| 317 | https://historysoa.com/items/show/317 | The Author, Vol. 09 Issue 01 (June 1898) | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Author%3C%2Fem%3E%2C+Vol.+09+Issue+01+%28June+1898%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 09 Issue 01 (June 1898)</a> | | | <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101063829988" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101063829988</a> | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Publication">Publication</a> | 1898-06-01-The-Author-9-1 | | | | | 1–28 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=9">9</a> | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1898-06-01">1898-06-01</a> | | | | | | | 1 | | | 18980601 | ^Tbe Butbor,<br />
(The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.)<br />
CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT.<br />
Vol. IX.—No. i.] JUNE i, 1898. [Price Sixpence.<br />
For the Opinions expressed in papers that are<br />
signed or initialled the Authors alone are<br />
responsible. None of the papers or para-<br />
graphs must be taken as expressing the<br />
collective opinions of the Committee unless<br />
they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br />
Thring, Sec.<br />
<br />
THE Seoretary of the Society begs to give notice that all<br />
remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and<br />
requests that all members not receiving an answer to<br />
important communications within two days will write to him<br />
without delay. All remittances should be crossed Union<br />
Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered<br />
letter only.<br />
Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on<br />
all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub-<br />
jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are<br />
returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS.<br />
GENERAL MEMORANDA.<br />
FOB some years it has been the practice to insert, in<br />
every number of The Author, certain "General Con-<br />
siderations," Warnings, Notices, Ac, for the guidance<br />
of the reader. It has been objected as regards these<br />
warnings that the tricks or frauds against which they are<br />
directed cannot all be guarded against, for obvious reasons.<br />
It is, however, well that they should be borne in mind, and<br />
if any publisher refuses a olause of precaution he simply<br />
reveals his true character, and should be left to carry on<br />
his business in his own way.<br />
Let us, however, draw up a few of the rules to be<br />
observed in an agreement. There are three methods of<br />
dealing with literary property:—<br />
I. That of selling it outright.<br />
This is in some respects the most satisfactory, if a proper<br />
price can be obtained. But the transaction should be<br />
managed by a competent agent.<br />
II. A profit-sharing agreement.<br />
In this case the following rules should be attended to:<br />
(1.) Not to sign any agreement in which the cost of pro-<br />
duction forms a part.<br />
(2.) Not to give the publisher the power of putting the<br />
profits into his own pocket by charging for advertisements<br />
VOL. IX.<br />
in his own organs: or by charging exchange advertise-<br />
ments.<br />
(3.) Not to allow a special charge for " office expenses,"<br />
unless the samo allowance is made to the author.<br />
(4.) Not to give np American, Colonial, or Continental<br />
rights.<br />
(5.) Not to give up serial or translation rights.<br />
(6.) Not to bind yourself for future work to any publisher.<br />
As well bind yourself for the future to any one solicitor or<br />
doctor!<br />
(7.) To stamp the agreement.<br />
III. The royalty system.<br />
In this system, which has opened the door to a most<br />
amazing amount of overreaching and trading on the<br />
author's ignorance, it is above all things necessary to know<br />
what the proposed royalty means to both sides. It is now<br />
possible for an anthor to ascertain approximately and very<br />
nearly the truth. From time to time the very important<br />
figures connected with royalties are published in The Author.<br />
Headers can also work out the figures themselves from the<br />
"Cost of Production." Let no one, not even the youngest<br />
writer, sign a royalty agreement without finding out what<br />
it gives the publisher as well as himself.<br />
It has been objected that these precautions presuppose a<br />
great success for the book, and that very few books indeed<br />
attain to this great success. That is quite true: but there is<br />
always this uncertainty of literary property that, although<br />
the works of a great many authors carry with them no risk<br />
at all, and although of a great many it is known within a few<br />
copies what will be their minimum circulation, it is not<br />
known what will be their maximum. Therefore every<br />
author, for every book, should arrange on the chance of a<br />
success which will not, probably, come at all; but which<br />
may come.<br />
The four points which the Society has always demanded<br />
from the outset are:—<br />
(1.) That both sides shall know what an agreement<br />
means.<br />
(2.) The inspection of those aaoount books which belong<br />
to the author. We are advised that this is a right, in the<br />
nature of a common law right, which cannot be denied or<br />
withheld.<br />
(3.) That there shall be no secret profits.<br />
(4.) That nothing shall be charged which has not been<br />
actually paid—for instance, that there shall be no charge for<br />
advertisements in the publisher's own organs and none for<br />
exchanged advertisements and that all disaounta shall be<br />
duly entered.<br />
If these points are carefully looked after, the author may<br />
rest pretty well assured that he is in right hands. At the<br />
same time he will do well to send his agreement to th<br />
secretary before he signs it.<br />
B 2<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 2 (#14) ###############################################<br />
<br />
2<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br />
I. Ij^VEEY member has a right to ask for and to receive<br />
■ "J advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub-<br />
lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his<br />
business or the administration of his property. If the advice<br />
sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member<br />
has a right to an opinion from the Society's solicitors. If the<br />
case is such that Counsel's opinion is desirable, the Com-<br />
mittee will obtain for him Counsel's opinion. All this<br />
without any cost to the member.<br />
2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br />
and publisher's agreements do not generally fall within the<br />
experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br />
to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually<br />
engaged upon such questions for us.<br />
3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past<br />
accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in<br />
order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree-<br />
ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively<br />
so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any<br />
agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor-<br />
mation thus obtained may prove invaluable.<br />
4. If the examination of your previous business trans-<br />
actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, yon should<br />
take advice as to a change of publishers.<br />
5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro-<br />
posed document to the Society for examination.<br />
6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in<br />
the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish-<br />
ing firm in the country.<br />
7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you<br />
are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are<br />
reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing<br />
the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen-<br />
dence of the writer.<br />
8. Send to the Editor of The Author notes of every-<br />
thing important to literature that you may hear or meet<br />
with.<br />
9. The Committee have now arranged for the reception of<br />
members' agreements and their preservation in a fireproof<br />
safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con-<br />
fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who<br />
will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:—(1)<br />
To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To<br />
stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon<br />
them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments<br />
due according to agreements.<br />
NOTICES.<br />
E Editor of The Author begs to remind members of the<br />
Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br />
of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very<br />
heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br />
many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br />
6s. 6i2. subscription for the year.<br />
The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and<br />
communications on all subjects connected with literature<br />
from members and others. Nothing can do more good to<br />
the Society than to make The Author complete, attractive,<br />
and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this<br />
work send their names and the special subjects on which<br />
they are willing to write?<br />
Communications for Tlie Author should reach the Editor<br />
not later than the 21st of each month.<br />
All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether<br />
members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate<br />
to the Editor any points connected with their work whicb<br />
it would be advisable in the general interest to publish.<br />
Members and others who wish their MSS. read are<br />
requested not to send them to the Office without previously<br />
communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable<br />
despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in<br />
which they are received. It must also be distinctly under-<br />
stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances,<br />
undertake the publication of MSS.<br />
The present location of the Authors' Club is at 3, White-<br />
hall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for<br />
information, rules of admission, Ac.<br />
Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br />
have paid their subscriptions for the year? If they will do<br />
this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker's<br />
order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the<br />
trouble of sending out a reminder.<br />
Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br />
following warning. It is a most foolish and may be a<br />
most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding<br />
for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they<br />
would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five<br />
years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest<br />
or dishonest? Of course they would not. Why then<br />
hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them-<br />
selves into literary bondage for three or five years?<br />
"Those who possess the 'Cost of Production'<br />
requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 1<br />
per cent." This clause was inserted three or four years ago.<br />
Estimates have, however, recently been obtained which show<br />
that the figures in the book may be relied on as nearly<br />
correct: as near as is possible.<br />
Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br />
in the " Cost of Production" for advertising. Of course, we<br />
have not 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 pooket,<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 />
LITERARY PROPERTY.<br />
I. — The Position of British Authors in<br />
Germany.<br />
WITH reference to the statements that<br />
appeared in the newspapers in the<br />
Spring with regard to the International<br />
copyright question with Germany, the Secretary<br />
of State for Foreign Affairs has transmitted to<br />
the secretary of the Society of Authors the<br />
accompanying note, to be laid before the Society,<br />
which has been received from the German<br />
Ambassador relative to the position of British<br />
authors in Germany.<br />
rjxa<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 3 (#15) ###############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
3<br />
[Copy. Translation.]<br />
German Embassy, London, April 28, 1898.<br />
My Lord,—In your note of the 23rd ult., Your<br />
Excellency asked for information -on certain<br />
doubtful points in connection with the legal posi-<br />
tion of English authors as regards their right to<br />
protection against the reprinting or reproduction<br />
of their works, under the laws now in force in<br />
Germany.<br />
Your Excellency observed, in particular, that<br />
when the old Conventions ceased to have force in<br />
England, the same protection was continued there<br />
to German works as they had enjoyed while those<br />
conventions were in force. Similarly, in Germany<br />
properly acquired rights are protected quite as<br />
effectively, although in a different manner. For<br />
English works which, until Dec. 16 last, were<br />
protected in Germany under the old Conventions,<br />
have since enjoyed the protection given by the<br />
Agreement of Berne and the Supplementary Act<br />
of Paris. As the provisions of the new Conven-<br />
tions referred to are in some respects much<br />
more favourable, English interests are not in any<br />
way injured by this arrangement. Germany does<br />
not ask English authors or their heirs to go<br />
through any formalities in order to have the pro-<br />
tection of their works continued.<br />
The Imperial Decree of Nov. 29, 1897, and the<br />
notice in the Central-Blatt of 1898, page 85, only<br />
contain transitional provisions intended to protect<br />
the legitimate interests of German tradesmen<br />
against the retrospective force of the Agreement<br />
of Berne; they are based on the same principle as<br />
the reservation made in sect. 6 of the Inter-<br />
national Copyright Act, 1886: (" Provided that,<br />
where any person has before the date of the<br />
publication of an Order in Council lawfully pro-<br />
duce any work in the United Kingdom," &c.)<br />
I have the honour to communicate these<br />
explanations to Your Excellency in accordance<br />
with instructions received, and I beg to refer you,<br />
for information in detail, to the enclosed paper of<br />
replies to the questions contained in the enclosure<br />
to your note of the 23rd ult.<br />
My Government trust that these explanations<br />
will completely remove all the doubts which, as<br />
Your Excellency states, have arisen from the form<br />
of our withdrawal from the Copyright Conven-<br />
tions between Germany and England.<br />
I have, &c.<br />
(Signed) P. Hatzfeldt.<br />
The Marquis of Salisbury, K.G., &c.<br />
[Copy. Translation.]<br />
Replies to the Questions of Her Majesty's<br />
Government.<br />
1. In Germany English authors who have<br />
hitherto been protected in accordance with the<br />
Conventions no longer in force are now protected<br />
in accordance with the Agreement of Berne.<br />
For, according to Article 14 and No. 4 of the<br />
Final Protocol, that Agreement is applicable to<br />
all works which have not yet become common<br />
property in their country of origin. The pro-<br />
tection of English works is not in any way<br />
diminished by the circumstance that the Agree-<br />
ment of Berne has taken the place of the old<br />
Conventions; on the contrary, the Agreement of<br />
Berne is in some respects more favourable to<br />
English works. In particular, the authors of the<br />
older English works also will in future be pro-<br />
tected against translations under Article 1, sect. 3,<br />
of the Paris Supplementary Act of May 4, 1896.<br />
It follows from what is stated above that, in<br />
consequence of the termination of the Conven-<br />
tions, English works have in some respects<br />
obtained a protection in Germany which they<br />
did not enjoy before. This circumstance made<br />
transition regulations necessary, for which No. 4,<br />
paragraph 3 of the Final Protocol of the Agree-<br />
ment of Berne was taken as a basis. It is<br />
possible that some one in Germany may, while<br />
the old Conventions were in force, have made use<br />
of, or been about to make use of, an English<br />
work for purposes of gain, quite legally, because,<br />
as the law then stood, there was no prohibition.<br />
One case is of practical importance. A certain<br />
English work which was not protected, or was no<br />
longer protected, against translation in Germany,<br />
was translated without the sanction of the author<br />
or his representative. According to general prin-<br />
ciples, which are followed in Great Britain as well<br />
as in other countries, a change in the law, that is<br />
in this case the newly introduced protection of<br />
English works against translation, must not have<br />
the effect of preventing interested parties in<br />
Germany from benefiting by arrangements law-<br />
fully made by them. Steps have, therefore, been<br />
taken to make it lawful within certain limits for<br />
the parties concerned to do certain things which<br />
it was lawful for them to do until the termination<br />
of the Conventions, but which, if special regula-<br />
tions had not been made, would have been an in-<br />
fringement of the rights of English authors. In<br />
particular, it was necessary, in view of the exten-<br />
sion of the protection against translations, to give<br />
permission for the distribution of translations of<br />
old English works which were lawfully made to<br />
continue. The sole object of the Imperial Decree<br />
of November 29,1897 {Imperial Gazette, No. 787)<br />
and the Notice of February3,1898 {Central-Blatt,<br />
No. 85) was to meet these cases.<br />
2. According to the regulations referred to<br />
above, the distribution and sale of impressions of<br />
an English work lawfully made are allowed,<br />
although the work now enjoys in Germany the<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 4 (#16) ###############################################<br />
<br />
4<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
protection of the Agreement of Berne, in conse-<br />
quence of the termination of the Conventions.<br />
The copies must, however, have been stamped<br />
before March 31 of this year. If this condition<br />
has not been complied with the distribution of<br />
the copies is illegal; if the rule is infringed the<br />
copies are confiscated, and the persons responsible<br />
are punished if the infraction is wilful or the<br />
result of carelessness. Similarly, the employment<br />
of moulds, plates,. &c., which were in existence<br />
before the termination of the Conventions will be<br />
considered to be a reprinting or illegal reproduc-<br />
tion of the protected English work, unless such<br />
moulds, plates, &c., have been stamped before<br />
March 31 of this year.<br />
The authors of works which have already<br />
obtained protection in Germany under the Con-<br />
ventions which are no longer in force enjoy the<br />
rights conferred by the Agreement of Berne. The<br />
date (Dec. 31, 1901) mentioned in section 3 of<br />
the notice of Feb. 3, 1898, has nothing to do with<br />
such cases; that date cannot affect any works<br />
except such as were not protected at all in<br />
Germany by the old Conventions. In cases in<br />
which works of this kind have now obtained pro-<br />
tection the protection is limited, under section 1,<br />
No. 1, of the Imperial Decree of Nov. 29, 1897,<br />
but this limitation comes to an end on Dec. 31,<br />
1901.<br />
3. So far as English works have already been<br />
protected in Germany under the Agreement of<br />
Berne, no change has taken place. The new<br />
Regulations only deal with the application of the<br />
Agreement of Berne to English works which have<br />
obtained the protection of the Agreement only in<br />
consequence of the termination of the old Conven-<br />
tions.<br />
4. As stated under 1, the Agreement of Berne<br />
is now applied automatically in the case of all<br />
English works which were protected in Germany<br />
under the late treaties; its retrospective force is<br />
only limited by the transition provisions referred<br />
to above.<br />
5. As appears from what has gone before,<br />
stamping is not a condition on which the protec-<br />
tion of English works in Germany is made to<br />
depend. On the contrary, it is only prescribed<br />
for cases where, in accordance with the transition<br />
provisions, persons wish to continue to make use<br />
of old copies or plates, Ac., without the sanction<br />
of those who possess the authors' rights over<br />
the English works concerned. Accordingly, the<br />
stamping was not to be carried out by the English<br />
authors or their heirs, but by the Germans inte-<br />
rested. Under these circumstances it does not<br />
appear how the English parties would benefit<br />
by an extension of the period allowed for<br />
stamping.<br />
6. Stamping is provided for in the case of<br />
copies and plates, &c., which are in the possession<br />
of Germans, and it was therefore laid down that<br />
it was to be carried out in Germany. The<br />
measure does not extend to copies and plates, &c.,<br />
which have been produced in Great Britain by<br />
persons who have authors' rights over English<br />
works. There could therefore be no question of<br />
sending the objects from England to Germany<br />
and back. ^<br />
II.—The Cost of Production.<br />
The book in question contains 24 sheets at<br />
16 pages the sheet, or 384 pages in all, including<br />
8 pages of preliminary matter and about 40 illus-<br />
trations in text. The type is pica—320 words to<br />
a page. The binding is quite plain cloth.<br />
The estimates obtained were from three town<br />
houses and one country house. The variations<br />
were very great.<br />
Thus the composition was estimated at 42*.,<br />
39*., 24.?., and 19*. respectively.<br />
The printing for 2000 copies was estimated at<br />
17s. 6d., 30*. 0ff/., and 18*. respectively, and by<br />
the fourth house, for 1000 copies, at 10*.<br />
The paper for 2000 copies, 174'., 12s. 6d., 7*. yd.,<br />
and 8*. 6d. a sheet.<br />
The binding—crown 8vo.—was put at 6d. and<br />
6\d. The cost finally arrived at was 6d.<br />
There were certain notes and preliminary matter<br />
in different type, and there were many illustra-<br />
tions in the text, which ran up the price of the<br />
book. Without the illustrations the 2000 copies<br />
were bound to cost as nearly as possible .£150,<br />
or is. 6d. a copy—without advertising.<br />
In this case there are circumstances which,<br />
required that the expense of advertising should be<br />
very little: in other words, the announcement of<br />
the book could be made by other channels than<br />
those of the journals and newspapers.<br />
The "Cost of Production" (seep. 47) gives the<br />
following figures:—<br />
£. s. d.<br />
Composition, 24 sheets at £1 ge 34 16 o<br />
Printing, 24 sheets, (per 1000 copies),<br />
say 15* 18 o o<br />
Paper, at £2 16s. a sheet 67 4 o<br />
Binding at gd 75 o o<br />
195 o o<br />
The following table presents the figures for<br />
2000 copies :—<br />
Society's<br />
First<br />
Second<br />
Third<br />
Fourth<br />
Account<br />
House.<br />
House.<br />
House.<br />
House.<br />
£. s. d.<br />
£. b. d.<br />
£. s. d.<br />
£. s. d.<br />
S. b. d.<br />
34 16 0<br />
50 12 0<br />
32 8 0<br />
28 16 0<br />
54 12 0<br />
18 0 0<br />
,20 17 0<br />
38 8 0<br />
21 12 0<br />
•<br />
«7 4 0<br />
",!) 12 0<br />
36 0 0<br />
40 18 0<br />
44 4 0<br />
75 0 0<br />
54 0 0<br />
57 4 0<br />
50 0 0<br />
* Estimate for 1000 copirs, £13; for 2000, would be about £20.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 5 (#17) ###############################################<br />
<br />
THE , AUTHOR.<br />
5<br />
III.—-West of England Booksellers.<br />
At a meeting of booksellers which took place<br />
at Exeter on May 5, when it was decided to<br />
amalgamate the trade in the West, the following<br />
resolution was adopted:—<br />
That this meeting of West of England Booksellers, while<br />
regretting that the scheme submitted last year by the<br />
Publishers' Association to the Authors' Society has not been<br />
adopted, hereby approves of the principles contained in the<br />
new scheme recently submitted to the Council of the<br />
Publifhers' Association.<br />
<br />
ANNUAL DINNER.<br />
THE annual dinner of the Society of Authors<br />
took place at the Holborn Restaurant, on<br />
Monday, May 2, and was altogether a very<br />
successful function.<br />
The Bishop of London took the chair, and was<br />
supported by two hundred members of the Society<br />
and their distinguished guests.<br />
The toasts of the evening were limited to<br />
four:—"The Queen," "The Society," "The<br />
Guests," and " The Chairman."<br />
After the Bishop had proposed the health of<br />
the Queen he proposed the prosperity of the<br />
Society of Authors in a very apt and amusing<br />
speech. He stated that he thought that the use<br />
of after-dinner speeches was merely to give the<br />
people in the room something to talk about. He<br />
stated that authors, in spite of all that had been<br />
said about them, were a very harmless class of<br />
the community. To show that that truth was<br />
permeating the youthful mind his lordship told a<br />
little story of a boy who wished to enter the<br />
Navy. When the lad heard his father speak of<br />
the risks of the present war he assumed a pen-<br />
sive air and said he did not think he would go<br />
into the Navy after all. He would be a poet—it<br />
was less dangerous. There was a little moral in<br />
all this, as you would expect. In nothing had<br />
the harmlessness of authors been more displayed,<br />
until recent times, than in their very slight efforts<br />
towards unity for their own interests. They<br />
had long been content to accept what might be<br />
offered them. They had, however, found defen-<br />
ders, and authors owed a debt of gratitude to Sir<br />
Martin Conway and Sir Walter Besant for their<br />
efforts on behalf of the craft. (Cheers.) A<br />
society which had for its object the securing of<br />
due remuneration for labour was one which<br />
would command the sympathy of all Englishmen.<br />
The Society had done good in this direction, and<br />
also in the giving of good advice to literary<br />
aspirants. It was this function of the Society<br />
which was specially valuable to the community.<br />
The business of the Society had been con-<br />
ducted with a practical spirit which would; do<br />
credit to the Stock Exchange. (Hear, hear.)<br />
The time might come when publishers would<br />
compete for the productions of authors and be<br />
willing to pay any price for them, but until that<br />
happy period arrived all literary aspirants would<br />
do well to avail themselves of the services of the!<br />
Society. (Cheers.)<br />
Sir Martin Conway, Chairman of the Society<br />
for the current year, then made a speech in reply*<br />
He regretted that Lord Roberts was not discharg-,<br />
ing the duty which fell to his lot. He made an<br />
official statement with regard to the business that<br />
the Society had been carrying on through the<br />
current year, and mentioned the fact that two<br />
Copyright Bills were at present before Parlia-<br />
ment. He, however, remarked that neither of<br />
them, he was afraid, would be likely to pass at<br />
present, but the justice which they were designed<br />
to work would, he hoped, be before long realised!<br />
Mr. Sidney Lee, the editor of the Dictionary of<br />
National Biography, in a very apt speech then<br />
proposed the health of the guests, mentioning<br />
them in turn, especially referring to the American<br />
Ambassador, who was present that evening not<br />
only as representing seventy millions of English<br />
readers, but as also representing the literature of<br />
a great country.<br />
The toast was coupled with the name of Lord<br />
Welby, who made an appropriate reply.<br />
Mr. Anthony Hope Hawkins proposed the<br />
health of the Chairman, and, after the Bishop's<br />
reply, the company . adjourned to another room,<br />
where a conversazione was held until a late hour.<br />
ME. BRYCE ON THE BOOK TRADE.<br />
MR. JAMES BRYCE, M.P., presided at the<br />
annual dinner in connection with the<br />
BookselL rs' Provident Institution, held<br />
in the Holborn Pestaurant on May 7, and pro-<br />
posed the toast of "Literature." Many ways,<br />
he said, were suggested by which the booksellers<br />
might be saved, and one was that the number of<br />
books should be curtailed, as there were many<br />
which the country did not consume. The litera-<br />
ture of a country was the best proof of the posi-<br />
tion and learning in that country; and the test<br />
of the intellectual level of a town was to be found<br />
in the number and contents of the shelves of the<br />
booksel'ers' shops. No persons could form - so<br />
good an idea of what the intellectual condition of<br />
the people was as those who distributed the<br />
books. Booksellers could thus form a lively and<br />
more direct idea of what the people thought and<br />
what kind of taste should be addressed to them.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 6 (#18) ###############################################<br />
<br />
6<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
He had found no persons who were such capable<br />
critics as those who sold books. Booksellers<br />
could often influence the taste of tbeir customers<br />
by advising what to buy, and selling good books.<br />
They were always in a position to impart valuable<br />
instruction to those who bought books. The<br />
plethora of books was becoming a serious<br />
difficulty to booksellers. They did not know<br />
what to put in stock, or how to select the books<br />
they could recommend. It had been suggested<br />
that a penal law should be enacted against the<br />
multiplication of books. A difficulty would<br />
probably then arise with regard to the respective<br />
liability of author and publisher—perhaps only<br />
the author should be punished. They must have<br />
all remarked how very mild the criticisms had<br />
become in our day; perhaps that in a way<br />
accounted for the number of books issued. With<br />
all this plethora of books they must remember<br />
that the publication of newspapers and magazines<br />
was going on with increasing vehemence. But<br />
people read newspapers in a totally different<br />
spirit to what they read books. When they<br />
read a newspaper, they picked the thing up<br />
and threw it away when it was done with; but<br />
they read a book with a view of assimilating the<br />
subject with which it dealt, while they gave up<br />
the habit of bringing the mind to bear upon<br />
what they read in newspapers. This habit<br />
reacted upon the way they now regarded a<br />
thoughtful book. Was it possible to do anything<br />
to stem the tide, and enable books to hold their<br />
ground better as against newspapers and maga-<br />
zines? He thought their friends, the publishers,<br />
should try publishing books somewhat cheaper.<br />
That might be a revolutionary proposition; and<br />
they might be told that there was a lion in the<br />
path, namely, the circulating library. In his<br />
opinion, the circulating library was an enemy to<br />
all; and they must try to fight it. The issue of<br />
cheap books could not be fairly said to have been<br />
tried until some work by a well-known and<br />
popular author was taken, and the first edition<br />
published in a cheap form. The first generation<br />
of authors might be losers, but let the heroic<br />
suffer. He ventured to believe that the experi-<br />
ment would succeed, and there would be consola-<br />
tion to the author in knowing that he had more<br />
readers than at present. A large proportion of<br />
the best books were produced without any idea<br />
of profit being derived from them. If they took<br />
the best thousand books, very few of them would<br />
not have been written, even if the author had<br />
known beforehand that he was not going to<br />
get more than he actually did. If publishers<br />
made books cheaper, they would be bought<br />
to be read and kept, and would serve the<br />
next generation. This, he believed, would do a<br />
great deal for the inextinguishable well-being and<br />
the literary level of our country. They would be<br />
able to develope and build up the taste of the<br />
people. There was, perhaps, too great a tendency<br />
in the present day to look after material great-<br />
ness, and men's minds were led away from<br />
literature. They might become proud of their<br />
gold, but their was nothing which gold could<br />
produce which could furnish them with so much<br />
reason for pride as the literature of England.<br />
He believed that, in the long run, a nation would<br />
be judged by her literature; that alone could pro-<br />
duce a strong nation, a high-souled nation, and<br />
it was only such a nation that could produce and<br />
read a splendid literature.<br />
THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND.<br />
THE Duke of Devonshire was the chairman<br />
of this year's anniversary dinner (the 108th)<br />
of the Royal Literary Fund, which took<br />
place on the 17th ult., at the Hotel Métropole, and<br />
was attended by a distinguished company.<br />
The Chairman, in giving "Prosperity to the<br />
Royal Literary Fund," with which he coupled the<br />
name of Lord Crewe, the president of the corpo-<br />
ration, made at the outset of his remarks a refer-<br />
ence to Mr. Gladstone's connection with the fund:<br />
that great man, he said, eminent as an author<br />
and still more so as a statesman, whose career<br />
they all regretted to know was now rapidly<br />
approaching its end. They could only express<br />
their admiration, respect, and sympathy for that<br />
illustrious Englishman, and it would be a melan-<br />
choly satisfaction if those sentiments could be made<br />
known to the dying statesman. Proceeding, the<br />
Duke of Devonshire said he could only attribute<br />
his being called upon to preside over that dinner<br />
to his position as Chancellor of the University<br />
of Cambridge and as President of the Council.<br />
From that point of view he was tempted to ask<br />
the elementary question, Why should the writing<br />
of books be encouraged and the demand for<br />
modern literature be stimulated ¥ But a clear<br />
and broad distinction might be drawn between<br />
science on the one hand and art and literature on<br />
the other. It might be that modern brains were<br />
better than those of old times, but science at<br />
least was progressive, and new methods and in-<br />
creased certitude and accuracy had assuredly<br />
been obtained. The knowledge* of the forces of<br />
nature was ever increasing, and the limits of the<br />
science of the future could by no forecast be<br />
determined. The same thing probably could not<br />
be said of literature and art, and it might be<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 7 (#19) ###############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
7<br />
that we were no further than the men of 2000<br />
years ago. In charm of style it might be that<br />
we were not superior to the writers of antiquity,<br />
or even to our immediate predecessors. It might<br />
then be asked why we should seek to divert men<br />
to a comparatively barren field instead of the<br />
more productive one of science. The answer<br />
might, perhaps, be found in the sentence that<br />
man does not live by bread alone or by knowledge<br />
alone. The speculation as to the destinies and<br />
life of nations was more interesting, it might be,<br />
than any scientific research. We should try to<br />
realise what would be the condition of things if<br />
men should desist from writing and depend on<br />
the mental nutriment supplied by the past. If<br />
modern literature did not produce the highest<br />
masterpieces, it at least spoke to us in our own<br />
language and expressed our own ideas. The age<br />
or nation which should cease to produce books<br />
would soon lose the faculty of admiration of the<br />
past; and the training which enabled us to<br />
appreciate would urge to the effort of emula-<br />
tion. It was not in the direction of the<br />
extinction of authorship, then, that intellectual<br />
,excellence was to be obtained. The object of the<br />
Society was to secure to authors as a class the<br />
benefits which under the old system of private<br />
patronage were enjoyed by the few favoured ones<br />
of the great. Publishers now to some extent<br />
took the place of patrons, and to neither, perhaps,<br />
was Byron's gibe applicable that either of them<br />
was a Barabbas. Hobbes and Locke might<br />
never have been what they were had it not been<br />
for the patron. The relation of Lord Shaftes-<br />
bury and Locke must have led to the increase of<br />
political tolerance and liberality of thought.<br />
Patronage, however, had gone. It had unques-<br />
tionably done good work to an author here and<br />
there, but it had never given strength and dignity<br />
to a profession. This Society, which had to some<br />
extent succeeded to that office, might claim to<br />
have perpetuated the advantages, and to have<br />
avoided the evils of private patronage.<br />
THE HISTORY OP THE BLACKWOOD<br />
PUBLISHING HOUSE *<br />
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, the founder of<br />
the publishing house, learned book-<br />
selling in his native city of Edinburgh,<br />
picked up experience in Glasgow and then in<br />
London, and returning to the Scottish capital in<br />
* " William Blackwood and Hia Sons: Their Magazine<br />
and Friends." By Mrs. Oliphant. (Edinburgh and<br />
London: W. Blackwood and Sons.)<br />
VOL. IX.<br />
1804 (being then twenty-eight years of age),<br />
started business on his own account. He speedily<br />
won a reputation " as a safe and steady man of<br />
business, not given to flights of fancy, but full of<br />
enthusiasm for literature." The first book he<br />
published was his own catalogue—the compiling<br />
of catalogues was an important part of book-<br />
selling in those days, when old books were kept<br />
for sale as well as new ones issued.<br />
This notice of Mrs. Oliphant's last book has<br />
been in type for some time, but pressure upon<br />
our limited space has kept it out. The book is<br />
remarkable in the first place as showing how a<br />
writer, even of the present day, when writers are<br />
by no means so dependent on the publisher as<br />
they were, may be dominated by a publishing<br />
house as by the hand of fate. The distinguished<br />
author who wrote this history did so with a<br />
certain breathless admiration which is to us<br />
inconceivable. Mrs. Oliphant says that the first<br />
Blackwood was an enthusiast for literature.<br />
Very likely. Most successful publishers are.<br />
The more successful, the more enthusiastic. The<br />
few who have become bankrupt are not so enthu-<br />
siastic. The book, however, is also remarkable<br />
for certain side lights upon men of letters during<br />
the first half of the century.<br />
Murray and Blackwood.—The Magazine.<br />
In 1811 Blackwood became agent of John<br />
Murray. "You have the happiness of making<br />
publishing a liberal profession," he wrote to<br />
Murray, who was treating with Byron about this<br />
time, "and not a mere business of pence. This I<br />
consider one of the greatest privileges we have in<br />
our business." Again, in a letter the London<br />
publisher writes to his Edinburgh representative<br />
about the magazine, there is an interesting light<br />
upon what was the ideal for a magazine of that<br />
day:—" Let us take public estimation by assault,<br />
by the irresistible effect of talent employed on<br />
subjects that are interesting, and above all, I say<br />
to collect information on passing events. Our<br />
editors are totally mistaken in thinking that this<br />
consists in laborious essays. These are very good<br />
as accessories, but the flesh and blood and bones<br />
is information. That will make the public eager<br />
to get us at the end of every month." Blackwood<br />
was able, through the agency of James Ballantyne,<br />
to place Scott's "Tales of a Landlord" in the<br />
offer of the London publisher. A quarrel arose<br />
between the Great Unknown and Blackwood,<br />
partly owing to the latter's habit of suggest-<br />
ing improvements upon the later scenes in<br />
Scott's work. In 1817 the Edinburgh Monthly<br />
Magazine was begun under the joint editorship<br />
of Pringle and Cleghorn, but it did not realise<br />
Blackwood's expectations, and after No. 6 a<br />
c<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 8 (#20) ###############################################<br />
<br />
8<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
new series was commenced, with Blackwood<br />
as his own editor. In the first number<br />
appeared the famous " Chaldee Manuscript," said<br />
to have been concocted by Wilson, Lockhart, and<br />
others, although Hogg in after years claimed the<br />
greater share in it. Blackwood was designated<br />
in the article "the man clothed in plain apparel,"<br />
Lockhart was "the Scorpion which delighteth to<br />
sting the faces of men."<br />
"Don Juan" and the Scotch Editor.<br />
Blackwood stuck at "Don Juan," and broke<br />
with Murray over it. His reasons are given in a<br />
letter he wrote to Maginn:—" I do most cordially<br />
agree with you that I deserve quizzing for<br />
refusing to sell' Don Juan,' and should not be<br />
spared in the article. The only apology I have<br />
to offer to you is this, that it proceeded partly<br />
from pique and partly from principle. When<br />
the book was published by Murray, I was just on<br />
the point of breaking with him. I had not had<br />
a letter from him for some months. He sent me<br />
copies of the book per mail, without either letter<br />
or invoice, so that when I received them I was<br />
not disposed to read it with favourable eye. I<br />
did read it, and I declare solemnly to you, much<br />
as I admired the talent and genius displayed in<br />
it, I never in my life was so filled with utter<br />
disgust. It was not the grossness or black-<br />
guardism which struck me, but it was the vile,<br />
heartless, and cold-blooded way in which this<br />
fiend attempted to degrade every tender and<br />
sacred feeling of the human heart. I felt such a<br />
revolting at the whole book after I had finished<br />
it, that I was glad of the excuse I had from Mr.<br />
Murray not writing me, for refusing to sell it."<br />
Idolatry of Wilson.<br />
Wilson was almost a religion in Blackwood's.<br />
Mrs. Oliphant quotes the following letter from<br />
Landor to the publisher:—" Pray do me the<br />
favour to inform your compositor that if ever<br />
again he has the impudence and audacity to alter<br />
a let'er or a point of my writings he shall see no<br />
more of them! In the first page he has put the<br />
name of Wilson after those of Homer, Shake-<br />
speare, and Dante. Now, I never have spoken<br />
otherwise of Wilson than as a man of varied and<br />
great genius; but if I mentioned him with Dante<br />
and Shakespeare, I not only should compare<br />
dissimilars, but bring his just claims into ques-<br />
tion. I believe he himself would be the very first<br />
to blame my imprudence."<br />
De Quincey's Humour.<br />
De Quincey had not yet become a contributor<br />
to the magazine when he wrote the following<br />
letter to Blackwood :—" If Wilson and Lockhart<br />
do not put themselves forward for the magazine,<br />
I foresee that the entire weight of supporting it<br />
must rest on my shoulders. I see clearly that I<br />
must be its Atlas. For excepting our friend<br />
Gillies's translation (from a cursed dull thing<br />
though), and excepting that spirited political<br />
article at the end, a more dreary collection of<br />
dulness and royal stupidity never did this world<br />
see gathered together than the December number<br />
exhibits. Positively it would sink any work in<br />
the world. No, no! I see clearly that I must<br />
write it all myself—except one sheet which I will<br />
leave to Gillies, and a few pp. to the other man."<br />
The editor took this seriously, and replied that he<br />
could only excuse it "by supposing that you were<br />
hardly awake when you wrote it. When I apply<br />
to you to be the Atlas of my magazine, it will be<br />
time enough for you to undertake the burthen.<br />
And in the meantime, I must beg leave to say<br />
that if you cannot send me anything better than<br />
the ' English Lakes,' it will be quite unnecessary<br />
for you to give yourself any further trouble about<br />
the magazine."<br />
Thackeray on Himself.<br />
Thackeray was a "rejected contributor" of<br />
Blackwood's. The Rev. James White, of Bon-<br />
church, introduced him to the firm. "He is<br />
the cleverest man of all the London writers, I<br />
think—his name is Thackeray ; a gentleman, a<br />
Cambridge man." "He is shy, I suppose, for he<br />
said he wished you would invite him to contri-<br />
bute. He is also literary reviewer in the Times."<br />
The invitation was not forthcoming, and<br />
Thackeray at length made the following offer :—<br />
"Some years back you used to have pleasant<br />
papers in Blackwood called 'The World we Live<br />
in.' I should be glad to do something of a like<br />
nature, if you are disposed to accept my contri-<br />
butions. No politics, as much fun and satire as<br />
I can muster, literary lath (sie) and criticism of<br />
a spicy nature, and general gossip. I belong to<br />
a couple of clubs in this village, and can get<br />
together plenty of rambling stuff. For instance<br />
for next month Courvoisier's hanging (I'll go on<br />
purpose), strictures on C. Phillip's speech, the<br />
London Library, Tom Carlyle and the Times,<br />
Bunn's new book, of which great fun may be<br />
made, and an account of Willis that may be racy<br />
enough. H the project smiles upon you, as the<br />
French say, please write me word. I can't afford<br />
to begin and send the MSS. in advance, for if you<br />
shouldn't approve the design my labour would be<br />
wasted, as the article would be written for your<br />
special readers, and no good next month."<br />
"G. E. is such a Timid Fellow."<br />
"I am happy to say that I think your friend's<br />
reminiscences will do," wrote John Blackwood to<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 9 (#21) ###############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
9<br />
George Henry Lewes, with reference to "Scenes<br />
from Clerical Life." He proceeded to criticise<br />
some points in "Amos Barton," and wound up<br />
by saying that, if the author was a new writer, he<br />
begged to congratulate him on being worthy of<br />
the honours of print and pay. So well did George<br />
Eliot conceal her identity, that she actually met<br />
and entertained one of the brothers Blackwood<br />
without disclosing the secret. The following<br />
incident is not dated, but this is Major Black-<br />
wood's letter after a visit to the Lewes pair:—" I<br />
have just returned from Richmond. G. E. did<br />
not show; he is such a timid fellow, Lewes said.<br />
He was very pleasant, and talked in a very hand-<br />
some way of his connection with us, saying of all<br />
editors ever he had to do with—and he had to do<br />
with many—you and Lord Jeffrey were the most<br />
agreeable. I saw a Mrs. Lewes." Only when an<br />
impostor claimed the authorship of " Adam Bede"<br />
did George Eliot reveal her identity to the<br />
publisher.<br />
The meddling of the proof reader called for a<br />
protest from George Eliot:—" The printer's reader<br />
made a correction after I saw the proof, and,<br />
though he may sometimes do so with advantage<br />
(as I am very liable to overlook mistakes), I in<br />
this case particularly object to his alteration, and<br />
I mention it in order to request that it may not<br />
occur again. He has everywhere substituted the<br />
form 'the Misses So-and-So' for the 'Miss So-<br />
and So's,' a form which in England is confiued to<br />
public announcements, to the backs of letters, and<br />
to the conversation of school-mistresses. This is<br />
not the conversational English of good society,<br />
and causes the most disagreeable jolt in an easy<br />
style of narrative or description."<br />
William Blackwood, the founder, died in 1833,<br />
and his sons succeeded. Letters from Bramwell<br />
Bronte bear witness that Robert Blackwood was<br />
scant in his sympathy with the humours of<br />
authors, no notice being taken of Bronte's letters<br />
or poetry. On the death of Alexander, and<br />
Robert's health being delicate, Major William<br />
Blackwood was taken into the business to assist<br />
John. The history of the house is brought down<br />
to 1861 by Mrs. Oliphant's work. A third<br />
volume is to appear later from another hand.<br />
•:».<-<br />
THE NEW PATRON.<br />
(See page 7.)<br />
<br />
(HE Muse rose to welcome her visitor. "I<br />
fear," she said, "that I have not the<br />
honour—"<br />
"I am your new Patron," said her visitor,<br />
roughly. "Can't you read the papers? Didn't<br />
VOL. IX.<br />
you read that the Duke of Devonshire Baid I was<br />
your Patron?"<br />
"My new Patron? I have had so many.<br />
Princes and nobles and great ladies have been my<br />
Patrons in the past. Scholars and artists and<br />
persons of culture have been my Patrons in late<br />
times. But who are you?"<br />
"I say that I am your new Patron."<br />
"Are you a Prince or a great noble?"<br />
"No. I am a publisher."<br />
"What is a publisher?" She turned upan<br />
him eyes that compelled the truth.<br />
"It is a middleman," he replied, surlily, "who<br />
sells the Muse's b.oks to the bookseller, and puts<br />
most of the money in his own pocket."<br />
"But you said that you are my Patron."<br />
"So I am. And your master as well. What<br />
money have you? Hand it over. I will keep it<br />
for you. None? Then set to work. Come, there<br />
must be no idling. You must set to work and at<br />
once. I shall call to-morrow to know how you<br />
are getting on. I am your new Patron.<br />
Remember that."<br />
Next day he called again. "Well, where is<br />
the work? You've had time to write a dozen<br />
poems since yesterday."<br />
"I have done nothing."<br />
"Nothing? What? You've wasted all that<br />
time? Why, your time is my money. You've<br />
been wasting my money! Nothing?"<br />
"I have been walking in the meadows listening<br />
to the birds and watching the flight of the<br />
clouds."<br />
"Oh! This won't do, you know, at all. This<br />
will never do. I only became your Patron with<br />
the intention of making you work. This time I<br />
shall lock you in."<br />
He did so, and left her.<br />
The next day he called again. She had written<br />
nothing again. "I cannot work in prison," she<br />
said. "I must be free, or I cannot write."<br />
"Look here," he said. "This is getting<br />
serious. I've got to maintain you, because I'm<br />
your new Patron, but you've got to make money<br />
for me. They are clamouring for more work<br />
from your pen. Are you going to do it, or must<br />
I starve you into submission?"<br />
She sat down and wept silently. She made<br />
no appeal to this man with a face like a rock,<br />
and a voice like the siren of a steamship for<br />
harshness.<br />
He came next day. She handed him a poem.<br />
"Ah!" he said. "You can do it if you like.<br />
Now, this is worth—no, I shan't tell you how<br />
much. Very little indeed, if you reckon up the<br />
travellers' and the office expenses, and the adver-<br />
tisements, and the rent and the taxes, and the<br />
clerks. I don't think anything will be left at all,<br />
c 2<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 10 (#22) ##############################################<br />
<br />
IO<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
except perhaps a shilling or two. You will have<br />
to do with that. As for me, I shall lose. But I<br />
am contented to lose. I always do lose. But so<br />
long as one is a Patron one cares about nothing<br />
else."<br />
She took the shilling humbly.<br />
"Now go to wort again," said the Patron.<br />
"Lord, what easy work is yours! You sit down<br />
and go to work with zeal. Let's have no more<br />
nonsense about walking in the meadows or on<br />
the mountains or listening to the birds. Just set<br />
to work."<br />
He left her again. Next day he called for<br />
more: every day he called for more: he did not<br />
observe that the Muse was growing pale and<br />
thin: he thought of nothing but the poem which<br />
he could take away and sell, putting the money<br />
in his own pocket. She was pale and thin<br />
because she was overworked and underfed,<br />
because she was kept away from the open<br />
air and the sunshine, and made to work all day<br />
long within the four walls.<br />
One day he came furious, bursting open the<br />
door. The Muse was seated with her head in<br />
her hands. She did not turn or notice him in<br />
any way.<br />
"Look here," he shouted, " What you gave me<br />
yesterday is rubbish: there is nothing in it but<br />
the rhyme and the sound. No one will buy it.<br />
Do you hear?" he shrieked. "No one—no one<br />
—no one will buy it—Do you hear that?"<br />
She made no reply.<br />
He seized her roughly by the shoulder. Her<br />
head dropped back. Her arm fell: the poor<br />
Muse was dead. Her new Patron had killed her.<br />
NOTES AND NEWS.<br />
LET me apologise to Mr. Punch for allowing<br />
it to be stated, in the list of magazines and<br />
journals published last month, that he does<br />
not return contributions. Two or three letters<br />
have been sent to me on this subject. Mr. Punch<br />
does return them, but only on the condition<br />
that they must be accompanied by a stamped<br />
and directed envelope, cover, or wrapper. This<br />
notice appears, and has for some time appeared,<br />
on the front page of every number. Readers<br />
will therefore take heart, and send their pro-<br />
ductions. I think, however, they will find it<br />
difficult to do better than Mr. Punch's staff.<br />
It is now some years since the last appearance<br />
of the Benefactor. He came then bringing<br />
blessings to the amateur and the beginner.<br />
It is well known that thousands of papers are<br />
every year rejected by editors, and' thousands of<br />
MSS. are every year refused by publishers. He<br />
promised, out of his benevolence, to bring a<br />
remedy for the unhappiness and the disappoint-<br />
ments caused by these rejections. His remedy,<br />
so far as the publication of books was concerned,<br />
consisted in offering to print—he called it "pub-<br />
lish"—the works at the author's expense. The<br />
amateur and the aspirant do not as a rule under-<br />
stand that printing is not publishing: some of<br />
them accepted the Benefactor's offer: what<br />
became of them afterwards is not known, but<br />
can be imagined. They hid away the " accounts"<br />
which ran much as follows:<br />
£ s. d.<br />
To printing, binding, &c. (as per<br />
agreement), i000 copies 120 0 0<br />
To advertising (as per agreement) 45 o 0<br />
165 00<br />
To Press copies 50 ")<br />
Author's 20 > 0 0 0<br />
Sales, none )<br />
165 0 0<br />
But he was a great Benefactor, and gave his<br />
authors every chance. He also had an amateur<br />
magaziue to which his friends were allowed to<br />
contribute. It was a shilling magazine. The<br />
contributors were all paid for their articles.<br />
They were paid by a method of great benevolence.<br />
They received so many copies—say fifty—for<br />
which they paid sixpence each. These copies<br />
they could sell to their friends at a shilling<br />
each so that they cleared twenty-five shillings<br />
by the transaction. The magazine, however,<br />
languished. il<br />
I recall this little history, because I have before<br />
me the prospectuses of two new amateur maga-<br />
zines. Perhaps the Benefactor has returned.<br />
The first of these deals with a paper called the<br />
Pioneer, the first number of which was promised<br />
for May 7. I have not yet seen a copy. The<br />
following is its own announcement:<br />
One of the greatest necessities of those entering the Pro-<br />
fession of Letters, but one hitherto entirely unprovided for,<br />
is a Weekly Magazine devoted to the publication of the<br />
preliminary contributions of those amateur writers and<br />
literary aspirants who are as yet unconnected with the<br />
Professional Press. The Pioneer will be, as its name<br />
implies, the first magazine published to fill this vacancy in<br />
journalism, each of its subscribers having the privilege of<br />
contributing to its pages; but, in order that each con-<br />
tributor shall have the opportunity of frequent publication,<br />
the right of contributing will be strictly limited to the first<br />
300 subscribers.<br />
All MSS. sent in by a registered contributor will be pub-<br />
lished and paid for; one-third of the profits of each issue,<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 11 (#23) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
11<br />
from sales and advertisements, being divided amongst those<br />
who contribute the matter appearing in snob, issue.<br />
In guaranteeing to publish all MSS., the conductor<br />
reserves the right to amend or correct any MSS. which does<br />
not attain the necessary standard of literary excellence.<br />
All contributions will bear the author's name or nom de<br />
plume, and all contributors will be included seriatim in the<br />
series of portraits and biographical notices of Our Contribu-<br />
tors, which will form an interesting feature of the maza-<br />
rine.<br />
The following description of matter is in immediate<br />
request for the first issue, and MSS. may be S9nt when for-<br />
warding subscriptions:<br />
SHOET STORIES (1000 to 1500 words), POEMS,<br />
INTERESTING ARTICLES, Ac.<br />
Should you desire to contribute, it will be necessary that<br />
your application (on form below) should be sent in without<br />
delay, as the privilege of contributing can, under no circum-<br />
stances, be extended beyond the first 300 subscribers regis-<br />
tered.<br />
The subscription is is. 6d. a quarter, which will<br />
not break anybody.<br />
As an enlargement of the original plan the<br />
conductor proposes to print a directory of his<br />
300 contributors, and send it with a copy of the<br />
Pioneer to the editors of all the magazines in<br />
the country. They will naturally peruse the<br />
Pioneer with the keenest interest and will hasten<br />
to engage the services of its contributors at<br />
large salaries. .<br />
Let us, however, consider how the amateur<br />
magazine will work. It is to be written by 300<br />
hands who will pay each is. 6d. a quarter or 6s.<br />
a year. This makes .£90 a year as a beginning,<br />
towards the expenses. There will, however, be the<br />
circulation. But who is going to buy a magazine<br />
written by amateurs and beginners? Probably<br />
there will be no circulation. But there will be<br />
the advertisements. Advertisers want some cir-<br />
culation. So far the cost of the paper, which<br />
means not less, one would think, than .£20 a<br />
week apart from contributions, seems a long way<br />
from being provided for. However, leaving that<br />
consideration aside, I would ask young writers<br />
what good they will do to themselves by<br />
appearing in the pages of an amateur magazine.<br />
They may be quite certain that if their work<br />
is good enough it would be taken by a "pro-<br />
fessional" journal, while one fails to see what<br />
advantage they derive from seeing and letting<br />
others see their immature productions. As to<br />
editors perusing the Pioneer, or even looking at<br />
it, they may put that out of their thoughts<br />
altogether. I shall be glad to hear further<br />
about the new Benefactor.<br />
There is another prospector in the field. This<br />
time it is an Association of Amateur Authors. It<br />
has a secretary and an office near our own,<br />
viz., Portugal-street Buildings. The Association<br />
laments that there is always the " same difficulty<br />
experienced by each fresh writer, the same weary<br />
wait and delay before he can make a start. The<br />
Association offers—<br />
(1) To criticise MSS. for readers. This is<br />
exactly what our Society has been doing for<br />
years.<br />
(2) To publish the member's writings in the<br />
Association's monthly paper—again the Amateur<br />
Magazine—" if their merit warrant" the produc-<br />
tion. The Comhill and Longman's and the rest of<br />
them do just exactly the same thing: they will<br />
publish these papers "if their merit warrant."<br />
(3) They will tell their members where they<br />
are most likely to succeed. Our reading branch<br />
has done the same thing for years.<br />
(4) They will charge a guinea for subscription:<br />
if the subscriber wants the "Magazine Advan-<br />
tages " he must pay two guineas.<br />
(5) They expect members to take as many<br />
copies of the Magazine when they have papers in<br />
it as possible. .<br />
A letter in another column advocates the<br />
Amateur Magazine. The writer says that "at pre-<br />
sent a young writer has no means of obtaining that<br />
skilled revision of his work, which would make it<br />
acceptable to editors, and would show him his<br />
faults." Nowthis Society has for many yearsoffered<br />
to do this kind of work and does actually do it, with<br />
results quite satisfactory. If our friend would<br />
only send up his work we shall obtain exactly the<br />
revision and criticism that he requires. How<br />
would an Amateur Magazine help him? His<br />
papers in print would not show him his faults<br />
more plainly than his papers in MS. It is a mere<br />
dream to suppose that editors would turn to the<br />
magazine for authors. The papers would be for<br />
the most part weak and flabby, because writers<br />
worth considering would never think of appearing<br />
in its pages: it would, indeed, do a writer much<br />
damage if he were known to write for such a<br />
magazine, while it would be impossible to make<br />
such a magazine pay. The only way—there can<br />
be no other way—for a writer to succeed is to send<br />
good work to an editor. The best way, if he<br />
wants his work revised, is to get an opinion from<br />
the Society's reader.<br />
The following is a note from the Academy :—<br />
The best comment on Mr. Bryoe's speech concerning the<br />
need for cheap literature, at the booksellers' dinner, comes<br />
from a Birmingham firm. "Mr. Bryce," writes our corre-<br />
spondent, " spoke of a general lowering of prices; it is in-<br />
structive to note that his ' Holy Roman Empire' was first<br />
issued at 6s.; the second edition was gs.; the third, 78.6<i.;<br />
and this was followed by a library edition at 14s."<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 12 (#24) ##############################################<br />
<br />
J.2<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
Well, but is it a comment on Mr. Bryce at all?<br />
For, was Mr. Bryce ever consulted as to the<br />
price of his book? I very much doubt it. I<br />
imagine that the editions were 'changed about as<br />
to price without consulting him at all. If, how-<br />
ever, he was consulted, it would still not be a<br />
comment on his plea for cheap literature, because<br />
it is absurd to suppose that the mass of the<br />
people would wish to buy that scholarly work,<br />
the " Holy Roman Empire," even if they got it<br />
for sixpence. Cheap literature can only exist if<br />
the people for whom it is published buy it; but<br />
they will certainly not buy what they cannot<br />
understand. Therefore cheap literature must<br />
always be something that the people wish to read;<br />
down to their level, perhaps; in some respects,<br />
as witness the returns of the free libraries, by no<br />
means such a bad level. The hope of the future<br />
is that the free libraries will gradually improve<br />
the taste of the people. Thus the limitations<br />
which at present confine cheap literature within<br />
narrow limits will be enlarged.<br />
In other words, only a book which appeals to<br />
the people can be issued at a cheap price, because<br />
only with such a book will the lowering of the<br />
price extend the number of buyers. But the<br />
general run of new books published at 6s., i.e.,<br />
4*. 6d., do not circulate on an average more than<br />
600 copies or so. These books would not gain a<br />
single additional purchaser if they were published<br />
at sixpence, and the lowering of the price would<br />
simply mean the impossibility of producing the<br />
work. Many hundreds of such books now pub-<br />
lished every year, arrive at a circulation of no<br />
more than six or seven hundred. They bring in<br />
to the publisher a small profit. If the price was<br />
lowered they would cease to appear. Their loss<br />
would not hurt the authors much, but it would hurt<br />
the publishers a great deal. On the other hand,<br />
when a book is by an old and established favourite<br />
the people buy it up by the hundred thousand if<br />
it is offered at sixpence. Then comes the question<br />
whether it is worth while to publish the former<br />
class of books at all. I have always maintained<br />
that it matters nothing how many books are pub-<br />
lished. The world may be trusted to make its own<br />
selection. The only persons to be considered are<br />
the booksellers who are so ill-advised as to buy them<br />
—sometimes. If out of a hundred books ninety-<br />
nine die in the same season as their birth, still the<br />
hundredth is left, and of the ninety-nine, which of<br />
us has bought a copy? For my own part I buy<br />
a great many books. I never buy a new book<br />
until I hear about it in conversation. Yet if the<br />
ninety-nine books had not been published, per-<br />
haps we should have missed the hundredth.<br />
These remarks apply not to novels only but to<br />
every kind of book.<br />
I said last month, quoting a writer in the<br />
Morning Post, that I could not understand how<br />
any novelist could produce three, four, or five<br />
novels in a year. Most novelists of my acquaint-<br />
ance are contented with the production of one a<br />
year, or with three in two years at the most.<br />
Certain names and facts have been sent to me,<br />
and I have caused an examination to be made<br />
into the rate of production of the writers owning<br />
these names. I find that, in two cases, six novels<br />
were produced by the author in a single year! In<br />
more than two, five; that the average of one<br />
writer is from four a year; of another one three;<br />
and of several writers two. These facts surprised<br />
me a great deal. I thought that I knew most of<br />
the working of the novelist's profession, but this<br />
rapidity of production is new to me. Also, the<br />
critic of the Morning Post was right, and I tender<br />
him my apologies for questioning his statement.<br />
As regards the works these parties produced,<br />
some of them, by one writer at least, are short<br />
shilling stories, which can hardly rank as novels.<br />
Of the rest one can only say of novelists, as of<br />
everything else, that one may outstay his welcome.<br />
I can conceive no better way of making a circle<br />
of readers tired of a writer than for him to bring<br />
out a new book three or four times a year.<br />
The Royal Literary Fund has had its annual<br />
dinner. The Duke of Devonshire spoke of the<br />
followers of literature as he understands them;<br />
namely, so many helpless paupers dependent<br />
chiefly on the doles of the fund, and on those of<br />
the publishers, whom His Grace most Graciously<br />
described as the patrons of the author. Now I<br />
want to protest against the whole business—the<br />
speech of the Duke, which was based on pure<br />
ignorance, and the conduct of the Fund. It is a<br />
most useful institution; it relieves a good many<br />
people; they are authors, it is true, but they are<br />
not, as a rule, authors of the slightest distinc-<br />
tion. A good writer, in these days, as easily gets<br />
a good living as a good doctor. He cannot, of<br />
course, make a colossal fortune like a man in<br />
business; but he is not a pauper, nor a depen-<br />
dent, and, except in very rare cases, he does not<br />
apply to the Royal Literary Fund for help. I<br />
want that point recognised in public. At present,<br />
year after year, men of letters are publicly spoken<br />
of as if they were all dependent for their liveli-<br />
hood upon the doles and alms of the Royal Literary<br />
Fund. Now, I repeat, and it cannot be repeated<br />
too strongly, that the great mass of the working<br />
men and women of letters have no more need of<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 13 (#25) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
13<br />
the grants made by the Fund than the great<br />
mass of barristers stand in need of their corre-<br />
sponding association. They do not live from<br />
hand to mouth. If they are seized with sudden<br />
illness there is money in the bank. I do not<br />
claim for them that many of them can make<br />
fortunes—even a moderate fortune; and I think<br />
that most of them die in harness. I do claim<br />
for the average writer who is generally more or<br />
less of a journalist—writes for the magazines;<br />
perhaps edits something; is perhaps a novelist<br />
or a specialist, or an educational writer—that he<br />
lives well and like a gentleman, that he also lives<br />
cleanly and soberly, that he has no more need of<br />
asking the charity of the Literary Fund than he<br />
has of going into the workhouse. Who are the<br />
people to whom the Fund is useful? There are<br />
—always with certain sad exceptions—people who<br />
have the slightest possible reason for calling<br />
themselves authors. They are necessitous; in<br />
many cases without any fault of their own. By<br />
all means let them be relieved; but do not take<br />
their cases as examples of the starving condition<br />
of the literary profession. Now, I speak from<br />
my own knowledge, because I sat on the council<br />
of the Fund for three or four years.<br />
The next point is that the administration of<br />
the Fund must be radically altered. At present it<br />
is administered, not by the literary profession,<br />
but for the literary profession. It is degrading<br />
to us that people should be sending round the<br />
hat for us, especially as we don't want it. If we<br />
must go round, hat in hand, to take up a collec-<br />
tion, let us at least do it ourselves, and not ask<br />
noble dukes and lords to do it for us. Imagine<br />
the pride and pleasure of Lincoln's Inn if a<br />
dinner were held once a year to collect money in<br />
order to give doles to necessitous barristers.<br />
You cannot imagine it. Then think of the<br />
pleasure and the pride with which literary men<br />
regard the annual collection made for necessitous<br />
writers. There are, and there must always be,<br />
certain unfortunate persons in the writing line,<br />
Let the Royal Literary Fund intervene to give<br />
them assistance; but let it be managed in secret,<br />
both the assistance and the need for it. The<br />
world need know nothing about it. The resig-<br />
nation of half a dozen members and their<br />
substitution by actual literary men, is all that is<br />
wanted. We should then, as a matter of course,<br />
put a stop to the degradation of the dinner, and<br />
wash our linen at home.<br />
The list of Birthday Honours has been given<br />
to the world as usual. This list is looked for by<br />
a large section of the world with great curiosity<br />
and interest. Those who are going to appear in<br />
it know the fact beforehand, and are not, there-<br />
fore, so anxious. As for the anxiety of people<br />
generally, it has been attributed to one's natural<br />
fear that friends may be in the list. Since we<br />
cannot ourselves expect to be in the list, we<br />
naturally do not desire to see our dear friends<br />
receiving Honours. Of course, the old ialk about<br />
distinctions and honours has quite gone out;<br />
twenty years ago people who had not been offered<br />
anything were loud in their contempt of those<br />
who received anything. It was too thin, even<br />
then; the talk is abandoned now; it is quite un-<br />
derstood that all Englishmen would very much<br />
like to receive a distinction of some kind. It is<br />
also quite certain that a great many Englishmen<br />
really believe that they deserve a distinction. If<br />
we examine the list before us, we find that it con-<br />
tains no more than forty-eight names out of the<br />
sixty millions in this island and the Colonies. Of<br />
these, political claims and services—they are not<br />
always the same—supply eight names; wealth,<br />
with probably some political reasons, four;<br />
special services, five; the Civil Service, ten; the<br />
Colonies, four; the Diplomatic Service, five;<br />
foreign service, eight; Science—one branch only<br />
—one; Law, one; and Music, one. The Army and<br />
the Navy will be provided for, I suppose, in another<br />
Gazette. Now, there are many—very many—<br />
branches of intellectual achievement that employ<br />
the energies of my countrymen; in some of them<br />
they constantly make discoveries, inventions, and<br />
achievements, whicn are of the greatest import-<br />
ance to the human race generally, and to this<br />
country in particular. Such, for instance, are<br />
engineering, science in all its branches, architec-<br />
ture, art, literature also in all its branches, educa-<br />
tion, scholarship, mechanics, philosophy. There<br />
are names in all these lines of work that are held,<br />
by those who know the subjects, in the highest<br />
honour. Where are these names in the Birthday<br />
List? They are conspicuous by their absence.<br />
But it is urged these things bring their own<br />
reward. Very true. Also that distinctions are<br />
not needed for the distinguished. Are, then,<br />
these forty-eight persons chosen for their obscurity?<br />
Certainly, outside the Civil Service, few know the<br />
names of those who are constantly raised to<br />
honour from that branch of the service. Dis-<br />
tinctions, it is true, cannot confer honour on the<br />
distinguished. They do not. They may teach<br />
the world, however, that certain forms of achieve-<br />
ment are worthy of honour. I suppose that the<br />
first place of honour in a nation is due to the<br />
statesman, and the second to the captain, but the<br />
third belongs to the man of literature, science,<br />
or art. And I maintain that it is the duty of<br />
a statesman to make the nation understand that<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 14 (#26) ##############################################<br />
<br />
'4<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
these branches of intellectual achievement do<br />
really confer honour upon the country.<br />
In another column will be found a precis of a<br />
recent article in the Daily Telegraph, with a<br />
commentary upon it from the Academy. I un-<br />
fortunately saw neither—but the remark quoted<br />
from the Telegraph certainly does not show<br />
knowledge up to date of the publisher's methods.<br />
The passage is thus reported: "Having paid a<br />
good deal more than he ought for one book, the<br />
publisher has to pay less than he ought for<br />
another. His successes, such as they are, have to<br />
make up for his losses." Now, there are but<br />
one or two publishers who buy their books, i.e.,<br />
buy them at a proper price calculated on the<br />
sale of the author's books: the rest give royalties.<br />
In no case has it ever been known that the<br />
royalty given to a successful author was greater<br />
than, or equal to, the difference between the<br />
trade price and the cost of production: in other<br />
words, the publisher is certain, in even the largest<br />
royalties given to such an author, that he will get<br />
back the cost of production with a margin. It is<br />
not by large royalties to successful authors that the<br />
publisher loses. And in the case of unsuccessful<br />
authors it is difficult to understand how they can<br />
make up the publisher's losses—for they consti-<br />
tute his losses. _ _<br />
The Publishers' Circular questions my opinion<br />
about war time and publishing. It was not, how-<br />
ever, my opinion: it was the experience of an old<br />
and experienced publisher; the experience of the<br />
war time of 1855-1857. As for the present slack-<br />
ness, the months of May and June are always<br />
slack: I should be of opinion also that the<br />
feverish rush to hurl new novels upon the<br />
market is producing its natural effect. The world<br />
will not buy an unlimited quantity of novels:<br />
booksellers are not so rich that they can afford to<br />
load their shelves with a mass of books which<br />
they cannot sell. A little slackness ought to<br />
make publishers reflect on the dangers of over-pro-<br />
duction. In the year 1832 the novel market was<br />
absolutely destroyed by the lavish production of<br />
bad work. I strongly recommend to the Book-<br />
sellers' Association the adoption, for their own<br />
protection, of the cheap, convenient, and effective<br />
method which I proposed to them some months<br />
ago. This method would save them a great many<br />
thousands a year, and it would be an effectual bar<br />
to the production of rubbish.<br />
The Morning Post returns to the subject of Sir<br />
Henry Craik's allegations concerning the Society.<br />
This after-dinner speaker, it will be remembered,<br />
said, among other things, that the Society of<br />
Authors called the publisher a needless inven-<br />
tion. Now, the Society of Authors has never said<br />
anything of the kind. The writer in the Morn-<br />
ing Post says that, " the opinion that an intelli-<br />
gent agent would do for the novelist all that the<br />
publisher can do, at far less cost to the author,<br />
has again and again been expressed." By the<br />
Society of Authors? Never once. In the pages<br />
of The Author a good many opinions are advanced<br />
and freely discussed: these are not the utterances<br />
of the Society. In every number, in a prominent<br />
place, the Committee announce that they are only<br />
responsible for the statements signed officially<br />
by the Secretary. They have never sent to the<br />
papers any opinion or theory to the effect of the<br />
words quoted above. Again, The Author does<br />
not, as the writer in the Morning Post thinks,<br />
"criticise publishers" generally: it publishes<br />
their agreements and explains what they mean:<br />
it exposes tricks: it does not treat the "average<br />
publisher as a knave," because it does not speak<br />
of the " average " publisher at all. At the same<br />
time the tricks and over-reachings, and trading<br />
on ignorance, exposed in the columns of The<br />
A uthor, prove that there are a good many knaves<br />
in the trade: some of them, as I know from per-<br />
sonal examination of documents, occupying high<br />
places in the trade. As for Sir Henry Craik, if<br />
he thinks it a worthy rule to "indulge in little<br />
conscious exaggerations," as the writer in the<br />
Morning Post kindly puts the case, it is his<br />
business.<br />
Take, for instance, this allegation about pub-<br />
lishers being needless. My own private opinion,<br />
which in no way expresses the collective opinion<br />
of the Society, is this : The trade of publishing is<br />
purely mechanical, especially in those cases where<br />
the author is "established." Now, in every<br />
branch of literature there are authors by the<br />
dozen who are " established ": that is to say, their<br />
works are certain of being taken in more than<br />
sufficient quantities to pay for the cost of produc-<br />
tion. There is absolutely nothing done for their<br />
books by the publisher which cannot be done by<br />
a distributing agent, whose commission must be<br />
paid and nothing more. And then he becomes a<br />
publisher, so that it is absurd to say that a<br />
publisher is needless. Some two or three years<br />
ago a publisher sent to a certain paper what he<br />
tendered as his figures. He spoke of a book<br />
which had had a very large sale: he asserted that<br />
after paying his expenses he was left with no more<br />
than Sd. a copy on the book. No more than<br />
Sd. a copy! What had he done for his 8d.?<br />
Nothing. His clerks' and office expenses had aJl<br />
been deducted. He was drawing Sd. a copy an<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 15 (#27) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
many thousands for the mechanical work done by<br />
his clerks. What a splendid business! Now, a<br />
distributing agent would have done the whole<br />
business for a commission, including the clerks'<br />
work. The distributing ajent will be the general<br />
publisher of the new literature of the future.<br />
There will remain, of course, the great works<br />
undertaken by the great capitalists.<br />
Walter Besant.<br />
RECIPE FOR AJRJMMEB NOVEL.<br />
[In spite of the war excitement in New York,<br />
space is found in the newspapers for this kind<br />
of fun. It is to the World of that city that<br />
our readers must give their thanks if they find<br />
it amusing.]<br />
: By Harold R. Vynne, Who '.<br />
'Is an Expert Plot Chef and<br />
; Verbiage Salad-Maker.<br />
Incentives.—(i) The necessity of keeping one's<br />
mind occupied; (2) the prornise of cash on<br />
delivery of manuscript; (3) the desire to do<br />
somebody up.<br />
Ingredients.—One or more characters taken<br />
from real life—preferably bad characters, because<br />
they are much more readily portrayed than<br />
good ones and are always less tame. An American<br />
heiress with a record as a jilt and a predisposi-<br />
tion to heart failure. A foreign nobleman with<br />
fringe on his trousers and a mortgage on his<br />
ancestral real estate. A poor but honest lover,<br />
who refuses to commit forgery to wear crease3 in<br />
his trousers. A pert widow with a corking<br />
divorce record and a propensity for making<br />
trouble. A proud and vulgar parent of the<br />
heiress, who kicks the poor but honest lover in<br />
the neck and lends the foreign nobleman money.<br />
A summer home of the heiress. Horses and<br />
carriages. Whisky, wine, and beer. A yacht or<br />
two, golf links and a dog. Ginger ad lib.<br />
Method.—Get into your story with a startling<br />
event of some kind, a dog fight in the Broadway<br />
in which the losing pup is backed by the heiress's<br />
father, or a game of craps in which the foreign<br />
nobleman goes broke.<br />
Make it a rule to have something sensational<br />
happen in every thousand words, if it's only a<br />
birth or a thunderstorm. Never forget that<br />
the publisher won't come down with the check<br />
unless he sees his money coming back.<br />
A summer novel should be pitched in a summer<br />
scene. Pitch the parent's summer home in the<br />
mountains and the heiress into the lake. Then<br />
when the poor but honest lover rescues her, let<br />
the foreign nobleman rob him of his clothes<br />
while the lady is unconscious, chloroform him<br />
into insensibility and impersonate her saviour<br />
himself.<br />
Invite the nobleman to dinner and send the<br />
poor but honest lover to jail on a charge of<br />
going in swimming without a bathing suit.<br />
Engage the heiress and the nobleman to marry<br />
and let the lover gnash his teeth on the bars of<br />
the cell until the frisky widow helps him to break<br />
jail and tells him the heiress is his long-lost<br />
sister. Have the lover go crazy at this stage of<br />
the game, marry the widow and go up to see the<br />
old gentleman with a proposition that he recog-<br />
nise him legally as his son, divvy up the estate<br />
and give the foreign nobleman leave to go and<br />
blow himself full of air with a bicycle pump.<br />
The old gentleman might opportunely throw<br />
a fit here, and in his fall and clawings kick a<br />
hole in a piece of rock, disclosing a cave in which<br />
repose certain family documents showing that he<br />
is his own grandson, that the poor but honest<br />
lover never had any parents or sisters, and that<br />
the family fortune belongs to a millionaire.<br />
This will justify the foreign nobleman, who has<br />
no love for pauper women, in running violently<br />
down a steep hill and breaking his face on the<br />
rocks, while the disinherited heiress, certain at<br />
last that the poor but honest lover loves her for<br />
herself alone, may persuade him to divorce the<br />
widow and marry her instead.<br />
A fine point in morals may be drawn here by<br />
showing that the widow, with the divorcing habit<br />
strong upon her, hates to be divorced herself<br />
when it comes to a show-down. A thrilling if<br />
improbable anti-climax may be secured by having<br />
the millionaire give all the money back to the<br />
bride and bridegroom and act sufficiently astonish-<br />
ing to justify the old gentleman in celebrating<br />
his son-in-law's luck. The yacht mentioned in<br />
the list of ingredients is for no particular purpose<br />
except to prove that a summer novel cannot be<br />
written without one. The dog is to try the novel<br />
on before it goes to the publisher. If the dog<br />
dies the manuscript is sure of acceptance.<br />
Remarks.—If this is to be your first essay in<br />
novel-writing (and only amateurs write successful<br />
novels nowadays) remember that as an unknown<br />
writer you cannot possibly be over-advertised.<br />
Presuming, therefore, that you are writing your<br />
novel at a summer resort of some sort, it will pay<br />
you to roar on all occasions on the subject of<br />
your literary achievements and intentions. Lose-<br />
no opportunity of letting people know what you<br />
are doing.<br />
Write all your copy with a stylographic pen<br />
on the hotel piazza, and when your proof-sheets<br />
arrive spread them out on the lawn to dry and<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 16 (#28) ##############################################<br />
<br />
i6<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
throw croquet balls at the typographical errors<br />
until a crowd gathers to inquire into your occupa-<br />
tion. In this way you secure advance discussion<br />
for your book and possible profit besides. Most<br />
people who meet an author they believe to be crazy<br />
will buy one of his books when they strike it on a<br />
news-stand.<br />
Be careful in the matter of dress. Emile Zola<br />
writes all his novels attired in pyjamas and a<br />
skull cap, and Laura Jean Libbey hers in a<br />
gingham Mother Hubbard with leather ruching at<br />
the throat and wrists.<br />
The preparation of a summer novel demands<br />
some attention to appropriate clothes. Fit your<br />
costumes to the situation of which you write. If<br />
the chapter is to describe a storm at sea or a<br />
private hullabaloo in the cabin of a yacht, never<br />
touch your pen to paper until you've donned a<br />
silk shirt, white ducks, and a patent-leather<br />
belt; if it's a "hop" that needs touching up<br />
write in evening dress, no matter if it's broad<br />
daylight and the people around you are in bathing<br />
suits. This, of course, supposing that you are a<br />
man.<br />
If you are a lady summer novelist, this writer<br />
would not attempt to advise you in the matter of<br />
dress, because women at summer resorts always<br />
wear the nicest clothes they've got, anyhow, and<br />
an authoress of any talent ought to be able to<br />
write a passionate story equally well in a Worth<br />
creation or in a piece of calico.<br />
Such female novelists, however, judging by<br />
their work, discover increased dramatic intensity<br />
in the exercise of eccentric physical effects. In<br />
describing a tropical love scene the authoress may<br />
produce wonders of thought by coiling her ankles<br />
about her neck and fanning her face with her<br />
feet. Or she may secure inspiration for whole<br />
pages of witty dialogue between two or more of<br />
her female characters by hanging two cats over a<br />
fence rail and taking down their remarks in<br />
shorthand.<br />
Lastly, when your book is printed and on sale,<br />
be sure and buy a copy of it yourself. It is not<br />
fair that the publisher should go entirely without<br />
encouragement.<br />
MR. NUTT AQAIN.<br />
WE have had nearly six months of Mr.<br />
Nutt: six months trying to get out of<br />
him a direct and plain answer to a<br />
plain question.<br />
The question arose out of an assertion made by<br />
this gentleman. He said, writing in the Academy<br />
of Jan. i : (i) That it had been asserted in The<br />
Author that "publishers always recovered their<br />
outlay, and never made any losses "; and (2)<br />
that " the statement had since been repeated in<br />
The Author without one word of qualification."<br />
Observe, if you please, the exactness of the<br />
phrase, " without one word of qualification."<br />
The words were therefore offered as quotations.<br />
The reader was clearly invited to consider them<br />
as quotations.<br />
It is interesting to note that, before making<br />
these " quotations," Mr. Nutt says he has not seen<br />
more than two numbers of The Author in his<br />
life. Strange that one number should contain<br />
the first paragraph quoted, and the second its<br />
repetition, "without one word of qualification "!<br />
However, on Jan. 5, my solicitors, Messrs.<br />
Field, Roscoe, and Co. wrote to Mr. Nutt, asking<br />
for the exact references to the two passages quoted,<br />
and reserving the right of publishing the corre-<br />
spondence.<br />
Mr. Nutt replied that he was out of town, and<br />
must defer an answer till his return.<br />
No answer came. Such a little thing as the<br />
truth of an allegation is, of course, easily for-<br />
gotten.<br />
We allowed him five weeks, and then a<br />
reminder was sent by Messrs. Field, Roscoe, and Co.<br />
Mr. Nutt then wrote expressing the deepest<br />
indignation at receiving a letter from solicitors.<br />
Now, he did not express any indignation when<br />
the first letter came from the solicitors. He said,<br />
however, that he was ready to give information to<br />
the proper person.<br />
I therefore wrote to him myself, as the proper<br />
person, merely repeating the questions. That is,<br />
I repeated his alleged quotations, and asked him<br />
where they could be found in The Author.<br />
He replied (Feb. 25) that he could not give<br />
the references "off-hand " — he had only had<br />
five weeks to look for them! He also sent a<br />
quantity of remarks which had nothing to do<br />
with the question,<br />
I sent a repetition of my letter, again asking<br />
for those references. He replied, a week later,<br />
that he could not get at all the volumes of The<br />
Author.<br />
I informed him that Mr. Thring would lend<br />
him the volumes. And I wrote a third letter<br />
again asking where those references were.<br />
Meantime I had answered in The Author his<br />
general charges, and the various assertions he had<br />
made in the Academy. He now sent me a long<br />
letter, saying nothing about the references, and<br />
demanded publication of this letter in The Author.<br />
His demand as a right I would not allow. How-<br />
ever, I referred the matter to the Committee.<br />
The Committee informed him that when he<br />
had answered the first question, and had either<br />
produced the references to The Author for the<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 17 (#29) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
n<br />
alleged quotations or had withdrawn the charge,<br />
they would be prepared to consider any remarks<br />
he might wish to make in The Author.<br />
The reader will be by this time prepared to<br />
hear that no answer has been forthcoming to the<br />
original question, and that those references have<br />
not yet appeared.<br />
Mr. Nutt made a complaint to the Committee<br />
about his letter to the Academy having been<br />
piinted in The Author without his permission, as<br />
if when a person is attacked he should ask permis-<br />
sion of his assailant before he quotes the words<br />
containing the charge!<br />
This correspondence explains itself. The alleged<br />
quotations from The Author I cannot find—no<br />
one else, so far, has been able to find them. Mr.<br />
Nutt alleges that they were in The Author: he has<br />
not yet receded from his position: he has now<br />
taken six months — his last letter was dated<br />
April 18 — to find the passages, and if he has<br />
been unable to find them, he is unaccountably<br />
shy about disclosing this fact.<br />
When a man advances positively that another<br />
man has publicly stated certain things, and that<br />
he has repeated these things " without a word of<br />
qualification," there are three courses open to him:<br />
either to prove that allegation by giving the exact<br />
references; or to withdraw it with an apology; or,<br />
failing both courses, to accept the conclusion<br />
which is natural. W. B.<br />
A SONG FOB A BOSS-<br />
Ro;e asks for a rhyme ?—<br />
Why, did she but know it,<br />
There is never a poet<br />
Bat sings her, some time!<br />
2.<br />
Only mention her name:<br />
The sweetest of fancies,<br />
Ballades and romances,<br />
Are set to the same.<br />
3-<br />
Only open and read:<br />
The daintiest pages,<br />
In bards of all ages,<br />
To Rose are decreed.<br />
4-<br />
Moore, Shelley, and Keats,<br />
Austin Dobson—the darling!<br />
Thrnsh, linnet and starling,<br />
Kose-singing one meets.<br />
5-<br />
Rose asks for a rhyme ?—<br />
There is never a poet,<br />
(Their rose-gardens show it),<br />
But sings her, some time!<br />
New Zealand. Mary Colbobne-Vekl.<br />
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.<br />
Qaem Deus vnlt perdere dementat prius.<br />
ON returning from abroad, I learn from The<br />
Author for May that the number for April<br />
included an inquiry as to the source of the<br />
above quotation. But for my absence, I should<br />
have written a month ago to state that " Querist"<br />
is undoubtedly right in supposing that the proper<br />
form of the line is<br />
Quern Jupiter vnlt perdere dementat prius.<br />
Something like this may be seen in the index to<br />
the edition of Euripides published by Professor<br />
Barnes in 1694, but the actual words (as just<br />
quoted) are to be found in the work of another<br />
Cambridge professor of Greek thirty-four years<br />
earlier. In Duport's "Gnomologia Homerica"<br />
(1660), p. 282, the words are added in paren-<br />
thesis immediately after the Greek quotation<br />
orav 8' 6 8a.tp.iov avSpi iropaivr) nana,<br />
tov vovv lf}Kaol/t irpinov.<br />
The Greek is preserved by Athenagoras, "Sup-<br />
plicatio pro Christianis" chap. 26, p. 138, and<br />
(with the addition of u f3ov\tvtTai) by the Scholiast<br />
on Sophocles, "Antigone," 620. It is entered<br />
among the Adespota in Nauck's "Tragicorum<br />
Grrecorum Fragmenta," No. 455. There is a<br />
close parallel to this fragment in another quoted<br />
by the Attic orator Lycurgus, contra Leocratem<br />
s. 92 :—<br />
orav yap opyil &aip.6vuiv j3\airrn riva,<br />
tovt avro irpSiTov, i£a<paipeiTai <j>p€vSiv<br />
tov vovv tov eV0A6V' £is Si Ttjv xeipw Tptirtt<br />
yv<Iip.rjv, iv tiSrj prjSev <m, aftapraytu<br />
This longer fragment is placed among the Ades-<br />
pota by Nauck (No. 296). Valckenaer, in his<br />
note on Euripides, " Hippolytus," 322, is inclined<br />
to ascribe it to Euripides, while Barnes (without<br />
any external authority) actually prints the shorter<br />
fragment among the remains of Euripides, and<br />
in his index (as already noticed by S. G.) has the<br />
heading "Deus quos vult perdere, dementat<br />
prius." The Latin, in the form" Quem Jupiter"<br />
&c., has never been traced to any earlier work<br />
than Duport's "Gnomologia" (1660). In the<br />
editions of Athenagoras earlier than that date,<br />
e.g., in the edition printed by H, Stephanus in<br />
1557, I observe that the Greek is translated<br />
differently. I have little, if any, doubt that the<br />
Latin version in the "Gnomologia" is Duport's<br />
own. His work shows how familiar he was with<br />
the Vulgate, and he was probably aware that<br />
"demento" in the sense of "dementem facio,"<br />
though not used by any classical author, was to<br />
be found in the Vulgate version of Acts viii, 11.<br />
Duport does not generally translate his Greek<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 18 (#30) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
quotations into Latin, but he does so in the case<br />
of a fragment of Euripides on p. 28, and a frag-<br />
ment of iEschylus on p. 200. Thus it is highly<br />
probable that here, in the case of another tragic<br />
fragment, he is similarly offering a rendering of<br />
his own. In composing this rendering he pre-<br />
sumably had in mind a parallel passage from<br />
Publilius Syrus:<br />
Stnltnm facit Fortuna quern vult perdere.<br />
St. John's College, . E. Sandys.<br />
Cambridge, May 9.<br />
I looked up this topic for the May number,<br />
but thought my notes might be unnecessary. I<br />
find, however, that some points still require<br />
settling. The letter of " S. G." is good, though<br />
not complete, and the reference of Mr. Earle to<br />
Notes and Queries applies to the very first<br />
volumes of that serial.<br />
Being limited to my own library, I shall not<br />
quote what is elsewhere. But first, for the verb<br />
"dementat," which is either transitive or intransi-<br />
tive, and is very rare. It occurs in Lactantius of<br />
the early fourth (not tenth) century, and tells how<br />
the persecutor Diocletian "semper dementabat,"<br />
or behaved like a madman; i.e., was demented.<br />
I discover only one other example of the verb<br />
"demento," and that is in the Latin Vulgate of<br />
Acts viii., 11, at which place we read that Simon<br />
Magus had for a long time stolen the wits of the<br />
Samaritans; "dementasset," had demented them.<br />
Here the verb is transitive, and certainly not<br />
classical, although it accords with the common<br />
Latin proverb, the varying forms of which are of<br />
equal value. As for the saying itself, its first<br />
representative seems to be in the "Legatio " of<br />
the learned Athenagoras, who wrote in Greek<br />
his plea for Christianity late in the second<br />
century. He maintains the goodness of God and<br />
His works, and, as I understand him, ascribes<br />
other works to Daemons who, in his opinion, are<br />
evil. Here it is that he introduces a Greek<br />
quotation, from an author he does not name, in<br />
this way: "For God does not incite to what is<br />
contrary to nature, 'But a Daemon when he<br />
devises any harm against a man first injures his<br />
mind.'" The Latin of Joshua Barnes may do<br />
for this, but my copy of Athenagoras sticks to<br />
the word "Daemon," and the annotators uphold<br />
it, rightly, as I think. (See the Oxford edition of<br />
Athenagoras, 1706). The fine edition of the<br />
Benedictines (Paris, 1742) also refers the<br />
dementing process to demons. Your wise readers<br />
will draw their own inferences.<br />
In conclusion I may mention the "Beautiful<br />
Thoughts from Latin Authors," by Dr. Ramage<br />
(p. 791. London, 1879), where a little critical<br />
acumen is needed. So "here I make an ending,"<br />
and am, &c., B. H. C.<br />
<br />
LITERATURE IN THE PERIODICALS.<br />
Cheap Books—The Daily Telegraph's Bai><br />
Opinion of Current Fiction—Modern Lan-<br />
guage Teaching—Letters of Charles Lamb<br />
—Parasitical Literature.<br />
MR. BRYCE'S suggestion for cheaper books<br />
is discussed in a leading article by the<br />
Daily Telegraph (May 11). So far<br />
from depreciating the statesman's view of the pre-<br />
ponderance of newspaper reading, this great organ<br />
goes the length of saying that it is "quite an<br />
arguable point whether the newspaper will not<br />
end by swallowing up the magazine, as it has<br />
already succeeded in establishing its popularity at<br />
the expense of books," Were it not for the great<br />
circulating libraries, says the writer, the produc-<br />
tion of books would be more perilous still. And<br />
then, in demonstrating why books are dear, he<br />
proceeds to support the theory so often advanced,<br />
that the successful book is the publisher's contra<br />
for the unsuccessful ones. "Having paid a good<br />
deal more than he ought for one book, the pub-<br />
lisher has to pay less than he ought for another;<br />
his successes, such as they are, have to make up<br />
for his losses; while in such an unhealthy state<br />
of things, the young writer of promise has a<br />
peculiar difficulty in getting even a hearing,"<br />
Nor would publishers extend their own sales by<br />
lowering their prices. Books have their own<br />
clientile, and it is true of nearly every kind of<br />
book, that those who want it will pay the price,<br />
and that its issue at a "popular" price will not<br />
attract a larger circle. For the rest the Tele-<br />
graph has a really bad opinion of the origin and<br />
nature of novels.<br />
Oar bookstalls are flooded with works of fiction, mostly<br />
written by women—often mi grammatical, largely worth-<br />
less in character, and wholly devoid of any reasonable<br />
interest. They are produced because in nine cases out of<br />
ten the anthoress pays for the production. They are<br />
reviewed because critics are more generous to-day to the<br />
average novel than they have been in any other period of<br />
our literary history. They are sold because the assumption<br />
still continues to be held—and is, indeed, to some extent<br />
borne out by facts—that fiction written by women is read<br />
by women, in country houses, at the seaside, or in foreign<br />
places of fashionable resort, where no other form of literary<br />
work has a chance of entering.<br />
In the Academy (May 21), J. E. H. W.<br />
controverts the above statements almost entirely.<br />
True it is, he says, that the great mass of our<br />
half-instructed population are quite contented<br />
with magazines and newspapers, " but then the-<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 19 (#31) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
great mass of our half-educated population never<br />
did buy books." Publishers do not depend upon<br />
the circulating libraries; the latter "do not buy<br />
books in large numbers; as a rule they have no<br />
need to; naturally they have no wish to." The<br />
standard of new fiction is above the " average "—<br />
"an average which is no longer correct." And<br />
even supposing that a publisher pays more than<br />
he ought for one book, "how does this affect the<br />
young author? Where the risk is so great it is<br />
almost a wonder that a new writer obtains any-<br />
thing at all for his first work. If he can find a<br />
publisher to take the chance he is indeed fortu-<br />
nate. If his book is a great success, he has his<br />
reward: he can dictate his own terms in future."<br />
The Daily News says that publishers have only<br />
themselves to thank if best books are not more in<br />
demand; and tells them that, when they have<br />
mastered the secret of the cheap newspaper, they<br />
will bring out the cheap book. "The novel at a<br />
guinea and a half died hard in this country; the<br />
novel at five or six shillings still cumbers the<br />
earth."<br />
Mrs. Lecky writes on "Modern Language<br />
Teaching in Longman's Magazine for June, and<br />
recommends all who are interested in the progress<br />
and education of our people, to take to heart these<br />
words from a recent speech of Sir William Har-<br />
court: "The present defect of English education,<br />
from the top of the scale to the bottom, is our<br />
neglect of the cultivation of the modern lan-<br />
guages of the nations of the world." Our method<br />
has been wrong. Mrs. Lecky praises the Gouin<br />
method of teaching, which proceeds by gradual<br />
development. It is based on the natural pro-<br />
cess by which every infant begins to speak—<br />
that is, by learning the sounds through the ear<br />
before it knows how to read and write—and it<br />
makes the verb the pivot of the teaching.<br />
Eegarding the Universities Mrs. Lecky says " it<br />
seems an anomaly that honours can be obtained<br />
in modern languages at Oxford without a viva<br />
race test, and that for the Cambridge tripos viva<br />
race also is optional, and that the results do not<br />
affect the class."<br />
Mr. E. V. Lucas has been publishing in the<br />
Cornhill Magazine (May and June) correspon-<br />
dence between Charles Lamb and his friend<br />
Robert Lloyd, the Quaker, and partner in the<br />
bookselling and printing business of Knott and<br />
Lloyd at Birmingham. The letters are full<br />
of good things. One of them shows Lamb's<br />
fondness for London to have been quite equal to<br />
that of Dr. Johnson. "Give me the old book-<br />
stalls of London," he exclaims, " a walk in the<br />
bright piazzas of Covent Garden. I defy a man<br />
to be dull in such places—perfect Mahometan<br />
paradises upon earth! I have lent out my heart<br />
with usury to such scenes from my childhood<br />
up, and have cried with fullness of joy at the<br />
multitudinous scenes of life in the crowded streets<br />
of ever dear London." In his last letter, dated<br />
January i, 1810, he gives an affecting picture of<br />
his home at 4, Inner Temple-lane. "The feeling<br />
of home, which has been slow to come, has come<br />
at last. May I never move again, but may my<br />
next lodging be my coffin." Among his literary<br />
criticisms is that he "seems to miss" in Pope's<br />
"Iliad" translation "a certain savage-like plain-<br />
ness of speaking in Achilles—a sort of indelicacy.<br />
The heroes in Homer are not half civilised: they<br />
utter all the cruel, all the selfish, all the mean<br />
thoughts even of their nature, which it is the<br />
fashion of our great men to keep in."<br />
A writer in Blackwood's for May casts the<br />
conscientious biographer into a very offensive light.<br />
He calls the literature "parasitical," and applies<br />
such terms as "questionable" and "destructive<br />
familiarity" to the kind of biography to which<br />
nothing is too insignificant to include. "It is<br />
good to know how any distinguished man looked<br />
and lived, and good to learn the conditions amid<br />
which his day's work was done. But it is enough<br />
to know him as friend knows friend; it is un-<br />
necessary, even undesirable, possibly offensive, to<br />
share the relationship and knowledge of his valet<br />
or his nurse."<br />
CORRESPONDENCE.<br />
I.—Editors and Contributors.<br />
1.<br />
MAY I make a few remarks on the List of<br />
Rules of Editors, published in your issue<br />
of May 2, for the sake of the young<br />
beginners in literature whose lot and whose risks<br />
are becoming worse as their numbers multiply?<br />
I have myself very little to complain of with<br />
regard to editors, who seem far better than their<br />
laws. I have been almost invariably kindly and<br />
courteously treated. It has however happened<br />
once or twice that my MSS. have been lost<br />
letters unanswered, payments forgotten, &c.<br />
I notice that it is increasingly common for<br />
editors to repudiate all responsibility for MSS.<br />
Most of those in your List decline to return MSS.<br />
altogether; some, if stamps and envelopes are<br />
sent, endeavour to return them. Many insist on<br />
type-written copy.<br />
I know the worries of editors, and the rubbish<br />
they have to deal with, and the rules are made to<br />
save them trouble; all the same the worries to<br />
the author are greater and much more serious.<br />
Authors have a right to complain of these rules.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 20 (#32) ##############################################<br />
<br />
20<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
MSS. are the author's bread. They are perish-<br />
able goods; they are submitted on approval, and<br />
this seems the only way to bring author and<br />
public together. In the editor's office they may<br />
be lost, burnt, or, worse, gutted; and there are<br />
the risks by post also.<br />
It may be replied, authors must retain copies of<br />
their MSS. But, as many MSS. have to travel a<br />
good deal for various reasons (was it not Currer<br />
Bell whose first work had to be sent to a dozen<br />
successive publishers'{), I submit that this is a<br />
"sweating" system. An author may make a<br />
copy, or pay a typist to do it—and type-writing is<br />
certainly costly. He sends up his MS.; it is not<br />
returned—that is the rule—neither is it used.<br />
After a time, and after losing the return stamps,<br />
he sends off the other. Similar fate. How many<br />
copies is the poor young author to keep on the<br />
chance of rejection?<br />
Then there is the question of using the MS.<br />
elsewhere. How long is the author to wait till<br />
the editor or the publisher's reader has made up<br />
his mind?<br />
There is yet a worse risk, that, during the<br />
interval, the "guts" of the MS. are stolen, the<br />
material and the idea used up by the publisher's<br />
sister, or cousin, or aunt, and the original author<br />
has no redress.<br />
It is manifestly hard and contrary to the rules<br />
of business to send goods on approval without a<br />
guarantee, or to keep goods without paying for<br />
them, or to neglect to inform the owner whether<br />
his goods are marketable in that particular place<br />
or not. Especially in journalism both are fre-<br />
quently done and suffered; and often when the<br />
MS. >** returned, the "moment" is past, and the<br />
subject has no chance.<br />
Many authors are of opinion that since sending<br />
up MSS. on approval is the only way, editors<br />
ought to be bound to take responsibility; and<br />
compelled, after agreeing to examine a MS., to<br />
return it or to pay for it within a certain fixed<br />
time. I should say a fortnight ought to suffice<br />
for decision in the case of a book, and three days<br />
in that of a newspaper article.<br />
I also have to corroborate another correspon-<br />
dent's complaint—that MSS. are returned<br />
damaged. I have seen in publishers' rooms a<br />
MS. being read in company with a sandwich, for<br />
which it served as a plate. I have had MSS.<br />
returned to me marked with grease, and unfit to<br />
send elsewhere.<br />
It appears to me that, if a humble typewriter<br />
can afford to protect against loss, damage, or fire<br />
(and I hope cribbing), MSS. entrusted to her by<br />
a floating policy of insurance, the proprietor of a<br />
journal or a respectable publisher can do the<br />
same, and such insurance ought to be a sine qua<br />
non. M. E. Hawei?.<br />
ii.<br />
Mr. Herbert W. Smith sends a communication<br />
unfortunately too long for publication. He says,<br />
in answer to the question: "How would he<br />
compel the editor to do this or that ?"—that he<br />
would compel him by unanimous action on the<br />
part of authors. He thinks that the time has<br />
arrived for authors to take united action. I have<br />
long thought so, but I do not see many signs<br />
of such united action. One thing is hopeful,<br />
however: with men and women of letters action<br />
need not be universal. Everything that a trades-<br />
union can effect would be brought about by the<br />
union of fifty or sixty writers whose works are<br />
commercially valuable.<br />
On the score of unequal remuneration Mr.<br />
Smith claims that all trades are equal. But<br />
literature is not a trade. All professions are<br />
unequal: all works of art are unequal. Is a man<br />
who writes a play which runs a month to be paid<br />
as much as a man whose play ruus three years?<br />
Is the youngest artistwho exhibits in the Academy<br />
to be paid as much for his picture as the most<br />
distinguished R.A.?<br />
Dudley Warner once advocated the foundation<br />
of a literary union in which all the members should<br />
receive the same wages. A minimum scale of<br />
pay for magazine work would be a most desirable<br />
thing from many points of view, but it is im-<br />
possible to enforce it except for certain writers<br />
whose work is in vogue.<br />
Mr. Smith concludes as follows :—<br />
"At the present moment neither law, public<br />
opinion, nor etiquette affords relief against the<br />
small worries, humiliations, and peculations to<br />
which the rank and file of authors are often<br />
subjected by unscrupulous, lazy, careless, and<br />
grossly ignorant dealers in their goods.<br />
"Were the Society of Authors to determine in<br />
consultation with editors of repute upon a definite<br />
understanding with regard to delays in consider-<br />
ing MSS., delays in payment, and unequal<br />
remuneration, they would have achieved an end<br />
of very great importance. What respectable<br />
editors decreed, the tag-rag and bob-tail would<br />
find it expedient to obey. With growth and<br />
authority on its side, the Society of Authors<br />
might find itself capable of striking offenders ' off<br />
the Rolls' in due time."<br />
in.<br />
My only reason for troubling you again is that<br />
several points have occurred to me since I wrote<br />
to you, particularly in view of the valuable com-<br />
munications you print from "An Unofficial<br />
Receiver—of Editorial Regrets," and Mr. Herbert<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 21 (#33) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
21<br />
W. Smith. The first-named writer refers to a<br />
grievance of the highest importance—i.e., the<br />
work of native authors being excluded from<br />
columns which are used for the reproduction of<br />
articles stolen from American periodicals. Besides<br />
this the work of native authors is excluded from<br />
columns used, inter alia (I) for articles, tales,<br />
jokes, and pictures stolen—totally or in part as<br />
regards first-mentioned — from other English<br />
papers, and from all manner of foreign papers,<br />
the editor thinking, most erroneously, that if he<br />
acknowledges the source of such he is acting in<br />
an unexceptionable way; (2) for advertisements,<br />
even of the journal itself or of another publica-<br />
tion issued from the same office; (3) for the<br />
work of persons who are not genuine native<br />
authors, but belong to one of the following divi-<br />
sions—(a) individuals who have attained celebrity<br />
in some other walk, and are therefore exploited<br />
as writers by editors; (6) blacklegs, usually<br />
poetasters, who work, such as their work is, for<br />
nothing; (c) persons, usually poetasters again,<br />
who could not possibly have got their lucubra-<br />
tions accepted if they had not been relations or<br />
friends of the editor, or been able to bring some<br />
influence to bear on him—(4) for matter repro-<br />
duced from some back number of the paper itself<br />
or a sister periodical. In no other business in<br />
the world could this crambe repetita take place.<br />
In regard to what Mr. Smith says as to the pay-<br />
ment per column for articles, this should also be<br />
pointed out: A paper commences by paying, say,<br />
£1 is. a column. This is when its circulation is<br />
small, but it makes no addition no matter how<br />
large its circulation grows, and this though some<br />
of the contributors, whose payments it does not<br />
increase, have been the main creators of its<br />
prosperity.<br />
Another thing: the most tenth-rate actor can<br />
get free passes for himself and a friend to<br />
theatres, yet no editor thinks of putting even his<br />
best contributor on his free-list.<br />
In conclusion, I may say that before I die I<br />
hope to see some at least of the following reforms<br />
effected :—(1) Every line contributed to a paper<br />
paid for, including correspondence and matter<br />
contributed in competition; (2) every journalistic<br />
post put in the market, and not handed through<br />
backstairs influence to some played-out hack,<br />
some mere reporter, 'Varsity man or Scotsman;<br />
(3) no one but a qualified and registered journalist<br />
allowed to sell MSS. to a paper, just as only<br />
admitted solicitors can sell legal skill and know-<br />
ledge : these as a first instalment.<br />
Experto Ceede.<br />
P.S.—I should like to add that I think it<br />
should be made a penal offence for an editor to<br />
appropriate ideas from an article he does not<br />
accept, unless* before doing so lie had arranged<br />
to pay the author therefor. I could mention the<br />
editors of papers that make no scruple of doing<br />
this.<br />
IV.<br />
A correspondent, "J. C. G\," writes in reply to<br />
the letter of Mr. Herbert W. Smith, to the<br />
following effect:<br />
(1.) Unsolicited contributions are not amongst<br />
the requirements of journals.<br />
(2.) All journals have a regular staff engaged<br />
to do the work.<br />
(3.) Unsolicited contributions are of "the<br />
nature of an aggravation and an impertinence."<br />
(4.) Editors try sometimes out of courtesy to<br />
read the MSS. sent in, but have to desist out of<br />
regard to the interests of the journal.<br />
(5.) He suggests that it would be well to write<br />
and offer the editor first.<br />
[These points are put in the form of questions.<br />
Well, a simple reference to the table of contents<br />
for the last few months of any magazine would<br />
prove that there is no such thing as a regular staff<br />
to do the work. Out of every six months follow-<br />
ing, it would be extremely strange were the same<br />
name to occur twice.<br />
Contributions, as may be seen from the list<br />
published in our last number, are expected from<br />
writers uninvited.<br />
Editors practically undertake to read them all.<br />
To ask an editor if he will look at a MS., would<br />
be to give him double trouble, because he professes<br />
to read everything sent.—Ed.].<br />
II.—Mr. Punch and his Contributors.<br />
I consider that the writer of the article in<br />
your last issue, treating of the ways in which<br />
various journals undertake to deal with the MSS.<br />
of their contributors should have taken the<br />
trouble to verify his statements.<br />
I invite him to refer to the cover of Punch,<br />
where he will find this notice :—<br />
"Communications or contributions, whether<br />
MS., printed matter, drawings, or pictures of any<br />
description, will not be returned unless accom-<br />
panied by a stamped and addressed envelope,<br />
cover, or wrapper."<br />
The writer of your article stated that they<br />
would not be returned under any conditions.<br />
I will ask you to be good enough to correct his<br />
inaccuracy by publishing this letter.<br />
A Member of the Staff of Punch.<br />
III.—The Roxburghe Press, Limited.<br />
In this month's issue of The Author a corre-<br />
spondent asks for advice as to how to proceed<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 22 (#34) ##############################################<br />
<br />
22<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
with a view of recovering his MS., which he sent<br />
to the Roxburghe Press prior to that company's<br />
failure.<br />
I am informed by a member of the late staff<br />
of the Roxburghe Press that if " Provincial " and<br />
others in a like predicament apply to Messrs.<br />
Singleton and Co., of 4, Staples-inn, Holborn,<br />
the desired result will be obtained.<br />
May 18. Fred. J. May.<br />
IV.—"The Author" in the Libraries.<br />
I think you would receive many more com-<br />
plaints from struggling free lances as to the way<br />
they are treated if The Author was only read<br />
more extensively among them. As a matter of<br />
fact it ought to be in every public library in the<br />
Kingdom, whereas even in London, as far as my<br />
experience of a year back goes, it is only to be<br />
found in the Clerkenwell Free Library. In this<br />
town it is not taken by the authorities of the<br />
library but is presented to them, and naturally<br />
the donor pleases himself about when he brings<br />
it. E. C.<br />
Cheltenham.<br />
V.—Unmarketableness of Terse.<br />
The statement of Mr. Henley with regard to<br />
the sale of poetry urges me to air a long-felt<br />
grievance. Poetry does not sell for the simple<br />
reason that its price is prohibitive. Circulating<br />
libraries will not provide modern poetry, free<br />
libraries have very little, and the consequence is<br />
that, as wealth and a love of literature unfortu-<br />
nately seldom go together, modern poetry remains<br />
unread. I deeply deplore my own ignorance of<br />
our present poets, but I see no way of remedying<br />
it, as I cannot afford to buy their works at 5s.<br />
a volume. If they would but produce their<br />
poems at popular instead of prohibitive prices I<br />
am sure that they would find a public eager and<br />
willing to buy. One would have thought that<br />
the lesson had been learnt by now that a large<br />
circulation of cheap books pays better than the<br />
sale of a few expensive volumes, but the poets do<br />
not seem to realise it. F. M. K.<br />
VI.—The First Book.<br />
Although a loyal member of the Authors'<br />
Society I sometimes wonder whether a young and<br />
unknown writer is wise in abiding by the prin-<br />
ciples advocated by that society too rigidly.<br />
In the May number of The Author appears a<br />
short story telling how a young writer is offered<br />
.£15 158. for the copyright of his first book.<br />
Twelve years ago, before I left Cambridge, and<br />
before I was out of my teens, I wrote a story for<br />
a boys' paper. I was paid 30s. a number, but<br />
was careful to retain copyright. When the story<br />
was completed I sent it to a big publishing<br />
house. The reader's report was most eulogistic,<br />
but the house did not care for reprints, and I<br />
was requested to write a new story on the same<br />
lines. The pressure of journalistic work pre-<br />
vented this, but shortly afterwards another pub-<br />
lisher offered me £2 5 for the story. He wanted<br />
all rights. I believed in the story—I still believe<br />
in it. I rejected the offer. I have since sent my<br />
story to several publishers, but have not been<br />
able to get it read.<br />
The result is that it will probably never be<br />
published in book form. Now, had I accepted<br />
that offer of £25, and the book had succeeded,<br />
would not my position be better than it is to-day?<br />
I should probably now be living in Paris, writing<br />
fiction—the work I love—instead of toiling at<br />
mere journalistic hack work for £4 or .£5 a<br />
week. _i: H. J. A.<br />
VII.—Proposed Journal for Young Authors.<br />
I have forwarded you some circulars re the<br />
Pioneer paper, to which, I understand, you will<br />
refer elsewhere. May I be allowed to say, by<br />
way of comment, that a large number of young<br />
"literarv aspirants " are certain to eagerly accept<br />
the offer of " Mr. Leigh, M.P.A.B.A. "? For there<br />
is no doubt that a paper "run" on somewhat<br />
similar lines would be of immense benefit to the<br />
"ambitious unknown."<br />
It should be remembered that a young and<br />
able, but inexperienced, writer has at present no<br />
means of obtaining that skilled revision and<br />
alteration of his work which would not only make<br />
it acceptable to the editors, but would show him<br />
his faults, and how they might be avoided or<br />
corrected. These faults he has to find out for<br />
himself—if he can—often after years of failure,<br />
poverty, and bitterness of spirit.<br />
What hundreds of struggling writers will look,<br />
probably in vain, for "Mr. Leigh, M.P.A.P.A.,"<br />
to accomplish, the Society of Authors could and<br />
should do, for those young authors whom it<br />
desires to help; that is, establish a journal in<br />
which their writings may appear, a journal, let<br />
us say, supplementary to The Author, to be called<br />
"The Young Author." A fee, to be made as low<br />
as possible, would be paid by the writer for the<br />
correction of his MS. and the cost of its insertion.<br />
The articles must, of course, be short, and the<br />
editor would have the option of returning such<br />
as were hopeless, or required too much alteration.<br />
The paper should be edited by a capable and<br />
sympathetic senior, and be regularly forwarded to<br />
the magazine editors, &c. The reading matter<br />
should be copyrighted, and the articles be eligible<br />
for republication by payment.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 23 (#35) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
23<br />
The " Young Author " should be published at<br />
cost price, the profit from advertisements, writers'<br />
fees, and the sale of copies being arranged to<br />
balance the cost of production.<br />
I would suggest, as another feature of the<br />
paper, an "Answers to Contributors" page,<br />
where readers' opinions on short stories or<br />
articles, poems, <fcc., should be published on pay-<br />
ment by the writer of a small fee, thus adopting<br />
the present system of the Society in retail, instead<br />
of wholesale.<br />
I am aware that this sketch of the scheme is<br />
crude, and requires considerable working out. I<br />
have refrained from all argument in favour of<br />
my ideas, and from any elaboration of them, out<br />
of respect for your valuable space.<br />
H. A. Spurr.<br />
VIII.—Jane Austen.<br />
The following letter appeared recently in the<br />
Times -.—Among the distinguished natives of<br />
Hampshire who are buried in Winchester Cathe-<br />
dral there are few names more worthy of record<br />
than that of Jane Austen; yet the only memorial<br />
of her (beyond the stone slab which marks the<br />
site of her grave) is a brass tablet let into the<br />
wall, which was placed there by her nephew and<br />
biographer, the late Rev. J. E. Austen Leigh, in<br />
1870.<br />
We feel that we shall be appealing to a large<br />
circle of warm admirers, who have been charmed<br />
and cheered by her work, if we ask for subscrip-<br />
tions to enable us to fill one of the windows in<br />
the Cathedral with painted glass in her memory.<br />
The selection of the window will depend upon<br />
the amount of support that we may receive. The<br />
cost of a window in the Lady Chapel is estimated<br />
at £600, one in the nave .£300. We may add<br />
that our proposal has the cordial approval of the<br />
Dean of Winchester.<br />
Contributions not exceeding five guineas may<br />
be paid to Messrs. Hoare, 37, Fleet-street,<br />
London, who have kindly consented to act as<br />
treasurers of the fund.<br />
northbrook.<br />
Selborne.<br />
W. W. B. Beach.<br />
Montagu G. Knight.<br />
BOOK TALE.<br />
THE DUKE of ARGYLL is bringing out,<br />
through Mr. Murray, a little book on<br />
"Organic Evolution," which is the result<br />
of a controversy he held with Mr. Herbert<br />
Spencer a short time ago.<br />
Mr. Barrie has written an introduction for<br />
the posthumous volume by Mrs. Oliphant, "A<br />
Widow's Tale and Other Stories." It takes the<br />
form of an appreciation of the author and her<br />
works.<br />
Mrs. Humphry Ward's new book is to be<br />
published on June 10. Its title is "Helbeck of<br />
Bannisdale."<br />
A story of Cornish life, by Mr. J. H. Pearce,<br />
will be published shortly by Mr. Heinemann.<br />
"Ezekiel's Sin " is the title.<br />
A translation of M. Rostand's "Cyrano de<br />
Bergerac" is being brought out by Mr. Heine-<br />
mann.<br />
Owen Rhoscomyl has written a Welsh story,<br />
entitled "The Shrouded Face," which Messrs.<br />
Pearson will issue immediately.<br />
Maxwell Gray's new book, to be out imme-<br />
diately, is called "The House of Hidden<br />
Treasure."<br />
Mr. Joseph Hocking has been to Ireland col-<br />
lecting materials for a romance based upon<br />
certain aspects of monastic life. The story will<br />
be called "The Scarlet Woman," and will first<br />
run serially. Mr. Hocking regards it as the most<br />
important he has undertaken.<br />
Mr. Richard Davey has written a book on<br />
Cuba, entitled " Cuba, Past and Present," which<br />
will be issued by the firm of Chapman and Hall<br />
in a short time. The author has travelled in the<br />
island, and discusses its history from the begin-<br />
ning up to the present day of its difficulties.<br />
A work on the taking of Khartoum is already<br />
promised from the pen of Mr. G. W. Steevens,<br />
the special correspondent of the Daily Mail, and<br />
author of " The Land of the Dollar" and' Egypt<br />
in 1898."<br />
Mr. Henry James's new volume of fiction is to<br />
be called "The Two Magics." It will be pub-<br />
lished by Mr. Heinemann in the autumn.<br />
Mr. Henry Savage Landorhas in great measure<br />
recovered from the terrible injuries inflicted upon<br />
him by the Tibetans, and the experiences of the<br />
journey will be told in his book which Mr. Heine-<br />
mann will publish in the autumn. It will<br />
be translated for simultaneous publication in<br />
French, German, Hungarian, Bohemian, and<br />
probably Russian and Italian editions.<br />
Mr. Leslie Stephen's "Essays" will be pub-<br />
lished in the autumn.<br />
Mr. Stephen Gwynn has written a volume<br />
entitled "Tennyson: a Critical Study," which<br />
Messrs. Blackie will publish in their Victorian<br />
Era series. Other works in this series will be<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 24 (#36) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
"Ireland during the Victorian Era," which will<br />
be written by Mr. J. A. R. Marriott: "Pruden-<br />
tial Societies and Industrial Welfare," by Mr.<br />
E. W. Brabrook; and "Gold Discoveries and<br />
their Influence on Commerce," by Mr. Moreton<br />
Frewen.<br />
New biographies are also in preparation by<br />
Messrs. James Nisbet and Co. They include, by<br />
Major Sharp Hume, " The Great Lord Burghley:<br />
a Study in Elizabethan Statecraft," which is based<br />
largely upon public records, and on family papers<br />
at Hatfield and Burghley; by Mr. Hillaire Belloc,<br />
"Danton"; and by Mr. J. A. Hobson, " Ruskin<br />
as a Social Reformer."<br />
A monograph of Mont Blanc has been written<br />
by Mr. Charles Edward Mathews, who has<br />
climbed the mountain eleven times and by five<br />
different routes. Mr. Mathews is a former presi-<br />
dent of the Alpine Club, and has made a special<br />
study of literature on the subject of his work.<br />
It will contain illustrations by Signor Sella and<br />
others, and be published by Mr. Unwin under the<br />
title "The Annals of Mont Blanc."<br />
Two volumes of the definitive edition of Byron<br />
have been published by Mr. Murray—the first of<br />
the Poetry, edited by Mr. Hartley Coleridge, and<br />
the first of the Letters and Journals, which Mr.<br />
Rowland Prothero has edited. The latter con-<br />
tains 168 letters down to Aug. 22, 1811; while<br />
for the same period Moore's edition contains<br />
sixty-one, Halleck's seventy-eight, and Mr. Hen-<br />
ley's of eighteen months ago, eighty-eight. A<br />
mass of material dealing more or less directly<br />
with Byron's life has for the first time been<br />
accessible to Mr. Prothero, it having been accumu-<br />
lated by Mr. Murray's father and grandfather.<br />
"Through the letters," says Mr. Prothero, "a<br />
truer conception of Byron can be formed than<br />
any impression which is derived from Dallas,<br />
Leigh Hunt, Medwin, or even Moore." In his<br />
preface the editor quotes the following letter of<br />
Byron's father, written to his sister Mrs. Leigh<br />
when the poet was but three years old. It is<br />
dated from Valenciennes, Feb. 16, i79i,andthe<br />
only reference to his son throughout a whole<br />
bundle of letters to the same correspondent is<br />
contained in it:<br />
Have you never received any letters from me by way of<br />
Bologne? I have sent two. For God's sake send me some,<br />
as I have a great deal to pay. With regard to Mrs. Byron,<br />
I am glad she writes to you. She is very amiable at a<br />
distance; but I defy you and all the Apostles to live with<br />
her two months, for, if anybody could live with her, it was<br />
me. Mais jeu de Mains, jeu de Vilains. For my son, I am<br />
happy to hear he is well; but for his walking, 'tis impos-<br />
sible, as he is club-footed.<br />
Jane Austen's works are being published, in a<br />
Winchester edition of ten volumes, by Mr.<br />
Grant Richards. A feature is to be made of the<br />
production, and the printers, Constable, of Edin-<br />
burgh, will use the same type as they did for the<br />
Edinburgh edition of Stevenson.<br />
Mr. Zangwill's separate volumes, "The<br />
Bachelors' Club" and "The Old Maids' Club,"<br />
will be published in one by Mr. Heinemann under<br />
the title " The Celibates' Club."<br />
"George Egertou's" first long story is about<br />
ready. It deals with women's life and work,<br />
both in this country and in America, is called<br />
"The Wheel of God," and will be published by<br />
Mr. Grant Richards.<br />
Mr. Conan Doyle is publishing through Messrs.<br />
Smith Elder a volume of poems under the title<br />
"Songs of Action."<br />
Simultaneously with the opening of the Wagner<br />
cycle at Covent Garden this month, when so-<br />
many of the Bayreuth methods .and appliances<br />
will be in use, Mr. Edwin O. Sachs is issuing a<br />
large folio volume entitled " Stage Construction."<br />
It will contain two hundred drawings, photo-<br />
graphs, and diagrams of the great stages of<br />
Europe and London, and in his introduction the'<br />
author of the monumental "Modern Opera<br />
Houses and Theatres " will deal with scenic art<br />
and the various developments of stage equip-<br />
ment. The book will be published by Mr.<br />
Batsford.<br />
"Cycling for Everybody," by the well-known<br />
authority Mr. Lacy Hillier, is a new book which<br />
Messrs. Chapman and Hall are to issue imme-<br />
diately.<br />
Professor George Henslow has written a book,<br />
to which Professor Skeat contributes an introduc-<br />
tion and notes, on "Medical Works of the<br />
Fourteenth Century." This consists of tran-<br />
scripts from four manuscripts of the time of<br />
Wiclif and Chaucer, three of which are in the<br />
British Museum, and the fourth in the possession<br />
of Professor Henslow himself. They illustrate<br />
the crudeness of the mediaeval conceptions of the<br />
value of plants as drugs, and the recipes are<br />
remarkable for the general absence of any men-<br />
tion of the nauseous substances recommended by<br />
some apothecaries of a later day. The work will<br />
be published by Messrs. Chapman and Hall.<br />
Mr. Lawrence Binyon is issuing a "Second<br />
Book of London Visions" soon in the Shilling<br />
Garland series published by Mr. Mathew. The<br />
"First Book " appeared two years ago.<br />
Mr. R. Lydekker is following his work on " The<br />
Deer of all Lands " with a companion sumptuous<br />
volume on " Wild Oxen, Sheep, and Goats of all<br />
Lands." It will contain, like the earlier work, a<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 25 (#37) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
25<br />
number of photographs by the Duchess of Bed-<br />
ford, who possesses at Woburn a fine collection<br />
of deer and wild animals.<br />
Mr. Cunninghame Graham is writing a book<br />
on his recent adventures in the south of Morocco.<br />
Disguised as an Arab, he attempted to reach the<br />
"sacred city" of Tarudant, the capital of the<br />
Sua province; but, while crossing the Atlas<br />
mountains, he was recognised as a European and<br />
taken prisoner. His book will be called " Mogreb<br />
El Acksa."<br />
The first volume of the "English Dialect Dic-<br />
tionary," edited by Professor Joseph Wright, and<br />
published by Mr. Henry Frowde, is now com-<br />
pleted. It contains 17,519 simple and compound<br />
words and 2248 phrases, illustrated by 42,915<br />
quotations, with the exact sources from which<br />
they have been obtained.<br />
Mrs. Richmond Ritchie gives some further<br />
interesting details of Thackeray in the second<br />
volume of the biographical edition of his works,<br />
namely, "Pendennis," which was published a<br />
fortnight ago. Thackeray wrote to his mother<br />
in the summer of 1848, proposing that they<br />
should take a house at Brighton, " or somewhere<br />
where I can work upon ' Pendennis,' which is to<br />
be the name of the new book." He suggested a<br />
house at .£60 a year:<br />
As for the dignity, I don't believe it mitterj a pinch of<br />
snuff. Tom Carlyle Uvea in perfect dignity in a little .£40<br />
honse at Chelsea, with a snuffy Scotch maid to open the<br />
door, and the best company in England ringing at it. It is<br />
only the second or third chop great folks who care about<br />
show. "And why don't yon live with a maid yourself?"<br />
I think I hear somebody saying. Well, I can't; I want a<br />
man to be going my own messages, which ocoupy him pretty<br />
well. There must be a cook, and a woman about the<br />
children, and that horse is the best doctor I get iu London;<br />
in fine, there are a hundred good reasons for a lazy, liberal,<br />
not extravagant, but costly way of life.<br />
The third and final portion of the great Ash-<br />
burnham Library was sold at Sotheby's during<br />
the past month. The bidding was keen, and the<br />
prices remarkable. Among the notable lota sold<br />
were a good copy of the First Folio Shakespeare<br />
(1623), .£585, bought by Sir Arthur Hodgson for<br />
presentation to the Shakespeare Library at<br />
Stratford-on-Avon; a fine and perfect copy of<br />
the rare Third Folio Shakespeare (1664), ,£190;<br />
two books from the press of the first printer<br />
who set up in the City of London, William de<br />
Machlinia, namely, "Speculum Chiistiani" (about<br />
1484), .£230, and a Book of Sentences from<br />
Terence in Latin and English, thirty-two leaves,<br />
£201; a very rare example of Caxton's press,<br />
"Speculum Vitse Christi," one of three perfect<br />
copies known (about 1488), .£510; an uncut copy<br />
of the first edition of Sir Walter Scott's<br />
"Waverley" (1814), .£78, a record price; a<br />
beautiful set of the first five editions of Walton's<br />
"Compleat Angler" (1653 to 1676), .£800; an<br />
imperfect copy of Chaucer's " Canterbury Tales,"<br />
from Caxton's press (1478) wanting seventy-<br />
seven leaves, .£230; a fine and perfect copy of a<br />
very rare Caxton, "The XII. Proflites of Tri-<br />
bulaeyon" (1490), a pamphlet of thirty-two<br />
pages, .£310; a fine copy of the first edition of<br />
"Valturius De Re Militari" (1472), remarkable<br />
as being the first book with woodcuts executed<br />
in Italy, .£219; an imperfect copy of Gower's<br />
"Confessio Amantis," printed by Caxton (1483),<br />
wanting forty-one leaves, £100; Voraigne's<br />
"La Legende Dorce les Saints et Saintes"<br />
(Paris, 1493), with 158 richly-painted and illumi-<br />
nated miniatures and figures of saints, .£165.<br />
The whole collection took twenty days to disperse,<br />
and the sale first began in June last year. There<br />
were 4075 lots, which realised .£62,712.<br />
Mr. Martin A. Buckmaster has written a text-<br />
book on "Elementary Architecture," which will<br />
certain thirty-eight full-page illustrations, and be<br />
published by the Clarendon Press.<br />
Mr. F. G. Kitton's work "Charles Dickens and<br />
His Illustrators," which is nearly ready, will<br />
contain a number of unpublished letters relating<br />
to the illustrations, by Dickens and the various<br />
artists engaged upon the novels. The principal<br />
contributors are of course Cruikshank and<br />
"Phiz," wh i between them illustrated seventeen<br />
of Dickens's books. About forty drawings in<br />
pen and ink, pencil, and wash by these artists<br />
are to be given for the first time in Mr. Kitton's<br />
work, which will be published by Mr. George<br />
Redway.<br />
Geoffrey Mortimer has sold serial rights of a<br />
tale, "The Misanthrope of Mor Ynys," to the<br />
Weekly Times and Echo. The story is one of<br />
adventure among the fisherfolk of an island off<br />
the coist of Carnarvonshire, and the opening<br />
chapter will appear at the end of this month or<br />
early in July.<br />
Mrs. Edith E. Cuthell's new children's story,<br />
"When I was a Little Girl," will be published in<br />
the autumn by the S.P.C.K. It is partly auto-<br />
biographical, the adventures of a naughty child.<br />
Mrs. Cuthell's soldier-children story, "Only a<br />
Guardroom Dog," is in a second edition.<br />
Mrs. Pennell is writing a volume on litho-<br />
graphy, the invention of Aloys Senefelder. Mr.<br />
.Topeph Pennell will contribute examp'.es of, as he<br />
prefers to call it, the art of "poly-autography."<br />
He has often declared that the effects producible<br />
by an artist in lithography amount to a thorough<br />
vindication of the choice of those who use it.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 26 (#38) ##############################################<br />
<br />
26<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
Professor Mahaffy responded for Literature at<br />
the Royal Academy banquet. In the course of<br />
his reply he said that when he tried to personify<br />
the literature of the present day, he seemed to<br />
behold a middle-aged dame who had grown so<br />
enormously stout with constant cramming that<br />
her extremities were becoming flabby and cold,<br />
and we began to fear a degeneration at the heart.<br />
If one was really solicitous for the health of this<br />
personage, it was obvious that one must seek to<br />
diminish the quantity and improve the quality of<br />
her tissues. He could, he thought, recommend<br />
some drastic treatment by which some improve-<br />
ment might be effected in her health, but that<br />
was not the place to discuss medical prescrip-<br />
tions, still less to describe to that august assembly<br />
the probable action of these remedies upon the<br />
human frame.<br />
Colonel Sir George Sydenham Clarke has written<br />
a short history on the very important subject of<br />
Russian Sea Power. It will be brought out by<br />
Mr. Murray in a few days.<br />
Mr. Sidney Colvin expects to have his biography<br />
of Robert Louis Stevenson ready for publication<br />
in the autumn.<br />
A new volume of poetry by Mr. Henry Rose,<br />
author of "Summer Dreams," &c., will be pub-<br />
lished by Messrs. Kegan Paul and Co., entitled<br />
"Willow Vale."<br />
Mr. William Black's new Highland novel<br />
"Wild Eelin," will be published early in the<br />
autumn by Messrs. Sampson Low. It is being<br />
dramatised in New York, where, and in Edin-<br />
burgh, it has been running serially. "The Pride<br />
of Jennico," the romance by Agnes and Egerton<br />
Castle, is also being adapted for a New York<br />
stage.<br />
THE BOOKS OF THE MONTH.<br />
[April 25 to May 23.—350 Books.]<br />
Abbott, T. K. Do this in Remembrance of Me." Should it iie<br />
'•Offer This"? 1/. Longman.<br />
Abney, W. de W. The Barnet Book of Photography. 1- Lund.<br />
Addis, W. E. (tr. and ed.). Documents of the Hexateuch. Vol.11.<br />
10/6. Nutt.<br />
Adler, C, and Ramsay, A. Told In the Coffee-House: Turkish<br />
Tales. 3/- Macmilian.<br />
Aglcn, A. S. Lessons In Old Testament History. 4 6. Arnold.<br />
Agnew. P. L. A Bun Through "The Nibelung's Bing." 27- Bradbury.<br />
Alderson, E. A. H. With the Mounted Infantry and the Mashona-<br />
land Field Force, 1896. 10/6. Methuen.<br />
Allen, J. B. (ed.) Lives from Cornelius Nepos. 1'6 Frowde.<br />
Allen, W. O. B., and McOlure. E. History of the S.P.C.K., 1686-1896.<br />
10,6 8.P.C.K.<br />
Andom, R. Side Slips: or Misadventures on a Bicycle. 1/6 Pearson.<br />
Anonymous. Advent Sermons on Church Befotm. 4/P. Longman.<br />
Anonymous. Tales from McClures, Romance ; Adventure; Humour.<br />
the West. 4 vols. 5/- net- Gay.<br />
Anonymous. Eight Photo-Lithographs of Monumental Brasses in<br />
Westminster Abbey. 5/- King's Lynn: E. M. Beloe, jun.<br />
Anonymous. All We Like Sheep. 2/- Kelvin Glen.<br />
Anonymous. The Life of the Bight Hon. W. E. Gladstone. 1 -<br />
Bon tied ge<br />
Armour, M. The Shadow of Love, and other Poems. 5/- Duckworth.<br />
Armstrong, R. A. Faith and Doubt in the Century's Poets. 2/6.<br />
Clarke.<br />
Ashley, T. Sir Tristram. 3/6 Ward and L.<br />
Astronomical Observations made at the Observatory of Cambridge<br />
under the superintendence of J. C. Adams. Vol. 23, for years<br />
1872-5. 15/- Clay.<br />
Anden, H. W. Greek Unseens for Higher Forms. 2/6 Blackwood.<br />
Auden, H. W. Higher Latin Prose. 2/6. Blackwood.<br />
Bailey, L. H. and others. Garden Making. 47- net. Macmillan.<br />
Baker, W. M. Examples In Analytical Conies for Beginners. 2 6<br />
Bell.<br />
Banister, H. C. (ed. by S. Maepherson). Interludes. 5/- net. Bell..<br />
Barker, S. D. Mars. 6/- Hutchinson.<br />
Barker, H. J. The Comic Side of School Life. 6d. Jarrold.<br />
Harnett, Edith A. The Champion In the Seventies. 6/- Heinemann.<br />
Bartram, George. The White-headed Boy. 6/- Unwln.<br />
Bass, Florence. Nature Stories for Young Beaders. 2 6. Ishister.<br />
Bastion, H. C. Treatise on Aphasia and other Speech Defects. 15-<br />
Lewle.<br />
Beazley, C. R. John and Sebastian Cabot. 5/- Unwin.<br />
Beddard, F. E. Elementary Practical Zoology. 2/6. Longman.<br />
Bennett, R. and Elton, J. History of Corn-milling. Vol. I. 10/6 net.<br />
Simpkin.<br />
Berwick, J. A Philosopher's Romance. 6/- Macmillan.<br />
Besant, W. H. Elementary Conica. 2/6. Bell.<br />
Betham-Edwards, M. Reminiscences. 15/- net. Bedway.<br />
Beven, T. The Law of Employers' Liabllity, Ac. Waterlow and<br />
Layton.<br />
Bicdermann, W. (tr. by F. A. Welby). Electro-Physiology. Vol. n.<br />
17/- net Macmillan.<br />
Bird, R. More Law Lyrics. 3/- Blackwood.<br />
Blackwell, Dr. E. Scientific Method in Biology, 2 - Stock.<br />
Blake, C. M. Tephl: an Armenian Bomsnce. 1/6. Partridge.<br />
Blaikie, W. G. David Brown, Professor and Principal of Free<br />
Church College, Aberdeen. A Memoir. 6/- Hodder.<br />
Blanchan, NeHje. Bird Neighbours. Low,<br />
Blass, Frederick. Philology of the Gospels. 4'6 n'.-t Macmillan.<br />
Bllssett, Nellie K. The Concert-Director. A Novel. 6/- Macmillan.<br />
Block, Pkilipp. Memoir of Hf iniich Graetz. 3/6 net. Nutt.<br />
Bohm-Bawerk, E. (tr. by Alice M. Macdonald). Karl Marx and Uie<br />
Close of his System. 6/- Unwin.<br />
Bourchier, M. H. The Adventures of a Goldsmith. 6 - Mathews.<br />
Bowyer, Lady. The Divine Romance of Love and War. 2/6.<br />
Gutenberg Press.<br />
Bridgett, T. E. (ed ). Characteristics from the Writings of Cardinal<br />
Wiseman. 6/- Burns and O.<br />
Brierley, J. Studies of the Soul. 6/- Clarke.<br />
Bright, O. Submarine Telegraphs. 63 -net. Lockwood<br />
Brown, V. Ordeal by Compassion. 3/6. Lane.<br />
Brune, F. Vaussore. 6/- Methuen.<br />
Bryant, Marguerite. A Woman's Piivilege. 6 - Innes.<br />
Burke, J. Change of Abso-ption produced bv Fluorescence. 1 '-<br />
Dulau.<br />
Burrow, C. K. The Fire of Life. 6/- Duckworth.<br />
Byron, Lord, the Works of. Letters and Journals. Vol.1. Ed. by<br />
Rowland E. Prothero. 6/- Murray.<br />
Caldecott, A. The Church In the West Indies. 3/6. S.P.C.K.<br />
Calderwood, H. David Hume. Famous Scots Scries. 1/6. Oliphant.<br />
Campbell, Lewis (ed.). iEschyli Tragcedias. 5/- Macmillan.<br />
Cassal, Hans J. S. Workshop Makeshifts. 2/6. L. U. Gill.<br />
Chambers, R. W. Lorraine: A Romance. 6 - Putnam.<br />
Chapman, J. J. Emerson, and Other Easays. 3/6. Nutt.<br />
Clark, C. The Story of an Ocean Tramp. 6 - Downey.<br />
Clarke, R. F. Science of Law and Law Making. 17/- net. Macmillan.<br />
I'larkson, A. An Atlas of Histology. 9/-net. Simpkin.<br />
Coles. A. C. The Blcod: How to Examine and Diagnose its Diseases.<br />
10/6 Churchill.<br />
Conder, C. R. The Hlttltes and their Languages. 7/6. Blackwood.<br />
Conway, Sir M. With Ski and Sledge over Arctic Glaciers. 6/-<br />
Dent.<br />
Conybsare, F. C. (ed. and tr.). Key of Truth: A Manual of the<br />
Pauheian Church of Armenia. 15/- net. Frowde.<br />
Cook, Lady. Essays on Social Topics. 3/6. Union Publishing Co.<br />
Cookson. C. (ed.). Essays on Secondary Education. 4 6. Frowde.<br />
Cooper, Jessie G. Christabel. 1/6. Partridge.<br />
Cornford, L. Cope. Sons of Adversity. 6/- Methuen.<br />
Cotton, W. Everybody's Guide to Money Matters. 2/6. Warn*:.<br />
Crowninshield, Mrs. S. Where the Trade-Wind Blows. 67-<br />
Macmillan<br />
Culmsee, V. The Pocket Interpreter. 1/- Nutt.<br />
Cust, L. (ed. by S. Colvin). History of the Society of Dilettanti.<br />
25/- net. Macmillan.<br />
Craddbck, C. E. The Juggler. 6/- Gay.<br />
Craig, J. D. John Maverell: A Tale of the Riviera. 6.- Stock.<br />
Crookall, L. British Guiana. 6/- Unwln.<br />
Dalziel, O. Unconsidered Trifles. Poems. 5/- Stock.<br />
Davis, Florence H. Silver Thorns. 1/6. Saxon.<br />
De Coubertln, Baron Pierre (tr. by I. F. Hapgood). The Evolution<br />
of France under the Third Bepublic. 10/6. Bowden.<br />
De Grafflgny, H. (od. by H. G. Elliot). Industrial Electricity. 2 ti.<br />
Whittaker.<br />
De Quetteville, P. W. Short Studies on Vital Subjects. 6/- Stock.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 27 (#39) ##############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
27<br />
Dodge, W. P. The Sea of Love. 1/6. Long.<br />
Douglas. R. B. (tr. and ed.). A French Volunteer of the War of<br />
Independence. 6/- Bilsb.<br />
Dovrie, Monie Muriel. The Crook of the Bough. 8/. Methuen.<br />
Drummoml, W. H. The Hahitant, and other French-Canadian<br />
Poems, 12/6. Putnam.<br />
Drury, W. D. Home Gardening. 1/- L. U. Gill.<br />
Duerdon, J. E. Jamaican Actiniaria. Part I. : Zoanthrc 3/-<br />
Williams and N.<br />
Da Maurier, George. Social Pictorial Satire. 5/- Harper.<br />
Dnrand, E. D. Finances of New York City. 7/6 net. Macmillan.<br />
Eaxnes, J. Sermons to Boys and Girls 3/6. Allenson.<br />
Edwards, E. T., and Haite\ G. C. Side-lights of Nature in Quill and<br />
Crayon. 6 - Paul.<br />
Ellis, Edith. Seaweed: a Cornish Idyll. 3/6 net. University Press.<br />
Ellis, E. S. A Strange Craft and Its Wonderful Voyage. 2/6.<br />
Cassell.<br />
Evans, A. J., and Fearenslde, C. S. The Intermediate Text-Book of<br />
English History. Vol. IV.: 1714-1837. 4/6. dive.<br />
Exell, J. S. The Biblical Illustrator. Revelation. 7/6. Nisbet.<br />
Fairbanks, A. The First Philosophers of Greece. 7/6. Paul.<br />
Farrer, Lord. Studies in Currency, 1898. 12/6 net Macmillan.<br />
Fenn, G. M. The Case of Ailsa Gray. 2/- White.<br />
Ferguson, R. S. Carlisle Cathedral. 1/- net. Isblster.<br />
Ferriday, M., and Boden, T. H. The ,•Methodical" Guide to Model<br />
Drawing. 2/6 net. Simpkin.<br />
Filbner, H. R. Wax-Bills, Grass-Finches, and Mannikins. 1/- Betts.<br />
Finny, V. G. The Revolt of the Young MacCormacks. 2/6. Macmillan.<br />
Fisher, L. M. Imperial Recitations for Infants, Ac. 1/6. Curwen.<br />
Flagg, W. J. Yoga, or Transformation. 15/- net. Redway.<br />
Forsyth, A. R. Memoir on the Integration of Partial Differential<br />
Equations of the Second Order in Three Independent Variables.<br />
4/- Dnlau.<br />
Foster, E. The Art of Conversation. 1/- Simpkin.<br />
Fowler, C. B. Church Architecture. 6d. Iliffe.<br />
Fowler, Ellen T. Concerning Isabel Carnaby. 6/- Hoddor.<br />
Fowler, the late J. ltaken chiefly from the Notes of). Side-Lights on<br />
the Conflicts of Methodism—1827-1852. 8/- Cassell.<br />
Francis, M. E. Miss Erin. 6/- Methuen.<br />
Fraser, Mrs. Hugh. The Looms of Time. 6/- Isblster.<br />
iiale. Courtenay. Who is the Christian? 1/- Blades.<br />
Gardner, E. G. Dante's Ten Heavens: a Study of the " Paradlso."<br />
12/- Constable,<br />
fiarland, G. V. The Problems of Job. 6/- Nisbet.<br />
Geden, A. S. Studies in Comparative Religion. 2/6. Kelly.<br />
George. C. Unity in Religion. 1/- Sonnenschein.<br />
George, Henry. The Science of Political Economy. 7 6 Paul.<br />
Ghose, M Love-Songs and Elegies. 1/- net. Mathews.<br />
< iibson, J. and James, W. T. Latin at Sight. 2/6. Cornish.<br />
Gibson, J. and James, W. T. Latin Betranslation. 3'6. Cornish.<br />
Gilbert, H. M. Of Necessity. 3 6. Lane.<br />
Gilman, H. Hassan, a Fellah. 7/6. Gay.<br />
Oinsbnrg, B. W. Hints on Legal Duties of Shipmasters. 4/6.<br />
Giiffln.<br />
Gladden, W. The Christian Pastor and the Workiog Church. 10/6.<br />
Clark.<br />
Golm, R. (tr. by E. Fowler). The Old Adam and the New Eve.<br />
3:6. Heinemann.<br />
Gooch, G. P. History of English Democratic Ideas in 17th Century.<br />
57- Clay,<br />
Goodchild, J. A. The Light of the West. Part I.: The Dannite<br />
Colony. 5/- Paul.<br />
Goode, U. B. The Smithsonian Institution, 1816-1896. 72 - net.<br />
Wesley.<br />
Gore, Charles (ed.). Essays in Aid of the Reform of the Church.<br />
10,6. Murray.<br />
Gould, N. The Famous Match. 4/6. Routledge.<br />
Graham, David. Bizzio: an HistoricalTragedy. .V-net. Constable.<br />
Grant, M. A Rara Avis; or. Who Wins. 1/- Moran.<br />
Grierson. R. Ballvgowna. 1/- Moran.<br />
Oriffis, W. E. The Pilgrims in thslr Three Homes. -V- net. Gay.<br />
Grinnell, G. B„ and Roosevelt, T. (cds ). Trail and Camp Fire. 15/-<br />
Douglas.<br />
Gunter, A. C. Billy Hamilton. A Novel. 2/- Routledge.<br />
Gutch, C. Sermons. With Memoir of Author. 6/- Longman.<br />
Hackwood. F. W. New Object Lessons : Animal Life. 2/6. Pearson.<br />
Hair, J. Regent Square. *0 Years of a London Congregation. 6/<br />
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28<br />
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