise a mere mechanical function<br />
but was bound to consider legal rights ; (2) that<br />
the appellant was not an assignee of the copy-<br />
right, and was not entiled (Leyland v. Stewart,<br />
4 Chancery Division) ; and (3) that Tayleur, the<br />
applicant, not having an assignment, was not en-<br />
titled, and if anyone was so entitled it was<br />
O'Flynn, not Tayleur. The so-called assignments<br />
were not, in truth, assignments at all, but mere<br />
copies of entries which it was desired that the<br />
Registrar should copy into the register. [Mr.<br />
Justice Day.—But are they not signed?] Yes.<br />
(Mr. Justice Day—Then they may be assign-<br />
ments.}| They are rather applications to the<br />
Registrar to enter the assignments. [Lord<br />
Coleridge——They seem to amount to notices<br />
of assignment.] O’Flynn is not the applicant ;<br />
he might have applied, but the answer would<br />
have been the order for a receiver. [Mr. Justice<br />
Day.—That is another point. There is a point<br />
that there was no assignment.| There is no<br />
assignment, and there has only been an applica-<br />
tion to enter an assignment. Pakeman is not on<br />
the register. [Lord Coleridge—Why is he<br />
not so? Why was he not entered?] Because<br />
of the cloud on his title. [Mr. Justice Day—A<br />
“cloud” he is here to dispel.] There is a claim<br />
324<br />
<br />
by the judgment creditor, and it will put the<br />
Registrar into a very difficult position. The re-<br />
gistration is to be evidence of title. [Lord Cole-<br />
ridge.—It is to be of the same effect as if by deed. ]<br />
If the Registrar is to register every assignment<br />
tendered to him his duty will be absolute, but<br />
simple. [Mr. Justice Day.—Is he to refuse to do<br />
his duty because he has doubts? Lord Coleridge.<br />
—The registration is to have the same effect as a<br />
deed, and if the party had no legal right to<br />
execute the deed it would have no effect. That is<br />
all.| In some cases he may refuse to make the<br />
entry where the title is disputed. [Lord<br />
Coleridge.—Where two parties are claiming<br />
adversely to each other. Mr. Justice Day.—The<br />
Registrar is not entitled to refuse to make the<br />
entry merely because he is in doubt. Lord<br />
Coleridge.—Otherwise what would be the effect<br />
of sect. 13, which says that a party may by the<br />
entry assign the copyright?] Surely the Registrar<br />
is not to register against an injunction? Or,<br />
suppose a receiver in bankruptcy has been<br />
appointed. [Mr. Justice Day.—These would be<br />
legal obstacles. He is bound to obey the order<br />
of the court, and if he has legal notice of it he<br />
must obey it ; otherwise if he merely hears of it. ]<br />
The Registrar states that Tayleur had made no<br />
application to him to enter his name as proprietor.<br />
The Registrar had notice of the injunction, and<br />
surely was entitled to require notice of its with-<br />
drawal; and he gave notice to the solicitor who<br />
had served him with the order, and then the<br />
solicitor gave him notice of the order for a<br />
receiver, and that had not been rescinded, though,<br />
as the receiver had not given the necessary<br />
security, he had no authority to act.<br />
<br />
Mr. Haigh, who appeared for Messrs. Spottis-<br />
woode, said this was so; certainly, though the<br />
order was not rescinded. [Mr. Justice Day.—<br />
Why? Messrs. Spottiswoode gave notice of it<br />
and objected to the assignment. |<br />
<br />
Mr. Gollan, who appeared for the applicant,<br />
said this was so, certainly.<br />
<br />
Mr. Finlay.—And thus a mandamus is moved<br />
for! putting the Registrar in an intolerable<br />
position.<br />
<br />
Mr. Haigh said his clients, Messrs. Spottis-<br />
woode, had a judgment against Mr. O’Flynn and<br />
obtained an order for a receiver who, however,<br />
never acted. If anybody was entitled to enforce<br />
the duty upon the Registrar it was not the present<br />
applicant. It was only the assignor who was<br />
entitled to apply. [Lord Coleridge——Surely the<br />
assignee is entitled.] Not until he has an assign-<br />
ment. How could the Registrar know that the<br />
applicant was entitled, he professing to be<br />
assignee? Surely the assignor mustjoin? [Lord<br />
Coleridge. — Your clients caused all the diffi-<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
culty. They raised the objection. Mr. Justice<br />
Day.—They served the order for a receiver which<br />
had practically been abandoned! Why did you<br />
interfere? The applicant was not entitled. Lord<br />
Coleridge.—According to you no one could ever<br />
be entitled, for you say no one is entitled until<br />
entered, and then he is not to be entered until he<br />
is entitled.] The applicant has not a legal right<br />
to be entered. [Lord Coleridge.—Clearly he<br />
has.<br />
<br />
Td Coleridge said the justice of the case<br />
seemed to be this, that the Registrar must enter<br />
Mr. Tayleur’s name as the party clearly entitled,<br />
and Messrs. Spottiswoode, as the parties who had<br />
caused all the difficulty, must pay the costs.<br />
Ordered accordingly.— Times, Jan. 19, 1894.<br />
<br />
IV.—Copyricur.<br />
<br />
On the title-page of the libretto of a comic opera,<br />
dated 1892, and just received by me from Paris,<br />
is the formula: “Tous droits d’analyse de tra-<br />
duction, et de reproduction réservés.” An earlier<br />
edition of 1880 does not contain this safeguard.<br />
I have not happened to see any legal case which<br />
would justify the rather terrifying forbiddal of<br />
even the very analysis of the plot of an opera.<br />
<br />
Perhaps some of our French readers, literary<br />
or legal, or both, would expound the technicalities<br />
of the word, as here used. J. ON.<br />
<br />
V.—* Hatr Pricz, Haur Royatry.”<br />
<br />
Attention has already been drawn to a clause<br />
which is attempted, in some cases successfully,<br />
the nature of which is indicated by this heading.<br />
It takes some such form as the following :<br />
<br />
“Tf the publisher should think fit to sell the<br />
book at half the published price, or less than half,<br />
the royalty shall be half the amount stipulated<br />
above.”<br />
<br />
Let us see how this works, taking as usual a<br />
six shilling book. The trade price of sucha book<br />
varies from ;’, to ,8; of the published price, 7.e.,<br />
from 3/219 to 3/8, or practically from 3/2<br />
to 3/8. Let us take the mean of 3/5.<br />
<br />
We will suppose (1) a royalty of 16 per cent.,<br />
and (2) a royalty of 20 per cent.<br />
<br />
(1.) In the former case, if the book is sold at<br />
3/- the publisher loses 5d.; but his royalty is<br />
reduced from 1/- to 6d., so that his advantage<br />
in selling the book at half price is represented<br />
by 1d. on each copy. If the trade price was<br />
3/2 he would lose 2d. and gain 6d., so that his<br />
advantage would be represented by 4d. a<br />
volume.<br />
<br />
(2.) In the latter case, at 3/5 he would lose<br />
the sum of 5d. per volume, but would gain<br />
by reduced royalty the sum of 7}d. per volume,<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
so that his advantage would be represented by<br />
2td. a volume, a very considerable inducement<br />
indeed. Of course, the proper course, if the pub-<br />
lisher is to have a free hand in reducing prices,<br />
is to reduce the royalty in proportion.<br />
<br />
Thus a reduction of 3/2 to 3/- would mean a<br />
reduction in the royalty of 16 per cent. to 1553;<br />
per cent., and a reduction of 3/5 to 3/- would<br />
mean a reduction in the royalty of 16 per<br />
cent. to 142; per cent.<br />
<br />
ee<br />
<br />
NOTICES TO CONTRIBUTORS.<br />
<br />
S the Secretary has had requests from some<br />
of the readers of the Author to have the<br />
list of notices to contributors, which was<br />
<br />
placed before them in the August number, con-<br />
tinued, he has collected a larger and more ex-<br />
haustive list, and trusts it may be of some help.<br />
<br />
DAILY PAPERS.<br />
Daily Graphic.<br />
<br />
Notice To Contrrisutors.—The Proprietors cannot<br />
hold themselves responsible for loss of or damage to MSS.,<br />
sketches, or other contributions arising from any cause<br />
whatever. A sufficiently stamped and directed envelope<br />
must accompany contributions where their return is<br />
desired.<br />
<br />
Daily News.<br />
<br />
To CoRRESPONDENTS.—Communications must in every<br />
case be accompanied by the name and address of the writer,<br />
not necessarily for publication, but in pledge of good faith.<br />
We beg leave to state that it is impossible for us to return<br />
rejected communications, and to this rule we can make no<br />
<br />
exception. Eeho.<br />
<br />
Letters for insertion must be addressed to the Editor of<br />
the Echo, 22, Catherine-street, Strand, W.C., and be authen-<br />
ticated by the name and address of the writer. No notice<br />
can be taken of anonymous communications. Rejected<br />
communications cannot be returned.<br />
<br />
Evening News and Post.<br />
<br />
Letters to the Editor and contributions should be<br />
addressed to the Editor, Evening News and Post, 12, White-<br />
friars-street, Fleet-street, E.C. Rejected manuscripts will<br />
be returned if accompanied with a stamped and directed<br />
<br />
envelope. . .<br />
P Financial News.<br />
<br />
THe Voice or THE Pusiic.—The Editor is not respon-<br />
sible for opinions expressed under this head. Correspon-<br />
dents must accompany all letters with their names and<br />
addresses (not necessarily for publication, but as evidence of<br />
good faith), and must write on one side of the paper only.<br />
<br />
Financial Times.<br />
<br />
We do not necessarily indorse the statements or opinions<br />
of our correspondents. Letters signed with a pseudonym<br />
must be accompanied by the name and address of the writer,<br />
which will, however, be treated as exactly confidential.<br />
Communications must be written on one side of the paper<br />
<br />
ae Globe.<br />
<br />
The Editor will not undertake to be responsible for any<br />
VOL, IV.<br />
<br />
375<br />
<br />
rejected MS., nor to return any contribution unaccompanied<br />
by a stamped and directed envelope.<br />
<br />
Morning.<br />
The Morning will not undertake to return rejected manu-<br />
scripts ; but it will endeavour to do so if a stamped and<br />
addressed envelope is inclosed.<br />
<br />
Morning Advertiser.<br />
<br />
No letters relating to matters of fact, or containing<br />
intelligence, can be inserted unless authenticated by the<br />
name and address of the writer. We cannot undertake to<br />
return the manuscript of rejected communications.<br />
<br />
Morning Leader.<br />
<br />
To CoRRESPONDENTS.—Communications for the editorial,<br />
department must be written on one side of the paper only<br />
and all news items and letters must be authenticated by the<br />
name and address of the sender (not necessarily for publica-<br />
tion). All such letters should be addressed to “The<br />
Editor.”<br />
<br />
Morning Post.<br />
<br />
We cannot undertake to return the MSS. of such articles<br />
as we may find it impossible to insert. All letters intended<br />
for insertion in the Morning Post must be authenticated by<br />
the name and address of the writer; either for publication,<br />
if they should wish it, or as a confidential communication<br />
<br />
to the editor.<br />
Pall Mall Gazette.<br />
<br />
NoticE To ContTrisutors.—The Editor of the Pall<br />
Mall Gazette does not in any case hold himself responsible<br />
for the return of rejected contributions. He is, however,<br />
always glad to consider MSS. and sketches; and, where<br />
stamps are enclosed and the name and address are written<br />
on the manuscript, every effort will be made to return<br />
rejected contributions promptly. To ensure this it is<br />
absolutely necessary that the name and address of the<br />
contributor should be written on the manuscript itself.<br />
<br />
St. James's Gazette.<br />
The Editor cannot undertake to hold himself responsible<br />
for the return of rejected contributions.<br />
<br />
Sun.<br />
<br />
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.—Inquiries addressed to<br />
the City Editor of the Sun, at the office, 20, Bucklersbury,<br />
E.C., will be answered under this head. The name and<br />
address of the writer must be enclosed. A stamped<br />
addressed envelope must be sent if documents are forwarded<br />
and are to be returned. No replies will be given by letter.<br />
<br />
Times.<br />
<br />
To CoRRESPONDENTS.—No notice can be taken of anony-<br />
mous communications. Whatever is intended for insertion<br />
must be authenticated by the name and address of the<br />
author, not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee<br />
of good faith. We cannot wndertake to return rejected<br />
communications.<br />
<br />
Westminster Gazette.<br />
<br />
Notice To ContTrisutors.—The Hditor of the West-<br />
minster Gazette cannot hold himself responsible in any case<br />
for the return of MS. or sketches. He will, however, always<br />
be glad to consider any contributions, literary or pictorial,<br />
which may be submitted to him ; and when postage stamps<br />
are enclosed, every effort will be made to return rejected<br />
contributions promptly.<br />
<br />
The following daily papers contain no notices :—<br />
Daily Chronicle, Daily Telegraph, Evening<br />
Standard, Standard, Star,<br />
<br />
DD<br />
<br />
<br />
326<br />
<br />
MAGAZINES, &c.<br />
<br />
Academy.<br />
The Editor cannot undertake to return, or to correspond<br />
with the writers of, rejected MSS.<br />
<br />
Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday.<br />
<br />
Correspondents wishing their MSS. or sketches to be<br />
returned, should inclose a stamped envelope large enough to<br />
contain the contributions submitted. Do not inclose loose<br />
stamps.<br />
<br />
Answers.<br />
<br />
“ Pur Monry In THY PurseE.”’—One guinea a column is<br />
paid for original contributions to Answers. Short, bright<br />
articles, dealing with strange occupations and curious<br />
phases of life, are the most acceptable. No copied matter<br />
of any kind is required. Payment is made immediately<br />
upon acceptance. MSS. are not read unless they are<br />
accompanied by a large fully stamped addressed envelope<br />
for return, and in no case are MSS. returned unless this rule<br />
is complied with. A declaration of originality must be<br />
inclosed with every contribution. Contributors must write<br />
on one side of the paper only. The full name and address<br />
of the author must be written upon the MS. itself. Short<br />
contributions are much more frequently accepted than long<br />
ones. Articles must not exceed 1400 words in length. All<br />
contributions to be addressed to Answers, Manuscript<br />
Department, 108, Fleet-street, E.C.<br />
<br />
Wuy Don’t you ComprTrE ?—One guinea is sent every<br />
week to the person who sends in the best “ storyette,”<br />
written on a postcard. The anecdote may be original or<br />
selected; but if not original, the source from which the<br />
story is copied must be named. No religious anecdotes will<br />
be accepted. The name and address of the sender must be<br />
written plainly at the bottom of the postcard. Answers<br />
reserves the right to use any anecdote sent in.<br />
<br />
Atheneum.<br />
No notice can be taken of anonymous communications.<br />
<br />
Belgravia.<br />
<br />
To CoRRESPONDENTS.—All MSS. should be addressed,<br />
prepaid, to the Editor of Belgravia, 31, Southampton-street,<br />
Strand, W.C. Every MS. should bear the writer’s name<br />
and address, and be accompanied by postage stamps for its<br />
return if not accepted ; but the Editor cannot hold himself<br />
responsible for any accidental loss. The editor cannot<br />
undertake to return rejected poems.<br />
<br />
Black and White.<br />
<br />
Notice To Contripurors.—The Editor of Black and<br />
White does not in any case hold himself responsible for the<br />
return of rejected contributions. He is, however, always<br />
glad to consider MSS. and sketches ; and, when stamps are<br />
enclosed, every effort will be made to return rejected con-<br />
tributions promptly.<br />
<br />
Builder.<br />
<br />
All statements of facts, lists of tenders, &c., must be<br />
accompanied by the name and address of the sender, not<br />
necessarily for publication. We are compelled to decline<br />
pointing out books and giving addresses. Note.—The<br />
responsibility of signed articles, and papers read at public<br />
meetings, rests, of course, with the authors. We cannot<br />
undertake to return rejected communications. Letters or<br />
communications (beyond mere news items) which have been<br />
duplicated for other journals are not desired. All com-<br />
munications regarding literary and artistic matters should<br />
be addressed to the Editor; those relating to advertisements<br />
and other exclusively business matters should be addressed<br />
tothe Publisher, and not to the Editor.<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
Building News.<br />
<br />
Itis particularly requested that all drawings and all com-<br />
munications respecting illustrations or literary matter<br />
should be addressed to the Editor of the Building News,<br />
332, Strand, W.C., and not to members of the staff by name.<br />
Delay is not infrequently otherwise caused. All drawings<br />
and other communications are sent at contributors’ risks,<br />
and the Editor will not undertake to pay for or be liable for<br />
unsought contributions.<br />
<br />
Chums.<br />
<br />
Important !—The Editor of Chums will not be respon-<br />
sible for the return of rejected manuscripts. If a stamped<br />
and addressed envelope is sent with the contributions the<br />
Editor will always endeavour to return them ; but when<br />
stamps are not sent, manuscripts can in no case be returned.<br />
<br />
*,* The Art Editor cannot undertake to return sketches<br />
sent on approval unless they are accompanied by an<br />
addressed envelope sufficiently stamped.<br />
<br />
Cornhill.<br />
<br />
Notice To CoRRESPONDENTS.—Communications to the<br />
Editor should be addressed to the care of Messrs. Smith,<br />
Elder, and Co., 15, Waterloo-place, S.W. Every MS. should<br />
bear the name and address of the sender. All contributions<br />
are attentively considered, and unaccepted MSS. are returned<br />
on receipt of stamps for postage; but the Editor cannot<br />
hold himself responsible for any accidental loss. MSS.<br />
cannot be delivered on personal application, nor can they<br />
be forwarded through the post when only initials are given.<br />
Contributions should be legibly written, and only on one<br />
side of each leaf.<br />
<br />
Country Gentleman,<br />
<br />
The Editor does not hold himself responsible for the<br />
return of any MS. sent to him. Payment will only be made<br />
for those contributions which have been previously arranged<br />
for.<br />
<br />
Cream.<br />
<br />
Eprroriat Norrcr.—aAll contributions for the Editorial<br />
Department should be addressed, if by letter—The Editor<br />
of Cream, 1, St. Swithin’s-lane, London, E.C.; if by tele-<br />
gram—‘ Letters, London.” The Editor, whilst he will<br />
endeavour to return unaccepted contributions, when accom-<br />
panied by stamped addressed envelope, cannot undertake to<br />
do so. Contributors must, in every case, send the annexed<br />
Editorial Coupon for the current week.<br />
<br />
EDITORIAL Coupon.<br />
“ CREAM.”<br />
November 25, 1893.<br />
<br />
Electrical Engineer.<br />
Anonymous communications will not be noticed.<br />
<br />
English Illustrated.<br />
<br />
All MSS. should bear the name and address of the sender,<br />
and must be accompanied by the necessary postage stamps<br />
for their return in case of non-acceptance. The Editor will<br />
endeavour to send back rejected MSS., but cannot guarantee<br />
their safe return.<br />
<br />
Family Reader.<br />
<br />
We cannot guarantee the return of rejected manuscripts.<br />
<br />
Figaro.<br />
<br />
A stamped and addressed wrapper must be sent if it is<br />
desired that rejected articles, &c., should be returned. All<br />
rejected contributions which are not so accompanied will be<br />
destroyed. If stamps are inclosed all reasonable care will be<br />
taken to, ensure the safe return of MSS., but the Editor<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
cannot hold himself responsible for any which may be acci-<br />
dentally lost.<br />
Fortnightly Review.<br />
<br />
The Editor of this Review does not undertake to return<br />
any MS. It is advisable that articles sent to the Editor<br />
should be typewritten.<br />
<br />
Gentlewoman.<br />
<br />
LiTERARY.—The Editor begs to state that he is supplied<br />
with sufficient Literary Matter and Short Stories, and<br />
requests that no MS. may be submitted to him for the next<br />
six months.<br />
<br />
Golden Gates.<br />
<br />
MSS. sent without prearrangement must be accompanied<br />
<br />
by a stamped and addressed envelope for return.<br />
<br />
Guardian.<br />
<br />
The Editor is not necessarily responsible for the opinions<br />
expressed in signed articles, or in articles marked ‘“ Com-<br />
municated ” or ‘* From a Correspondent.”<br />
<br />
NoricE TO CORRESPONDENTS.—The very frequent dis-<br />
regard of our rule about the return of MSS. compels us to<br />
restate it in a slightly different form:—No MS. can be<br />
returned unless a stamped and addressed envelope is sent in<br />
the same cover as that which contains the MS. Stamps<br />
alone, or a stamped and addressed envelope sent afterwards<br />
or in another cover, are not sufficient.<br />
<br />
Health.<br />
<br />
Notice to Writers or ARTICLES.—AII articles sent to<br />
the Editor of Health must he accompanied by stamps to<br />
ensure their return in case of rejection. It must be dis-<br />
tinetly understood that the Editor and Proprietor do not<br />
hold themselves responsible for the loss of rejected commu-<br />
<br />
nications.<br />
Homeland.<br />
<br />
Our Prize Srory.—INcREASE OF PrizE.—We offer<br />
two guineas each week for the best original story sent in for<br />
publication, or one guinea for the best selected story. All<br />
original MSS. should be marked ‘ Original—never before<br />
published,” and signed. Selected stories may be sent, but<br />
the source from which they are taken must be plainly stated.<br />
The name and address of the sender must be written on the<br />
back of the manuscript. No stories for this competition<br />
can be returned. Stories of dramatic and stirring interest<br />
are preferred. Contributions must be distinctly marked<br />
“ Prize Story Competition,’ and must reach the Offices of<br />
Homeland by Saturday morning of each week. All arriv-<br />
ing after will be placed in the competition for the week<br />
<br />
pr ewing. Hospital.<br />
<br />
Novice TO CORRESPONDENTS.—All MS., letters, books<br />
for review, and other matters intended for the Editor<br />
should be addressed The Editor, The Lodge, Porchester-<br />
square, London, W. The Editor cannot undertake to return<br />
rejected MS., even when accompanied by a stamped directed<br />
envelope.<br />
<br />
Household Words.<br />
<br />
Manuscripts.—The Editor is compelled to give notice<br />
that, although every care is taken of manuscripts offered<br />
for publication in Household Words, he cannot undertake to<br />
be responsible for loss or damage in any case. The number<br />
of MSS. sent to this office is so great, that a considerable<br />
time must necessarily elapse before notice of rejection or<br />
acceptance can be sent to the authors.<br />
<br />
Idler.<br />
<br />
To ConrTriputors.— Contributions are invited, and<br />
receive immediate consideration. Stories and articles sub-<br />
mitted should be short. All MSS. (type-written preferred)<br />
should be addressed to the Editors, Talbot House, Arundel-<br />
<br />
VOL, Iv,<br />
<br />
Se]<br />
<br />
street, London, W.C. Every MS. should bear the writer’s<br />
name and address, and be accompanied by stamped envelope<br />
for its return if not accepted. The Editors cannot hold<br />
themselves responsible for any accidental loss.<br />
<br />
Lllustrated Bits.<br />
<br />
All letters intended for the Editor should be addressed<br />
“Editor, Illustrated Bits, 158, Fleet-street, London.” No<br />
notice will be taken of anonymous communications, and no<br />
letters will be answered by post unless accompanied by a<br />
stamped directed envelope for that purpose.<br />
<br />
To ArRTists.— Drawings which refer to humorous<br />
subjects may be submitted if accompanied by stamps for<br />
return if not accepted. All sketches are paid for at time o<br />
acceptance. Address—‘ Art Editor, The Bitteries, 158,<br />
Fleet-street, London, E.C.”<br />
<br />
Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News.<br />
The Editor begs to state that he declines to hold himself<br />
responsible in any way for the safety or return of any<br />
matter that is sent without his invitation.<br />
<br />
Industries and Iron.<br />
<br />
The Editor cannot undertake to return MS. or drawings,<br />
although every effort will be made to do go in the case of<br />
rejected communications. Where such are regarded as of<br />
value correspondents are requested to retain copies.<br />
<br />
Lady.<br />
<br />
The Editor of The Lady cannot in any case return<br />
rejected contributions. Articles or drawings will not,<br />
under any circumstances, be paid for before they have been<br />
published.<br />
<br />
Lancet.<br />
<br />
EpiroriaAL Notice.—It is most important that com-<br />
munications relating to the Editorial business of the Lancet<br />
should be addressed exclusively “ To the Editors,” and not<br />
in any case to any gentleman who may be supposed to be<br />
connected with the Editorial staff. It is urgently neces-<br />
sary that attention be given to this notice. It is especially<br />
requested that early intelligence of local events having<br />
a medical interest, or which it is desirable to bring under<br />
the notice of the profession, may be sent direct to this<br />
office. Lectures, original articles, and reports showld be<br />
written on one side only of the paper. Letters, whether<br />
intended for insertion or for private information, must be<br />
authenticated by the names and addresses of their writers,<br />
not necessarily for publication. Local papers containing<br />
reports or news paragraphs should be marked and addressed<br />
“To the Sub-Editor.” We cannot undertake to return<br />
MSS. not used.<br />
<br />
Land and Water.<br />
<br />
No notice will be taken of anonymous letters. We cannot<br />
<br />
undertake to return rejected communications.<br />
Life.<br />
<br />
NorTicE TO CORRESPONDENTS AND CONTRIEUTORS.—<br />
Communications as to the literary contents of this paper<br />
should be addressed to the Editor; those referring to<br />
advertisements and other business matters to the Manager.<br />
We cannot hold ourselves responsible for the safety of any<br />
unsolicited contribution, but if a stamped envelope is<br />
enclosed with any manuscript, we will do our best to ensure<br />
that, if not accepted, the manuscript shall be returned to<br />
<br />
the writer. London Reader.<br />
<br />
We cannot undertake to return rejected manuscripts.<br />
L<br />
<br />
London Society.<br />
NoricE TO CORRESPONDENTS.—MSS. sent to Editor<br />
should bear the name and address of the writer, and must<br />
DD2<br />
<br />
<br />
328<br />
<br />
be accompanied in all cases by a stamped directed envelope,<br />
for their return if unsuitable. Copies should be kept of all<br />
articles. Every care is taken of the papers forwarded by<br />
correspondents, but no responsibility is assumed in case of<br />
accident. The Editor cannot undertake to return rejected<br />
poems. All communications should be addressed to the<br />
Editor of London Society.<br />
<br />
Longman’s Magazine.<br />
<br />
Novice To CorRESPONDENTS.—The Editor requests that<br />
his correspondents will be good enough to write to him,<br />
informing him of the subject of any article they wish to<br />
offer, before sending the MS. A stamped and addressed<br />
envelope should accompany the MS. if the writer wishes it<br />
to be returned in case of non-acceptance. The Editor can<br />
in no ease hold himself responsible for accidental loss. All<br />
communications should be addressed to the Editor of<br />
Longman’s Magazine, 39, Paternoster-row, London, E.C.<br />
<br />
Magazine of Short Stories.<br />
<br />
Norice.—The editor is always willing to give considera-<br />
tion to short dramatic stories (not exceeding 2000 words in<br />
length), and to smart, chatty, anecdotal articles dealing<br />
with matters or with people of to-day (from 400 to 1400<br />
words). Humorous drawings that are submitted to him<br />
also receive careful attention. Such stories, articles, and<br />
drawings must be original. Every effort will be made to<br />
return rejected contributions promptly, provided that<br />
stamped addressed envelopes or wrappers are enclosed; but<br />
the editor does not hold himself responsible for any MSS.<br />
or drawings with which he may be favoured, nor will he<br />
undertake to return them, unless this condition has been<br />
<br />
acine Mechanical World.<br />
<br />
Every correspondent should forward his name and<br />
address, not necessarily for publication unless so desired.<br />
We do not undertake to return MSS. unless specially<br />
requested, and in such cases stamps should always be sent.<br />
<br />
National Review.<br />
<br />
Correspondents are requested to write their name and<br />
address on their manuscripts. Postage stamps must be sent<br />
at the same time if they wish their Manuscript to be<br />
returned in case of rejection.<br />
<br />
Nature.<br />
<br />
Lerrers To THE Eprtor.—The Editor does not hold<br />
himself responsible for opinions expressed by his correspon-<br />
dents. Neither can he undertake to return, or to corre-<br />
spond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended<br />
for this or any other part of Nature. No notice is taken<br />
of anonymous communications.<br />
<br />
Nineteenth Century.<br />
The Editor cannot undertake to return unaccepted MS.<br />
<br />
Novel Review.<br />
<br />
All Books and Magazines intended for review must reach<br />
the office not later than the 15th instant, addressed to The<br />
Editor. MS. will be returned if stamps are sent. The<br />
Editor will not undertake to be responsible for MS. in case<br />
of loss. All communications should be addressed to the<br />
Editorial and Advertising Offices—18, Tavistock-street,<br />
Covent Garden, London.<br />
<br />
Once a Week.<br />
<br />
Communications in reference to manuscripts, or con-<br />
nected with the literary department, should be addressed to<br />
Once a Week. Rejected manuscripts will not be returned<br />
hereafter unless stamps are forwarded with the same for<br />
return postage. Bulky manuscripts will be returned by<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
express. We don’t want short stories. All correspondents<br />
who send us short stories or poems will be expected to keep<br />
copies thereof. We cannot be responsible for their return.<br />
<br />
Pall Mall Magazine.<br />
<br />
All MSS. submitted for approval will be considered, but it<br />
must be understood that they are sent at the author’s risk,<br />
and the Editors are not responsible for their safe custody or<br />
return. They should, in order to prevent confusion, be<br />
addressed to ‘“‘ The Editors of the Pall Mall Magazine,” 18,<br />
Charing Cross-road, the editorial conduct of the magazine<br />
being entirely distinct from that of the Pall Mall Gazette or<br />
<br />
Budget. : ‘<br />
Piccadilly.<br />
<br />
The Editor cannot be responsible for the safety or return<br />
or manuscripts forwarded for approval. Subscribers are<br />
particularly requested to forward all communications con-<br />
cerning changes of address or additional copies to the pub-<br />
lisher. All communications for the Editorial Department of<br />
Piccadilly should be addresseed to the Editor, 248, Craven-<br />
street, Strand (end of Northumberland-ayenue, opposite the<br />
Hotel Métropole). A<br />
<br />
Pich-me-up.<br />
<br />
To ContTRIBUTORS.—We do not hold ourselves respon-<br />
sible for the safety of MSS. submitted, but every effort will<br />
be made to return such as are unsuitable, provided that a<br />
stamped addressed envelope (not loose stamps) is enclosed.<br />
The author’s name must in every case be written on the<br />
back of the manuscript.<br />
<br />
Punch.<br />
<br />
Notice. — Rejected communications or contributions,<br />
whether MS., printed matter, drawings, or pictures of any<br />
description will in no case be returned, not even when<br />
accompanied by a stamped and addressed envelope, cover,<br />
or wrapper. To this there will be no exception.<br />
<br />
Railway Engineer.<br />
The Editor cannot undertake to return rejected MS.<br />
or drawings unless accompanied by a stamped directed<br />
<br />
envelope.<br />
Rural World.<br />
<br />
Norice.—All communications of a literary character for<br />
publication in the Rural World should be written upon one<br />
side of the paper only; be addressed to the Editor, 95,<br />
Colmore-row, Birmingham; be accompanied by the name<br />
and address of the writers, and reach that office not later<br />
than the first post on Wednesday.<br />
<br />
Sala’s Journal.<br />
<br />
The Editor cannot undertake to return unsolicited<br />
contributions; therefore all authors forwarding MSS. to<br />
Sala’s Journal are earnestly requested to keep copies<br />
thereof.<br />
<br />
Saturday Review.<br />
<br />
Norice.—We beg leave to state that we cannot return<br />
rejected communications; and to this rule we can make no<br />
exception, even if stamps for return of MS. are sent. The<br />
Editor must also entirely decline to enter into correspondence<br />
with the writers of MSS. sent in and not acknowledged.<br />
The following note is now added to all proofs :—“ Please<br />
note that the sending of the proof does not carry with it<br />
any contract that the article will either be accepted or<br />
published.”<br />
<br />
Sketch.<br />
<br />
To ConrripuToRS.—The Editor will be glad to consider<br />
ady short stories, not exceeding 2500 words in length, if<br />
accompanied by a stamped and addressed envelope for<br />
return if not accepted. Contributions must be written on<br />
one side of the paper only, and should be sent to the Sketch.<br />
Manuscript Department, 198, Strand, W.C. The full name —<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Bier<br />
<br />
cata<br />
<br />
SE Seu lesan eRe emus a ais eas<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
and address of the author must be written on the manu-<br />
script itself. Paragraphs must be strictly original, smartly<br />
written, and up to date. Every effort will be made to<br />
return manuscript when unsuitable, but the Editor will not<br />
hold himself responsible for any accident or loss.<br />
<br />
To Artists.—Sketches which refer to events of the day,<br />
or which deal with humorous subjects, may be submitted to<br />
the Editor, if accompanied by stamped envelope for return<br />
if not accepted. Sketches should be addressed to the Sketch,<br />
198, Strand, W.C. Intending contributors and artists should<br />
remember that our motto is “ art and actuality.”<br />
<br />
Society.<br />
<br />
Novice To CORRESPONDENTS.—The Editor is compelled<br />
to announce that he will not be responsible for any MSS.<br />
sent to him, nor will he guarantee their return, even if<br />
stamps are enclosed for the purpose. Authors should<br />
therefore keep copies of their contributions if they value<br />
them highly.<br />
<br />
Speaker.<br />
The Editor cannot return MSS. which are sent to him<br />
<br />
licited. .<br />
unsolicite Spectator.<br />
<br />
The Editor cannot undertake to return MSS. in any case.<br />
<br />
Sunday Chronicle.<br />
<br />
Notices. — Should any difficulty be experienced in<br />
obtaining the Sunday Chronicle complaints, should be made<br />
to the Chief Office, Mark-lane, Manchester. On all business<br />
matters communications should be addressed to the firm,<br />
and not to any individual member thereof. No notice will<br />
be taken of anonymous letters. Every communication<br />
should be authenticated with the name and address of the<br />
writer, not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee<br />
of good faith. Articles, stories, sketches, verses, and other<br />
contributions should be addressed to the Editor, who, how-<br />
ever, does not hold himself responsible for the return of<br />
rejected manuscripts. Where stamps are enclosed, and the<br />
name and address written on the manuscript, every effort<br />
will be made to promptly return unaccepted articles.—E.<br />
HvuuitTon Anp Co.<br />
<br />
Onited Service Gazette.<br />
<br />
We would draw the attention of our correspondents to the<br />
importance of writing legibly, and on one side of the paper<br />
only. MSS. cannot be returned unless accompanied by<br />
stamps. : 2<br />
<br />
University Extension Journal.<br />
<br />
The Editor cannot undertake to return rejected commu-<br />
<br />
nications unless stamps are inclosed for that purpose.<br />
<br />
Vegetarian Messenger.<br />
<br />
MSS. are not returned unless accompanied with a request<br />
to that effect.<br />
<br />
Winter's Magazine.<br />
<br />
Owing to the great number of MSS. already accepted, the<br />
Editor has no opening for further contributions at present,<br />
and none will be read for the present unless sent by request.<br />
No MS. returned unless accompanied by fully stamped and<br />
addressed envelope. :<br />
<br />
Writer.<br />
<br />
Contributions not used will be returned if a stamped and<br />
addressed envelope is inclosed.<br />
<br />
The following magazines, &c., contain no notice:<br />
—Admiralty and Forse Guards’ Gazette, All the<br />
Year Round, Amateur Photographer, Argosy,<br />
British Architect, Chemical News, Christian<br />
Pictorial, Christian World, Civil Service<br />
Gazette, Contemporary Review, Edinburgh<br />
<br />
329<br />
<br />
Review, Electrical Review, Engineering, Family<br />
<br />
Herald, Gentleman’s Magazine, Graphic,<br />
Harper's Magazine, Illustrated London News,<br />
Minstrel, Modern Society, National Church,<br />
<br />
Public Opinion, Science and Art, Science Sift-<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
ings, Strand Magazine, Tit-Bits, Vegetarian,<br />
<br />
World.<br />
<br />
AUTHORS AND THEIR PUBLIC IN ANCIENT<br />
TIMES.*<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
HE above title belongs to a book just issued<br />
by Mr. George Haven Putnam, of the<br />
American publishing house, G. C. Put-<br />
<br />
nam’s Sons. It is an inquiry into the origin of<br />
literary property and the development of the<br />
publisher. The latter, one perceives, must pre-<br />
cede the former, for when a poet has completed<br />
his work, he may go about reading it or reciting<br />
it himself, or he may get others to do it for him,<br />
Those who recited for the poet were the first<br />
publishers. The minstrels who sang or recited<br />
the Homeric poems were the first publishers<br />
of Homer. When literature advanced—or de-<br />
generated — into the selling of poems, there<br />
must have been someone to manage the business,<br />
unless the poet himself sold his own productions.<br />
Thus arose the publisher of latter times. When<br />
literature became commercially valuable, then<br />
authors began to guard their property, to protect<br />
themselves from ‘plagiarists and from pirates.<br />
Mr. Putnam traces this birth and growth of<br />
literary property from the earliest historic time<br />
to the invention of printing. The subject is<br />
interesting, the treatment is adequate. One<br />
observes, however, that the book speaks uniformly,<br />
and with intention, of the author's interest in his<br />
own book as his “ compensation.” The word is<br />
not used in our sense, but, apparently, in the<br />
sense of “payment.” It should be pointed out<br />
that the word begs the question. It assumes<br />
that the book is the property of the distributor—<br />
as well assume that an estate is the property of<br />
the agent or the steward.<br />
<br />
Mr. Putnam begins at the beginning—with<br />
Chaldeza. But we will pass over a thousand<br />
years. We thus find ourselves in Greece, where<br />
reading and writing were taught in schools as<br />
early as 500 B.c. But about the dissemina-<br />
tion and circulation of books to read at this<br />
early period there is nothing known with any<br />
certainty. Later on there were frequent charges<br />
of plagiarism. As regards payment for literary<br />
work, some of the oration: were written for<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
*“ A Sketch of Literary Conditions, and of the Relations<br />
with the Public of Literary Producers from the Earliest<br />
Times to the Invention of Printing.’ By G. H. Putnam.<br />
33°<br />
<br />
order, and perhaps the dramatist had at one<br />
time a share in the receipts of the play. The<br />
works of Plato and Aristotle were certainly<br />
published and sold, but perhaps not for the<br />
authors’ profit. Copyists had to be paid.<br />
Probably at first the “ cost of production” was<br />
the only thing that ruled the price of a MS.<br />
There were, however, so nfany libraries that the<br />
copying of books and their distribution must<br />
have become a trade. At the theatre, between the<br />
performances, books were hawked about, which<br />
was also a practice of the Elizabethan stage. If<br />
books were sold, there must have been booksellers.<br />
And the export of books is indicated by the fact<br />
that an Athenian ship, wrecked at Salmydessus,<br />
a city of the Euxine, contained as part of her<br />
cargo chests full of valuable books. Booksellers<br />
are mentioned about the year 330 B.c.; and in<br />
the list by Nicophon, also of this date, of those<br />
who carried on trade in the market are found the<br />
booksellers. And there is a story of Zeno, who<br />
was shipwrecked and lost all his property near<br />
the Pireus. When he arrived at Athens, a<br />
beggar, he was consoled by certain words of<br />
counsel read aloud by a bookseller. But the name<br />
of no Greek publisher or bookseller has been<br />
handed down.<br />
<br />
The centre of literary activity was transferred,<br />
in the third century before Christ, from Athens<br />
to Alexandria. The famous library of the latter<br />
city contained 500,000 rolls, but of these many<br />
were duplicates, and of some works there were<br />
scores—hundreds.<br />
<br />
Authorship in Rome presents two novel<br />
features—that of being a lucrative pursuit for<br />
the author and that of the modern pretence of<br />
regarding the work as a pastime, or as forced<br />
upon the writer by the dictates of genius. At<br />
this time also we first hear the names of pub-<br />
lishers. The best known of these, the richest and<br />
most important, was Atticus. He organised his<br />
book-manufacturing establishment in Rome, with<br />
connections in Athens and Alexandria, about the<br />
year 65 B.c. He was also a scholar and an<br />
author, and in addition to his publishing business<br />
he was a banker. Cicero confided to Atticus the<br />
publication of all his works, “ Ligarianum<br />
preclare vendidisti; posthac, quidquid scripsero,<br />
tibi preconium deferam.” So that Cicero looked<br />
to the sale of his works for profit; and the words<br />
show that there were other publishers. It also<br />
appears from the same letter that he took a royalty<br />
or a share in the profits. From another letter it<br />
appears that complimentary copies were sent out<br />
by the publisher. There is nothing to show what<br />
share of profits to either party was considered<br />
just and fair by the two parties. While Cicero,<br />
a better man of business, took his share, Martial<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
sold his books fora round sum down. All the<br />
poets of the Augustan age, in the opinion of<br />
Simcox, hoped to make a profit by the sale of<br />
their books. They had other expectations from<br />
the patronage of the emperor and of rich men,<br />
but they looked to the trade for the most certain<br />
and most steady income. Martial lets us know<br />
where one shop, at least, was situated. ‘‘ The<br />
doors,” he said, ‘‘ on both sides are covered with<br />
the names of poets, so arranged that they can be<br />
run through at a glance. Within, the master of<br />
the shop will take down, without waiting to be<br />
asked twice, a copy of any poem asked for, well<br />
finished, and beautifully bound.”<br />
<br />
At the book shops, too, scholars and men of<br />
culture met to discuss literary matters, and. to<br />
look at the new books and at the rare old MSS.<br />
There were great shipments of books sent to<br />
different parts of the Empire. “ Remainders,”<br />
&ec., were sent off to the provinces, And, as at<br />
the present time, though there was an enormous<br />
trade in books, the poet or author who lived by<br />
his writings followed, for the most part, a hard<br />
and badly paid profession. The literary activity<br />
and the book trade of Rome were ruined, as Mr.<br />
Putnam shows, by the growing power and influ-<br />
ence of the Christian Church. A short chapter<br />
on Constantinople finishes the volume. The<br />
literature of Western Europe in the Middle Ages<br />
is not touched upon. Why not? The book<br />
announces itself as covering the ground “ To the<br />
Invention of Printing.” But Dante and Chaucer<br />
appeared before Caxton. The Troubadours and<br />
Trouvéres got their works published, though they<br />
had no printer. Surely it would be interesting<br />
to the general reader to learn how their poems<br />
were multiplied, and how they were sold. But<br />
the medieval publisher, in fact, can hardly be<br />
said to have existed. In the year 1292, the whole<br />
book trade of Paris consisted of 24 copyists, 17<br />
bookbinders, 19 parchment makers, 13 ilumina-<br />
tors, and 8 dealers in MSS., otherwise book-<br />
sellers. One would like the corresponding figures<br />
for London, Oxford, and Cambridge. Mr. Putnam,<br />
however, may plead that he follows the example of<br />
Lacroix, who, in his three great volumes on the<br />
Middle Ages, can find no place for mention of<br />
the bookseller.<br />
<br />
eee<br />
<br />
BOOK-TALK.<br />
<br />
R. DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY has<br />
added to his novels, which are now<br />
becoming numerous, a small volume<br />
<br />
called “The Making of a Novelist: an Experi-<br />
ment in Autobiography.” The author here<br />
suggests reflection on two entirely different though<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
allied subjects, the art of the novelist and the<br />
art of the autobiographer. He has also some-<br />
thing to say on actors and the art of acting,<br />
which is particularly appropriate as an illustra-<br />
tion to his experiment, because the actor’s life<br />
exhibits exactly the same contrast which other<br />
men can only find in their books. He has his<br />
real life, which is his work of biography, and his<br />
stage life, which is the work of fiction. The whole<br />
series of questions which surround the art of<br />
fiction may be regarded as taking their begin-<br />
ning from a principle described by Mr. Murray<br />
in the opening sentences of his tenth chapter.<br />
He says, “there is a theory to the effect that<br />
every man or woman in the world could write<br />
at least one readable and instructive novel<br />
out of his own or her own actual experience.<br />
There is a very apparent disposition to put the<br />
idea to the test of practice, though happily not<br />
more than half the world’s population has been<br />
so far animated by it.” This theory, or prin-<br />
ciple, or better, perhaps, hypothesis, seems to us<br />
in one way to be very incomplete; it begs the<br />
question of literary ability, and it must become<br />
more difficult with each succeeding year for<br />
every literary aspirant to recognise whether he<br />
has the literary gift or not. According to the<br />
above sarcastic computation that not more<br />
than half the world labour under the idea<br />
that they possess it, how shall they know<br />
whether it is a delusion or a happy reality?<br />
In actual practice the enlightenment is brought<br />
about by loss of money, but if this loss could<br />
be prevented without the loss of experience,<br />
however bitter, there would be less reticence in<br />
advising the failure in literature to try some other<br />
walk in life. We take it that this theory ought<br />
to be rather stated thus: Granting that it is true<br />
that most people’s lives are not so entirely dull<br />
but that a good story could be made out of them,<br />
yet only ten persons in a hundred would have the<br />
ability to write it for themselves, while out of the<br />
remaining ninety, at least seventy would have<br />
received the educational requirements, in these<br />
days of extensive teaching, and if a man should<br />
mistake an acquired knowledge of words and<br />
their arrangement for original ideas—all the<br />
blame must now lie at the door of the pedagogues.<br />
Translated into modern equivalents—the com-<br />
plaint of Caliban is easily paralleled. Thou hast<br />
taught me letters, and the profit of it is that I<br />
know how to write a dull book. Might not this<br />
bea good reason, if not a good excuse, for “ not<br />
more than half the world”? It would seem that<br />
we ought rather to welcome this apparent disposi-<br />
tion to write one’s life story as a test, not, indeed,<br />
of ability to write anything, but certainly of<br />
ability to write a tale. But that is not all—ifa<br />
<br />
331<br />
<br />
man could write his own story, it does not follow<br />
that he could write a second, for the method of<br />
analysing one’s own life must be different from<br />
the method which depends entirely upon inven-<br />
tion, and here arises the question how far a man<br />
has a right to draw on the confidence of others.<br />
We should say no right whatever, though observa-<br />
tion must be perfectly free. So it appears that<br />
Mr. Murray has brought us face to face again<br />
with “method” in its philosophical sense, and<br />
“methods”? in their application to the art of<br />
story-tellmg. As he tells us of his varied<br />
experiences, he notes how he has used one incident<br />
in one story and one in another. His plan would<br />
seem to be that, though having foundation in<br />
fact, the incidents should be arranged with an<br />
eye to poetic justice. Realties must not be so<br />
harsh as to reduce the romantic element to a<br />
minimum ; romance must be so heightened that it<br />
should gain rather than lose by being found in<br />
strange places. And how well Mr. Murray has<br />
followed this method there are his own romances<br />
to show. He also tells us in the preface to this<br />
book what attitude he takes towards other auto-<br />
biographies when he approaches his own experi-<br />
ment. Unfortunately the preface is all too short.<br />
We read what he thinks of Pepys and also of<br />
Rousseau, that the latter is flatly mtolerable, and<br />
the former as near success as apy autobiographer<br />
has yet achieved. And this seems to be his whole<br />
opinion in one sentence. “If the real man could<br />
be presented to us by any writer of his own<br />
history we should all hail him with enthusiasm.”<br />
In what sense is it possible to have autobiography<br />
more real than that of the novelist putting him-<br />
self into his books? Surely he would be far more<br />
likely to transcribe the truth and give the real<br />
reasons for his actions than if he tried to describe<br />
himself among places and people with their real<br />
names and relationships. There are so many<br />
classics of biography and autobiography, that if<br />
Mr. Murray should ever see his way to giving us<br />
his opinion about them it would be very welcome,<br />
because the criticism of great books, by one who<br />
has gone through so much besides books, would<br />
be sure to have something delightfully original<br />
about it.<br />
<br />
The current number of the Lorum contains<br />
a remarkable article, which is at once an in-<br />
dictment and a speculation. It proceeds from<br />
the pen of Mr. Sydney G. Fisher, who, as we<br />
learn from the same periodical, practices at<br />
the Philadelphia Bar. We are thus asked to<br />
consider the opinion of a lawyer, and therefore<br />
one trained to know the value of evidence, upon<br />
a question of pure literature, and so of as much<br />
interest to one English speaking people as to<br />
another. Mr. Fisher asks the question, “ Has<br />
<br />
<br />
332<br />
<br />
immigration dried up our (¢e., American)<br />
literature ?”’ And he comes to the mournful con-<br />
clusion that the United States has had no man of<br />
letters, born after 1825, who could produce any<br />
work of power and genius. All is decay, and,<br />
apparently, for this extraordinary state of things<br />
there is but one cause. Before 1825 the<br />
Americans were a pure race ; since 1825 they have<br />
been a mixed race, and the writer presses his<br />
argument home by pointing out that Massa-<br />
chusetts, which was colonised from one stock in<br />
1640, and afterwards kept itself very much to itself<br />
by persecuting fresh arrivals, has produced sixteen<br />
out of the twenty-two greatest names in American<br />
literature. Therefore, he argues, unity and purity<br />
of blood is the cause of literary genius. In such<br />
speculations it seems impossible to make the case<br />
approach completeness on either side. If there<br />
had been no immigration, would it have neces-<br />
sarily followed that Massachusetts would have<br />
continued to produce writers of power and genius,<br />
or, as we should callthem, imaginative writers. The<br />
drift of Mr. Fisher’s remarks seems to imply that<br />
it would. Literature of genius, he says, is not<br />
the expression of the man who writes it ; it is the<br />
expression of the deep united feeling of the<br />
people Massachusetts, once the home<br />
of a pure native stock, has more than 50 per cent.<br />
of her population foreign Her homo-<br />
geneousness and her literature are destroyed.<br />
There is very frequent use of the word “ homo-<br />
geneous ’ in this article, and _ to Englishmen it<br />
must seem to be slightly ambiguous, from the<br />
usual cause, the history and derivation of the<br />
word seem to be confused with its acquired<br />
meaning. Here it invariably means of the same<br />
blood, race, or stock, but we in England<br />
are not accustomed to give the term such a<br />
restricted meaning. And Mr. Fisher himself writes<br />
one sentence which shows that he also uses it in a<br />
different sense: “ Savage tribes and half-civilised<br />
natures have been homogeneous without having<br />
any literature at all.” We, too, in England could<br />
say that a savage tribe was homogeneous, but not<br />
entirely because of the unity of blood, but because<br />
of the unity of occupation. A savage paradise is<br />
one in which all the men are hunters and all the<br />
women cooks. Massachusetts was not homo-<br />
geneous ; in this sense, it was as heterogeneous as<br />
circumstances compelled it to be, or there could<br />
have been no literature, and therefore instead of<br />
asking the question, “ Has immigration dried up<br />
imaginative power?” we ought rather to put it<br />
thus: “ How long does it take for new settlers,<br />
speaking other tongues, and with other habits, so<br />
to assimilate their speech and custom to those of<br />
the existing population, that one language,<br />
whether used in conversation, or in oratory, or in<br />
<br />
‘THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
the written literature of all kinds, shall be suffi-<br />
cient to express all their most complex modes of<br />
thought and their finest shades of feeling?”<br />
Three generations, we should say, which must<br />
mean at the least seventy years, because the aver-<br />
age grandparent is seventy before the grandchild<br />
can take an interest in literature. But where<br />
the immigration is still going on it must take<br />
longer. Now it is barely seventy years since 1825.<br />
And there is another view. This mixed race,<br />
whose literary shortcomings Mr. Fisher laments,<br />
will not probably look to our English literature<br />
Elizabethan or Stuart as in any sense theirs; why<br />
should French-Canadians and Irishmen care<br />
about the English literature, with their constant<br />
attitude of hatred toward England and all things<br />
English? It follows that New America intends<br />
to begin again, and not to let “a deep, strong<br />
passion, or a bold grasp of the eternal verities,<br />
frighten them out of their wits,’ as Mr. Fisher<br />
declares. But strong passions and a bold grasp<br />
are the property of the drama, and we English,<br />
who read American literature, with as much<br />
curiosity perhaps as interest, wonder what sort of a<br />
national drama America is going to produce. A<br />
people do not deserve to be called a nation by<br />
comparison with other nations till they have pro-<br />
duced a natioual drama; it isthe drama to which<br />
we allude when we speak of the “best that has<br />
been thought and said” in Greece, France, and<br />
England. J. W.S.<br />
<br />
Dec<br />
<br />
A TOAST.<br />
<br />
— es<br />
<br />
[The entire mess of the 117th Yaroslav Infantry Regiment,<br />
stationed at Slonim, near Grodno, have lately joined the<br />
Anglo-Russian Literary Society at the Imperial Institute. ]<br />
<br />
“ Zdravstuwityé!” (your Russian greeting<br />
Puts one’s jawbone out of gear !<br />
Surely, for a ‘ word of fear,”<br />
<br />
This would take a lot of beating !)<br />
<br />
Still, Ivan, don’t take offence, or<br />
Think we’d criticise your speech—<br />
All the same, we’re out of reach<br />
<br />
Of your extra-touchy censor.<br />
<br />
And we care not if the latter,<br />
<br />
Should he read these lines so far,<br />
Black the lot with his “ caviar ”—<br />
<br />
Nichevé, it doesn’t matter !<br />
<br />
Well, let’s send congratulations<br />
To the Slavs at far Slonim,<br />
<br />
E’en though some “an idle dream”<br />
<br />
Call the comity of nations.<br />
<br />
May these messmates long in Grodno<br />
Quaff their quass, and sip their stchi;<br />
Though their vodka potent be,<br />
<br />
Let them ne’er sensations odd know !<br />
<br />
Here’s their health! though Britons never,<br />
Never will be Slavs, but yet<br />
We, too, can at times forget<br />
<br />
Rivalries that races sever !—ARTHUR A. SYKES.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
NOTES AND NEWS.<br />
<br />
SHOULD lke to remind readers that I have<br />
invited their opinion as to the best way of<br />
noting new books, I suggest a short<br />
<br />
description of each book—not a judgment upon<br />
it, or a review of it, either laudatory or the<br />
reverse—but a plain statement of what the book<br />
contains. This method, however, can hardly<br />
apply to fiction, in which the most useless and the<br />
most mischievous form of notice or review is to<br />
tell the story. In that case we can only announce<br />
the book.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
oo<br />
<br />
As appears in another place, Mr. F. Howard<br />
Collins proposes to make an investigation into<br />
the subject of correction charges in the only<br />
practical way possible. He wants the first proofs<br />
as they were marked for correction, and the<br />
charges afterwards made for correction in the<br />
publisher’s accounts. The proofs without the<br />
account or the account without the proofs will<br />
be of no use whatever. It was shown in the<br />
December number of this journal (1) that<br />
corrections are charged by the printer at one<br />
shilling or one-and-twopence an hour, accord-<br />
ing to the returns made by the foreman; (2)<br />
that about eighteen words can be changed in<br />
the hour; but (3) that overrunning or altering<br />
lines increases the work, and therefore the<br />
expense. The way to examine the charge<br />
under this head is to count the words, find what<br />
amount of overrunning has been caused, and so<br />
to get approximately at the fairness or the false-<br />
ness of the charge. I have seen an account<br />
rendered to the author, in which over £100—I<br />
think it was £108—was charged for corrections.<br />
This means, at 1s. 2d. an hour, counting ten hours’<br />
work for the day, and a week of five and a half<br />
days, 1851 hours, or 185 days, or 33-7; weeks—<br />
say, about three times the cost of original com-<br />
en But I confess that this stupendous<br />
<br />
flight of imagination is unique in my experience.<br />
<br />
——<br />
<br />
Do literary men hate each other? The thing<br />
has been often asserted, and without doubt part<br />
of the contempt with which the world certainly<br />
regards the literary profession is due to the way<br />
in which literary men have been constantly en-<br />
gaged in abusirg and “ slating’ each other. Some<br />
kind of decency has been introduced of late years,<br />
but there still survives in certain quarters the<br />
belief that because a man has written a book, or<br />
many books, he has therefore acquired the right<br />
to criticise—that is, to abuse and misrepresent—<br />
everybody else who writes a book. Nothing is<br />
more agreeable to the spiteful mind than the<br />
belief that spitefulness is a duty.<br />
<br />
VOL, IV.<br />
<br />
333<br />
<br />
I do not find that the better class of writers<br />
regard other writers with either envy, hatred, or<br />
malice. On the contrary, I find among them—<br />
always with one or two exceptions—the most<br />
kindly disposition towards each other, and the<br />
greatest desire to welcome and encourage the<br />
younger men. But undoubtedly there are writers<br />
who love nothing so much as to be continually<br />
down-crying, depreciating, and abusing. They<br />
go out of their way to speak evil—especially of<br />
women—and more especially still of women when<br />
they begin to enjoy a small measure of popular<br />
favour. But I do think that it is not true that<br />
literary men regard each other with hatred.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Certainly there are groups of men who do not.<br />
Everybody remembers the famous group of<br />
Southey, Lamb, Coleridge, and Wordsworth.<br />
These men actually loved each other, and that<br />
with a real genuine belief in each other, and an<br />
affection which nothing could destroy. Campbell’s<br />
Life of Coleridge brings out this affection very<br />
strongly. “ The most wonderful man I ever knew,’’<br />
<br />
said Wordsworth of Coleridge, who put the friend-<br />
<br />
ship to the strongest tests. And Coleridge writes<br />
that on hearing the death of John Wordsworth he<br />
went to bed for a fortnight. Did he really go to<br />
bed for a fortnight? Is that possible? Or was<br />
this only a figure of speech to denote the depth<br />
and reality of his sympathy ? In every literary<br />
generation, that is in every ten years, there is<br />
such a group of young men who believe in each<br />
other. For the most part after ten years they<br />
have flown apart in different directions. But,<br />
for the time, they love and respect each other.<br />
All that we ask is that they shall so far continue<br />
to respect each other as to use the outward forms<br />
of politeness for the sake of the dignity of<br />
literature.<br />
<br />
—_.<br />
<br />
A little book has been sent to me called<br />
“ Rambles in Books.” The idea is one that I<br />
think might be taken up with advantage. It is<br />
that of a brief talk about books, an account of what<br />
is remarkable in a book; anything noteworthy<br />
about its history, its author, its reception. One<br />
can understand ‘how such a book might be made<br />
most delightful to read—to some, indeed, reading<br />
about books and bookmakers is more delightful<br />
than to read the books themselves. There are<br />
many books, certainly, which some of us never<br />
intend to read; but we like to read about them<br />
and about their authors. Or, instead of many<br />
rambles by different men, could we have a<br />
monthly or a weekly magazine all about books ?<br />
We have all got books about which we could tell<br />
stories —old books, first editions, forgotten books.<br />
There are the forgotten novelists ; I have rows of<br />
<br />
EE<br />
<br />
<br />
334<br />
<br />
them, chiefly of the eghteenth century—poor<br />
forlorn creatures, wrapped and lapped in long<br />
oblivion (richly deserved). Think of their grati-<br />
tude at being revived again for a brief day of<br />
remembrance! There are dramatists, poets,<br />
essayists—nobody knows how many essayists<br />
there are standing side by side in shameful<br />
oblivion. Think of the awful fate of standing on<br />
a shelf in the British Museum Library, never,<br />
never, never to be taken down at all! And all<br />
the time, like every young neglected poet,<br />
conscious of superior merit! One would even pray<br />
for a fire, and so ascend to Heaven—and Fame—<br />
in a flight of sparks. I should call this magazine<br />
“The Bookshelf,” or “The Bookstall,’ or “The<br />
Book of Oblivion.” I know the right man to<br />
edit it, and I really think it would pay its<br />
expenses. But, if we cannot have a magazine,<br />
let me recommend the idea to editors. ‘ Rambles<br />
among Books,” with a page or two pages, and<br />
no more, to every book, and an immense staff of<br />
bookish men—not that every author is bookish—<br />
to write the Rambles for them.<br />
<br />
Once, says the Saturday Review, there was a<br />
missionary in Pulo Penang who came back to<br />
France in the year 1854, or thereabouts, and<br />
<br />
published a book, in which occurred the following<br />
<br />
story. A Chinese woman, named Wang, had an<br />
enemy, who died. After her death the enemy<br />
continued her hostilities, knocking about the<br />
furniture and throwing stones at the windows.<br />
The lady naturally sent for an exorcist. It is<br />
what we should all do ourselves. The exorcist<br />
observing that plaster and tiles dropped from<br />
the roof, remarked that if the devil would only<br />
drop money there would be some sense in it.<br />
Instantly money was dropped; and it was<br />
observed that the coins were wet. The exorcist<br />
proceeded with his Mumbo Jumbo, and when the<br />
devil had been properly exorcised, he left the<br />
house. Outside he met a water carrier who was<br />
lamenting the loss of his money. All the coins<br />
he had taken that day he had dropped into one<br />
of his water cans, and they had mysteriously<br />
disappeared. In other words, the devil could<br />
only find money by stealing somebody’s money.<br />
This little fact, that if the Slave of the Lamp, or<br />
the Slave of the Ring, is told to bring her master<br />
anything she must steal it from someone else,<br />
was therefore understood and appreciated in Pulo<br />
Penang so long ago as 1854. In 1886, or there-<br />
abouts, a story appeared in Longman’s Magazine<br />
by Mr. Walter Herries Pollock and myself, called<br />
“The Wishing Cap,” in which exactly the same<br />
proposition was advanced and became the motif<br />
of the story. It is, you see, impossible to invent<br />
anything.<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
A correspondent calls attention to the figures<br />
given in the last number of the Author as to the<br />
sum received by the S.P.C.K. for a shilling<br />
book. I have answered his letter in a note.<br />
The society has depots, or offices, in various<br />
places ; it has also in smaller places certain shops<br />
where its books are sold. These shops and<br />
branches are all part of its machinery. <A secular<br />
publisher has an office in New York as well as<br />
one in London; if he had other offices in Man-<br />
chester, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Leeds, they<br />
would all be part of the machinery. Subscribers<br />
to the S.P.C.K. were formerly, and I believe are<br />
still, entitled to buy shilling books for ninepence.<br />
Whether the general public are now entitled to<br />
the 25 per cent. discount I do not know. The<br />
principal purchasers of the books published by<br />
the “Literary Handmaid to the Church”’ are,<br />
Tam informed, subscribers, either at the depots,<br />
or from the central offices, so that ninepence, and<br />
not sevenpence, is the average price of one of<br />
their shilling books, And it must be observed<br />
and kept in mind that the word “profit” on a<br />
trading transaction is used to signify the differ-<br />
ence between price realised and cost of production.<br />
The society, in a certain document, tried to<br />
represent profit as what is left after all ex-<br />
penses are paid. This is as if a publishing<br />
company were to represent as profit what was left<br />
after all the servants, all the clerks, all the<br />
accountants, all the readers, and all the directors<br />
had drawn their wages and their salaries and their<br />
shares, This is dividend, not profit. This is the<br />
saving of the year, not the profit of the year.<br />
The profit pays for the establishment, and in a<br />
private firm what is left over is savings, not profit.<br />
<br />
Two or three correspondents have written for<br />
advice concerning a new magazine, The follow-<br />
ing is its circular, in which we suppress the title :<br />
<br />
The objects for which the Audaz has been called into exist-<br />
ence are :—Firstly, to enable new and occasional writers of<br />
talent to have their tales and poems published in a high-<br />
class magazine, side by side with the productions of popular<br />
authors of world-wide celebrity. Secondly, to restore poetry<br />
to its rightful position as an honoured and prominent feature<br />
of present day literature. Thirdly, in the spirit of its title<br />
to deal with all subjects caleulated to make life more joyful<br />
and harmonious.<br />
<br />
The difficulty of securing a foothold upon even the fir-t<br />
rung of the ladder of literary success is well known to all<br />
who have made the endeavour. ‘The editors of popular<br />
papers are so deluged with manuscripts that ninety-nine out<br />
of every hundred must be rejected, while poetry is usually<br />
relegated to the waste paper basket without even being read.<br />
Tt is true that there are amateur journals where the payment<br />
of a fee will usually secure the insertion of an article,<br />
whether worthy of print or not; but it is needless to say<br />
that no author who has any regard for his reputation and<br />
prospects would risk both by allowing his name to appear<br />
in such publications,<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
The Audaw will not bein any sense an amateur journal. On<br />
the contrary, it will be contributed to by some of the most<br />
celebrated litterateurs and poets of the day. At the same<br />
time a full half of its space will be devoted to the contribu-<br />
tions of its subscribers, who will thus have the advantage of<br />
an introduction to literature under the most favourable<br />
auspices, such as is offered by no other magazine in existence.<br />
And further, when a manuscript is received which is faulty,<br />
either in style, construction, or otherwise, the editor will in<br />
all cases be happy to give his advice, and, if requested, to<br />
revise the article, and make such alterations and corrections<br />
as to fit it for publication.<br />
<br />
In order to prevent a greater influx of manuscripts than<br />
it would be possible to deal with, these privileges and advan-<br />
tages are strictly confined to annual subscribers.<br />
<br />
The annual subscription, post free, is 7s., but to those<br />
who subscribe before Feb. 1 next it will be 5s. only. Sub-<br />
seribers paying before that date will be known as foundation<br />
subscribers, and their contributions to Audaz will have a<br />
preferential claim to consideration and acceptance.<br />
<br />
Numerous prizes will be awarded each month, in cash,<br />
books, musical instruments, &c., and it is hoped shortly to<br />
offer for competition scholarships in music at the Guildhall<br />
and other colleges. In No. 1 will be announced a scheme<br />
whereby it will be possible for almost every reader of<br />
Audaz to become the possessor of a high-class type-writer,<br />
with all the latest improvements, selected from such famous<br />
makes as the Remington, Caligraph, Densmore, Bar-Lock,<br />
Yost, Hammond, Munson, and Williams. Type-writing is a<br />
profitable and elegant accomplishment for educated ladies,<br />
and an invaluable aid to literary men, and this opportunity<br />
of obtaining an expensive machine without any expenditure<br />
whatever will doubtless be largely taken advantage of.<br />
<br />
There is no royal road to literature, even<br />
through a magazine which professes to be more<br />
open to beginners than the ordinary monthly. It<br />
is, indeed, obvious that no magazine can command<br />
success except for the interest and attraction of<br />
its columns, and this magazine must either resort<br />
to the usual method of trying to be attractive or<br />
it will be a failure. Now, if it is to prove<br />
attractive, it must print only good work. What<br />
chance will poor work have with this magazine<br />
more than with other magazines? However, let<br />
those who hesitate take in a few numbers, wait,<br />
hear the experience of others, and then, if they<br />
are satisfied that it is worth their while to become<br />
subscribers they can do so.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Mr. John Murray, the publisher, wrote to the<br />
Times (Thursday, Jan. 18) a letter of warning<br />
concerning a certain person who was said to be<br />
going round using his name as a recommenda-<br />
tion. The following appeared in corroboration on<br />
Monday, Jan. 22:<br />
<br />
Mr. Mackenzie Bell writes with reference to the letter<br />
of Mr. John Murray which appeared on Thursday :—<br />
“ Mr. ‘ Wilson’s’ plan of action seems often to be to repre-<br />
sent himself to authors as coming from their publishers<br />
on ‘literary business.’ He did so in my own case. I am<br />
informed by friends who have seen him (I was absent<br />
when he called upon me) that he looks like one with whom<br />
the world has dealt somewhat hardly. But this does not<br />
justify his conduct.”—“H. H. F.,”’ writing from Kensing-<br />
<br />
335<br />
<br />
ton, says :—‘ The man Wilson, to whose plan of campaign<br />
Mr. John Murray has called attention, paid me a visit not<br />
long ago, relating a piteous tale of misfortune and want, and<br />
representing that he had been advised to come to me in<br />
search of work as amanuensis or proof-reader by a firm of<br />
publishers with whom I have had dealings. He stated that<br />
he had been employed some time ago as private secretary by<br />
‘Ouida,’ and that he had acted quite recently as amanuensis<br />
to Mr. Marion Crawford in Italy. He gave a very circum-<br />
stantial account of his relations with these authors, and<br />
altogether gave the impression of being a man who deserved<br />
help. He has doubtless victimised many others, who, like<br />
myself, were imposed upon by his plausibility, and moved to<br />
pity by his appearance and manner.”<br />
<br />
Mr. Sidney Lee writes also to the Tvmes from<br />
108, Lexham-gardens, Kensington, W., Jan. 22:<br />
<br />
I also have been visited by “‘ Mr. Wilson.” He called<br />
here thrice, and on the last occasion succeeded in finding<br />
me. According to his story, which sounded improbable and<br />
proved untrue, he had been sent to me by a well-known<br />
novelist, with whom, as it happened, I was well acquainted.<br />
He then proceeded to deliver friendly messages to me, with<br />
which he insisted he had been charged by “ Ouida” and<br />
Mr. Marion Crawford, although I explained that neither of<br />
those writers was personally known to me. Finally he<br />
represented himself as an amanuensis or secretary in great<br />
distress, and spoke snatches of Italian to illustrate his<br />
linguistic faculty. To get rid of him was difficult. How-<br />
ever, I gave him a shilling, and bade him never come again.<br />
He replied that the gentleman he had first mentioned to me<br />
never dismissed him with less than half a sovereign.<br />
<br />
Mr. Wilson has also called upon me. I do not<br />
remember that he used the name of Mr. Murray<br />
or of any other publisher. But he certainly<br />
stated that he had been the private secretary of<br />
the lady who writes under the name of “ Ouida,”<br />
and he told me several anecdotes of his expe-<br />
riences while in her employment. I think, but<br />
am not quite certain, that he also mentioned Mr.<br />
Marion Crawford as an employer. He was plau-<br />
sible, very much down on his luck, and, on the<br />
whole, impostor or not, gave me the idea of a man<br />
who was to be pitied—and assisted. I therefore<br />
assisted him with a trifle. If he calls again I<br />
shall take his name and address, and forward<br />
both to the Charity Organisation Society.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
There is a Society called the “ Literary Revi-<br />
sion Society Limited,” of which I know nothing<br />
good or bad. Therefore lam not going out of my<br />
way to attack or to defend its modes and methods,<br />
objects and aims. The committee consist of<br />
three, the “ Rev. R. A. Westhorp, of Croydon ; Mr.<br />
C. W. P. Overend, barrister-at-law ; and Mr. F. W.<br />
Sabin, journalist.” No secretary’s name occurs<br />
on the paper before me. This paper is an<br />
announcement of a prize story competition. Now,<br />
it is perfectly within the right of anyone to offer<br />
prizes for a competition in anything. At least, I<br />
suppose so, being in complete ignorance of the<br />
law in the matter of competitions. The “ Society”’<br />
offer four prizes—one of £50, one of £25, one of<br />
336<br />
<br />
£15, and one of £10, for stories of length between<br />
60,000 and 80,000 words. Hach story must be<br />
accompanied by half a guinea “ towards the cost of<br />
perusal.” If there are 300 competitors, the<br />
readers will therefore pocket 150 guineas. But,<br />
if the committee award no prizes they will return<br />
the half guineas, with the stories, tothe competi-<br />
tors. In that case the readers will have done<br />
their work for nothing, and the ‘“ Society” will<br />
lose the postage of the MSS., which at 6d. a piece<br />
amounts to £7 10s. on the 300 parcels. Or, if<br />
the reading—because nine-tenths certainly will<br />
need only a glance to be set aside—be neglected,<br />
the 300 competitors will by their half guineas<br />
pay for the prizes, and leave fifty guineas over for<br />
the society. Or, suppose the wisdom of the<br />
committee were to decide that only one, the<br />
fourth prize, should be awarded, then the Society<br />
would pocket 140 guineas. Of course, there may<br />
not be so many competitors. Perhaps there would<br />
be only twenty. In that case the above figures<br />
mean nothing. But it is as well always to take<br />
into account possibilities of great as well as of<br />
small numbers. eee<br />
<br />
There is another little difficulty. A story of<br />
80,000 words — which is about the length of<br />
“Treasure Island’? —if it is a good story, is<br />
worth a great deal more—a very great deal more<br />
—than £10, £15, £25, or £50. Only the holy and<br />
venerable Society for the Promotion of Chris-<br />
tian Knowledge offers such rewards for good<br />
stories. If, therefore, the “Literary Revision<br />
Society ” proposes to keep and to handle for its own<br />
profit the successful stories, one would seriously<br />
advise intending competitors to offer their work<br />
first to editors or publishers; when they have<br />
ascertained that they cannot place them satis-<br />
factorily it will be time to send them in to<br />
the competition. But the latest time allowed<br />
is March 31. Never mind. There seems every<br />
probability that the competition, if not by this<br />
“Society,” then by some other enterprising<br />
persons, will be renewed. If the “Society ’’ give<br />
these prizes out of sheer benevolence, and for the<br />
encouragement of literature, allowing the author<br />
to retain his copyright, and to publish where he<br />
pleases, then the above remarks do not apply.<br />
<br />
The “ Wilkie Collins’ memorial,” consisting of<br />
a library of fiction, has been placed by Mr. Harry<br />
Quilter in the room set apart for it at the People’s<br />
Palace. Mr. Quilter has had the room painted<br />
and papered, has furnished it with chairs and<br />
tables, and has hung the walls with reproductions<br />
of celebrated pictures. The books consist, with<br />
the exception of some poetical works, entirely of<br />
novels. They number at present about 1100,<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
but a few sets of novels remain to be added.<br />
Mr. Quilter, in communicating the completion of<br />
his labours to the 7imes, adds, that any sub-<br />
seriber to the fund will receive in due course a<br />
detailed account of the expenditure.<br />
<br />
Water Besant.<br />
<br />
sec<br />
FEUILLETON.<br />
<br />
Avencep: A Warnine To AUTHORS.<br />
OT so very many years ago Mr. Reginald<br />
<br />
\ Legrath dabbled in literature a little.<br />
<br />
That was before his uncle died and left<br />
him the money on which to set up as a country<br />
squire. He wrote in those former days under the<br />
name of “ Roger Rixon;” but I doubt whether<br />
an ungrateful world remembers either the name<br />
or the stories which appeared above it.<br />
<br />
Young Reggie was at the little seaport of Mul-<br />
wick on the Yorkshire coast in the summer of<br />
1887. He used to write dialect stories—lite<br />
among the poor, and that sort of thing. He<br />
never made any actual attempt (he had some<br />
wisdom) to earn his living by his pen; even in<br />
his poverty-stricken days he enjoyed a very com-<br />
fortable allowance, and he used to dwell on<br />
things considerably before he worked himself up<br />
to write a story,<br />
<br />
He spent all the summer of that year at Mul-<br />
wick, and gave his friends to understand that he<br />
was collecting material for an important novel<br />
about fisher-folk and herring boats, and moaning<br />
harbour-bars. He did a little in the sketch-<br />
ing way, too, now I remember, though he was but<br />
a finicking performer with the pencil—however,<br />
that is a mere detail.<br />
<br />
The Mulwick fishermen are very good fellows,<br />
and Reggie made himself agreeable to them, as<br />
he very well knew how; he used to talk to them<br />
by the hour together—all with a view to his story,<br />
though he never told them that. He got all their<br />
family histories out of them; and every night<br />
before he went to bed he made notes of what he<br />
had heard.<br />
<br />
By the end of the summer, and when it was<br />
time to go home, the young man’s popularity in<br />
the place was immense, and everybody was sorry<br />
to lose him. All the children, to whom he had<br />
been in the habit of giving toffy and other<br />
noxious compounds, wept freely, and refused to<br />
be comforted; even Reggie’s landlady, a hard-<br />
hearted Calvinist, hitherto supposed to be desti-<br />
tute of all feeling, was deeply attected, and begged<br />
him to come again. The young man faithfully<br />
promised he would; lodgers always do promise<br />
that.<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
It was in the autumn of the following year<br />
that ‘John Harrowing’s Ordeal,’ a one volume<br />
novel, appeared, and met, it must be confessed,<br />
with but an indifferent reception, Somehow, the<br />
public were “off” the fisherman business that<br />
year. Still, the fact remains that, with any and all<br />
faults it had, the book was, to a certain extent a<br />
faithful picture of the place where the scenes of<br />
the story were laid. I knew Mulwick myself,<br />
and the people who lived there, and when I read<br />
the “ Ordeal” (Oh, Richard Feverell, thou art<br />
responsible for much!) I was amazed to find how<br />
well Reggie had done the thing.<br />
<br />
There was no mistake about the place, for it<br />
was set down by name, besides being very faith-<br />
fully described; and the inhabitants were all set<br />
down by name too, and perfectly easy of identifi-<br />
cation, excepting only John Harrowing himself,<br />
who was (so Legrath informed me) a creation of<br />
his own; and that personage was a good deal of<br />
a bore. Most of the incidents, however (some of<br />
which were of an exciting character), were solely<br />
due to Reggie’s fertile imagination.<br />
<br />
The youth was pleased with his performance ;<br />
he could not understand why there was no call<br />
for asecond edition. He did not go to Mulwick<br />
again, as he had told the guileless inhabitants he<br />
would; perhaps he felt that he had exhausted<br />
the place. He went to Cornwall for two summers<br />
in succession with a sketching party, and forgot<br />
all about the Yorkshire fishing village, or the<br />
simple folk who lived there.<br />
<br />
But they did not forget about him. It had<br />
never occurred to Reggie that his book might get<br />
to that remote region, but it did, and a terrific<br />
sensation it produced.<br />
<br />
The station-master of Mulwick was quite a<br />
literary character in his way, and he got hold of<br />
“John Harrowing’s Ordeal” in the ordinary<br />
course of his reading. He had not struggled<br />
through three pages of Chapter I. when he was<br />
thunderstruck to find himself set down in black<br />
and white, and by name, too, as having com-<br />
mitted a murder. Looking on, he found that a<br />
number of his fellows were similarly pilloried,<br />
though there was no one who was such a deep-<br />
dyed criminal as himself, the others being merely<br />
accessories after the act.<br />
<br />
This worthy official, who would not have<br />
dreamed of hurting a fly, dashed his gold-laced<br />
cap to the ground in a perfect transport of fury,<br />
and set himself to discover the perpetrator of the<br />
atrocity. He did not know who “ Roger Rixon”<br />
might be, but a knowing correspondent in the<br />
Yorkshire Argus that same week, who did the<br />
literary column, and who “ happened to know,”<br />
when reviewing the book stated Mr. Legrath’s<br />
real name in brackets after the nom de plume,<br />
<br />
337<br />
<br />
and thus discovered the offender to the indignant<br />
station-master.<br />
<br />
That worthy, armed with this evidence—and<br />
the “ Ordeal” —marched up into the village one<br />
evening, and convened an informal sort of town’s<br />
meeting in the schoolroom. Here on four succes-<br />
sive evenings he read the book aloud—the school-<br />
master kindly relieving him when he grew hoarse<br />
—amid a scene of such excitement as that peace-<br />
ful little port had seldom witnessed.<br />
<br />
It was a great shock to all right-minded persons<br />
to find—as they did within twenty minutes—<br />
their respectable station-master saddled with the<br />
commission of a terrible crime, and the sympathies<br />
of all were extended to him in such a trying<br />
situation. But soon it was each man for him-<br />
self ; his own injuries demanded his attention.<br />
<br />
As, one by one, the characters were identified<br />
—the reader, to avoid any misconception, looking<br />
up from his book in order to indicate with a<br />
relentless forefinger the persons named—fresh<br />
bursts of execration arose. What especially<br />
angered the people was that Reggie had not got<br />
<br />
‘properly hold of the dialect, but had supplied his<br />
<br />
characters with a mongrel speech, half Scotch,<br />
half English; “the Neweastle twang” they<br />
called it.<br />
<br />
There was not much humour in the book, but ~<br />
what little there was was supplied by the author’s<br />
landlady, who lifted up her voice and wept at the<br />
remarks she was set down as uttermg. No<br />
vestige of a smile appeared at any of poor<br />
Reggie’s jokes; they were felt to be more<br />
insulting even than the serious writing. The<br />
love story had for its hero a respectable young<br />
married man, who sat open-mouthed in astonish-<br />
ment when he was sent courting again, and<br />
whose wife was nasty with him about it for days<br />
afterwards.<br />
<br />
Mr. Legrath had been too lazy to alter any of<br />
his names, and the only character who gave any<br />
trouble on the score of identificatign was his own<br />
creation, “John Harrowing.” ‘This personage,<br />
by general consent, and from the fact of the in-<br />
disputable evidence of a black beard, was set<br />
down (quite erroneously) as the harbour-master<br />
of Sandport, who, after the first evening, was<br />
accordingly brought over to attend the successive<br />
readings.<br />
<br />
When the “ Ordeal,’ was finished, and the<br />
station and school masters had been voted un-<br />
limited refreshment, a great and solemn resolu-<br />
tion of censure was passed, and it was decided<br />
that if ever Mr. Reginald Legrath should come<br />
that way again he should be made to smart for<br />
it. The ridicule of being “ put in the paapers”’<br />
was enough to keep hot the anger within the<br />
people for an indefinite period.<br />
<br />
<br />
338<br />
<br />
Mr. Reginald Legrath, all unconscious of the<br />
sensation which his work had produced among<br />
that small section of the public who “ took the<br />
liberty to reside” at Mulwick, enjoyed himself<br />
amazingly in his two sketching parties in<br />
Cornwall. He met the same girl again the<br />
second year, and they became engaged. Her<br />
name was Firman—Laura Firman—a girl with a<br />
great deal of light hair and not too much sense.<br />
It did’nt really come off afterwards—this is a<br />
detail—and she married young Stockley, the<br />
painter. She broke it off before Reggie’s uncle<br />
died, or possibly—but there is no use in going<br />
into that.<br />
<br />
What is to the point is this: Reggie and Miss<br />
Firman, having exhausted Cornwall, the next<br />
simmer went up the East Coast sketching and<br />
idling, with Mrs. Firman, a nice mild old lady, to<br />
watch over them. In the course of their wander-<br />
ings they came up to Mulwick, having walked<br />
over from Sandport, where they were staying, one<br />
afternoon.<br />
<br />
Now, of course, Miss Laura had read the<br />
* Ordeal,” and considered it, as was natural, quite<br />
awork of genius. When she found they were<br />
coming to the scene of the story she was<br />
delighted.<br />
<br />
“Ts this weally the place ?’’ she asked (she<br />
had from long association with curates in early<br />
life entirely dropped all r’s out of her conversa-<br />
tion).<br />
<br />
“The very place,’ said Reggie, with pride.<br />
During the last half mile over the cliffs he had<br />
been expatiating on his labours while writing the<br />
novel. ‘The only way,’ he said with a solemn<br />
shake of the head, “is to live with the people as<br />
I did all that summer, and talk with them, get to<br />
know all about them, study their characters.”<br />
<br />
“Ah, yes!” said Miss Laura in a rapture.<br />
<br />
“JT was quite a favourite, I believe,” pursued<br />
the young man nonchalantly; “ everyone seemed<br />
honestly sorry to part with me.”<br />
<br />
“Why, of course they were,” with more rap-<br />
ture.<br />
<br />
“ And they’re really good, straightforward sort<br />
of people; there’s backbone about them ; their<br />
minds seem to be as muscular as their bodies”<br />
(Mr. Reggie was growing quite eloquent). “It<br />
has often struck me as amusing that they should<br />
never know of what use they have been to me.”’<br />
<br />
“Yes ; isn’t it funny ?”<br />
<br />
_ “They'll remember me, you'll find, although<br />
it’s three years ago. They’re the best-hearted<br />
ae shall have a warm welcome you'll<br />
ind.”<br />
<br />
* Here the two lovers had to wait for Mrs. Firman,<br />
who had lagged behind. They all three entered<br />
the village together.<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
As they crossed the old stone bridge where<br />
the brook runs out on to the shingle, Reggie be-<br />
nignantly hailed a man who was leaning over the<br />
parapet: “ Hullo, Sam!”<br />
<br />
“Sam” started, turned round, glared upon the<br />
speaker, and without a word got off at a rapid<br />
pace up the village street.<br />
<br />
“What a howwid fwowning man!”<br />
Laura. “Did you know him, Weggie?<br />
<br />
“ Hr-er; no,” said Mr. Legrath somewhat dis-<br />
composedly; he began to point out the beauties<br />
of the landscape.<br />
<br />
“What are all these men coming for? ” lisped<br />
Miss Laura a few moments later. A crowd of<br />
fishermen was marching down towards the visitors<br />
in a determined manner.<br />
<br />
The rest of the story is almost too painful for<br />
narration.<br />
<br />
Reggie thought at first that the demonstration<br />
meant that he was to receive a triumphal<br />
welcome, and prepared himself to make a polite<br />
speech of thanks. He was speedily undeceived.<br />
<br />
Amid the shrieks of the two ladies and his<br />
own ineffectual struggles, the victim was seized ;<br />
the iniquity of his offence was made known to<br />
him, and a hurried court-martial was held.<br />
Some were for throwing him over the pier-<br />
head, and drowning him off-hand—the morose<br />
landlady spoke strongly in favour of this pro-<br />
ceeding; but the majority was more merciful.<br />
<br />
“ Put’n in the quay pool!” they cried.<br />
<br />
Then, while the distracted Miss Laura and her<br />
mother rushed about wildly calling for the —<br />
invisible police, poor Reggie was carried igno-<br />
miniously down to the harbour until he was<br />
nearly done for.<br />
<br />
Quay pools, to put it mildly, are not salubrious,<br />
and when the wretched man was at length<br />
allowed to stagger up on to comparatively dry<br />
ground, he presented an awful appearance. He<br />
was always a bit of a dandy, was Reggie, and he<br />
had been faultlessly arrayed in a new knicker-<br />
bocker suit, with spotless spats and lovely brown<br />
boots. Nearly all the rest of him was brown<br />
(with a mixture of many neutral tints) when he<br />
came out of the pool.<br />
<br />
He was a comic sight; but the fishermen were<br />
too indignant to discern the humour of the pro-<br />
ceeding. Old Sam, as spokesman, roared out to<br />
him one parting salute: “ That’ll teach thee to<br />
put folk i’ the paiapers!”<br />
<br />
Then they all turned, and left him to think it<br />
over. And Laura cooled to her “dear Weggie”<br />
from that moment.<br />
<br />
said Miss<br />
<br />
)<br />
<br />
ANDREW HORNE.<br />
<br />
ee<br />
<br />
<br />
1<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
x<br />
<br />
a<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
THE WOMEN OF TENNYSON.<br />
<br />
—<br />
<br />
N\HE Laureates’s women! That a poet of<br />
such delicate craftsmanship should have<br />
painted many pictures of the sex which is<br />
<br />
said to influence and inspire poetry most is, per-<br />
haps, natural; that so great a master of language<br />
and imagery should have failed to depict any<br />
woman (save, perhaps, Guinevere) “splendid,<br />
ardent, and passionful” is a subject for sincere<br />
regret. Elaine may be taken as the type of<br />
Tennysonian women, possessing all the exquisite,<br />
cold shallowness of her kind.<br />
<br />
Even Guinevere, whom we have excepted from<br />
the category, has a hardness of outline, a frigidity<br />
of pride encircling her womanhood which never<br />
allows her to lose the Queen in the woman,<br />
until she throws herself at her husband’s feet,<br />
and listens to his condemnation. This scene, how-<br />
ever, is instinct with the magic of the fairy land<br />
of Arthurian legend.<br />
<br />
In “The Lady of Shalott,” which is one of<br />
Tennyson’s most popular poems, the heroine is<br />
delightful, dainty, enticing, but she is not one of<br />
flesh and blood. The qualities, indeed, which<br />
Lord Tennyson’s women characters almost all of<br />
them lack. The poem is a picture of the class of<br />
“St. Agnes’ Eve”’ rather than a presentment of<br />
humanity. It is characterised rather by spiritu-<br />
ality than humanity. In (none, it is true we<br />
have a trace of passion, but it is that rather of a<br />
child than ofa woman. A child’s passion in its<br />
abandonment.<br />
<br />
Lord Tennyson’s muse is far less dominated<br />
by woman, and sympathy for her weaknesses and<br />
femininity, than either that of Swinburne or<br />
Dante Rossetti. Even in ‘‘ Maud,” a poem which<br />
with younger readers is probably more popular<br />
than any other, the heroine is only sketched,<br />
“youghed in” so to speak. She is not a finished<br />
portrait, nor does she in the sense of reality take<br />
hold on the imagination as the heroines of some<br />
even far lesser poets do.<br />
<br />
Maud with her exquisite face,<br />
<br />
And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky,<br />
<br />
And feet like sunny gems on an English green,<br />
<br />
Mand in the light of her youth and her grace.<br />
Ts in a certain sense an abstraction rather than a<br />
reality. She is one of the somewhat bodyless,<br />
English girls, lacking in breadth of sympathy<br />
and feminine characteristics, which the Laureate<br />
was most happy in painting.<br />
<br />
The May-Queen, and other women of the<br />
“English idylls,’ follow a somewhat conven-<br />
tional type. The former is, through all her pro-<br />
Sperity and adversity, health and sickness, a<br />
peasant very much of the type favoured ia the<br />
old rural comedies. She lacks energy, force,<br />
<br />
339<br />
<br />
humanity; so greatly so, indeed, that for her to<br />
be always rose-crowned, and perpetually leading<br />
a docile, garlanded lamb, excites no feeling of<br />
surprise or unfitness. In this poem, as in many<br />
others, the value is in its exquisite treatment and<br />
word-painting rather than in the conception of<br />
the main character.<br />
<br />
For word painting what could be finer than<br />
<br />
“Beneath the waning light<br />
You'll never see me more in the long grey fields at night,<br />
When from the dry, dark wold the summer airs blow cool<br />
On the oat grass, and the sword grass, and the bulrush in<br />
the pool.”<br />
<br />
It is in “The Princess,” notwithstanding its<br />
gaiety and delicately subtle mockery, that we<br />
find, in the person of the princess herself, perhaps<br />
the most nobly conceived of Tennyson’s women<br />
characters. Certain it is that this princess is the<br />
woman who thinks most nobly out of all the<br />
female characters in the poet’s works: there is no<br />
other woman in his poems who troubles herself<br />
much about ideals. As we have indicated, his<br />
women are very mucha man’s women, whose<br />
chiefest troubles or joys are concerned with love.<br />
They are passionless, respectable—in the best<br />
sense “ respectable ’’—women ; cold, and generally<br />
inately well-bred. Here in “The Princess,” how-<br />
ever, we have a woman who constructs for herself<br />
a noble and beautiful ideal, wrong at its basis,<br />
without doubt, but nevertheless admirable in<br />
many respects. In the pourtrayal of the princess<br />
the poet has worked upon a larger and more<br />
human scale than heretofore.<br />
<br />
“ Liker the inhabitant<br />
Of some clear planet closer on the sun<br />
Than our man’s earth,”<br />
She is almost the only woman Tennyson has<br />
succeeded in making heroic, and that in spite of<br />
the mock heroism of the poem itself.<br />
<br />
Tn his most elaborate work, “The Idylls of the<br />
King,” the poet has made little or no attempt to<br />
endow his characters with life. Ina word, they<br />
are not “human,” and we are inclined to think<br />
that for this reason—admirable as many of the<br />
pictures conjured up undoubtedly are—that the<br />
“Tdylls” are least likely to attain immortality.<br />
The men and women are not transcripts from<br />
life, are not sentient, moving beings ; they belong<br />
to the region of pictures—poetical, imaginative,<br />
illustrative—but without the light shining in<br />
their eyes, or the breath of life animating their<br />
forms. Enid is a man’s woman in her submis-<br />
sion, of the ‘ Patient Grisel’’ type—a_ lone-<br />
suffering variety of woman, which in our day, to<br />
our thinking, scarcely merits the description of<br />
“heroine” at all. Almost the sole womanly<br />
touch in the poem—but this one touch a gem of<br />
perceptive art in its way—is where the poet<br />
<br />
<br />
340<br />
<br />
causes Enid to put ov the old faded dress in<br />
which her lover first beheld her. Guinevere,<br />
stormy, dark, unhumbled by her sin, is a striking<br />
figure, it must be admitted; but she is Malory’s<br />
conception after all, an echo of an old prose<br />
poet. Elaine, full of pathos though she be,<br />
touches no very high level of sympathetic<br />
womanhood. She, too, is somewhat an echo of<br />
Malory, a child-woman, as they were when the<br />
“ spinning world was young.” She is an idealised<br />
Malory’s Elaine, just as the poet’s Arthur is<br />
Malory’s Arthur idealised, who would scarce<br />
touch us at all were she removed from her old-<br />
world setting. Here is a piece of “ setting ;”<br />
there is true poetry in this. See :—<br />
“ Soin her tower alone the maiden sat.<br />
<br />
His very shield was gone ; only the case,<br />
<br />
Her own poor work—her empty labour left ;<br />
<br />
But still she heard him, still his picture formed<br />
<br />
And grew between her and the pictured wall.<br />
<br />
Then came her father, saying in low tones,<br />
<br />
‘ Have comfort,’ whom she greeted quietly.<br />
<br />
Then came her brethren, saying, ‘ Peace to thee,<br />
<br />
Sweet sister,’ when she answered with all calm.<br />
<br />
But when they left her to herself again,<br />
<br />
Death, like a friend’s voice from a distant field,<br />
<br />
Approaching through the darkness, called; the owls’<br />
<br />
Wailing had power upon her, and she mixt<br />
<br />
Her fancies with the sallow-lighted glooms<br />
<br />
Of evening, and the moanings of the wind.”<br />
<br />
After the reading of such passages one almost<br />
feels that to point to anything as constituting a<br />
weakness or excellence inthe poet’s work is futile,<br />
almost insolent, criticism. ‘The beauty and<br />
elegance of the poetry exists, of that we are aware ;<br />
quite why we know not. The charm is like that<br />
of the face of a beautiful woman ; it is irrespec-<br />
tive of its teaching or moral excellence.<br />
<br />
Tseult has an interest for us in addition to her<br />
treatment by Tennyson, inasmuch that she has<br />
been made a study by three great poets of our<br />
day. The Laureate’s Iseult is like so many more<br />
of his women, merely a sketch, comparing un-<br />
favourably with Swinburne’s masterly study.<br />
Vivien is in many ways a great conception of a<br />
Delilah type, but she lacks the essential to make<br />
a complete study—the subtle craft to hide her<br />
vileness.<br />
<br />
We have touched upon almost all the women<br />
of the “ Tdylls,” and the impression gained is that<br />
the late Laureate made no attempt to present a<br />
notable study of feminine character. His desire,<br />
apparently, was merely to “ render’”’ the<br />
“Morte d’Arthur” in his own delicate, word-<br />
picture way, retaining the enchanted atmosphere<br />
of the story, which in itself militated against the<br />
creations of characters of flesh and blood. It is<br />
thus that the whole series of women’s portraits<br />
gives us the impression of a stately pageant of<br />
knights and ladies, filing by, spectres of the<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
romantic past with the splendour of jewels,<br />
armours, and banners, but to a large degree<br />
passionless, inhuman because unliving.<br />
<br />
Of all Tennyson’s women, Mary Tudor, with<br />
her unsatisfied, craving heart, her love un-<br />
requited by love, and her deadly sickness of<br />
jealousy, is the most human. A sombre delinea-<br />
tion of life without youth, and middle age over<br />
which the leadenness of autumn sere leaf with<br />
impending death perpetually hung. Tennyson<br />
has at least here grasped with firmer hand than<br />
before the fibres of disposition which differentiate<br />
woman from man, We see a betrayed woman,<br />
deceived by the husband she adored passionately,<br />
fanatically ; and it is in her relations with her<br />
husband Lord Tennyson has reached his highest<br />
point of introspection. The picture is sorrowful,<br />
sad in its humanity.<br />
<br />
Amongst the remaining women of Tennyson,<br />
are Edith in “ Harold,’ a pure but somewhat<br />
listless, lifeless abstraction, presented vaguely;<br />
and Rosamond and Eleanor in “ Beckett.’ The<br />
latter is not, at least to our thinking, an<br />
altogether satisfactory or successful study. A<br />
clinging, sweet, soft woman, as Eleanor is pre-<br />
sented, would not logically know of the crimes<br />
which are alleged against her; nor, when afraid,<br />
is it a characteristic of an essentially sweet woman<br />
to turn so venomously bitter, Rosamond,<br />
perhaps, ranks as Lord Tennyson's sweetest<br />
woman.<br />
<br />
In conclusion, the late Laureate’s women are<br />
rather what one would describe as “ feminine ”<br />
than as “womanly.” They are timid, dependent,<br />
clinging ; loving after a passionless, highly dis-<br />
creet fashion, but risking, daring, very little for<br />
“love’s sweet sake.” The impression given of<br />
the poet’s feminine characters is that they are<br />
drawn rather from ideal abstractions than from<br />
living, moving, human beings.<br />
<br />
His high ideal of womanhood, however, has<br />
served to lift many to the “higher plane.” It<br />
no doubt did much to make him a great poet in<br />
the truest sense of the word; and in this age of<br />
crumbling ideals we may well feel grateful for<br />
these sweet women pictures of the dead past.<br />
<br />
CuivE HoLianp,<br />
<br />
spect<br />
<br />
JOURNALISM IN BURMA.<br />
<br />
HE first time I entered a newspaper office<br />
in Burma I was struck with its picturesque-<br />
ness. At the entrance sat a number of<br />
<br />
curly-whiskered, white-turbanned durwans, who<br />
rose and with military precision gravely saluted<br />
my friend and me. One of them pulled a curtain<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Meee et<br />
<br />
gore mos<br />
<br />
bet<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
aside and ushered us into the editorial office, an<br />
airy white-washed room decorated with several<br />
graceful palms. Ata table, with his back to the<br />
window, sat the editor, attired simply in cricketing<br />
trousers and a white shirt. He was busy, for<br />
the European mail had just arrived, so after a<br />
short conversation with him we passed on into<br />
the compositors’ room, which was a decidedly<br />
novel scene. Burmans with gorgeous turbans<br />
and brillant dungy?s, or skirts, Chinamen with<br />
white jackets and short blue baggy trousers, and<br />
Hindoos attired in spotless white, stood side by<br />
side at the case, smoking huge cheroots and<br />
chattering gaily as they worked. The foreman<br />
was a very imposing person, decidedly fat, and<br />
attired in the smallest amount of clothing which<br />
the proprietors would permit. He was a mixture<br />
of at least four Oriental races, but not wishing<br />
to give undue precedence to any one of them, he<br />
always described himself as an Englishman. He<br />
spoke several Asiatic languages fluently, and<br />
possessed five wives. From the compositors’<br />
room to the printing room was not an agreeable<br />
change, for the Hindoo coolies, who are cheaper<br />
than engines for working the machines, were not<br />
pleasant objects.<br />
<br />
At the present time there are some seven or eight<br />
newspapers in Burma, but only one or two of<br />
them are of any importance or can claim any<br />
literary merit. The proprietor is generally the<br />
editor, and having been successively ship’s<br />
steward, loafer at Theebaw’s court, and rice<br />
merchant, he feels fully qualified to run a paper,<br />
especially if he has a grievance, real or imaginary,<br />
against the Chief Commissioner or some other<br />
high official, The editorials are therefore fre-<br />
quently very amusing when the subject is most<br />
serious, and I read one article in which the writer<br />
commenced with the editorial “we,” but finding<br />
when half way through that he could express<br />
himself more clearly in the first person singular,<br />
he boldly launched out into “I,” and finished the<br />
article in that style.<br />
<br />
One paper attacked Sir Richard Temple’s son,<br />
who is president of the Rangoon Municipal Com-<br />
mittee, in a leading article, of which the following<br />
is the commencement: “The President’s ‘ Lying<br />
Spirit.’<br />
<br />
I will be a lying spirit.—1 Kings xxii. 22.<br />
He deceiveth them that dwell on the earth (in Rangoon).—<br />
Rev. xiii. 13.<br />
<br />
* We can quite imagine the feelings of our<br />
readers when they observe, probably for the first<br />
time in their lives, quotations from the Sacred<br />
Writings at the head of a newspaper article. We<br />
<br />
- quite admit that it is not a very desirable novelty,<br />
<br />
but the quotations in question so aptly illustrate<br />
the spirit and tone of Major Temple’s remarks at<br />
<br />
341<br />
<br />
last Thursday’s meeting of the Municipal Com-<br />
mittee that we cannot refrain from quoting<br />
them.”<br />
<br />
This extraordinary journalistic innovation and<br />
its attempted justification was followed in a few<br />
days by the confidential announcement that the<br />
editor had purchased, at the sale of an advocate’s<br />
library, a copy of the “ Law of Newspaper Libel,”<br />
which he hoped would enable him to steer clear<br />
of the court in his series of articles on the “ Lying<br />
Spirit Abroad.”<br />
<br />
Another paper failed to make its appearance on<br />
the usual day of publication, and its non-appear-<br />
ance was explained later on in the following<br />
editorial :<br />
<br />
‘Our excuse is this: Our whole staff, including<br />
the editor, were so much knocked up with the excite-<br />
ment of the sports last Saturday, that on Sunday<br />
they were laid up with what our readers will<br />
charitably call Arakan fever. Monday was fixed<br />
as settling day for certain bets made on Saturday,<br />
which, unfortunately for this paper, were won by<br />
the wrong side. As the losers could not stump<br />
up at once, the winners bombarded and took pos-<br />
session of the office and press, and refused to<br />
vacate until payment was made. On Tuesday the<br />
staff of this paper in turn assailed those in posses-<br />
sion, and, aftera hard-fought battle, routed them,<br />
but it took all Wednesday and Thursday to collect<br />
aid arrange the forms and types, which had been<br />
freely used as missiles in Tuesday’s battle. The<br />
proprietor claims that he could not get the police<br />
to assist him, as most of them were suffering from<br />
a surfeit of Christmas dinner and other things<br />
too numerous to mention. But all’s well that<br />
ends well.”<br />
<br />
Several old Wellington College boys being in<br />
Burma, they decided to have an old boys’ dinner,<br />
and the day fixed upo1 for the festivity was the<br />
anniversary of the Buttle of Waterloo. This<br />
reached the ears of an up-country editor, who<br />
immediately penned an article which unintention-<br />
ally created much merriment among those who<br />
read it. With virtuous indignation he pointed<br />
out the impropriety of celebrating our victory<br />
over a nation with which we were now on friendly<br />
terms, and impressed upon his readers the utter<br />
absurdity of men calling themselves “ Old<br />
Wellingtonians” when they had neither served<br />
under the Iron Duke, nor, in fact, been born<br />
until many years after the great battle.<br />
<br />
There are two daily papers published in the<br />
vernacular, but they do not contain much original<br />
matter, the editors contenting themselves with<br />
translating the news published in the chief Rangoon<br />
papers. Bah Goon, the editor of the Priend of<br />
Burma, with whom. I had many a long chat, is<br />
probably the most picturesque editor in the world.<br />
342<br />
<br />
Attired in gorgeous native apparel, and always<br />
smoking a huge cheroot, he sits with a fan beside<br />
him writing his articles in letters consisting of<br />
circles and segments of circles. Opposite to him<br />
sits his assistant, less brilliantly arrayed, but of<br />
course puffing at a cheroot. One of his duties I<br />
noticed was to go outside and purchase sweet-<br />
meats for his chief from a shamefaced Hindoo<br />
who daily took up his position under a neighbour-<br />
oe Henry Cuaries Moore.<br />
<br />
neces<br />
FROM A BEGINNER'S POINT OF VIEW.<br />
<br />
BEGAN my literary career as an editor,<br />
<br />
having at a very early age assumed the<br />
<br />
direction of an interesting family magazine,<br />
laboriously copied out on Saturday afternoons, for<br />
private circulation. This periodical, after flourish-<br />
ing for nearly six numbers, came to an untimely<br />
end, owing chiefly to an unfortunate disposition<br />
on the part of our serial writer to begin a new<br />
romance every week, which, as the previous<br />
one was invariably guaranteed “to be con-<br />
tinued,’ and never was continued by any chance,<br />
caused dissatisfaction among our readers. The<br />
editorial duties, too, were unduly heavy, in-<br />
volving as they did the stirrmg up of unwilling<br />
contributors, the evading of sarcastic parents and<br />
governesses, and the painful and difficult deci-<br />
phering of manuscript written with stumpy<br />
pencils in cast-off copy books, previously well<br />
inked and thumbed. My editorial chair was the<br />
forked bough of a certain nut-tree ina retired<br />
orchard ; and, in spite of the aforesaid drawbacks,<br />
T loved it, and availed myself to the full of all my<br />
privileges ; altering, correcting, and condensing<br />
at my own sweet will, When time pressed,<br />
indeed, and my hand became tired, and the<br />
editorial chair felt particularly knobby, I con-<br />
densed to such a degree that the staff grew<br />
wrathful, and we quarrelled among ourselves just<br />
like real authors, and called each other names,<br />
and were very literary indeed.<br />
<br />
I have felt a certam sympathy for editors ever<br />
since those early days, and though, like all other<br />
right-minded people, I cannot fail to see and<br />
deplore their faults, I can realise the difficulties<br />
which engender them. Their judgment is, from<br />
their very mode of life, liable to be warped, and<br />
there is certainly a distressing lack of candour<br />
among them; but authors, especially young<br />
authors, should pause before rushing to condemn<br />
them in fiery terms (and occasionally imperfect<br />
English) in the pages of such organs as are open<br />
to them. They should remember that when an<br />
editor assures a would-be contributor that he has<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
“ carefully examined”’ his manuscript, whereas it<br />
seems he has omitted to unfasten the pages which<br />
that ingenious and suspicious youth has glued<br />
together, he means to be kind and polite. And<br />
when, in declining a document, he thanks you<br />
for kindly affording him an opportunity of seeing<br />
it, though you may know that he probably mur-<br />
mured something far less grateful and compli-<br />
mentary as he tossed it on one side, you should<br />
reflect that his little formula was conceived in<br />
the most considerate spirit possible. Authors<br />
should be more tolerant. There is no use in<br />
trying to educate an editor, either by remonstrat-<br />
ing with him, or even by being playful. It is<br />
perhaps more disastrous to be playful than any-<br />
thing else. I knew a young person once who sent<br />
some jocular verses to an editor on the back of<br />
one of the printed forms already mentioned; these,<br />
after jestingly alluding to the “thanks” set<br />
forth in neatest copper plate therein, ended with<br />
the suggestion that ‘“proofs”’ betokened grati-<br />
tude the best. Well, the joke was not appre-<br />
ciated as it deserved ; indeed, it must have rankled<br />
in the editorial mind, for two years afterwards,<br />
when that guileless young author sent another<br />
contribution to the same magazine, not only did —<br />
the MS. come back by return of post, but it was<br />
accompanied by that identical printed form on<br />
which he had scrawled his funny verses. This<br />
was the editor’s little joke !<br />
<br />
The beginner may, perhaps, take comfort from<br />
the thought that if editors are not as truthful as<br />
one could wish them to be, publishers, on the con-<br />
trary, are an exeeedingly outspoken race, and<br />
reviewers are quite refreshingly candid.<br />
<br />
Your friends, too, as you find, when at last<br />
your book is out, have an engaging way of telling<br />
you to your face that they do not like your<br />
heroine, and that the nicest character in the<br />
whole thing is the villain. Of course they<br />
recognise Mr. Snooks and Aunt Jemima, and<br />
have dark misgivings that the sensational part<br />
was suggested by personal experience. These are<br />
trials common to writers of every degree, but<br />
there are certain others peculiar to beginners.<br />
<br />
It is a trial, for instance, when a friend intro-<br />
duces you to a celebrity, whose works you have<br />
admired from afar for years, as “another<br />
author”! And the celebrity doesn’t quite catch<br />
your name, and has never heard of your pub-<br />
lishers, and smiles and bows affably as your<br />
kind friend energetically praises your book, And —<br />
you go home and think of it all at night when —<br />
you are in bed, and kick at the blankets.<br />
<br />
Then there is the other friend, who has<br />
“dabbled a little in literature, too,” and thinks<br />
he would like to write in collaboration with you.<br />
You needn’t trouble about the plot, you know, he ~<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
:<br />
1<br />
i<br />
|<br />
1<br />
1<br />
;<br />
i<br />
i<br />
1<br />
1<br />
|<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
assures you, when you assert that you do not look<br />
on yourself in the light of a dabbler, and couldn’t<br />
collaborate with anyone—he’ll do all that, you<br />
need only just write what he tells you, and he’ll<br />
send you up a little manuscript to look over just to<br />
give you an idea of his style. He prefers rather<br />
an antiquated style, he adds, and the period he<br />
generally selects is about the time of Canute.<br />
<br />
Then there are the people who give you kind<br />
advice. Why didn’t you make the hero marry<br />
Aunt Jemima, and the villain repent and ally<br />
himself with the herome? That would really<br />
have made a fine story. And what on earth<br />
induced you to give it such an absolutely<br />
meaningless title? I know one lady who writes<br />
a little herself who is especially strong on this<br />
point. What she always does, she says, is to<br />
think of a good name first, and write the story to<br />
match. It simplifies matters immensely. Suppose,<br />
for instance, you call your book “ A Snake in the<br />
Grass”’ and open it with a strong situation, such<br />
as a widower living in the country with two<br />
daughters, and engaging a governess for them<br />
who is a very handsome and designing woman—<br />
something striking and original of that kind—<br />
why there you are, you see, at once.<br />
<br />
In such matters as these the writer of long<br />
standing has distinctly the advantage of the<br />
beginner. It is, I believe, an understood thing<br />
that when you invite a celebrated author to<br />
dinner you are not to talk of books. Golf, and<br />
fencing, and fishing, and society are subjects<br />
which he is quite willing to discuss with you; but<br />
literature, /i donc! This rule does not, however,<br />
hold good where the young author is concerned ;<br />
everybody considers him to be burning with<br />
anxiety to talk—not about the work of other<br />
people, which would be a refreshment and delight<br />
to him—but about his own. People want to know<br />
what you have made by your book, what you are<br />
writing now—won’t you give them just an idea of<br />
the plot? Have you had good reviews? “Of<br />
course,’ somebody says in a cheerful and parti-<br />
cularly audible voice, just as there is a pause in<br />
the general conversation, ‘everyone saw that<br />
excellent notice in the .” Here he breaks<br />
off, and you see an uneasy recollection beginning<br />
to dawn on him that it was the which cut<br />
you up so unmercifully. If you have a sense of<br />
humour you may be amused by the incident; but<br />
it not infrequently produces a little awkwardness.<br />
Those reviews cause you a good deal of trouble<br />
altogether. You may have been guileless enough,<br />
if you are very young, to stick them in a book<br />
and show them to some of your friends. This is<br />
all very well when they happen to be of a lauda-<br />
tory order, but when the “‘ nasty ones” begin to<br />
come in, and your friends go on asking you if<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
343<br />
<br />
you haven’t got any more notices to show them,<br />
either your principles or your feelings must go to<br />
the wall. It is not a pleasant sensation in the<br />
latter case to hand over the exasperating slip<br />
which perhaps kept you awake all night, and to<br />
watch your friend struggling to assume an<br />
expression which shall neither be compassionate<br />
nor amused. You know he’ll be too polite to<br />
laugh when he comes to the last bit ; and yet you<br />
feel it must be a struggle to refrain. You couldn’t<br />
help laughing yourself when you read it, though<br />
you are naturally sensitive about your own work ;<br />
you laugh now as the reader returns the review<br />
with a funereal air, and remarks solemnly that it<br />
strikes him as being very unfair.<br />
<br />
A good laugh is perhaps the best panacea for<br />
the troubles of a literary beginner ; and, after all,<br />
few of these have not their comical side. A sense<br />
of humour is, they say, a rare thing at the present<br />
day ; how grateful then should one be to the kind<br />
fate which without any trouble on one’s own part<br />
enables one to cultivate it. M.S.<br />
<br />
pecs<br />
<br />
CORRESPONDENCE.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Correspondents are requested to state their case in as few<br />
words as possible where the facts speak for themselves ;<br />
and if they advance opinions to regard brevity before<br />
style. The limited space of the Author requires attention<br />
to these points.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I.—A Joint Stock Company Journal.<br />
ET me sound a note of warning to literary<br />
aspirants who have anything accepted ina<br />
journal conducted by a joint stock com-<br />
pany. Insist on being paid weekly; place no<br />
dependence on promises; if a cheque then is not<br />
forthcoming, do not supply any more copy.<br />
Please read what happened to me because I<br />
neglected these particulars.<br />
<br />
I wished to write a series of weekly articles,<br />
novel in treatment, suitable for a ladies’ journal.<br />
I knew it was useless to apply to one long esta-<br />
blished, whose literary staff was complete, and<br />
whose editor would neither look at nor consider<br />
an outsider’s contribution, no matter how meri-<br />
torious it might be. Accordingly, I called at the<br />
office of a comparatively new journal. I sent my<br />
card to the editress, Miss A., who politely gave<br />
me an audience.<br />
<br />
She had a pleasant, though a somewhat sad,<br />
face, as if the weight of editorial cares had<br />
dispirited her. I briefly explained the ideas for<br />
my intended contributions, and I am pleased to<br />
remark that she fully appreciated them. In fact,<br />
she was so delightfully urbane, that I regretted<br />
344<br />
<br />
that all London journals could not be transformed<br />
into ladies’ journals, controlled by those who<br />
resembled this charming editress. She suggested<br />
a development of my idea, which of course I<br />
assented to. We then discussed terms, and<br />
arrived at a complete understanding upon this<br />
practical matter.<br />
<br />
I sent in my promised articles, which appeared<br />
regularly. I also sent a poem, possessing the<br />
merit of brevity, which had the honour of an<br />
illustration.<br />
<br />
Three weeks having elapsed, I called for my<br />
cheque, but not being fortunate enough to see<br />
anyone connected with the financial administra-<br />
tion, I had to repeat my visit. At last I saw the<br />
charming editress, polite, but sadder than ever ;<br />
and opposite her was seated a solemn young man<br />
with a vinegar visage. Being a very diffident<br />
person I did not press for my account. I merely<br />
asked them when they paid. The solemn man<br />
suggested every three months. He might have<br />
said three years for the matter of that, as the sequel<br />
will show. However, the kinder-hearted editress<br />
agreed to settle accounts once a month, which was<br />
very reassuring. At theend of a month I called.<br />
The vinegar-visaged man informed me that every<br />
cheque had to signed by three people, as the paper<br />
wasa joint stock company, and that the editress,<br />
one of the signatories, was out of town. I had,<br />
therefore to wait till she returned. She stopped<br />
along time away, long enough to have enjoyed a<br />
European tour. Doubtless it was a great relief<br />
from editorial cares to solace herself with travel ;<br />
at the same time, I wanted my cheque.<br />
<br />
At last we met again in one of the offices. My<br />
speech was polite but resolute; I determined<br />
IT would not budge from the spot without my<br />
cheque. The fair editress, as usual, was sweetly<br />
affable. There was a cheque book in front of her.<br />
She opened it. My heart pulsated with joy! She<br />
took up her pen. She rose. ‘‘ Wait a moment,”<br />
she said in mellifluous tones, “I am going into the<br />
ny room to let you have your cheque,” and she<br />
eft.<br />
<br />
I waited patiently and eagerly for an hour.<br />
She never returned. When I eventually went<br />
into the outer office, I was informed that Miss A.<br />
had long ago left. The charming editress had<br />
cleverly eluded me without a word of explana-<br />
tion!<br />
<br />
After further futile efforts to obtain my due,<br />
I placed the matter in the hands of my solicitor,<br />
who obtained judgment against the company for<br />
my debt. I afterwards ascertained that many<br />
judgments were out against them. My amount<br />
was not large enough to wind-up the company,<br />
and none of the other judgment creditors would<br />
join me in doing so.<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
In the face of all this, the paper, well got-up<br />
and illustrated, was carried on for months, but<br />
how, or in what way, is “a mystery of mysteries.”<br />
Last week the place was closed up, so I expect the<br />
concern has either been wound up by themselves<br />
or by the court. AndI conclude that none of the<br />
contributors will ever get a penny for their hard-<br />
earned work. LUNETTE.<br />
<br />
[Copy.]<br />
<br />
DEAR Mapam,—On the 26th of October I applied to the<br />
“A, B. Company” for payment of the £3 3s. due to you. I<br />
wrote again on the 4th of November. I have received no<br />
acknowledgment whatever of either letter. Ihave sent down<br />
three times to the office to see the editor or manager, and have<br />
always been met with the excuse that he is out, even though<br />
I made an appointment to call. Under these circumstances<br />
I can do nothing further, except take proceedings in the<br />
County Court to recover the amount, supposing it to be worth<br />
while to do so, which is doubtful. If you are not disposed<br />
to take proceedings, I cannot help thinking that the matter<br />
should be exposed, and that you cannot do better than write<br />
to the Editor of Truth, setting forth the facts, and asking<br />
him to give publicity to the matter in his journal, and thus<br />
prevent others from being done out of their hardly-earned<br />
prizes.—I remain, yours faithfully (Solicitor’s signature).<br />
<br />
TL—“CHarnLes Lams on PUBLISHERS.”<br />
<br />
As I have been writing under the pseudonym<br />
of “Templar” in a weekly paper for the past<br />
eight years, I may be mistaken for the writer so<br />
signing himself in your issue of last month. I<br />
did not write the letter, nor do I agree with<br />
“Templar” No. 2 in regarding publishers as the<br />
“common enemies of authors.” Publishers are<br />
simply men of business, who, like most persons<br />
engaged in trade for the purpose of making<br />
living or fortune, strike the best bargain they can.<br />
Authors who don’t understand business matters<br />
get imposed on by publishers just as they would<br />
(only more so) in buying a horse or a house, or<br />
driving any other bargain. Hence the value of<br />
an honest literary agent. But I fancy imposi-<br />
tions are less frequently attempted now than when<br />
I was young and simple-minded, owing to the<br />
Society having exposed the methods of the shady<br />
houses. As in other businesses, there are many<br />
honourable men in the publishing trade with<br />
whom it is pleasant to deal, but few, if any of<br />
them, will pay a higher price for MSS. than they<br />
are obliged. Why should they? Unless, indeed,<br />
they are a religious society actuated by very<br />
high principles. Then, of course, great care is<br />
taken by the bishops, deans, &c., who direct the<br />
affairs of the society, to see that no one, whether<br />
it be editor, clerk, shopboy, author, or authoress,<br />
is inadequately compensated for his work.<br />
<br />
Joun BICKERDYKE.<br />
<br />
[‘ Mr. Bickerdyke’s” remarks are true, no doubt,<br />
to a certain extent, but not wholly true. For it<br />
is not a question of price, as a rule, but a question<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
of paying the publisher for managing a property ;<br />
in fact, the royalty system is becoming almost<br />
general. A business agent will best manage the<br />
price in case of a buying and selling transaction.<br />
The royalty is too often managed by the author<br />
himself, to his great loss and injury. Perhaps<br />
“Mr. Bickerdyke’’ would look again at the<br />
Society’s book, “Methods of Publishing.” Or<br />
he might cast an eye upon the two agreements<br />
published in the December Author. He will then<br />
see that it is not just a simple buying and selling.<br />
Of course, the publisher would not give more<br />
than the MS. is worth. Why should he? But<br />
does the Society expect him to do so? We ask<br />
for nothing but fair play.—Eb. |<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
TIl.— EXPERIENCES oF A LiTERARY BEGINNER.<br />
<br />
Lunette’s letter under this heading is interest-<br />
ing, but she seems somewhat unduly surprised at<br />
the degree of success achieved by the ‘‘ beginner”<br />
who detailed his experiences in the Globe. She<br />
specially congratulates him on “ the happy judg-<br />
ment which enabled him to supply copy actually<br />
wanted,” Precisely ; this is half the battle. 'To<br />
suit the contribution to the paper is a principle<br />
which it is to be feared many beginners utterly<br />
neglect. Lunette’s “ five chances to one against<br />
acceptance” will not bear examination. As to<br />
the first, a few journals may never take “ outside”<br />
contributions; but most of those which do<br />
“ possess a regular staff” take contributions from<br />
outsiders when such contributions are suitable,<br />
No. 2 may apply to a few magazines, but hardly<br />
to daily or weekly publications. _ No. 3 is simply<br />
a supposition on the part of Lunette that an<br />
editor does not know his business. Nos. 4 and 5<br />
are matters on which the author can be, as a rule,<br />
as well informed as an editor. It isin neglecting<br />
these two points—suitability and length—that<br />
many “outsiders” waste so much powder and<br />
shot.<br />
<br />
Lunette’s other “chances against success,’<br />
again—“bad handwriting, forced style, and<br />
many others”—are simply faults of the contribu-<br />
tor, not of the editor. It seems slightly absurd<br />
for a man in any profession to describe<br />
querulously his own ignorance, or want of train-<br />
ing, or clumsiness with his tools, as “ chances<br />
against success.” Of course they are, and it is<br />
a beginner’s first duty to overcome such obstacles,<br />
not to complain of them. The use of “ MSS.”<br />
as a substantive singular twice in Lunette’s letter<br />
seems to suggest that her own equipment is not<br />
perfect.<br />
<br />
Perhaps I may be allowed to add my own<br />
experience as an “outsider.” Although I had<br />
written a fair sprinkling of articles, most of<br />
<br />
345<br />
<br />
which were accepted and paid for, before last<br />
year, it was only in 1893 that I made a steady<br />
and systematic use of the pen as a subsidiary<br />
income-earner. I may add that I have no per-<br />
sonal knowledge of any editor, nor any literary<br />
connections whatever; but that from fifteen to<br />
twenty years before I put pen to paper I had<br />
been a diligent reader and student of literature.<br />
Now for my statistics. At the close of 1892 I<br />
had thirty articles unpublished, of which seven-<br />
teen still remained undisposed of. In the course<br />
of 1893 I wrote 108 articles (short and long).<br />
Out of this total of 138 papers, 94 were published<br />
(and paid for) in the course of 1893. This<br />
leaves 44 unpublished; and of these 19 are<br />
accepted and waiting publication, 7 I have<br />
dropped, and 18 are carried forward to 1894.<br />
when I hope to dispose of most of them. My<br />
work does not bring in a large sum, but it does<br />
bring in a substantial and very welcome addition<br />
to a nominal income of very moderate propor-<br />
tions. Moreover, the additional money is earned<br />
by work which fills my leisure hours, and is itself a<br />
constant source of pleasure. I should like to<br />
add that, although some of my papers have had<br />
to knock at several doors before gaining admit-<br />
tance to print, I have always felt, with regard to<br />
those of my papers which have turned out<br />
failures, that their fate was deserved.<br />
<br />
Jan, 10, 1894. Movitua.<br />
<br />
IV.—Tue Reririne Forry.<br />
<br />
Among the “ Notes and News” contained in<br />
the January number of the Author, the fact is<br />
stated that, “ Every year there is a certain per-<br />
centage of members elected, who, as it afterwards<br />
appears, enter in the hope of being helped to<br />
publishers and a public, About forty retire from<br />
the Society every year, either by resignation or<br />
by ceasing to pay their annual subscription,<br />
Most of the forty belong to this mistaken class.<br />
There is no royal road to literary success.”<br />
<br />
Of course not. Everybody knows, or ought to<br />
know, that literature, ¢.e., book writing, is the<br />
deadest of dead failures for more than 75 per<br />
cent. of those who are engaged in it. But there<br />
is something else besides book writing. There<br />
is the vast field of journalism, which either does<br />
pay or may be made to pay. Possibly some of<br />
the forty persons who annually retire from the<br />
membership of the Society of Authors expected<br />
that the Society would assist them in the pursuit<br />
of journalism. Has the Society done all that it<br />
might have done in this direction? The fact that<br />
forty members retire annually is a serious fact,<br />
Are the forty retiring members alone in fault t<br />
Might not something be done to retain themt<br />
The question at least is worth considering, if the<br />
346<br />
<br />
Society intends to remain on its present working<br />
basis.<br />
<br />
Can nothing be done to regulate newspaper<br />
copyright? There are thousands of newspapers<br />
that exist by petty literary larceny. Now, let me<br />
state a case to illustrate my point, and my point<br />
is this: Literary failure is not of necessity due to<br />
the lack of literary ability. A certain author<br />
wrote three books. By the unanimous report of<br />
a large number of very able reviewers they were<br />
pronounced good books, but they failed from a<br />
financial point of view. The author therefore<br />
turned his attention to journalism. His articles<br />
were accepted eagerly by the editors of two daily<br />
papers. He continued to write, and they con-<br />
tinued to print. At length, feeling that he had<br />
in some sense established his position as a writer,<br />
he mildly suggested that he would be pleased to<br />
hear something about guid pro quo. He thought<br />
he would like, say a guinea, or at least half a<br />
guinea, a column. What did these editors say?<br />
They both said exactly the same thing. ‘ We<br />
shall be only too pleased to insert your articles.<br />
We have no fault to find with them, none what-<br />
ever. We naturally prefer original articles when<br />
we can get them for nothing, but we cannot<br />
afford to pay forthem.” Our friend wished these<br />
editors a very good morning, and ceased newspaper<br />
writing as he had ceased book writing, and the<br />
editors who could not or would not afford to pay<br />
for original matter simply went back to their old<br />
game of scissors and paste.<br />
<br />
Now, my point is that there ought to be a<br />
second-hand price for a second-hand article, and<br />
if a provincial editor is content to fill his paper<br />
with extracts he ought to pay for those extracts.<br />
This does not apply to short extracts copied from<br />
a book under review, because, as George Bentley<br />
used to say, the public wants to know what is in<br />
a book, and the reviewer gives a sample. Ifa<br />
publisher complains of this, a wine merchant<br />
might as well complain of his customers sampling<br />
the casks in his cellar.<br />
<br />
The law of copyright requires altering to<br />
prevent wholesale piracy, and if this were done<br />
it would give many a poor author a chance, who<br />
has no chance whatever now.<br />
<br />
In the days of my innocent youth, when papers<br />
of a certain type appeared, I was simple enough<br />
to send a story, and a whole storehouse of literary<br />
odds and ends that I had been some years in<br />
collecting, to a certain office, which held out the<br />
one guinea bait.<br />
<br />
Of course, my little offering was accepted and<br />
used—.e., it was subjected to the process com-<br />
monly called “ gutting,” and I never saw my<br />
guinea. In this way an expensive staff is dis-<br />
pensed with, and a handsome dividend assured to<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
the literary pirate. Nothing would induce me to<br />
purchase a paper of this sort, or to permit its<br />
presence in my house, and so long as such papers<br />
are allowed to flourish the profession of literature<br />
will not be worth cultivating by the rank and file<br />
writer, otherwise known as the common or garden<br />
author. HJ s<br />
[We commend this letter to our friends of the<br />
excellent Institute of Journalists. _ The falling off<br />
of forty members in the year out of over 1200<br />
members—.e., 34 per cent., is no more than is<br />
expected and experienced in every society. The<br />
vacancies are far more than filled up every year,<br />
and our numbers steadily grow. But our corre-<br />
spondent thinks that we ought to do something<br />
more for journalists. Will he kindly read our<br />
Memorandum and Articles of Association, and,<br />
remembering that this document limits and<br />
defines our powers and our aims, advise us as to<br />
what we can do to help aspiring journalists P—<br />
<br />
Ep. |<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
V.—Wantep, Nove tists.<br />
<br />
Coming from England, where literature is an<br />
overstocked profession, it strikes one as curious<br />
to find that there is a country where the demand<br />
for authors exceeds the supply. I have been in-<br />
quiring for modern Greek novels and stories, and<br />
am told that there are almost none. And this in<br />
the city of Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes !<br />
The same answer comes from my Greek friends,<br />
persons of culture and learning, who are anxious<br />
to read, and from booksellers who are anxious to<br />
sell.<br />
<br />
I enter a bookseller’s shop and ask for some<br />
Greek novels; the polite Hellene offers me a<br />
volume in Greek type, and on the paper cover I<br />
find a name which looks ike BEPN. After a<br />
moment’s consideration I perceive that this is the<br />
native rendering of Verne, and I am in the<br />
presence of our old friend Jules! “ But this is<br />
a translation from the French; have you nothing<br />
else ?’’? The bookseller brings forward another<br />
volume, bearing the name of Ouggo, which word<br />
represents Hugo—our old friend Victor.<br />
<br />
I think that if some enterprisimg young<br />
English author would rub up his ancient Greek,<br />
and come here and add to his knowledge an ac-<br />
quaintance with modern Greek, which resembles<br />
the ancient with differences, he might find a<br />
market for original wares which do not sell<br />
readily in England. The Athenians are great<br />
readers ; every shoeblack and cabman devours his<br />
daily—nay, hourly—Acropolis and Ephemeris, as<br />
also his weekly comic paper, Scrip ; but, if anyone<br />
wants a book for himself, a novel for his wife, or<br />
a story for his children, he must needs accept a<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR. 347<br />
<br />
translation from the French, or perchance, though<br />
more rarely, from the English.<br />
F, Bayrorp Harrison.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
VI.—Opps anp Enps.<br />
<br />
I.—A PROFITABLE CATALOGUE.<br />
<br />
An account has just come into my hands in<br />
which the author is charged £5 for advertising<br />
in the publishers’ catalogue. Said catalogue<br />
is forty-eight pages fcap. 8vo. Announcement<br />
of author’s book occupies half a page. The<br />
catalogue would cost for 3000 (the number issued)<br />
about £7 10s. Assuming each author has been<br />
mulcted at the same rate (and I know two others<br />
who have), the transaction would come out thus :<br />
ninety-four half pages (two comprised title) at<br />
£5 — £470, less cost £7 10s. = £462 10s. net<br />
profit to the publisher; not bad in these hard<br />
times. Inthe same account is charged £16 gs. 5d.<br />
for eight and a half reams of paper, my paper<br />
merchant says he would be delighted to supply a<br />
few thousand reams of the same thing at 13s. per<br />
ream.<br />
<br />
II.—A WORD TO THE PUBLISHER OF THE<br />
“ AUTHOR.”<br />
<br />
Will you kindly, my dear Sir, not have the<br />
“‘voucher”’ copies of the Author so tightly<br />
rolled up; why rolled at all? My copy reached<br />
me of the shape and consistency—the paste<br />
having been very liberally applied—of a piece of<br />
a walking stick; and after using it as a ruler for<br />
afew days, I managed to devote a spare quarter<br />
of an hour to unpacking it with a penknife.<br />
When it has lain for a few weeks under a heavy<br />
weight, viz., a volume of last year’s Punch, I<br />
shall then, perhaps, be able to read it without its<br />
curling up in my fingers.<br />
<br />
III.—A COINCIDENCE.<br />
<br />
My friend, Colonel R. Manifold Craig, com-<br />
pleted, in 1892, a charming Anglo-Indian story<br />
entitled “‘ Sacrifice of Fools.” Itis full of Indian<br />
colouring, and has in it a clever description of<br />
the opening of a bridge, and some well-known<br />
local characters, notably, the engineer and others.<br />
<br />
In the last Christmas number of the /llustrated<br />
London News appears a story by Rudyard Kip-<br />
ling entitled ‘“‘The Bridge Builders,’ giving a<br />
description of the opening of a similar bridge, the<br />
same officials, and a number of local events alluded<br />
to by Colonel Craig.<br />
<br />
It is impossible that either of these two writers<br />
could have learned the other’s thoughts in any<br />
way, though they were both in Indi. at the same<br />
time, and both contributing to the same journal,<br />
and were both probably present at the same<br />
ceremony. R.<br />
<br />
VIIl.—Some Meruops or PUBLISHING.<br />
<br />
A few months ago I sent a story to a certain<br />
firm. The reply was that ‘after careful con-<br />
sideration they were happy to inform me they<br />
would publish it. I had only to send cheque<br />
for £55, and it should be in the printer’s hands at<br />
once for that autumn’s sale.” It was then<br />
October. This mode of publishing I declined.<br />
They then gratified their spite by sending me a<br />
pamphlet for “struggling authors.’”’ Having had<br />
three novels accepted by one of the best firms of<br />
the day, besides various stories by a magazine, and<br />
another novel placed for this year, 1 am content<br />
not to consider myself a ‘struggling author.”<br />
<br />
But the point is this: That firm advertised for<br />
MSS. I wished to judge of their method, and<br />
this they at once enabled me to do by forwarding<br />
a catalogue of the books they had published. I<br />
am tolerably well up in current literature, and was<br />
astonished to find that in a fiction list of twenty-<br />
seven pages there is only one book and author of<br />
whom I had ever heard. Yet these books go to<br />
<br />
help to flood the market with useless third-rate<br />
<br />
literature, or sink at once, unknown, unheard of.<br />
The moral is twofold. All these writers are<br />
probably victims of this firm to the tune of £55<br />
and upwards, for mine was a short story ; and<br />
also that good work will find honourable pub-<br />
lishers who can command the best reviewers to<br />
bring it before the public.<br />
Mary Enz. Srevenson.<br />
<br />
[There is hardly a number of the Author since<br />
its commencement in which this precious firm has<br />
not been exposed.—Eb. |<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
——_—_<br />
<br />
VITI.—Tue Reapers’ PEensions.<br />
<br />
In the paragraph in the duthor for January,<br />
referring to the appeal issued by the printers’<br />
readers, this sentence occurs: ‘‘ We think the<br />
appeal would be better received if the committee<br />
would state more clearly how it comes about that<br />
widows were not included in the first pension,<br />
and on what grounds the thirty years’ qualifica-<br />
tion in some cases and twenty years’ in others<br />
was arrived at.”<br />
<br />
Widows are not excluded from the benefits of<br />
the First Readers’ Pension, as is shown by the<br />
following quotation from the appeal for help in<br />
founding the Second Pension: “The First<br />
Readers’ Pension is open to both men and<br />
women, and the qualification is twenty years’<br />
subscription.” Asa matter of fact, the pension<br />
is now held by a widow; while at the election in<br />
March last three widows of readers and the<br />
mother of another reader received votes arising<br />
from the First Readers’ Pension.<br />
<br />
The reason for the rather long subscription<br />
348 THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
qualification is that the pensions granted by the<br />
Printers’ Pension Corporation are graduated<br />
according to the length of membership of the<br />
Corporation. As the pension for readers founded<br />
by the Rev. Francis Jacox are equal to those<br />
enjoyed by subscribers to the Corporation for<br />
forty years, the Council stipulated that a reader<br />
to be eligible for a Jacox pension must have sub-<br />
scribed for at least thirty years. In the same<br />
way the Council required a twenty years’ sub-<br />
scription from every candidate for the First<br />
Readers’ Pension, it being of the value of £16 a<br />
year. If, as will probably be the case, the Second<br />
Pension is smaller, the subscription qualification<br />
will be proportionately reduced.<br />
<br />
It may be of interest to add that, assisted by<br />
the votes from the First Readers’ Pension, a<br />
reader who was eighty-one years of age, and<br />
another who was incapacitated by partial blind-<br />
ness, were both elected on their first application<br />
for a pension.<br />
<br />
Two hundred guineas have been placed in the<br />
hands of the Printers’ Pension Corporation<br />
towards the foundation of the Second Readers’<br />
Pension, and further donations will be gladly<br />
welcomed. Only a month ago the London Asso-<br />
ciation of Correctors of the Press—the repre-<br />
sentative body of the printers’ readers of London<br />
—voted 10 guineas to the Second Pension, and<br />
the University Press, Cambridge, has given a<br />
like amount. Joun Ranpatt, Hon. Sec.<br />
<br />
Atheneum Press, Bream’s-buildings.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
IX.—Tue Meruops or PusLisHING.<br />
<br />
I have often noticed in the Author more or less<br />
serious mistakes arising from incomplete technical<br />
knowledge of the inner workings of a publishing<br />
firm. In the January number, however, a very<br />
misleading statement occurs, which was perhaps<br />
only a slip of the pen. In commenting on the<br />
transactions of the S.P.C.K. with the late Mrs.<br />
Ewing, you state that the publishers received<br />
gd. per copy for a shilling book, leaving them<br />
a profit of 33d. after paying the author 57d.<br />
As a fact, the publishers received at the most<br />
7d. to 7id. per copy, taking into consideration<br />
the odd copies to the dozen, American and<br />
other export sales—probably a considerable item<br />
—and extra trade discounts. Their profit is thus<br />
reduced to 2d.. and out of this, from the figures<br />
you give, I suppose they would have to pay for<br />
advertising and cataloguing, as well as the<br />
expenses of distribution, a factor which cannot<br />
be overlooked in such a case. In writing on<br />
the subject of business expenses some time ago<br />
you said that if a publisher reckoned his expenses,<br />
the author should also reckon his; and in some<br />
<br />
cases—e.g., when the publisher commissions an<br />
author to write a book, or when it is published<br />
on “half-profits” — the author’s expenses in-<br />
curred in its production should be placed to<br />
the debit of the account. But it cannot “be<br />
worth a publisher’s while to undertake a book<br />
on such terms as will not allow him to cover<br />
the expenses of distributing and pushing it.<br />
These expenses may be reckoned at 10 per cent.<br />
of his receipts, and it will thus be seen that<br />
the publishers’ profit in the case in question<br />
was about the same as, or more probably less,<br />
than that of the author, and not three times as<br />
much, as you state.<br />
<br />
May I say, too, that I think you habitually<br />
underrate the immense amount of work entailed<br />
in the publication of a book? It is most em-<br />
phatically not a mere matter of routine, except<br />
possibly in some forms of novel publishing.<br />
Every book has to be treated individually from<br />
start to finish; the style, type, and paper care-<br />
fully thought out, the binding settled, and when<br />
this is done, and the book has been seen through<br />
the press and produced, special means have to<br />
be taken to bring it before the right class of<br />
buyers in each particular case. If the book is<br />
illustrated the labour and care required is of<br />
course greatly increased. But it is not possible<br />
to give an outsider any idea of the amount.of<br />
time and trouble necessary to the production of<br />
a satisfactory book. You speak often of “ secret<br />
profits,” and I do not deny that they may exist<br />
in some firms—on this point your experience is<br />
worth more than mine—but you do not take into.<br />
account the secret losses and secret expenses<br />
incurred by the publisher. To give the bare cost<br />
of composition, &c., paper, print, binding, and<br />
advertising, does not convey an adequate idea of<br />
the expense of bringing out a book. Publishing<br />
is not so simple a matter as you would have<br />
authors believe. I inclose my card, and remain,—<br />
Yours faithfully, CLERK.<br />
<br />
[As regards the S.P.C.K., their publications are<br />
sold chiefly, I believe, at their own depots, but<br />
very largely by private order from schools, clergy-<br />
men, and others. Put the case this way, however.<br />
Sold in this way the shilling book produces 9d.<br />
Sold in smaller quantities through the trade the<br />
shilling books produce, I am told, 73d. But it<br />
may be 7d. if our correspondent chooses, At all<br />
events, we were perfectly well advised as to the<br />
facts. As regards the general question, we have<br />
no desire to minimise the work done by the<br />
publisher, for which he is paid by having a share<br />
in the property. At the same time we must insist<br />
that with most books produced the work is sheer<br />
routine, and that the amount of thought and<br />
care devoted to a book—always excepting those<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
e<br />
uk<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
100<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
few which must be excepted—are very small.<br />
For instance, the thought and care expended over<br />
the production of such a book as Stanley’s latest<br />
work must have been very great indeed. But<br />
the thought and care expended on a three-volume<br />
novel, or a six-shilling novel, or a book of essays,<br />
or a book of poems, are very small indeed, and<br />
not worth considering. It is routine work. In<br />
the same way with the placing of a book.<br />
An exceptional volume will call for exceptional<br />
treatment. An ordinary volume surely requires<br />
nothing but routine work. In most houses this<br />
is all, certainly, that it receives. One does<br />
not deny that the production of a book entails<br />
labour, but for the most part it is routine labour.<br />
As regards “secret profits,” our correspondent<br />
wants us to balance against them “secret<br />
losses.” One does not understand what are secret<br />
losses. Some books do produce a remunerative<br />
return; some books do not pay bare expenses.<br />
These things happen, no doubt; but what are<br />
“secret losses” ? And as for secret profits, our<br />
correspondent must not forget that the law speaks<br />
very harshly indeed of the man who spends £100<br />
in producing a book and tells his partner that he<br />
has spent £120; and that is what we mean by<br />
secret profits. To get secret profits the accounts<br />
must be falsified, and the falsification of accounts<br />
means—what? Let our correspondent reply.<br />
Therefore, when we speak of “secret profits,” we<br />
refuse to remember anything except the Com-<br />
mandments andthe Law. There is another point.<br />
Profit, in every other business, is the difference<br />
between proceeds by sale and cost of production.<br />
So it is, of course, in publishing. And when<br />
people talk about publisher’s profit beginning<br />
after he has paid all his clerks and people, they<br />
forget the very important question—* What<br />
claim has the publisher to any share in the book<br />
when his services are paid?” We do not say<br />
that he has none, but we should like to know<br />
what, and why, it is? Then, how is the estimate<br />
of 10 per cent. arrived at? We do not say that<br />
it is wrong, but where are the figures? We have<br />
no right toask? But, indeed, we have; because<br />
those figures affect the administration of our own<br />
property. Then about this 2d. or 24d or 44d.<br />
profit on each volume. Let us take the book in<br />
question. Our correspondent asks if the adver-<br />
tising, cataloguing, and distribution are to come<br />
out of it? Of course they are. Suppose a sale<br />
of 30,000—in this case it was more—the S.P.C.K.<br />
profit at 2d., 23d. or 32d.a volume would be<br />
£250, £312, or £418. Does our correspondent<br />
seriously maintain that more than a mere fraction<br />
of this money would be spent in advertising,<br />
cataloguing (7.e., the services of the humblest<br />
boy clerk), and distributing ?—Ep.]<br />
<br />
349<br />
WHAT THE PAPERS SAY.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I—tTue Baroness Tautpuevs.<br />
<br />
ARONESS JEMIMA VON TAUTPHEUS,<br />
author of the popular novels “The Initials,”<br />
<br />
“ Quits,” “ At Odds,” and “ Cyrilla,” died<br />
<br />
at Munich on Nov. 12, in the eighty-sixth year<br />
of her age. Her maiden name was Montgomery,<br />
and she was of Irish birth, with a strain of<br />
Scotch blood in her veins. In 1836 she visited<br />
Munich, where she married Baron von Taut-<br />
pheeus. The fruit of this union was one son,<br />
who died some eight years ago as Bavarian<br />
Ambassador at Rome. The shock occasioned<br />
by the sudden death of their only child so<br />
affected her husband that he fell into a decline<br />
and expired a few weeks later. Baroness von<br />
Tautphceus was a cousin of Maria Edgeworth,<br />
and one of the pleasantest and most vivid recol-<br />
lections of her youth was her association with<br />
this charming lady and with the versatile and<br />
somewhat eccentric Lady Morgan. She was<br />
endowed in an eminent degree with the fresh and<br />
kindly humour which is the heirloom of her race,<br />
and which in her case age could not wither nor<br />
the severest blows of fate wholly destroy. It<br />
was this genial quality which in her childhood<br />
and early maidenhood caused her family and<br />
friends to pun on her name and call her “the<br />
gem.’ Her novels, like Jane Austen’s, have<br />
taken the rank of English classics, and seem to<br />
have suffered no diminution in popularity during<br />
the forty years that have elapsed since she pub-<br />
lished her first work of fiction. Edition has suc-<br />
ceeded edition with remarkable regularity up to<br />
the present time, and only a few weeks before<br />
her decease a new German translation of “ Quits”<br />
appeared at Weimar, and was warmly greeted by<br />
the German press. It is also pleasant to note<br />
that she received from the sale of her works in<br />
the United States, where there was no legal<br />
obligation to pay her anything, a much larger<br />
sum than from her London publisher.* In her<br />
contract with the latter she was far too modest,<br />
and consented to accept whatever pittance he<br />
chose to offer, so that her pecuniary compensa-<br />
tion was very trifling, and bore no proportion to<br />
the literary and commercial value of her writings.<br />
A like modesty led her persistently to refuse to<br />
furnish editors of biographical dictionaries and<br />
compilers of cyclopedias with any information<br />
concerning her life ; to the numerous applications<br />
of the kind received she uniformly replied that<br />
her place in literature was not sufficiently con-<br />
spicuous to render personal items of this sort of<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
~ * Her American publishers were Henry Holt and Co.—<br />
Eps. Critic.<br />
30°<br />
<br />
any interest to the general public. For this<br />
reason her name nowhere appears in such books<br />
of reference, and not the slightest sketch of her<br />
life derived from authentic sources has ever been<br />
printed. No urgency on the part of her friends<br />
could overcome this native reserve; even her<br />
husband knew nothing of her literary work or<br />
ever saw her engaged in it, and was as surprised<br />
as any stranger would have been when the finished<br />
volumes lay on the table before him. After his<br />
death she shrank from forming new acquaint-<br />
ances, and confined her social intercourse to a<br />
sympathetic circle composed of her nearest kin<br />
and a few congenial friends. She now lies at<br />
rest by his side in the family vault at their<br />
country seat, Castle Marquardsteim, in the<br />
Bavarian Highlands.— The Evening Post.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Il.—TyPr-wRiTINne.<br />
<br />
The ways of that particular class of Indian<br />
vermin known as “the common anonymous peti-<br />
tioner” are peculiar. One of them lately indited<br />
an elaborate series of charges against a superior<br />
magistrate. “This new hakfm [wise man ],”<br />
wrote the complainant, “ habitually neglects his<br />
duty, All day in kachahri [cutcherry, the office]<br />
he amuses himself by playing the baja [piano],<br />
and never listens to the witnesses who come<br />
before him.” The instrument on which this<br />
unhappy judge really performs is a type-writer,<br />
with which, being threatened by writer’s cramp,<br />
he has to record the depositions !—Bombay<br />
Gazette.<br />
<br />
7<br />
<br />
“AT THE SIGN OF THE AUTHOR'S HEAD.”<br />
<br />
R. F. HOWARD COLLINS (Churchfield,<br />
Edgbaston, Birmingham) is endeavouring<br />
to get together a collection of corrected<br />
<br />
proofs and of the charges, by publisher or printer,<br />
for the corrections. Neither the charge nor the<br />
proof is valuable singly. They are wanted<br />
together for comparison. He invites readers of<br />
the Author to assist him by the loan of the first<br />
proofs, with the MS. corrections upon them, and<br />
the bill for corrections as rendered to the author.<br />
The names of the lenders will be regarded as<br />
confidential, and the proofs, &c., returned as soon<br />
as they have been tabulated.<br />
<br />
“Safe Studies” is a volume of essays by the<br />
Hon. Mr. and Mrs. Lionel Tollemache (William<br />
Rice, 86, Fleet-street). It contains essays on and<br />
recollections of Charles Austen, Grote, Babbage,<br />
Dean Stanley, and Charles Kingsley, with other<br />
papers, all reprinted from the Fortnightly Review,<br />
where many of our readers have seen them.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
“Stones of Stumbling” (second edition, and<br />
same publisher), by the Hon. Lionel Tollemache,<br />
is another collection of essays, also reprinted from<br />
magazines. It contains four papers—on “ A Cure<br />
for Incurables,” “‘ The Fear of Death,” ‘‘ Fearless<br />
Death,” ‘The ‘Divme Economy of Truth,”<br />
“ Recollections of Pattison,” and others.<br />
<br />
Mrs. Rentoul Essler has written a volume<br />
called “ The Way they Loved at Grimpat,” village<br />
idylls, consisting of nine short stories, which<br />
show that the author of the “ Way of Trans-<br />
gressors”” is equally skilful in either form of<br />
romantic literature.<br />
<br />
Under the title of “Songs Grave and Gay”<br />
(Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings,<br />
E.C.), Mr. Doveton has collected a variety of<br />
his poetical contributions to different journals,<br />
including our own pages. Our readers are<br />
acquainted with his more serious work, we there-<br />
fore give an example of one of his more humorous<br />
productions. The two following stanzas are from<br />
a poem called “ Belittling Byron”:<br />
<br />
I have some leisure time to-day,<br />
My proofs are all corrected,<br />
And for my “ Memories of Gay”<br />
The data I’ve collected.<br />
I’ve finished, too, that touching rhyme,<br />
“ The ills that men environ,”<br />
What shall I do to pass my time,<br />
Why, I'll belittle Byron.<br />
* * * * * *<br />
<br />
His breast was thrilled with martial fire,<br />
To free a fallen nation,<br />
But striking the poetic lyre<br />
Was not his true vocation.<br />
His slipshod muse lacks subtlety,<br />
Our modern bards have blamed him,<br />
And then with ease—this should not be—<br />
His readers understand him.<br />
<br />
Miss N. A. Woods has brought out a little<br />
book of verses called “ Rosemary,” some of<br />
which have already been published. The follow-<br />
ing is part of a poem called “ A Tryst”:<br />
<br />
Come to me, sweet, for the lights are low,<br />
And the whole wide house is still ;<br />
<br />
The duties were ended long ago,<br />
And the heart may have her will.<br />
<br />
It is all so quiet—no leaf was stirred<br />
Since the darkness fell outside ;<br />
<br />
There is only that faint far-moan we heard,<br />
Darling, the night you died.<br />
<br />
Was it death indeed? were the stories true<br />
Of the harps and fadeless flowers ;<br />
<br />
Or is there a world beyond the blue<br />
Human and real as ours ?<br />
<br />
“Down by the Sea,” by Sydney Wyatt, is a<br />
shilling volume, The author gives a series of<br />
sketches of an imaginary place called “ Ditch-<br />
boro’-on-Sea,”’ its peculiarities, and its characters,<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Sam RP Gin RO lg<br />
<br />
ee ee<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
|<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
where the chief personages in the story are<br />
supposed to spend their holiday.<br />
<br />
Mr. C. Adley has written an allegorical poem<br />
on the legend of Beowulf called “The Victorious<br />
Hero.” It is a narrative told in some 450<br />
stanzas, of which, with the exception of one or<br />
two songs, the following are examples :<br />
<br />
Mysterious the wondrous lay<br />
Of doughty combats bold,<br />
Erstwhile borne down the rifts of time,<br />
From weird wraith days of old.<br />
Inspired with loftiest chivalry,<br />
‘vheir gallantry, their pride,<br />
For woman’s love they dared the worst,<br />
For woman’s honour died.<br />
<br />
We have lately come across a little pamphlet<br />
entitled “The Blessedness of Books,” which is part<br />
of an address delivered by Mr. Showell Rogers at<br />
the Bearwood Institute, Birmingham, in October,<br />
1893. There can be no better idea than to try<br />
and create in the people of our large towns a taste<br />
for book-buying—they would thus learn to think<br />
more of the free library as a charity which must<br />
not be abused —because they would better under-<br />
stand how much the books in the free libraries<br />
must have cost.<br />
<br />
The author of “Mark Tillotson” is hardly<br />
likely to issue another novel this year, as it is<br />
stated he has received a commission to do one of<br />
the “Pen and Pencil” Series, as the one on<br />
Greece by Professor Mahaffy, for the Religious<br />
Tract Society; and this society will also shortly<br />
issue another volume by the same author, upon<br />
“A Great Forgotten Englishman,” being the life<br />
of Peter Payne, who formed the link between<br />
Wyclif and Luther. Mr. James Baker will make<br />
a tour in Bohemia early in the spring, this being<br />
his seventh journey through that country. He<br />
was elected a Fellow of the Journalists’ Institute<br />
at the last council meeting.<br />
<br />
Miss E. C. Traice has written a small volume<br />
forthe young called “ Mistress Elizabeth Spencer,”<br />
the scene of which is laid in the reign of Queen<br />
Elizabeth. It is a romantic little story, the<br />
Queen herself playing the chief part in bringing<br />
the love interest to a satisfactory conclusion.<br />
<br />
The Arena (the Boston magazine now pub-<br />
lished in this country by Messrs. Gay and Bird)<br />
has in its January number, among some sixteen<br />
articles, two which are of especial interest to “ our<br />
side.” One is the third paper on Gerald Massey,<br />
poet, prophet, and critic, by the editor, Mr. B. O.<br />
Flower ; and the other is “Silver in England,” by<br />
the Hon. John Davis, M.C. The latter treats<br />
some of the points in the silver question from a<br />
historical point of view, which clearly brings home<br />
<br />
33?<br />
<br />
to us how dangerous, and perbaps at the same<br />
time how widespread, is the fallacy of believing<br />
that money is in any way the creation of the<br />
State because the coins happen to bear national<br />
badges stamped upon them. In a notice of<br />
the report of the Congress of Religion at<br />
Chicago, to be published shortly, we find this, to<br />
us, extremely odd phrase: “It was the first<br />
Ecumenical Council the world had ever seen—the<br />
first time there assembled together<br />
representatives of the earth’s great religions (if we<br />
except a few high evangelicals of Christendom).”’<br />
The italics are ours. If this is the Church of<br />
England, in the case of Read and others v. The<br />
Lord Bishop of Lincoln, which was the high<br />
evangelical ?<br />
<br />
Mrs. Tweedie’s book, “A Winter Jaunt in<br />
Norway,” has just been brought out by Messrs.<br />
Bliss, Sands, and Foster, and has already hada<br />
considerable success at the libraries.<br />
<br />
A volume of poems by Mr. Francis H. Clifte is<br />
in the press, and will shortly be published by<br />
Remington and Co.<br />
<br />
By an oversight in the last number of the<br />
Author the name of P. W. Clayden was men-<br />
tioned as that of the editor of the Daily News.<br />
The editor is Sir John Robinson.<br />
<br />
The letter by Mrs. Ewing quoted in the same<br />
number was said to be dated 1889. The letter is<br />
dated “13th May, 1884.”<br />
<br />
One more erratum. By some accident Mr.<br />
Stanley Lane Poole’s new book was omitted in the<br />
lists of the month. It is called “The Moham-<br />
madan Dynasties,’’containing Chronological Tables<br />
of all the 118 Dynasties of the Mohammadan<br />
Empire from the Foundation of the Caliphate to<br />
the Present Day. (Westminster: Archibald Con-<br />
stable and Co., Publishers to the India Office, 14,<br />
Parliament-street, S.W.)<br />
<br />
Messrs. Tillotson and Sons’ List of Authors for<br />
1894 includes most of the best known names in<br />
<br />
current fictional literature. Serials have been<br />
secured from Mr. William Black, Mr. Hall Caine,<br />
<br />
Miss Braddon, Mr. G. Manville Fenn, Mr. D.<br />
C. Murray, Miss Dora Russell, Mr. Henry<br />
Herman, Mr. W. Clark Russell, Mr. F. W.<br />
<br />
Robinson, Miss Florence Marryat, Mr. Joseph<br />
Hatton, and Mrs. Hungerford.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
352 THE<br />
NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
History and Biography.<br />
<br />
AsHpown, CHarues H. St. Albans Historical and<br />
Picturesque, with an account of the Roman city of<br />
Verulamium. Illustrated by Frederic G. Kitton.<br />
Elliot Stock.<br />
<br />
CAMPBELL, J. DYKES.<br />
Nar-rative of the Events of his Life.<br />
10s. 6d.<br />
<br />
Conway, Moncurr D. Centenary History of the South-<br />
place Society. Based on four discourses given in the<br />
chapel in May and June, 1893. With appendix con-<br />
taining an address by Mr. Fox in 1842, an original<br />
poem by Mrs. Adams, 1836, and a discourse by Mr.<br />
Conway, 1893. Williams and Norgate. 5s.<br />
<br />
Epers, GEorG. The Story of My Life from Childhood to<br />
Manhood. ‘Translated by Mary J. Safford. With<br />
portraits. Hirchfeld.<br />
<br />
Furnt, Ropert. History of the Philosophy of History.<br />
Historical Philosophy in France and French-Belgium<br />
and Switzerland. Blackwood.<br />
<br />
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Authors and their Public in Ancient Times... ae sas ore O29 What the Papers say.—l. The Baroness Tautpheeus.—2. Type-<br />
Book Talk. ByJ.W.S. ... ee we ee ae nt wise writing ae eh es a ss a see an<br />
A Toast. By Arthur A.Sykes ... soe ese oe aus See “ At the Sign of the Author’s Head”<br />
<br />
Notes and News. By the Editor... ce He ace a we BBE New Books and New Editions<br />
<br />
PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The Annual Report. That for January 1893 can be had on application to the Secretary.<br />
<br />
The Author. A Monthly Journal devoted especially to the protection and maintenance of Literary<br />
Property. Issued to all Members. Back numbers are offered at the following prices:<br />
Vol. I., 10s. 6d. (Bound) ; Vols. II. and II1., 8s. 6d. each (Bound).<br />
<br />
The Grievances of Authors. (The Leadenhall Press.) Is. The Report of three Meetings on<br />
the general subject of Literature and its defence, held at Willis’s Rooms, March, 1887.<br />
<br />
Literature and the Pension List. By W. Morris Cotxzs, Barrister-at-Law. (Henry Glaisher,<br />
95, Strand, W.C.) 35.<br />
<br />
‘The History of the Société des Gens de Lettres. By S. Squire Spricar, late Secretary to<br />
the Society. 1s.<br />
The Cost of Production, In this work specimens are given of the most important forms of type,<br />
<br />
size of page, &c., with estimates showing what it costs to produce the more common kinds of<br />
books. Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C. 2s. 6d.<br />
<br />
The Various Methods of Publication. By S. Squire Spricer. In this work, compiled from the<br />
papers in the Society’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 various<br />
kinds of fraud which have been made possible by the different clauses in their agreements.<br />
Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C. 3s.<br />
<br />
Copyright Law Reform. An Exposition of Lord Monkswell’s Copyright Bill now before Parlia-<br />
ment. With Extracts from the Report of the Commission of 1878, and an Appendix<br />
containing the Berne Convention and the American Copyright Bill. By J. M. Leny. Eyre<br />
and Spottiswoode. 1s. 6d.<br />
<br />
The Society of Authors. A Record of its Action from its Foundation. By Wauter Besant<br />
(Chairman of Committee, 1888—1892). Is.<br />
<br />
<br />
318<br />
<br />
ADVERTISEMENTS.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The Society of Authors (BSncorporated).<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
PRESIDENT.<br />
<br />
GHORGEH MBEREDITE.<br />
<br />
Str Epwin ARNOLD, K.C.I1.E., C.S.1.<br />
ALFRED AUSTIN.<br />
<br />
J. M. BARRIE.<br />
<br />
A. W. A BecKert.<br />
<br />
Rogpert BATEMAN.<br />
<br />
Str Henry Berene, K.C.M.G.<br />
WALTER BESANT.<br />
<br />
AUGUSTINE BIRRELL, M.P.<br />
<br />
Rev. Pror. Bonney, F.RB.S.<br />
Rieut Hon. James Bryce, M.P.<br />
Hau CAINE.<br />
<br />
EGERTON CastTue, F.S.A.<br />
<br />
P. W. CLAYDEN.<br />
<br />
EDWARD CLopD.<br />
<br />
W. Morris Cougs.<br />
<br />
Hon. JoHN COLLIER.<br />
<br />
W. Martin Conway.<br />
<br />
F. Marion CRAWFORD.<br />
<br />
OswaLD CRAWFURD, O.M.G.<br />
<br />
Hon.<br />
<br />
COUNCIL.<br />
<br />
Tae Earu oF DEsart.<br />
Austin Dosson.<br />
A. Conan Dorie, M.D.<br />
A. W. DusBourea.<br />
J. Eric Ertcusen, F.R.S.<br />
Pror. Micuart Foster, F.R.S.<br />
Riaut Hon. HERBERT GARDNER, M.P.<br />
RIcHARD GARNETT, LL.D.<br />
EpmunpD Gossk.<br />
H. Riper Hage@arp.<br />
Tuomas Harpy.<br />
JEROME K. JEROME.<br />
RupDYARD KIPLING.<br />
Pror. E. Ray LANKESTER, F.R.S.<br />
J. M. Lery.<br />
Rey. W. J. Lorri, F.S.A.<br />
Pror. Max-MU.uueErR.<br />
Pror. J. M. D. MEIKLEJOHN.<br />
HERMAN C. MERIVALE.<br />
Counsel — E. M. UNDERDOWN,<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Rev. C. H. MippLETON-WAKE.<br />
<br />
Lewis Morris.<br />
<br />
J.C. PARKINSON.<br />
<br />
THE Earu oF PEMBROKE AND Mont-<br />
GOMERY.<br />
<br />
Str FREDERICK POLLOcK, BART., LL.D.<br />
<br />
WALTER HERRIES PoLLocK.<br />
<br />
A. G. Ross.<br />
<br />
GrorGE AuGusTus SALA.<br />
<br />
W. BapristE Scoonss.<br />
<br />
G. R. Srus.<br />
<br />
8. Squrre SpRIGGE.<br />
<br />
J. J. STEVENSON.<br />
<br />
Jas. SULLY.<br />
<br />
Wiiiram Moy THomas.<br />
<br />
H. D. Tram, DCL.<br />
<br />
E. M. UnpERDOWN, Q.C.<br />
<br />
Baron HENRY DEWorms, M.P., F.R.S.<br />
<br />
EpMUND YATES.<br />
<br />
Q.Cc.<br />
<br />
COMMITTEE OF MANAGEMENT.<br />
<br />
Chairman—Si1rn FREDERICK PoLiock, Bart, LL.D.<br />
<br />
A. W. A Beckett.<br />
WALTER BESANT.<br />
<br />
Hon. JOHN CoLLinR<br />
W. Martin Conway.<br />
<br />
J, Mi. Lane.<br />
A. G. Ross.<br />
<br />
EGERTON CASTLE. | EpMuND GossE. S. Squire SpPRIGGE.<br />
<br />
W. Morris Couuzs. H. Riper Haae@arp.<br />
Solicitors—Messrs. Freup, Roscon, and Co., Lincoln’s Inn Fields.<br />
<br />
OFFICES :<br />
<br />
Secretary—G. HERBERT Turina, B.A.<br />
4, PortugaL STREET, Lincoun’s InN Fretps, W.C.<br />
<br />
Windsor House<br />
<br />
PRINTING WORKS,<br />
BREAM’S BUILDINGS, E.C.<br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
OFFICES OF “THE FIELD,” “THE QUEEN,” ~ THE LAW TIMES Ga.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Mr. HORACE COX, Printer to the Authors’ Society, takes the<br />
opportunity of informing Authors that, having a very large office, and<br />
an extensive plant of type of every description, he is in a position to<br />
EXECUTE any PRINTING they may entrust to his care.<br />
<br />
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