477 | https://historysoa.com/items/show/477 | The Author, Vol. 13 Issue 02 (November 1902) | <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.+13+Issue+02+%28November+1902%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 13 Issue 02 (November 1902)</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> | 1902-11-01-The-Author-13-2 | | | | | 29–56 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=13">13</a> | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1902-11-01">1902-11-01</a> | | | | | | | 2 | | | 19021101 | Che Huthor.<br />
<br />
(The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.)<br />
<br />
FOUNDED BY SIR WALTER BESANT.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Vou. XIII.—No. 2.<br />
<br />
CHANGE OF ADDRESS.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
NovEMBER 1sT, 1902.<br />
<br />
[Price SIXPENCE.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
ROUM e £816 5 6<br />
Wocal Woane: ae 404 10 0<br />
ee Victorian Government 3 % Con-<br />
As mistakes still occur with regard to the solidated Inscribed Stock............ 291 19 11<br />
Address of the Society, it has been thought War Loan 3 ee. 201-923<br />
z expedient to continue this Notice, that the Office<br />
<br />
of the Society is situated at—<br />
39, OLD QUEEN STREET,<br />
STOREY’S GATE, 8.W.<br />
The Telephone connection has now been estab-<br />
lished, and the Society’s number is—<br />
<br />
374 VICTORIA.<br />
<br />
Votel 2 £1714 4 8<br />
<br />
There is, in addition, a balance of £30 to £40<br />
in the Bank to cover current expenses and the<br />
payment of pensions.<br />
<br />
The subscriptions and donations from the<br />
beginning of the year are as follows.<br />
<br />
Further sums will be acknowledged from month<br />
to month as they come to hand.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
ae oe DonATIONS.<br />
<br />
Jan, 24, Church, Prof. R, A. H....... £2 2°90<br />
ae Jan. 29, Toplis, Miss Grace ............ 0 4 0<br />
ees Heb, 1, Perks; Miss lily............... 010 0<br />
e OR the opinions expressed in papers that are eb. 12, Brown, Miss Prince ..... Leese 1 10<br />
. K signed or initialled the Authors alone are Feb. 15, Wilkins, W.H. (2nd donation) 1<br />
responsible. None of the papers or para- Feb. 15, 8: G. oe sees eeeees eee ees tes i 10<br />
graphs must be taken as expressing the opinion Feb. 17, Hawkins, A. Hope..........-. 50 0 8<br />
of the Committee unless such is especially stated Feb. 19, Burrowes, Miss E. ............ @ 10 0<br />
to be the case. Mch. 16, Reynolds, Mrs. ............--. 0 5 0<br />
April 28, Wheelright, Miss Ethel...... 1 0 0<br />
<br />
April 29, Sheldon, Mrs. French,<br />
Tux Editor begs to inform Members of the WRG 8, 0 5 0<br />
Authors’ Society and other readers of The Author May 5, A Beginner ...............-..+++ 1 10<br />
that the cases which are from time to time quoted May 20, Nemo .........s...esee rere 2 0.9<br />
in The Author are cases that have come before the May 20, Rattray, Dr. A. ..............- 0. 5.0<br />
notice or to the knowledge of the Secretary of the July 17, Capes, Bernard E............. 0 5 0<br />
Society, and that those members of the Society July 19, Warden, Miss Gertrude ... : 5 0<br />
5 0<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
who desire to have the names of the publishers<br />
concerned can obtain them on application.<br />
<br />
oe Jan. 17, Prelooker, J. ..6:....-+-+.----- 0 5 :<br />
<br />
i : Jan. 20, Nicholls, F.C. ........-..--+- 0 3<br />
eee Jan. 22, Carey, Miss R. Nouchette ... I i 0<br />
Tur Investments of the Pension Fund at Feb., Gidley, Miss E. C. .............- 010 6<br />
present standing in the names of the Trustees are Mch. 20, Beeching, Rev. H.C. .....- 0 5. 0<br />
as follows. Moh. 25, Stroud, F..2..........-----+ 010 6<br />
This is a statement of the actual stock; the May 1, Heatley, Richard F............. 0. 0 0<br />
money value can be easily worked out at the current Oct. 21, Thomson, Miss C. L.......... 0 5 0<br />
price of the market :— Oar, 08, Rabie, Bec. 0 5 0<br />
<br />
Vou, XIII.<br />
<br />
Oct. 23, Evans, Miss May<br />
<br />
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS.<br />
<br />
<br />
30<br />
<br />
Sir Walter Besant Memorial Fund.<br />
<br />
THe amount standing to the credit<br />
of this account in the Bank is......... £327 15 0<br />
<br />
There are a few promised subscriptions still<br />
outstanding. The total of these is, roughly, about<br />
£4, The subscriptions received from March to<br />
the date of issue are given below :—<br />
<br />
Anonymous”. : : : ee<br />
<br />
Champneys, Basil. ;<br />
<br />
“ Colonia,” Natal, 8. Africa<br />
<br />
Fife Cookson, Lt.-Col. F.C.<br />
<br />
Gunter, Lt.-Col. E. A. :<br />
<br />
Harding, Capt. Claud, R.N.<br />
<br />
Hurry, A. . : : : :<br />
<br />
Keary, C. F. (amount not to be men-<br />
tioned)<br />
<br />
Kinns, The Rev. Samuel, D.D. .<br />
<br />
Millais, J.G. . : ; :<br />
<br />
Quiller Couch, Miss M.<br />
<br />
Sterry, J. Ashby ‘<br />
<br />
Temple, Lieut.-Col. Sir R. C.<br />
<br />
Underdown, Miss E.<br />
<br />
Lockyer, Sir T. Norman<br />
<br />
Beale, Miss Mary<br />
<br />
Bolam, Rey. C. E.<br />
<br />
Egbert, Henry :<br />
<br />
Eccles, Miss O’Connor<br />
<br />
Darwin, Francis : :<br />
<br />
Montgomery-Campbell, Miss<br />
<br />
Medlecott, Cecil ;<br />
<br />
Saxby, Mrs... ; ; : :<br />
<br />
Caine, T: H. Hall . : ; Be<br />
<br />
Marris, Miss Murrell :<br />
<br />
8. B. : ee<br />
<br />
Bloomfield, J. H. .<br />
<br />
F. 0. B. (Coventry) .<br />
<br />
Seton-Karr, H. W. .<br />
<br />
Heriot, Cheyne :<br />
<br />
Charley, Sir W. T., K.C.<br />
<br />
‘¢ Hsme Stuart ”<br />
<br />
Charlton, Miss Emily<br />
<br />
Kroeker, Mrs. .<br />
<br />
Aflalo, F. G. :<br />
<br />
Patterson, A. . :<br />
<br />
Salwey, Reginald E.<br />
<br />
Gidley, Miss E. C.<br />
<br />
Nixon, Prof. J. E.<br />
<br />
CHOHRHH<br />
pal<br />
<br />
—<br />
SCOCHRHHEH<br />
cococeo<br />
<br />
HOOCNOHRROFS<br />
ro<br />
ee ern TUDO DO OL OVS Or<br />
<br />
BAOMNonnNore<br />
<br />
rt<br />
<br />
re<br />
<br />
NOOR NWO ON<br />
SBeocoec ooo ce oso oso oe sooo onooooescs<br />
<br />
COCHNWOCOCOHOHOROCOOCOHOFRF<br />
<br />
—_——_—_——_+——_+___——_<br />
<br />
FROM THE COMMITTEE.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
T consequence of the fact that members are<br />
returning to work after the holidays, the<br />
business at the office of the Society shows a<br />
<br />
natural tendency to increase.<br />
<br />
At the October. meeting of the Committee forty-<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
eight new members and associates were elected,<br />
making the total for the year 161. A strong argu-<br />
ment in support of the sound work of the Society.<br />
A list of the elections is published below.<br />
<br />
It is intended, if it is found possible, to publish<br />
the list of members annually or bi-annually, and to<br />
incorporate these monthly returns when the next<br />
revised edition is issued.<br />
<br />
The compilation of the list has been carried out<br />
in accordance with the statement contained in the<br />
article in the July number of the Author. The<br />
Committee have decided to print 1,000 copies.<br />
<br />
Over six hundred answers were received to the<br />
circular. Of these between thirty and forty desired<br />
that neither their names nor their addresses should<br />
be published. The reasons put forward for this<br />
course differed, but one reason, constantly recurring,<br />
was the fact that the publication of the name and<br />
address might subject the member to a flood of<br />
circulars from advertisers and others.<br />
<br />
In the case of those members of the Society<br />
whose addresses can be easily obtained from books<br />
like “Who’s Who,” “The Red Book,” “The<br />
Literary Year Book,” and other Directories, this<br />
objection naturally would not stand.<br />
<br />
The price of the list will be 6d., nett, post<br />
free. Only members will be able to purchase<br />
copies. An order form is inserted in this month’s<br />
issue. Members desiring to obtain a copy of the<br />
list are asked to return it (duly signed) with the<br />
6d. to the office.<br />
<br />
Members will be pleased to hear that Mr. Austin<br />
Dobson has been unanimously elected a member of<br />
the Committee of Management of the Society, and<br />
Sir Henry Bergne, K.C.M.G., C.B., a member of<br />
the Copyright Sub-Committee.<br />
<br />
The Addenda to “ The Methods of Publishing,”<br />
since its original issue, has been selling gradually,<br />
and is now nearly out of print. Two hundred and<br />
fifty more copies have been printed by the desire of<br />
the Committee.<br />
<br />
At this, the first meeting of the Committee since<br />
the lamented death of Monsieur Zola, it was decided<br />
to send a letter from the Society of Authors to the<br />
Sovicté des Gens de Lettres, of which Monsieur<br />
Zola was President. The French Society has, on<br />
all occasions, extended a helping hand to its sister<br />
society, and has given to the Secretary valuable<br />
information from time to time on such questions<br />
as publishing in France, and legal matters con-<br />
nected with French copyright.<br />
<br />
Other questions discussed, referred to disputes<br />
and actions, which it would be indiscreet to make<br />
public for the present. i<br />
<br />
Eleven cases between publishers and authors,<br />
arising from the usual divergencies of opinion and<br />
method, have been in the hands of the Secretary<br />
during the past month. Of these, four deal with<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
matters of account, three with disputed agreement,<br />
two with money due, and the remaining two with<br />
general matters, which do not come under the usual<br />
headings.<br />
<br />
Three of the eleven have been finally settled, two<br />
have been placed in the hands of the solicitors to<br />
carry through by action if necessary, and the<br />
balance are still in the course of negotiation. They<br />
need no special comment.<br />
<br />
Of those cases quoted in last month’s Author<br />
there are still four unsettled, but negotiations are<br />
being carried on between the publisher and the<br />
Secretary. One case, however, is hanging fire,<br />
owing to the fact that in spite of repeated letter-<br />
writing the Secretary can obtain no answer from<br />
the member whose work is involved. This position<br />
is a very serious one for the Society, and the<br />
Committee at all times have impressed upon the<br />
members how important it is that those who place<br />
their matters in the Secretary’s hands should carry<br />
<br />
them through with vigour.<br />
<br />
It has been mentioned that two cases have been<br />
placed in the hands of the solicitors of the Society.<br />
<br />
One other matter has been dealt with by them.<br />
A firm of publishers, whose name we do not at<br />
present mention, has called a meeting of its<br />
creditors. Our solicitors represent those of our<br />
members who have claims against the firm. At<br />
present it is impossible to state anything definite<br />
with regard to the issue of the meeting, but it is<br />
hoped that with careful diplomacy the authors’<br />
claims will be paid in full, as a provision has been<br />
proposed under the deed of assignment that the<br />
trustee shall have power, if he thinks fit, to pay all<br />
authors in full.<br />
<br />
oe as<br />
<br />
Elections, October, 1902.<br />
<br />
Elections to the Society, July 14th to October<br />
18th :—<br />
<br />
Abrahamson, Rev.-A. E. The Rectory, Skilgate,<br />
Wiveliscombe R.8.0O.,<br />
Somerset.<br />
<br />
85, Fitzjohns Avenue,<br />
<br />
Besant, Geoff<br />
ao Hampstead, N.W.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Bisiken, Wm. : ;<br />
<br />
Bissett-Smith, George<br />
Tullock (George Bizet)<br />
<br />
Brunskill, The Rev.<br />
Francis R.<br />
<br />
Cayzer, C. W.<br />
<br />
Clark, Alfred<br />
Clive, Alfred<br />
<br />
12-14, Long Acre, W.C.<br />
<br />
55, Carlton Place, Aber-<br />
deen.<br />
19, Raymont . Street,<br />
Thetford, Norfolk.<br />
Dunsdale, Frodsham,<br />
Cheshire.<br />
<br />
Forest Department, Cey-<br />
lon.<br />
<br />
Heydon Vale, Great<br />
Chishall, Near Roy-<br />
ston, Cambs.<br />
<br />
Cockran, Miss Henrietta<br />
Cotton, Capt. Frederick<br />
Crottie, Miss Julia M.<br />
Dallas, Miss H. A.<br />
Dollar, John A. W.<br />
Errington Cyril<br />
Evans, Miss May (A<br />
Welsh Spinster).<br />
Farmer, R. Geoffrey<br />
<br />
Fellows, Charles (Cas-<br />
<br />
situs).<br />
Gaskell, Lady<br />
Gouldsworthy, Henry C.<br />
Harrison, Miss Rose<br />
<br />
Hollander, Bernard,<br />
<br />
M.D.<br />
Hunt, Miss Violet<br />
Hurlock, Sydney .<br />
lliffe, Mrs. J. K. M.<br />
Ivrea, The Marquis<br />
Keyworth, Charles W.<br />
<br />
(Charles Aver)<br />
Lovell, Arthur (D.C. W.)<br />
MacDonagh, Michael<br />
Mackenzie, W.C. .<br />
Masson, Miss Flora<br />
Masson, Miss Rosaline .<br />
Medley, Miss H. P.<br />
Merritt, Mrs. Lea<br />
Molyneux, The Honble.<br />
<br />
Mrs.<br />
Oelsner, Herman .<br />
<br />
Petano, D. K.<br />
<br />
31<br />
<br />
45, Mecklenburg Square,<br />
W.C.<br />
<br />
Horsham Court, Mort-<br />
ley, Worcestershire.<br />
Glenbaba House, Near<br />
Peel, Isle of Man.<br />
116, King Henry’s Road,<br />
<br />
N.W.<br />
a Bond Street,<br />
<br />
91, Lavender Sweep,<br />
Clapham Junction,<br />
S.W.<br />
<br />
10, Lansdowne Crescent,<br />
W.<br />
Barriew Street, Welsh-<br />
<br />
pool.<br />
Old Bank Chambers,<br />
Wolverhampton.<br />
<br />
The Abbey, Much Wen-<br />
lock, Salop.<br />
<br />
2, Brompton Square,<br />
S.W.<br />
<br />
101, Oakley<br />
Chelsea, 8. W.<br />
<br />
62, Queen Anne Street,<br />
Cavendish Square, W.<br />
<br />
South Lodge, Campden<br />
Hill, S.W.<br />
<br />
College Grove<br />
Wakefield.<br />
<br />
13, Warnborough Road,<br />
Oxford.<br />
<br />
c/o E. F. Turner & Son,<br />
Leadenhall House,<br />
E.C.<br />
<br />
Wesley House, Bisley,<br />
Stroud, Glos.<br />
<br />
5, Portman Street, Port-<br />
man Square, W.<br />
<br />
149, Abbeville Road,<br />
Clapham Park, 8.W.<br />
<br />
‘“* Sutha,” Selborne<br />
Road, Sidcup, Kent.<br />
<br />
2, Lockharton Gardens,<br />
Edinburgh.<br />
<br />
2, Lockharton Gardens,<br />
Edinburgh.<br />
<br />
Marlborough Mansions,<br />
S.W.<br />
<br />
Hurstbourne ‘Tarrant,<br />
Near Andover.<br />
<br />
Willoughby, Saxe Wei-<br />
mer Road, Southsea.<br />
<br />
Savage Club, Adelphi<br />
Terrace, W.C.<br />
<br />
23, Walton Well Road,<br />
Oxford.<br />
<br />
Street,<br />
<br />
Road,<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
32<br />
<br />
96, Warwick Gardens,<br />
Kensington, W.<br />
<br />
33, St. Luke’s Road,<br />
Notting Hill, W.<br />
<br />
c/o To-Day, 8 & 9, Essex<br />
Street, Strand<br />
<br />
Seagate House, Little-<br />
<br />
Pickthall, Rudolf .<br />
Reich, Emil .<br />
Rutter, Frank<br />
<br />
Smith, William Herbert<br />
<br />
hampton.<br />
Smith, Mrs. Michael 35, Ailsbury Road,<br />
Dublin.<br />
Thomson, Miss Clara 11, Talgarth Road, West<br />
Linklater. Kensington; or Tem-<br />
<br />
ple House, Temple<br />
Avenue.<br />
<br />
Lotus, Dorking.<br />
<br />
Spade House, Sandgate,<br />
Kent.<br />
<br />
3, Park Terrace, Cross-<br />
hill, Glasgow.<br />
<br />
54, Bloomsbury Street,<br />
W.C.<br />
<br />
1, Rue Dain, Faubourg<br />
St. Honoré, Paris.<br />
<br />
Ward, Wilfrid<br />
Wells, H. G.<br />
<br />
Williams, Wynn Llewel-<br />
lyn.<br />
Yorke, Philip C. .<br />
<br />
Young, Miss Catherine<br />
M.<br />
Only one member of those elected does not<br />
desire publication.<br />
<br />
eS<br />
<br />
BOOK AND PLAY TALK.<br />
<br />
—->+—<br />
ISS R. N. Carey’s new 6s. novel, “The<br />
Highway of Fate” (Macmillan), has made<br />
<br />
an excellent start, and has at once taken<br />
its place as one of the twelve best selling books of<br />
the month. It was issued early in September,<br />
simultaneously in England and America; and<br />
arrangements have also been made with Baron<br />
Tauchnitz, who will shortly issue the work in his<br />
Continental series.<br />
<br />
Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s memoir of her father,<br />
“George Harley, F.R.S., or the Life of a London<br />
Physician,” can now he had in a cheaper edition<br />
(The Scientific Press). It gives many interesting<br />
stories of the Crimea, Napoleon III., and the coup<br />
Wétat. There are also stories of student life in<br />
Paris and Germany, and of the delightful people<br />
he met in London, where he practised as a physician<br />
for forty years.<br />
<br />
Mr. A. Ollivant’s new book “ Danny,” which<br />
has been running for some time in the Monthly<br />
Magazine here, and in Everybody's Magazine<br />
in America, will shortly be complete. It will<br />
then be published by Mr. John Murray on this<br />
side, and by Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co. in<br />
America.<br />
<br />
Mr. Ollivant’s previous book, called here “ Owd<br />
Bob of Kenmure,” and in America “ Bob, Son of<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Battle,” met with marked success, the sales in the<br />
United States even exceeding those in England.<br />
“here is every probability of “ Danny” being<br />
equally successful. The author’s power and origin-<br />
ality are both quite as strongly exhibited in<br />
“Danny” as in his earlier work; and Mr.<br />
Ollivant exhibits an advance in the dexterity with<br />
which he treats the technique and subsidiary<br />
elements of romantic fiction.<br />
<br />
Miss Rosaline Masson has a new novel in the<br />
press. It is called “ Leslie Farquhar,” and Mr.<br />
John Murray will publish it. Miss Masson. is<br />
favourably known as_ the authoress of “The<br />
<br />
Pransgressors”” and “ In Our Town,” both novels<br />
descriptive of the Edinburgh of to-day (Hodder &<br />
Stoughton).<br />
<br />
Miss Masson, besides publishing a couple of ‘Ag<br />
volumes of short stories, wrote the “Lives of<br />
Pollock and Aytoun” inthe Famous Scots’ Series.<br />
Aytoun, author of the popular “Lays of the<br />
Cavaliers,” was the predecessor of Miss Masson’s<br />
father in the chair of English Literature in .<br />
Edinburgh University.<br />
<br />
Mr. Herbert Compton has been very busy.<br />
Messrs. A. Treherne & Co. are bringing out for him<br />
a series of sketches strung together under the title<br />
of “ Facts and Phantasies of a Folio Grub,” while<br />
Messrs. Everett & Co. will issue his “‘ A Scourge<br />
of the Sea,” a story of South Sea adventure.<br />
<br />
Mr. J. Bloundelle-Burton’s new story, « The<br />
Intriguers,” commences in this month’s Leisure<br />
Hour. It deals with a Jacobite plot to assassinate<br />
George I. before he could reach England from<br />
Germany, at the time of his accession in the year<br />
<br />
1714. “The Intriguers” will be a stirring story.<br />
<br />
Allen Raine is engaged upon a new novel which<br />
will be entitled “On the Wings of the Wind.” It<br />
will be ready for publication in the spring.<br />
<br />
Mrs. B. M. Croker is busy on a long novel<br />
dealing with life in India. She is going out to<br />
India to finish it, and will spend the winter there.<br />
This popular authoress means to see the Durbar<br />
at Delhi.<br />
<br />
« Johanna,” Mrs. Croker’s story of Trish peasant<br />
life now running in Crampton’s Magazine, is to<br />
be published in the spring by Messrs. Methuen<br />
& Co.<br />
<br />
Mr. Reginald E. Salwey’s new novel, “A Son of —<br />
Mischief,” is a strong sensational story. ‘There is<br />
firm character drawing in it, dramatic situations,<br />
and a capital plot. The Rossiter family is one<br />
worth knowing.<br />
<br />
Mr. G. 8. Streets’ recently published “ Book of<br />
Essays ” (Constable & Co.), demonstrates that the<br />
true art of essay-writing is not dead. His style is<br />
bright and pleasant. He gives food for thought<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR. 33<br />
<br />
without overtaxing the labour-weary brain; and<br />
he takes you into his confidence in a way that<br />
makes the reader feel at home at once. He writes<br />
as to an old friend and rouses a reciprocity of<br />
friendship.<br />
<br />
A most interesting book entitled “Greek Votive<br />
Offerings” is just out. (University Press, Cam-<br />
bridge; E. J. Clay & Sons, London, 15s. net.)<br />
It is an essay on the history of Greek religion, by<br />
W. H. Denham Rouse, F.R.G.S., Sc., Headmaster of<br />
the Perse School. There are two plates and many<br />
illustrations in the text.<br />
<br />
The main purpose of this scholarly book is to<br />
coilect and classify those offerings which are not<br />
immediately perishable; and by examining the<br />
oceasion of their dedication and the statements<br />
made about it, to trace, if possible, the motives of<br />
the dedicator and the meaning which the act had<br />
for him.<br />
<br />
“The Problem of Fiorenzo of Perugia,” a work<br />
on Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, the reputed master of<br />
Perngino, is at present in the press, and will<br />
shortly be published. The authoress is Mrs. Jean<br />
Carlyle Graham, a Scottish lady, whose previous<br />
literary essays have been chiefly in verse. She has<br />
been resident in Perugia for some time, and com-<br />
pleted the letterpress of this critical study of an<br />
old master in 1901. It is the first serious publica-<br />
tion on the subject, in any language.<br />
<br />
: Under Mr. M.H.Spielmann’s able and complete<br />
control The Magazine of Art has started into new<br />
and vigorous life. Its price is reduced to 1s. net,<br />
while the number of its pages is increased ; a new<br />
cover will be used ; new paper is specially manu-<br />
factured for its pages, and a new fount of type has<br />
been obtained. A most important point is that<br />
many artists of eminence have undertaken, by<br />
means of articles, to address themselves to the<br />
public direct in the magazine.<br />
<br />
But the most novel feature will be the experi-<br />
ment of presenting, at least twice a year, a fine<br />
picture by a leading artist. The picture can be<br />
won by a subscriber to the magazine by means of<br />
a simple competition within the capacity of every-<br />
one. We heartily wish Mr. Spielmann, who is a<br />
prominent and active member of our Society, all<br />
the success he desires for his new series of 7he<br />
Magazine of Art.<br />
<br />
Miss Clementina Black’s “Frederick Walker”<br />
(Duckworth’s Popular Library of Art), is a well-<br />
written, sympathetic, and discriminating lifelet of<br />
this artist, who died all too young. We must make<br />
room for a quotation or two :—<br />
<br />
“To see in Walker nothing but the domestic idealist, is<br />
as if one should see in Tennyson only the author of the<br />
‘May Queen’ ...I£ a mushroom could have a soul,<br />
Walker might be said to have painted its soul... The<br />
<br />
background of care, sedulously concealed behind an appear-<br />
ance of ease, seems to have been typical of Walker’s work<br />
on even the slightest of productions, and was, perhaps, a<br />
a matter not so much of deliberate intention, as of inborn<br />
character.”<br />
<br />
“He had in a marked degree that clear perception of the<br />
actual world around him without which the creative artist,<br />
either in words or in pictures, seldom succeeds in striking<br />
any widely and deeply human note ... To have lived<br />
intimately with Walker’s work is to dwell thenceforward<br />
in a universe, whose common sights of daily life are touched<br />
with a new light, and informed with a new beauty—a<br />
universe in which humanity seems to call for a deeper<br />
tenderness, a more tolerant smile, a gentler recognition.”<br />
<br />
A yaluable and interesting volume is Mr.<br />
Lawrence Binyon’s ‘“ Catalogue of Drawings by<br />
British artists, and artists of foreign origin work-<br />
ing in Great Britain, preserved in the British<br />
Museum.” (Henry Frowde, Amen Corner, E.C.,<br />
10s. net.)<br />
<br />
Here is a specimen of one of Mr. Binyon’s<br />
miniature biographies :—<br />
<br />
KEENE, CHARLES SAMUEL (b. 1823, d. 1871).<br />
<br />
Draughtsman, etcher and caricaturist ; born in London ;<br />
apprenticed as a wood engraver; worked in London for<br />
periodicals, and about 1851 began to be employed on<br />
Punch, for which the chief part of his life work was done,<br />
illustrating the daily life of the people for the latter half<br />
of the century with a long series of drawings, unsurpassed<br />
for character and humour; illustrated books by Charles<br />
Reade and others ; one of the greatest of English draughts-<br />
men, and a consummate master of black-and-white.<br />
<br />
Mr. Owen Seaman’s “ Borrowed Plumes” (Con-<br />
stable & Co.) is just out. It is dedicated “To the<br />
Authors, many of them my friends, whose methods<br />
I have here attempted to imitate ; and in particular<br />
to Pearl Mary Teresa Cragie.”<br />
<br />
Among the authors imitated are, Mrs. Humphry<br />
Ward, Mr. Henry James, Mr. Maurice Hewlett,<br />
Miss E. F. Fowler, Mr. Hall Caine and Mr. G.<br />
Bernard Shaw. ‘These imitations are more than<br />
amusing: they convey acute but kindly criticism<br />
in every page. We master the temptation to<br />
quote, and advise our readers to buy and taste for<br />
themselves.<br />
<br />
“Rabbi Shalem on the Shores of the Black<br />
Sea,” by Jaakoff Prelooker, just published by<br />
Simpkin Marshall (4s. net), is a romantic narrative<br />
dealing with the life of Russian Jews and Christian<br />
Dissenters, amongst whom the author laboured for<br />
a number of years with the object of bringing<br />
about their reconciliation, and possible union.<br />
<br />
Miss Olive Katharine Parr has written a Dart-<br />
moor story book for children. It is illustrated<br />
by Mr. E. Wheeler, and is to be published by<br />
Messrs. Routledge. .<br />
<br />
The title of this children’s story is “The Voice<br />
of the River.” The river is the beautiful Dart,<br />
and the scene is laid at Bray farm. The story 1s<br />
quite finished and is in the publisher's hands, but<br />
it will not be published for some time.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
34 THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
“Pilgrims of Love” by Miss Bessie Hatton, isa over and over again in his book ; to will and to act<br />
book of original fairy tales following up her “The are what young men must be taught.<br />
Village of Youth,” a new and cheap edition of which M. Hanotaux thinks that at the age of fifteen,<br />
is promised by Messrs. Treherne. ‘Pilgrims of boys who are to take up commercial or agricultural<br />
Love” has a unique cover in Japanese vellum, careers, should put aside their books and commence<br />
daintily decorated by the authoress’ brother-in- work in earnest.<br />
law, Mr. W. H. Margeston. The seventh volume of “ Empire libéral,” by M.<br />
<br />
Miss Hatton is the younger of Mr. Joseph Emile Ollivier, is just published. The chief sub-<br />
<br />
seett ” ‘Mr. Hatton’s first number jects contained in this volume are the Dismember-<br />
Huatton’s two daughters. Mr. Hatton s nis’ T ‘nent of Denmark, the Syllabus, Mexico, Bismark’s<br />
<br />
of his projected reprints of s ecial pages from his . : : ie meena<br />
as Caweie Papers” is pabiehed thismonth abed, “Ue with Napoleon Hit. at Biarritz." One of<br />
«Cigarette Paper the Boyioad of Sie Henry SPAN are OF rey A livre aooant<br />
. 7 or 9 . .<br />
devimg ; ith some notes fo) 3 Pipers of Napoleon III. throws much light on European<br />
Tn “Songs of Peace and War” by A. H. Rowland affairs during the years 1864 and 1865.<br />
there is a sonnet to Mr. Joseph Chamberlain ; one “ Aux pays d’Homére » ig the title of a new<br />
to Cecil John Rhodes (In Memoriam) and one to book by Baron de Mandat-Grancey, who has<br />
the Colonial Premiers. There are verses headed written some interesting works on “the United<br />
respectively, “ Magersfontein,” “ Bobs,” “Paar- States, England, and Africa.<br />
deberg,” ‘“Eland’s River,” etc. etc., as well as “Une Demi-Carriére ” by the Comte de Com-<br />
verses “To the Cuckoo,” “Lucerne,” “The minges, is a military novel which is particularly<br />
Rural Exodus ” and others. interesting at the present moment. The plot<br />
reminds us of the case of the Lieutenant who has<br />
recently been tried by court-martial for refusing<br />
to eject the nuns from their convent.<br />
“Treg veridique histoire d’une petite fille” by<br />
Hannah Lynch, is another translation from English.<br />
This story appeared as a serial in the Revue de<br />
Paris, and is now published in volume form.<br />
“Un séjour i ’ambassade de Constantinople,” by<br />
boats and gear destroyed. The loss among coasting Mme. la baronne Durand de Fontmagne, Is a most<br />
vessels was terrible. interesting account of life in Turkey, when there<br />
Mr. Hall Caine’s stage version of his novel “ The Wet? still some Turks, as the authoress says. She<br />
ternal City,” which ss roduced at His Majesty’s went outto Constantinople with Madame Thouvenel,<br />
TI a ; : eee: Lace wife of the French Ambassador, and the descriptions<br />
jeatre on the evening of October 3rd, is attracting . : ee<br />
large audiences. It is splendidly staged. Miss and episedes given are mos) Wea) eS<br />
Constance Collier lays Roma item tional “La Demoiselle de Puygarrou,” is the pis =<br />
piey 2 otional the novel Madame Henry Gréville had just finished<br />
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<br />
“Buchan’s Birs” is an interesting narrative<br />
poem of forgotten heroism by Donal O’Ioci.<br />
The tale as it stands was written in Australia over<br />
ten years ago. It is a true story of an event<br />
which occurred towards the end of the devastating<br />
storm of November, 1857, which caused ‘such<br />
terrible destruction on the North-east Coast of<br />
Scotland. Forty-two fishermen perished, and their<br />
<br />
force, spontaneity and charm. haters her death<br />
In Baron Bonelli Mr. Tree has an effective part, M. André Theuriet’s new novel, “ Sceur de lait,”<br />
<br />
and he makes the most of it. Mr. Robert Taber is also on the theme 80 much in vogue just now.<br />
takes the part of Rossi, and Mr. Lionel Brough ‘The story turns on the conflict between the past,<br />
plays Bruno Rocco. Mr. Telbin and Mr. Harker with its traditions, and the present, with its modern<br />
the artists have never done -better work; the ideas.<br />
mounting is quite remarkable. M. Arthur Bucheron, better known by his<br />
Mr. RB. C. Carton will not produce any play pseudonym of Saint-Genest, has just died at the<br />
until next year. age of sixty-seven. Of late years very little has<br />
been heard of him, but formerly his articles in the<br />
<br />
ee Figaro were most popular, particularly the one<br />
<br />
addressed to the Marshal Mac-Mahon, which caused<br />
<br />
PARIS NOTES. the Government to suspend the Figaro for a<br />
fortnight.<br />
<br />
M. Edmond Haraucourt has just published a<br />
<br />
HE new book by M. Gabriel Hanotaux, ‘‘ Le volume of stories entitled ‘ Les Nanfragés.”<br />
Qhoix d’une Carriere,” comes ata very oppor- M. Haraucourt is better known as a poet and<br />
<br />
tune moment. The question of education dramatic author than asanovelist. His best known —<br />
<br />
is being discussed both in France and England. plays are “ Don Juan de Manara,” “Jean Bart,” —<br />
To know is not everything, the author: repeats and ‘La Passion.” The stories published in this —<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR. 35<br />
<br />
new volume are all dramatic and powerful, but the<br />
subjects are, on the whole, gruesome. :<br />
<br />
“Amériques et Américains,” by M. Victor-<br />
Thomas, is interesting, and all the more so as it<br />
is not a lengthy volume. The author gives us<br />
his notes and impressions as briefly as possible.<br />
<br />
“La Comédie Francaise et la Revolution,” by<br />
A. Pougin, gives an interesting account of the<br />
history of the theatre during the Revolution. The<br />
author tells the whole story of the arrest of the<br />
actors, the tragic death of Mlle. Desgarcins and<br />
of Grammont, who died on the scaffold in<br />
1794. ;<br />
<br />
“La Cité Future—Essai d’une Utopie Scien-<br />
tifique,” by Ernest Tarbouriech, is an attempt to<br />
trace the programme of the constitution of<br />
Collectivism.<br />
<br />
In a volume by Henri Brémond, “Ames<br />
Religieuses,’” we have, among other subjects, a<br />
sketch of John Keble, and another of Edouard<br />
Thring.<br />
<br />
An English book, entitled ‘Luke Delmege,” by<br />
P. A. Sheehan, has probably had a longer review<br />
in France than in England. Ten or eleven pages<br />
of the “ Revue des Deux Mondes”’ were taken up<br />
with the résumé of this Irish story.<br />
<br />
The play by M. Henry Bauer, ‘‘ Sa Maitresse,”’ at<br />
the Vaudeville, was awaited with great curiosity<br />
from the fact that the author has hitherto been a<br />
rather severe dramatic critic.<br />
<br />
In the first scenes there were such lengthy<br />
harangues, and so little action, that there seemed<br />
very little chance of success for the piece, but<br />
fortunately all this was redeemed before the end,<br />
and the play is certainly a very strong one.<br />
<br />
M. Deval has opened his season at the Athénée<br />
with “ Madame Flirt” by MM. Gavault and Berr.<br />
This play was the great success of last season, and<br />
had a run of about 260 performances. It was<br />
bought for America a few months ago.<br />
<br />
The chief réles in “ Paillasses,” by Léoncavallo,<br />
have been entrusted to MM. Jean de Reszké<br />
and Delmas, and Madame Aino Ackté.<br />
<br />
M. Bernstein has arranged with Mr. Frohman<br />
for the English rights of his play “ Détour.”<br />
<br />
Madame de Nuovina has had great success at<br />
Berlin with Massenet’s “Navarraise.” She was<br />
recalled time after time, and she appears to have<br />
had as great a triumph as Calvé, in the same role<br />
in Paris.<br />
<br />
Madame Réjane has returned from her long<br />
tour, and is now preparing her ré/e in the new<br />
play to be given at the Vaudeville.<br />
<br />
M. Bour, whose creations at the Theatre Antoine<br />
were so remarkable, has just scored a great success<br />
in the réle of Safi in “Triomphe,” M. Robert<br />
Bracco’s play.<br />
<br />
Auys HAuarp.<br />
<br />
EMILE ZOLA.<br />
poe<br />
HE tragic death of Zola has cast a gloom over<br />
the commencement of the winter season in<br />
Paris.<br />
<br />
Ever since the famous letter “J’ accuse,” many<br />
of Zola’s literary friends had held aloof from him,<br />
but at present political quarrels and differences of<br />
opinion are buried, and his literary work is being<br />
discussed and criticized from every point of view.<br />
<br />
Emile Zola was born in Paris in 1840. His<br />
father, who had been an officer in the army, was,<br />
at the time of his son’s birth, a civil engineer, and<br />
was engaged in making the canal at Aix.<br />
<br />
Emile finished his education at the Saint Louis<br />
College, and on leaving took a situation at the<br />
docks at asalary of about ten shillings a week.<br />
He soon left this, and his life for many years was<br />
a very hard one. He had an attic in the Latin<br />
Quarter, and was often without fire in the winter<br />
and almost without bread.<br />
<br />
He consoled himself by writing poetry and many<br />
of his “ Contes 4 Ninon.”<br />
<br />
In 1861, thanks to Dr. Boudet, he obtained a<br />
situation at Hachette’s publishing house, at a salary<br />
of about a pound a week, where at first he had the<br />
parcels to make, but as time went on he was sent<br />
into the office, and after writing his first comedy,<br />
“’Amoureuse,” M. Hachette engaged him as his<br />
secretary. In 1864 his “Contes a Ninon” were<br />
published, and in 1865 his ‘Confession de Claude.”<br />
<br />
He wrote at this time for several newspapers,<br />
and gave up his situation at M. Hachette’s for the<br />
post: offered him by M. Villemessant on the Avene-<br />
ment. His first article, which was a criticism of<br />
the Salon, made a great sensation. He had taken<br />
up the cudgels for the painter Manet, and he did<br />
not spare the jury.<br />
<br />
After his famous “ Thérése Raquin” in 1867,<br />
and “‘ Madeleine Férat ” in 1868, Zola’s work was<br />
seriously discussed. His theory was naturalism,<br />
and his views on literary matters were considered<br />
“revolutionary.” His most important work is the<br />
“ Rougon-Macquart ” series of nineteen volumes,<br />
containing the “histoire naturelle et sociale d’une<br />
famille sous le second Empire.” The author<br />
endeavours to show how a family would act in<br />
the midst of a given society. Individuals ap-<br />
pear at first absolutely dissimilar, but after<br />
analysis it is seen how closely they are in reality<br />
connected with each other, and by reading the<br />
stories of these different lives we have an idea of<br />
the atmosphere of the second Empire.<br />
<br />
This famous series was finished in 1893, and<br />
since then Zola has given us a study of other<br />
families in the volumes “ Lourdes,” “ Rome,” and<br />
“Paris,” and in the series, ‘‘ Quatre Evangiles :<br />
Fécondité, Travail,” and “ Vérité.” The last volume<br />
<br />
<br />
36<br />
<br />
which he had planned for this work, “ Justice,”<br />
was not even commenced at the time of his death.<br />
<br />
M. Huysmans tells us the origin of the volume,<br />
“ Soirées de Medan.”<br />
<br />
Before Zola wrote “ VAssommoir” he lived in a<br />
small house in the Rue Saint George. He had<br />
just published “ La Curée,” and M. Céard, who<br />
admired this work immensely, went to call on the<br />
author. Zola received him very cordially, and M.<br />
Huysmans accompanied M. Céard on his next<br />
visit. M. Hennique also went—and Zola already<br />
knew Guy de Maupassant and M. Alexis.<br />
<br />
This little group of literary men agreed to meet<br />
and to spend the evening, once a week, at Zola’s<br />
house. ‘They decided to publish a volume of<br />
stories together, and as by that time Zola had<br />
bought his country house at Médan, and the six<br />
friends used to go there on Sundays, the volume<br />
was entitled “Soirées de Médan,” and was pub-<br />
lished in 1880. Only three of the authors survive,<br />
Huysmans, Hennique, and Céard.<br />
<br />
Zola gave “lAttaque du Moulin,” a story he<br />
had written in three days for the Revue de<br />
Petersbourg ; Maupassant’s story was “‘ Boule-de-<br />
Suif” ; Huysmans gave “Sac au dos” ; Hennique,<br />
“PAssaut du Grand Six” ; Céard, “ La Saignée”’ ;<br />
and Paul Alexis, “ Aprés la Bataille.” They were<br />
all episodes of the war of ’70, and 10,000 copies<br />
of the volume were published.<br />
<br />
They were all men of such totally different<br />
temperaments that Zola often used to say “ It will be<br />
curious to see later on the way we each take in life.”<br />
<br />
In the Journal des Débats, M. Henry Bidou<br />
sums up in a few words the chief characteristics of<br />
Zola’s work. “Zola had that first, great quality—<br />
strength. He organized an immense work, and<br />
there is scarcely anything finer than the end of<br />
‘Germinal.’ There is, however, @ misunderstand-<br />
ing in his genius. He was the chief of realists,<br />
and the poorest of romantiques. He wished to be<br />
a savant, and was an imaginatif, and not a thorough<br />
critic by any means. His terrible mistake was<br />
that, trusting to a science which he had acquired<br />
too hastily, he misunderstood humanity, and we<br />
are unfortunately compelled to believe that his<br />
convictions were the outcome of his disposition of<br />
mind. He sees nothing which is higher than a<br />
certain level, and would thus give the lie to Ovid’s<br />
lines on man.”<br />
<br />
M. Anatole France, who spoke at Zola’s grave<br />
in the name of his friends, had a difficult task to<br />
perform. Since the Dreyfus affair M. Anatole<br />
France has been a great admirer of Zola’s courage<br />
at that time, and his speech was most eulogistic.<br />
<br />
Years ago when criticising Zola’s works, M<br />
Anatole France said: “ His work is bad, and he<br />
<br />
is one of those unhappy beings about whom we<br />
can only say it would have been better if he had<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
never been born. Certainly I do not deny his<br />
detestable fame. . . . Never has any man so com-<br />
pletely failed to comprehend the ideal of mankind,<br />
‘La Terre,’ for instance, is nob so much the work<br />
of an exact realist as of a perverted idealist. To<br />
see in peasants nothing but sensual beasts, is<br />
childish, false, and sickly. Peasants are not like this,<br />
in the first place, because they have not the time.<br />
Zola gives us peasants who get up at dawn, work<br />
like horses, and in spite of this, are given up to<br />
perpetual fornication. 'This is not so, and if the<br />
author invents he should invent something better.”<br />
<br />
The opinion of M. Barré is that Zola’s work is<br />
“a powerful monument which will remain,” but at<br />
_ same time he confesses that it does not interest<br />
<br />
im.<br />
<br />
M. Rosny considers that Zola’s role in the school<br />
of naturalism was only of the second order. He<br />
was not a creator, but just the man who made use<br />
of the elements of art with which Balzac, Flaubert,<br />
and Goncourt had furnished him.<br />
<br />
Léon Daudet, who from his earliest childhood<br />
had been accustomed to seeing Zola, and hearing<br />
him discuss literary questions with Edmond de<br />
Goncourt and Alphonse Daudet, tells us that the<br />
Zola of that time had scarcely changed at all. He<br />
had the same nervous, affable voice, the same<br />
peculiar intonation, and the same wide forehead<br />
wrinkled with thought and anxiety.<br />
<br />
“ He was in those days,” says Léon Daudet, **a<br />
pessimist as regards the present, all his optimism<br />
was in a vague future, in a social Utopia, and this<br />
stood to him in the place of all dreams, and of the<br />
hope in a life beyond. He often declared that work<br />
was a sacred thing in itself, and that it was the only<br />
means of forgetting life. He was a slave to each<br />
one of his books, setting himself each day his task<br />
of pages to write, and refusing to be influenced by<br />
fatigue, monotony, or disinclination. ‘This terrible<br />
persistency permitted. him to fill the number of<br />
pages he had determined to write, but effectually<br />
banished from his work all joy and serenity.<br />
Even when he speaks of the near dawn, and of<br />
to-morrow’s sunshine, he is painting black hori<br />
zons, and depicting such utter anguish of soul as<br />
admits of no hope whatever. The great faults of<br />
Zola are his want of selection, and his exaggeration<br />
and abuse of the grosser things he describes.”<br />
<br />
* Anys HALLARD.<br />
<br />
ee<br />
<br />
A CAPE LETTER.<br />
eee<br />
OREMOST among recent local publications<br />
K stand two historical works, both from the<br />
ens of well-known authorities—“ The<br />
Beginning of South African History,” by Dr. Geo.<br />
M‘Call Theal, Colonial Historiographer (simul-<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
THE AUTHOR. 37<br />
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s<br />
<br />
taneously published by Mr. Unwin in ‘London, and<br />
by Mr. T. M. Miller in Cape Town), and a new<br />
volume of “ Précis of the Archives of the Cape of<br />
Good Hope,” translated by the Rev. H. C. V.<br />
Leibbrandt, Keeper of the Archives. The preface<br />
to the first-named work describes its somewhat<br />
complicated evolution from an earlier but much<br />
smaller book, entitled “The Portuguese in South<br />
Africa,” which was designed to fill the deficiency in<br />
the author’s original “ History of South Africa”<br />
with regard to the “ beginning” of South African<br />
history, South Africa having since the issue of<br />
that work expanded so as to take in (Northern)<br />
territory whose history began at an earlier date.<br />
Dr. Theal states that, following on the publication<br />
of “ The Portuguese in South Africa,” he was com-<br />
missioned by the Cape Government to make deeper<br />
research on the subject, with the result that he has<br />
spent the greater part of the last five years in<br />
Europe, translating Portuguese MSS., etc. Most of<br />
these translations have already been published under<br />
the title of “ Recordsof South-east Africa,” the ninth<br />
volume being in preparation ; and the present book<br />
is an epitome of their contents. It forms a new<br />
Vol. I. to Dr. Theal’s great serial History, whose<br />
other volumes are gradually being issued in second<br />
editions. There is an introductory chapter on the<br />
earliest inhabitants of the country, and the book<br />
closes with a couple of added chapters relating to<br />
events in Portuguese South-east Africa in the<br />
nineteenth century. It contains several interesting<br />
old maps and drawings.<br />
<br />
Mr. Leibbrandt’s new volume of ‘Précis,” a<br />
smaller book, covers the years 1671—4 and 1676,<br />
and consists of a free translation of the official<br />
journals kept under the early Dutch governors of<br />
the Cape, with the omission of certain uninterest-<br />
ing details. There is no preface, nor are there<br />
any other addenda. The simple line “1675<br />
missing” tells the story of the neglect which has<br />
allowed several of these valuable old documents to<br />
get lost. Like the rest of the series, the volume<br />
just issued is of great historical interest, being full<br />
of information as to the customs and daily happen-<br />
ings of the period. It is often amusing,<br />
consciously or unconsciously ; as when one of a<br />
marauding party of lions is said to have come “ too<br />
near the gun, and was so hit in the brain-pan that<br />
he died immediately on the spot,” or in the naive<br />
entry, ‘Nothing particular happened!” The<br />
matter of a Sunday sermon, the horrible details of<br />
a brutal punishment, or a description in unre-<br />
strained language of some delinquent’s character,<br />
all come within the scope of the record.<br />
<br />
Under instructions from the Government, Mr.<br />
Leibbrandt has edited all the papers connected<br />
with “The Rebellion of 1815, generally known<br />
as Slachters Nek.” These form a considerable<br />
<br />
volume, which is in course of publication (Cape<br />
Town, J. C. Juta & Co.; London, P. S. King<br />
& Co.), a Dutch edition of which will follow<br />
immediately. Mr. Leibbrandt has been fortunate<br />
in discovering a most complete record of the historic<br />
trial. To this he has added many other important<br />
documents bearing on the subject. The book (of<br />
which the present writer has been privileged to see<br />
an advance copy) is provided with a large map of<br />
the eastern portion of Cape Colony, showing all<br />
places mentioned.<br />
<br />
In addition to the work already described, Dr.<br />
Theal has contributed to the “ Nineteenth Century<br />
Series,” published in Toronto, a volume on “ The<br />
Progress of South Africa in the Century.”<br />
<br />
Messrs. J. C. Juta & Co. have republished a<br />
number of educational works, the stocks of<br />
which were destroyed by fire last year. Among<br />
minor publications of the last few months are<br />
a large quarter-volume of “Transactions of the<br />
South African Philosophical Society” (completing<br />
Vol. XI.) ; a Pocket Gazetteer of Cape Colony, and<br />
a large number of sectional maps of the Cape and<br />
other South African Colonies, issued for the Field<br />
Intelligence Department ; “ The City of Grahams-<br />
town” (illustrated), by A. Macmillan (J. Slater,<br />
Grahamstown) ; a second edition of an elementary<br />
phrase-book, etc., of the Secwana language, by A.J.<br />
Wookey (Townshend & Son, Vryburg) ; three or<br />
four volumes of Law Reports ; numerous leaflets<br />
on farming subjects, reprinted from the Agricul-<br />
tural Journal; and several Coronation poems in<br />
pamphlet form.<br />
<br />
Mr. T. M. Miller has taken over from Messts.<br />
Juta the publication of the Rev. A. Vine Hall’s<br />
charming illustrated poem on “Table Mountain,”<br />
of which he is shortly bringing out a new and<br />
improved edition. The whole stock of this booklet<br />
was also destroyed in the fire mentioned above.<br />
Two literary items are contained in the Estimates<br />
laid before Parliament this Session—viz., payments<br />
of £250 to Mr. T. R. Sim for a work on “ Forest<br />
Flora,” and of £200 to Mr. A. R. EH. Burton,<br />
F.R.G.8., for a handbook of the Colony. The<br />
latter volume, which replaces the late Mr. John<br />
Noble’s Handbook of 1898, will be published in<br />
the near future, but the date of appearance of<br />
Mr. Sim’s book is at present indefinite. Mr.<br />
Burton, who has for some time past been editor of<br />
the Cape of Good Hope Agricultural Journal, has<br />
accepted a similar appointment under the Transvaal<br />
Government. His place on the local journal is<br />
taken by Mr. F. D. McDermott.<br />
<br />
The “ History of the War ” threatened by General<br />
Botha and his two comrades-in-arms should prove<br />
interesting if it contains many statements as start-<br />
ling as that of the Commander-in-Chief of the<br />
late Transvaal forces, to the effect that the British<br />
<br />
<br />
36<br />
<br />
for this work, “ Justice,”<br />
d at the time of his death.<br />
igin of the volume,<br />
<br />
which he had planned<br />
was not even commence<br />
M. Huysmans tells us the or<br />
« Soirées de Médan.”<br />
Before Zola wrote “ Y’Assommoir” he lived in a<br />
small house in the Rue Saint George. He had<br />
just published “ La Curée,” and M. Céard, who<br />
admired this work immensely, went to call on the<br />
Zola received him very cordially, and M.<br />
<br />
author. :<br />
Huysmans accompanied M. Céard on his next<br />
visit. M. Hennique also went—and Zola already<br />
<br />
knew Guy de Maupassant and M. Alexis.<br />
<br />
This little group of literary men agreed to meet<br />
and to spend the evening, once a week, at Zola’s<br />
house. ‘They decided to publish a volume of<br />
stories together, and as by that time Zola had<br />
bought his country house at Médan, and the six<br />
friends used to go there on Sundays, the volume<br />
was entitled “Soirées de Médan,” and was pub-<br />
lished in 1880. Only three of the authors survive,<br />
Huysmans, Hennique, and Céard.<br />
<br />
Zola gave “‘l Attaque du Moulin,” a story he<br />
had written in three days for the Revue de<br />
Potersbourg ; Maupassant’s story was ‘“ Boule-de-<br />
Suif” ; Huysmans gave “ Sac au dos” ; Hennique,<br />
“PAssaut du Grand Six” ; Céard, “ La Saignée” ;<br />
and Paul Alexis, “ Aprés la Bataille.” They were<br />
all episodes of the war of 70, and 10,000 copies<br />
of the volume were published.<br />
<br />
They were all men of such totally different<br />
temperaments that Zola often used to say “ It will be<br />
curious to see later on the way we each take in life.”<br />
<br />
In the Journal des Debats, M. Henry Bidou<br />
sums up in a few words the chief characteristics of<br />
Zola’s work. “Zola had that first, great quality—<br />
strength. He organized an immense work, and<br />
there is scarcely anything finer than the end of<br />
‘Germinal.’ There is, however, @ misunderstand-<br />
ing in his genius. He was the chief of realists,<br />
and the poorest of romantiques. He wished to be<br />
a savant, and was an imaginatif, and. not a thorough<br />
critic by any means. His terrible mistake was<br />
that, trusting to a science which he had acquired<br />
too hastily, he misunderstood humanity, and we<br />
<br />
are unfortunately compelled to believe that his<br />
<br />
convictions were the outcome of his disposition of<br />
<br />
mind. He sees nothing which is higher than a<br />
<br />
certain level, and would thus give the lie to Ovid’s<br />
<br />
lines on man.”<br />
<br />
M. Anatole France, who spoke at Zola’s grave<br />
in the name of his friends, had a difficult task to<br />
perform. Since the Dreyfus affair M. Anatole<br />
<br />
France has been a great admirer of Zola’s courage<br />
<br />
at that time, and his speech was most eulogistic.<br />
<br />
Years ago when criticising Zola’s works, M<br />
<br />
Anatole France said: “ His work is bad, and he<br />
<br />
is one of those unhappy beings about whom we<br />
<br />
can only say it would have been better if he had<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
never been born. Certainly I do not deny his<br />
detestable fame. . . . Never has any man so com-<br />
pletely failed to comprehend the ideal of mankind.<br />
‘La Terre,’ for instance, is nob so much the work<br />
of an exact realist as of a perverted idealist. To<br />
see in peasants nothing but sensual beasts, is<br />
childish, false, and sickly. Peasants are not like this,<br />
in the first place, because they have not the time.<br />
Zola gives us peasants who get up at dawn, work<br />
like horses, and in spite of this, are given up to<br />
perpetual fornication. 'This is not so, and if the<br />
author invents he should invent something better.”<br />
<br />
The opinion of M. Barré is that Zola’s work is<br />
“a powerful monument which will remain,” but at<br />
Le same time he confesses that it does not interest<br />
<br />
im.<br />
<br />
M. Rosny considers that Zola’s role in the school<br />
of naturalism was only of the second order. He<br />
was not a creator, but just the man who made use<br />
of the elements of art with which Balzac, Flaubert,<br />
and Goncourt had furnished him.<br />
<br />
Léon Daudet, who from his earliest childhood<br />
had been accustomed to seeing Zola, and hearing<br />
him discuss literary questions with Edmond de<br />
Goncourt and Alphonse Daudet, tells us that the<br />
Zola of that time had scarcely changed at all. He<br />
had the same nervous, affable voice, the same<br />
peculiar intonation, and the same wide forehead<br />
wrinkled with thought and anxiety.<br />
<br />
« He was in those days,” says Léon Daudet, “a<br />
pessimist as regards the present, all his optimism<br />
was in a vague future, in a social Utopia, and this<br />
stood to him in the place of all dreams, and of the<br />
hope in a life beyond. He often declared that work<br />
was a sacred thing in itself, and that it was the only<br />
means of forgetting life. He was a slave to each<br />
<br />
one of his books, setting himself each day his task<br />
of pages to write, and. refusing to be influenced by<br />
fatigue, monotony, or disinclination. This terrible<br />
persistency permitted him to fill the number of<br />
pages he had determined to write, but effectually<br />
banished from his work all joy and serenity.<br />
Even when he speaks of the near dawn, and of<br />
to-morrow’s sunshine, he is painting black hori<br />
zons, and depicting such utter anguish of soul as<br />
admits of no hope whatever. The great faults of<br />
Zola ave his want of selection, and his exaggeration<br />
and abuse of the grosser things he describes.”<br />
<br />
* ~~ Atys HALLARD.<br />
<br />
a<br />
A CAPE LETTER.<br />
a<br />
OREMOST among recent local publications<br />
<br />
| { stand two historical works, both from the<br />
ens of well-known authorities—“ The<br />
<br />
Beginning of South African History,” by Dr. Geo.<br />
M‘Call Theal, Colonial Historiographer (simul-<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
ao<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR. 37<br />
<br />
taneously published by Mr. Unwin in ‘London, and<br />
by Mr. T. M. Miller in Cape Town), and a new<br />
volume of “ Précis of the Archives of the Cape of<br />
Good Hope,” translated by the Rev. H. C. V.<br />
Leibbrandt, Keeper of the Archives. The preface<br />
to the first-named work describes its somewhat<br />
complicated evolution from an earlier but much<br />
smaller book, entitled ‘The Portuguese in South<br />
Africa,” which was designed to fill the deficiency in<br />
the author’s original ‘ History of South Africa ”<br />
with regard to the “ beginning” of South African<br />
history, South Africa having since the issue of<br />
that work expanded so as to take in (Northern)<br />
territory whose history began at an earlier date.<br />
Dr. Theal states that, following on the publication<br />
of “ The Portuguese in South Africa,” he was com-<br />
missioned by the Cape Government to make deeper<br />
research on the subject, with the result that he has<br />
spent the greater part of the last five years in<br />
Europe, translating Portuguese MSS., etc. Most of<br />
these translations have already been published under<br />
the title of “ Recordsof South-east Africa,” the ninth<br />
volume being in preparation ; and the present book<br />
is an epitome of their contents. It forms a new<br />
Vol. I. to Dr. Theal’s great serial History, whose<br />
other volumes are gradually being issued in second<br />
editions. There is an introductory chapter on the<br />
earliest inhabitants of the country, and the book<br />
closes with a couple of added chapters relating to<br />
events in Portuguese South-east Africa in the<br />
nineteenth century. It contains several interesting<br />
old maps and drawings.<br />
<br />
Mr. Leibbrandt’s new volume of “ Précis,” a<br />
smaller book, covers the years 1671—4 and 1676,<br />
and consists of a free translation of the official<br />
journals kept under the early Dutch governors of<br />
the Cape, with the omission of certain uninterest-<br />
ing details. There is no preface, nor are there<br />
any other addenda. The simple line “1675<br />
missing” tells the story of the neglect which has<br />
allowed several of these valuable old documents to<br />
get lost. Like the rest of the series, the volume<br />
just issued is of great historical interest, being full<br />
of information as to the customs and daily happen-<br />
ings of the period. It is often amusing,<br />
consciously or unconsciously ; as when one of a<br />
marauding party of lions is said to have come “ too<br />
near the gun, and was so hit in the brain-pan that<br />
he died immediately on the spot,” or in the naive<br />
entry, “Nothing particular happened!” The<br />
matter of a Sunday sermon, the horrible details of<br />
a brutal punishment, or a description in unre-<br />
strained language of some delinquent’s character,<br />
all come within the scope of the record.<br />
<br />
Under instructions from the Government, Mr.<br />
Leibbrandt has edited all the papers connected<br />
with “The Rebellion of 1815, generally known<br />
as Slachters Nek.” These form a considerable<br />
<br />
volume, which is in course of publication (Cape<br />
Town, J. C. Juta & Co.; London, P. 8. King<br />
& Co.), a Dutch edition of which will follow<br />
immediately. Mr. Leibbrandt has been fortunate<br />
in discovering a most complete record of the historic<br />
trial. To this he has added many other important<br />
documents bearing on the subject. The book (of<br />
which the present writer has been privileged to see<br />
an advance copy) is provided with a large map of<br />
the eastern portion of Cape Colony, showing all<br />
places mentioned.<br />
<br />
In addition to the work already described, Dr.<br />
Theal has contributed to the “ Nineteenth Century<br />
Series,” published in Toronto, a volume on “The<br />
Progress of South Africa in the Century.”<br />
<br />
Messrs. J. ©. Juta & Co. have republished a<br />
number of educational works, the stocks of<br />
which were destroyed by fire last year. Among<br />
minor publications of the last few months are<br />
a large quarter-volume of “Transactions of the<br />
South African Philosophical Society” (completing<br />
Vol. XI.) ; a Pocket Gazetteer of Cape Colony, and<br />
a large number of sectional maps of the Cape and<br />
other South African Colonies, issued for the Field<br />
Intelligence Department ; “ The City of Grahams-<br />
town” (illustrated), by A. Macmillan (J. Slater,<br />
Grahamstown) ; a second edition of an elementary<br />
phrase-book, etc., of the Secwana language, by A. J.<br />
Wookey (Townshend & Son, Vryburg) ; three or<br />
four volumes of Law Reports ; numerous leaflets<br />
on farming subjects, reprinted from the Agrwui-<br />
tural Journal; and several Coronation poems in<br />
pamphlet form.<br />
<br />
Mr. T. M. Miller has taken over from Messrs.<br />
Juta the publication of the Rev. A. Vine Hall’s<br />
charming illustrated poem on “ Table Mountain,”<br />
of which he is shortly bringing out a new and<br />
improved edition. ‘The whole stock of this booklet<br />
was also destroyed in the fire mentioned above.<br />
Two literary items are contained in the Estimates<br />
laid before Parliament this Session—viz., payments<br />
of £250 to Mr. T. R. Sim for a work on “ Forest<br />
Flora,’ and of £200 to Mr. A. R. E. Burton,<br />
F.R.G.S., for a handbook of the Colony. The<br />
latter volume, which replaces the late Mr. John<br />
Noble’s Handbook of 18938, will be published in<br />
the near future, but the date of appearance of<br />
Mr. Sim’s book is at present indefinite. Mr.<br />
Burton, who has for some time past been editor of<br />
the Cape of Good Hope Agricultural Journal, has<br />
accepted a similar appointment under the Transvaal<br />
Government. His place on the local journal is<br />
taken by Mr. F. D. McDermott.<br />
<br />
The “ History of the War ” threatened by General<br />
Botha and his two comrades-in-arms should prove<br />
interesting if it contains many statements as start-<br />
ling as that of the Commander-in-Chief of the<br />
late Transvaal forces, to the effect that the British<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
38<br />
<br />
blockhouses never gave him any trouble to pass !<br />
Ex-President Kruger’s promised “ defence-work ”<br />
is also looked forward to.<br />
<br />
Among other effects of the war, is the death of<br />
the “South African Illustrated Magazine,” a bright<br />
and old-established little monthly which we can<br />
ill afford to lose. On the other hand, “The<br />
Veld,” a high-class monthly illustrated paper,<br />
whose special object is the reproduction of Cape<br />
scenery, has resumed publication. Two other<br />
new magazines are ‘“ The Examiner,” fortnightly<br />
(Beaufort West Printing and Publishing Co.) ;<br />
and “ Mademoiselle,” a monthly journal for ladies ;<br />
whilst ‘The Boys of Africa,” weekly, is due to<br />
make its first appearance this month. All the<br />
newspapers which thought it prudent to suspend<br />
<br />
ublication during the more rigorous application<br />
of martial law are again being issued.<br />
<br />
Very long extracts from Mr. William Morris’s<br />
Coronation Ode appeared in the Cape Times, with<br />
the usual note to the effect that copyright restrained<br />
the paper from printing the whole. This style of<br />
cheap morality is over-common in the quarter<br />
named.<br />
<br />
Mr. Wilson Barrett’s visit has marked an epoch<br />
in our theatrical world. The Cape Town season<br />
—which was postponed for a week on account of<br />
Mr. Barrett’s very serious illness—included the<br />
author-actor’s own “Sign of the Cross ” and<br />
“Manxman” (after Hall Caine), the other plays<br />
rendered being “The Silver King,” “ Virginius,”<br />
“ Othello,” and “ Hamlet.” The last-named pro-<br />
duction occupied the boards on the last night of<br />
the season only, when each member of the audience<br />
was presented with a copy of Mr. Barrett’s essay<br />
on “Hamlet” (reprinted from “ Lippincott’s<br />
Magazine” of April, 1890). After the perform-<br />
ance the distinguished actor and author delivered<br />
a personalspeech. Owing to the bad blood existing<br />
between rival theatrical managers here, the Cape<br />
Town performances had to be given in a very<br />
inferior building ; a circumstance which is much<br />
deplored. Mr. Barrett's cable to the Zimes sug-<br />
gesting the renaming of South Africa raised a<br />
regrettable controversy in the local Press, the<br />
originator taking a vigorous part, but apparently<br />
failing to convert many South Africans to his way<br />
of thinking.<br />
<br />
A private letter from Rolf Boldrewood, the<br />
Australian author, dated Raby, Toorak, April 23rd,<br />
1902, and containing the political creed of a<br />
“representative Australian,” appeared in the Cape<br />
Times a short while ago.<br />
<br />
Sypngy YorK Forp.<br />
<br />
Cape Town,<br />
<br />
September 10th, 1902.<br />
<br />
ee<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
LITERARY, DRAMATIC, AND MUSICAL<br />
PROPERTY.<br />
<br />
1<br />
<br />
HE celebrated Festus of the late Mr. P. J.<br />
Bailey was published in 1839, just three years<br />
<br />
before the passing of the Copyright Act, 1842.<br />
<br />
Had it been published after the passing of that Act<br />
the copyright would automatically have lasted for<br />
seven years after the death of the author—that is,<br />
until 1909. That Act, however, made a special<br />
provision in favour of the owners of copyright<br />
acquired before its passing, and still subsisting ab<br />
the time of its passing. The 4th section enacted<br />
that in such cases the copyright should be extended<br />
and endure for the full term provided by the then<br />
new Act (ie. for seven years after the author’s<br />
death or forty-two years, whichever should be the<br />
longer period), “provided that in all cases in<br />
which such copyright shall belong to a publisher<br />
or other person who shall have acquired it for<br />
other consideration than that of love and affection,<br />
such copyright shall not be extended by this Act,<br />
but shall endure for the term which shall subsist<br />
therein at the time of the passing of this Act, and<br />
no longer, unless the author of such book if he<br />
shall be living, or the personal representatives if he<br />
be dead, and the proprietor of such copyright shall,<br />
before the expiration of such term, consent and<br />
agree to accept the benefits of this Act in respect<br />
of such book.” The further provision was added<br />
that a minute of such consent, in a form scheduled<br />
to the Act, had to be registered at Stationers’ Hall.<br />
In cases where an author had sold his copyright<br />
and not entered into this agreement with the<br />
purchaser, the copyright endured only for the term<br />
fixed in 1814 by 54 Geo. 3. c. 56—i.e., for twenty-<br />
eight years certain after the date of publication and<br />
the residue of the life of the author ; so that all<br />
copyrights acquired before 1842 have probably<br />
expired, unless such agreement was made and<br />
registered.—Law Times.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
—— +<br />
<br />
Old Books for New.<br />
<br />
Durina the summer holidays several letters<br />
have appeared in the papers giving details<br />
respecting the republication by Mr. John Long<br />
of a book of Mr. Bernard Capes. ‘The cause<br />
of complaint from the author and sundry editors<br />
is the fact that although the story had appeared.<br />
several years ago in book form, no notification was<br />
given to the public. The papers have dealt with<br />
the matter from the point of view of the public,<br />
and have demonstrated with considerable vigour<br />
that such publication is likely to cause serious<br />
annoyance to the general reader.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
; .<br />
<br />
From time to time cases of a similar character<br />
have been brought to the offices of the Society.<br />
Mr. Capes himself consulted the Society with a<br />
yiew to taking action if possible. The opinion<br />
of the legal advisers of the Society on this and<br />
former occasions has unfortunately been against<br />
the authors. Otherwise the committee would<br />
gladly no doubt have taken a case in hand, and<br />
supported the author in an action in the High<br />
Court. Sach a method of publication is not only<br />
unfair to the author, but it is also unfair to the<br />
public. The publisher is the only person who can<br />
hope in these circumstances to reap any benefit<br />
from placing the book on the market. It is possible,<br />
however, that he may lose in prestige what he gains<br />
in hard cash.<br />
<br />
The facts of the cases that have been investi-<br />
gated are generally as follows :—<br />
<br />
The author in the early days of his career<br />
produces a book, and—as a young writer—sells<br />
the copyright for a sum down, without knowing<br />
exactly the danger of the transaction, or the<br />
meaning of the contract that he signs. The book<br />
not infrequently has no extended sale, and after a<br />
short time ceases to interest the author, the pub-<br />
lisher, or the public. A subsequent production<br />
brings fame. Then the publisher suddenly re-<br />
members that he owns the copyright of an early<br />
work. He proceeds to market it again, and<br />
generally does so at a time most inconvenient to<br />
the author—when, for example, he is producing<br />
his latest work with one of the larger publishing<br />
houses. On one or two occasions the publisher<br />
has run very close to the wind, but has never<br />
actually rendered himself legally liable.<br />
<br />
The only method of dealing with these cases is<br />
the method employed by Mr. Bernard Capes—a<br />
method the Society has always advocated where<br />
the publisher persists in producing the work in<br />
spite of the author’s remonstrances. A plain<br />
statement of fact published in the newspapers<br />
will clear himself and help to protect the<br />
public.<br />
<br />
The nearest approach to committal was a case in<br />
which the publisher headed his advertisement<br />
“Mr. ’s new novels,” the blank containing<br />
the publisher’s name. The work in question cer-<br />
tainly was a new novel as far as the publishing<br />
house was concerned, but not a fresh novel from<br />
the author’s pen. Even in this case the legal<br />
advisers of the Society came to the conclusion that<br />
it would be impossible to obtain a judgment in the<br />
author’s fayour.<br />
<br />
The real moral of the case is that the author<br />
should know what he is selling when he makes his<br />
original contract, or should ask advice of some<br />
person who is well aware of the intricacies and<br />
technicalities involved in a literary agreement.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Methods of Distribution.<br />
I.<br />
<br />
THE most important point to an author after<br />
the creation of his work is surely how to get his<br />
book into the hands of the public. In last<br />
month’s Author an article appeared on ‘‘ Methods<br />
of Distribution,” with some suggestions.<br />
<br />
A publisher writing on the subject puts forward<br />
some of the reasons why he thinks people do not<br />
buy books. He says that the two commonest<br />
excuses are that books take up too much room,<br />
and are so expensive. People prefer to. borrow<br />
from the library, and the libraries in their turn<br />
take care to manage with as few books as possible.<br />
Instead of trying to push their wares like the<br />
bookseller they make no effort to oblige, but<br />
merely state that the book is out. and suggest<br />
another as an alternative.<br />
<br />
The publisher also thinks that nett books are<br />
regarded by many folk as another put-up dodge<br />
on the part of the trade, but as a matter of fact it<br />
would be impossible for any man to make a living<br />
out of books sold subject to the usual 25 per cent.<br />
He ends up by stating that the death of the three-<br />
volume novel was the worst day’s work ever done<br />
from the point of view of the young and good<br />
novelist.<br />
<br />
These opinions, coming from the source they do,<br />
are of importance, and carry a great deal of weight.<br />
They should be carefully considered. It is to be<br />
hoped that the bookselling trade is not really at<br />
such a low ebb. At any rate, it is stated in a daily<br />
paper that the American Booklover’s Library<br />
has taken London premises. The American<br />
Booklover’s Library is run somewhat on the same<br />
lines as Messrs. Mudies’. For a fixed subscription<br />
it delivers parcels of books at the subscriber's<br />
house, and collects them when done with.<br />
<br />
This American business may perhaps stir up the<br />
sleepy traders in books and at the same time do<br />
something to break down the enormous critical<br />
powers of Messrs. Mudie and Messrs. Smith, which<br />
enable them to determine the literary pabulum to<br />
be presented to their readers. Although these two<br />
houses, by giving books an enormous distribution<br />
which could not be achieved by a series of small<br />
booksellers scattered all over the kingdom, are no<br />
doubt from some points of view highly beneficial to<br />
authors and publishers, yet competition is good in<br />
all business, but competition must not be allowed to<br />
become so acute as to necessitate the creation of a<br />
trust. It is to be hoped, however, that the advent<br />
of the American Booklover’s Library will not cause<br />
the trade to gravitate in this direction. A trust of<br />
the distributing agencies of Great Britain might be<br />
a worse evil than the present stagnation.<br />
<br />
a<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
40<br />
<br />
Il.<br />
<br />
Srr,—In the October number of The Author,<br />
the writer of the above-named article has hit the<br />
mark. We are not all geniuses—‘ talent does<br />
what it can”—and gets little help. The ordinary<br />
author of to-day, if I may so name the greater<br />
proportion of writers who write for profit and the<br />
benefit of the community, meets with a brick wall<br />
“between publication and purchase. Say his book<br />
is published on the royalty system, and well re-<br />
viewed. So far good; the publisher is hopeful,<br />
the author expectant. In many cases the hopes<br />
of both are speedily dashed. There is a limited<br />
demand, met by the big libraries, a spasmodic<br />
sale, and then—the brick wall. Every year a<br />
hundred books are in the same plight. Where<br />
reststhe blame ? Not with the publishers, not with<br />
the librarians, who cannot be expected to speculate,<br />
and in nine cases out of ten not with the book.<br />
The method of distribution is at fault. The book<br />
is blocked from the general public. There is no<br />
buyer because there is no seller. Now, the usual<br />
bookseller (?) cum-stationer, cum-newsagent, cum-<br />
printer, cum-purveyor of fancy goods, must not be<br />
asked to know something personally of the con-<br />
tents of the season’s hundred books written by the<br />
ordinary author. It is asking too much of a<br />
man whose interests are split up, who only rubs<br />
shoulders with literature en passant. In every<br />
town we want, what the writer of the article justly<br />
underlines—the book-seller ; a man who has time<br />
to think, who can distinguish, who will take works<br />
on commission from the publisher—fiction, bio-<br />
graphy, travel, religious, scholastic—classify his<br />
own printed list, and distribute such, monthly<br />
or quarterly, in his own vicinity, and to likely<br />
customers. Then the ordinary author will get his<br />
chance. The man who wants a book to read will<br />
not have to frequent the railway station. He has<br />
it, so to speak, under his nose ; and, under shelter<br />
and out of draughts, can turn over the pages of<br />
clean copies, digest unmutilated reviews, and<br />
make up his mind.<br />
<br />
I refer to the book of ordinary merit—a whole-<br />
some attempt to satisfy the cravings of the<br />
ordinary reader. The book of genius makes its<br />
way over every obstacle; this is ri ght, and inevit-<br />
able; but we cannot all eat peaches—we are<br />
content to munch many a pear, provided it is<br />
not woolly. So with readers and books.<br />
<br />
No, sir, the author is not content to see the<br />
children of his brain die premature deaths for<br />
want of a system; but he is deeply indebted to<br />
the writer of “The Methods of Distribution” for<br />
bringing this vexed question to the front. Let<br />
others speak.<br />
<br />
Your obedient servant,<br />
‘Tus Orpinary AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
Nett Books.<br />
<br />
Srvce the nett book system has been intro-<br />
duced, the attention of Authors has been drawn<br />
to some of the dangers which may possibly arise.<br />
Tt is as well to repeat these warnings, as the evils<br />
are constantly recurring, and the possible sufferers<br />
do not as yet appear to realise the changes taking<br />
place in the book trade.<br />
<br />
When Authors sign agreements they should be<br />
very careful to see that it is clearly stated whether<br />
their books are to be published subject to the usual<br />
discounts or at a nett price.<br />
<br />
If the published price is merely a nominal price,<br />
the Royalty as set out in the tables put forward im<br />
The Author, and in Sir Walter Besant’s work, “The<br />
Pen and the Book,” will as a rule hold good, but<br />
even then the “thirteen as twelve” must be taken<br />
into consideration. The reader is referred to the<br />
last number of The Author.<br />
<br />
But if the book is published as a nett book, them<br />
the Author must reconsider his position and must<br />
revise his royalty. It should be pointed out in<br />
addition, that the Royalty paid on nett books is<br />
usually paid on every copy sold, and not on “thirteen<br />
as twelve.”<br />
<br />
The price of a book published at 6s., subject to<br />
the usual discounts, is equivalent to 4s. 6d. nett.<br />
<br />
Ts it fair that the Author should sign an agree-<br />
ment on the tacit understanding that the book<br />
<br />
should be published under the ordinary methods |<br />
with the usual deductions, and then suddenly find |<br />
<br />
when the book is placed on the market that it is<br />
marked as a nett book? He receives thereby a<br />
smaller share of the profits, and the publisher<br />
receives a larger share.<br />
<br />
The case, however, is still worse when a publisher<br />
suddenly produces an edition of a book at a nett<br />
price which has already been selling for some years<br />
in accordance with the older system, #.¢., subject to<br />
the 25 per cent. discount to retail buyers. For<br />
example, he sells at 6s. nett instead of 6s, with:<br />
discount. The Author gets, say, 6d. a copy, and<br />
has been receiving that amount since the first<br />
publication of the book. But the publisher, who<br />
got, say, 10d. a copy on the discount book, will<br />
receive at least 1s. 10d. on the nett book.<br />
Secure in the terms of his agreement, he boldly<br />
repudiates any liability to the Author. The sales.<br />
of the book will no doubt be reduced by the rise<br />
in price, but they would have to be reduced more:<br />
than 50 per cent. to affect the publisher. The<br />
Author is the only one who suffers.<br />
<br />
Put aside the legal aspect. Is this fair trading?<br />
<br />
What would the Publishers’ Association think<br />
of this transaction ?<br />
<br />
The older and more responsible firms would<br />
surely indignantly repudiate these methods. Have<br />
they any power to make their opinions felt? It<br />
<br />
|<br />
}<br />
}<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Baa i ae<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
would be interesting to state a formal case for<br />
their consideration. It is faults like these that the<br />
Association would do well to correct.<br />
<br />
—_—_—_———_—_+—>—_+__—_—<br />
<br />
PHOTOGRAPHIC COPYRIGHT.<br />
<br />
+<br />
<br />
OW that the editors of illustrated papers<br />
and magazines raise so great a demand<br />
for the photographic reproduction of men<br />
<br />
and women, famous and infamous, illustrious and<br />
notorious, it may be useful to say a few words on<br />
the question of copyright in photographs, and the<br />
law bearing on the subject.<br />
<br />
Statutory copyright was given to paintings,<br />
drawings, and photographs by 25 & 26 Vict. c. 68,<br />
the first section of which, the most important, runs<br />
as follows :—<br />
<br />
« The author, being a British subject or resident within<br />
the dominions of the Crown, of every original painting,<br />
‘drawing, and photograph which shall be or shall have been<br />
made either in the British Dominions, or elsewhere, and<br />
which shall not have been sold or disposed of before the<br />
commencement of this Act, and his assigns, shall have the<br />
sole and exclusive right of copying, engraving, reproducing,<br />
and multiplying such painting or drawing, and the design<br />
thereof, or such photograph and the negative thereof, by<br />
any means and of any size, for the term of the natural life of<br />
such author, and seven years after his death ; provided that<br />
when any painting or drawing, or the negative of any<br />
photograph, shall for the first time after the passing of this<br />
‘Act be sold or disposed of, or shall be made or executed for<br />
‘or on behalf of any other person for a good ora valuable<br />
‘consideration, the person so selling or disposing of or<br />
making or executing the same shall not retain the copyright<br />
thereof, unless it be expressly reserved to him by agreement<br />
in writing, signed at or before the time of such sale or<br />
disposition, by the vendee or assignee of such painting or<br />
-drawing, or of such negative of a photograph, or by the<br />
person for or on whose behalf the same shall be so made or<br />
executed, but the copyright shall belong to the vendee or<br />
assignee of such painting or drawing, or of such negative<br />
-of a photograph, or to the person for or on whose behalf<br />
the same shall have been made or executed ; nor shall the<br />
vendee or assignee thereof be entitled to any such copy-<br />
tight, unless, at or before the time of such sale or disposition,<br />
an agreement in writing, signed by the person so selling or<br />
-disposing of the same, or by his agent duly authorised,<br />
shall have been made to that effect.”<br />
<br />
The Act, unlike the Literary Copyright Act,<br />
does not indulge in definitions.<br />
<br />
From some points of view this is an advantage ;<br />
from others, a disadvantage.<br />
<br />
A book is carefully defined in the Literary Copy-<br />
right Act. The lack of definition in the Artistic<br />
Copyright Act leaves the difficult proposition to be<br />
solved by the intelligence of the judge, with not<br />
infrequently a more satisfactory result than if it<br />
was left to the intelligence of the draughtsman.<br />
<br />
Copyright in paintings, drawings, and photo-<br />
graphs, it will be seen from the section, starts from<br />
the making of the work, and lasts for the life of the<br />
<br />
41<br />
<br />
author and seven years after his death. In the<br />
case of paintings and drawings the determination<br />
of the date gives rise to many difficulties, but<br />
with regard to photographs need not be further<br />
discussed.<br />
<br />
It is certainly a pity that the alternative of a<br />
fixed number of years has not been given, as is<br />
the case with books under the Literary Copyright<br />
Act, and that the term should run from the making<br />
instead of from the publication. The treatment<br />
of the subject, however, is in accordance with the<br />
treatment of all questions of copyright. Wherever<br />
it has been possible for the Legislature to confuse<br />
the copyright-holders it has succeeded in doing so,<br />
and diverse methods have been employed where<br />
the nature of the property demanded the closest<br />
analogy.<br />
<br />
The duration of copyright having been deter-<br />
mined, it will be evident that the two most<br />
important points are: (1) Who is the author of<br />
the work ? (2) Who is the employer? Upon the<br />
first depends the commencement of the copyright<br />
term, and upon the second in many cases depends<br />
the solution of who is the rightful owner of the<br />
property.<br />
<br />
With regard to No. 1— Who is the author ?”—<br />
one or two actions have been brought and the<br />
point has been raised ; but the judges, dealing in<br />
each special case with “ who was not the author,”<br />
by a negative process have shirked giving a positive<br />
definition. It may be as well, however, to quote<br />
the words of the Master of the Rolls in the case of<br />
Nottage v. Jackson, as it is the best dictum so far<br />
on the point :—<br />
<br />
“ The author of a painting is the man who paints it, the<br />
author of a drawing is the man who draws it, of a photo-<br />
graph the author is the person who effectively is as near as<br />
he can be the cause of the picture which is produced, that<br />
is, the person who has superintended the arrangement, who<br />
has actually formed the picture by putting the people into<br />
position, and arranging the place in which the people are<br />
to be—the man who is the effective cause of that. Although<br />
he may only have done it by standing in the room and<br />
giving orders about it, still it is his mind and act, as far as<br />
anybody’s mind and act are concerned, which is the effective<br />
cause of the picture such as it is when it is produced.”<br />
<br />
If this is correct the person who actually snaps<br />
the photograph or uncovers the camera need not in<br />
any sense be the author of the photograph. A<br />
point of this kind, however, does not interest: the<br />
subject so much as it would interest the photo-<br />
grapher. The latter, no doubt, takes good care to<br />
protect himself by agreement with his assistant or<br />
by some other method.<br />
<br />
Next comes the question, “ Who is the em-<br />
ployer ?”<br />
<br />
When a person goes to have his photograph taken<br />
and pays the ordinary fee asked by the photographer,<br />
the position is clear and indisputable. He is the<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
40<br />
<br />
I.<br />
<br />
Smr,—In the October number of 7’he Author,<br />
the writer of the above-named article has hit the<br />
mark. We are not all geniuses—“ talent does<br />
what it can”—and gets little help. The ordinary<br />
author of to-day, if I may so name the greater<br />
proportion of writers who write for profit and the<br />
benefit of the community, meets with a brick wall<br />
“between publication and purchase. Say his book<br />
is published on the royalty system, and well re-<br />
viewed. So far good; the publisher is hopeful,<br />
the author expectant. In many cases the hopes<br />
of both are speedily dashed. There is a limited<br />
demand, met by the big libraries, a spasmodic<br />
sale, and then—the brick wall. Every year a<br />
hundred books are in the same plight. Where<br />
rests the blame ? Not with the publishers, not with<br />
the librarians, who cannot be expected to speculate,<br />
and in nine cases out of ten not with the book.<br />
The method of distribution is at fault. The book<br />
is blocked from the general public. There is no<br />
buyer because there is no seller. Now, the usual<br />
bookseller (?) cum-stationer, cum-newsagent, cum-<br />
printer, cum-purveyor of fancy goods, must not be<br />
asked to know something personally of the con-<br />
tents of the season’s hundred hooks written by the<br />
ordinary author. It is asking too much of a<br />
man whose interests are split up, who only rubs<br />
shoulders with literature en passant. In every<br />
town we want, what the writer of the article justly<br />
underlines—the book-seller ; a man who has time<br />
to think, who can distinguish, who will take works<br />
on commission from the publisher—fiction, bio-<br />
graphy, travel, religious, scholastic—classify his<br />
own printed list, and distribute such, monthly<br />
or quarterly, in his own vicinity, and to likely<br />
customers. Then the ordinary author will get his<br />
chance. The man who wants a book to read will<br />
not have to frequent the railway station. He has<br />
it, so to speak, under his nose ; and, under shelter<br />
and out of draughts, can turn over the pages of<br />
clean copies, digest unmutilated reviews, and<br />
make up his mind.<br />
<br />
I refer to the book of ordinary merit—a whole-<br />
some attempt to satisfy the cravings of the<br />
ordinary reader. The book of genius makes its<br />
way over every obstacle; this is right, and inevit-<br />
able; but we cannot all eat peaches—we are<br />
content to munch many a pear, provided it is<br />
not woolly. So with readers and books.<br />
<br />
No, sir, the author is not content to see the<br />
children of his brain die premature deaths for<br />
want of a system; but he is deeply indebted to<br />
the writer of ‘“‘ The Methods of Distribution” for<br />
bringing this vexed question to the front. Let<br />
others speak.<br />
<br />
Your obedient servant,<br />
THE ORDINARY AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Nett Books.<br />
<br />
Since the nett book system has been intro-<br />
duced, the attention of Authors has been drawn<br />
to some of the dangers which may possibly arise.<br />
It is as well to repeat these warnings, as the evils<br />
are constantly recurring, and the possible sufferers<br />
do not as yet appear to realise the changes taking<br />
place in the book trade.<br />
<br />
When Authors sign agreements they should be<br />
very careful to see that it is clearly stated whether<br />
their books are to be published subject to the usual<br />
discounts or at a nett price.<br />
<br />
If the published price is merely a nominal price,<br />
the Royalty as set out in the tables put forward in<br />
The Author, and in Sir Walter Besant’s work, “The<br />
Pen and the Book,” will as a rule hold good, but<br />
even then the “thirteen as twelve”? must be taken<br />
into consideration. The reader is referred to the<br />
last number of The Author.<br />
<br />
But if the book is published as a nett book, then<br />
the Author must reconsider his position and must<br />
revise his royalty. It should be pointed out in<br />
addition, that the Royalty paid on nett books is<br />
usually paid on every copy sold, and not on “thirteen<br />
as twelve.”<br />
<br />
The price of a book published at 6s., subject to<br />
the usual discounts, is equivalent to 4s. 6d. nett.<br />
<br />
Is it fair that the Author should sign an agree-<br />
ment on the tacit understanding that the book |<br />
should be published under the ordinary methods |<br />
with the usual deductions, and then suddenly find ;<br />
when the book is placed on the market that it is<br />
marked as a nett book? He receives thereby a<br />
smaller share of the profits, and the publisher<br />
receives a larger share.<br />
<br />
The case, however, is still worse when a publisher<br />
suddenly produces an edition of a book at a nett:<br />
price which has already been selling for some years.<br />
in accordance with the older system, ¢.e., subject to<br />
the 25 per cent. discount to retail buyers. For<br />
example, he sells at 6s. nett instead of 6s. with<br />
discount. The Author gets, say, 6d. a copy, and<br />
has been receiving that amount since the first<br />
publication of the book. But the publisher, who<br />
got, say, 10d. a copy on the discount book, will<br />
receive at least 1s. 10d. on the nett book.<br />
Secure in the terms of his agreement, he boldly:<br />
repudiates any liability to the Author. The sales<br />
of the book will no doubt be reduced by the rise<br />
in price, but they would have to be reduced more-<br />
than 50 per cent. to affect the publisher. The<br />
Author is the only one who suffers.<br />
<br />
Put aside the legal aspect. Is this fair trading ><br />
<br />
What would the Publishers’ Association think<br />
of this transaction ?<br />
<br />
The older and more responsible firms would<br />
surely indignantly repudiate these methods. Have<br />
they any power to make their opinions felt? It<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
would be interesting to state a formal case for<br />
their consideration. It is faults like these that the<br />
Association would do well to correct.<br />
<br />
Oe<br />
<br />
PHOTOGRAPHIC COPYRIGHT.<br />
<br />
——>+—<br />
<br />
OW that the editors of illustrated papers<br />
and magazines raise so great a demand<br />
for the photographic reproduction of men<br />
<br />
and women, famous and infamous, illustrious and<br />
notorious, it may be useful to say a few words on<br />
the question of copyright in photographs, and the<br />
law bearing on the subject.<br />
<br />
Statutory copyright was given to paintings,<br />
drawings, and photographs by 25 & 26 Vict. c. 68,<br />
the first section of which, the most important, runs<br />
as follows :—<br />
<br />
«“ The author, being a British subject or resident within<br />
<br />
the dominions of the Crown, of every original painting,<br />
drawing, and photograph which shall be or shall have been<br />
<br />
' - made either in the British Dominions, or elsewhere, and<br />
<br />
which shall not have been sold or disposed of before the<br />
commencement of this Act, and his assigns, shall have the<br />
sole and exclusive right of copying, engraving, reproducing,<br />
and multiplying such painting or drawing, and the design<br />
thereof, or such photograph and the negative thereof, by<br />
any means and of any size, for the term of the natural life of<br />
such author, and seven years after his death ; provided that<br />
when any painting or drawing, or the negative of any<br />
photograph, shall for the first time after the passing of this<br />
Act be sold or disposed of, or shall be made or executed for<br />
or on behalf of any other person for a good or a valuable<br />
‘consideration, the person so selling or disposing of or<br />
making or executing the same shall not retain the copyright<br />
thereof, unless it be expressly reserved to him by agreement<br />
in writing, signed at or before the time of such sale or<br />
‘disposition, by the vendee or assignee of such painting or<br />
-drawing, or of such negative of a photograph, or by the<br />
person for or on whose behalf the same shall be so made or<br />
executed, but the copyright shall belong to the vendee or<br />
assignee of such painting or drawing, or of such negative<br />
-of a photograph, or to the person for or on whose behalf<br />
the same shall have been made or executed ; nor shall the<br />
vendee or assignee thereof be entitled to any such copy-<br />
right, unless, at or before the time of such saleor disposition,<br />
an agreement in writing, signed by the person so selling or<br />
disposing of the same, or by his agent duly authorised,<br />
shall have been made to that effect.”<br />
<br />
The Act, unlike the Literary Copyright Act,<br />
does not indulge in definitions.<br />
<br />
From some points of view this is an advantage ;<br />
from others, a disadvantage.<br />
<br />
A book is carefully defined in the Literary Copy-<br />
right Act. The lack of definition in the Artistic<br />
Copyright Act leaves the difficult proposition to be<br />
solved by the intelligence of the judge, with not<br />
infrequently a more satisfactory result than if it<br />
was left to the intelligence of the draughtsman.<br />
<br />
Copyright in paintings, drawings, and photo-<br />
graphs, it will be seen from the section, starts from<br />
the making of the work, and lasts for the life of the<br />
<br />
41<br />
<br />
author and seven years after his death. In the<br />
case of paintings and drawings the determination<br />
of the date gives rise to many difficulties, but<br />
with regard to photographs need not be further<br />
discussed.<br />
<br />
It is certainly a pity that the alternative of a<br />
fixed number of years has not been given, as is<br />
the case with books under the Literary Copyright<br />
Act, and that the term should run from the making<br />
instead of from the publication. The treatment<br />
of the subject, however, is in accordance with the<br />
treatment of all questions of copyright. Wherever<br />
it has been possible for the Legislature to confuse<br />
the copyright-holders it has succeeded in doing so,<br />
and diverse methods have been employed where<br />
the nature of the property demanded the closest<br />
analogy.<br />
<br />
The duration of copyright having been deter-<br />
mined, it will be evident that the two most<br />
important points are: (1) Who is the author of<br />
the work ? (2) Who is the employer? Upon the<br />
first depends the commencement of the copyright<br />
term, and upon the second in many cases depends<br />
the solution of who is the rightful owner of the<br />
property.<br />
<br />
With regard to No. 1—‘ Who is the author ?”—<br />
one or two actions have been brought and the<br />
point has been raised ; but the judges, dealing in<br />
each special case with “who was not the author,”<br />
by a negative process have shirked giving a positive<br />
definition. It may be as well, however, to quote<br />
the words of the Master of the Rolls in the case of<br />
Nottage v. Jackson, as it is the best dictum so far<br />
on the point :—<br />
<br />
“The author of a painting is the man who paints it, the<br />
author of a drawing is the man who draws it, of a photo-<br />
graph the author is the person who effectively is as near as<br />
he can be the cause of the picture which is produced, that<br />
is, the person who has superintended the arrangement, who<br />
has actually formed the picture by putting the people into<br />
position, and arranging the place in which the people are<br />
to be—the man who is the effective cause of that. Although<br />
he may only have done it by standing in the room and<br />
giving orders about it, still it is his mind and act, as far as<br />
anybody’s mind and act are concerned, which is the effective<br />
cause of the picture such as it is when it is produced.”<br />
<br />
If this is correct the person who actually snaps<br />
the photograph or uncovers the camera need not in<br />
any sense be the author of the photograph. A<br />
point of this kind, however, does not interest the<br />
subject so much as it would interest the photo-<br />
grapher. The latter, no doubt, takes good care to<br />
protect himself by agreement with his assistant or<br />
by some other method.<br />
<br />
Next comes the question, “ Who is the em-<br />
ployer ?”<br />
<br />
When a person goes to have his photograph taken<br />
and pays the ordinary fee asked by the photographer,<br />
the position is clear and indisputable. He is the<br />
<br />
<br />
42<br />
<br />
employer, and obtains copyright for the life of the<br />
author and seven years afterwards. In most cases,<br />
however, unless there is some special contract, the<br />
actual negative is the property of the photographer.<br />
<br />
Nowadays, such is the craze for notoriety, that it<br />
has become the custom of the photographer to ask<br />
subjects to give him a sitting. (Ja Mr. Macgilli-<br />
vray’s book on “The Law of Copyright,” just<br />
published, by Mr. John Murray, he states, in an<br />
ingenuous way, that the sitter in these cases is<br />
probably an actress or an athlete, so little does he<br />
appear to have realised the vanity of human beings.)<br />
<br />
The point then arises, “ What valuable con-<br />
sideration, if any, has been given 2” As a general<br />
rule, none to the photographer, who, on the con-<br />
trary, as often as not presents a few copies of the<br />
photograph to the sitter. If the sitter pays for<br />
these photographs the matter is more difficult, and<br />
it must be considered whether the amount the<br />
sitter pays would be merely for the reproductions<br />
he has obtained, or would raise the presumption of<br />
employment within the meaning of the Act. This<br />
must depend in each case upon the special facts.<br />
The valuable consideration that the photographer<br />
receives need not necessarily be a money one. It<br />
may be a licence to publish and sell subject to<br />
terms. Here, again, the final decision must depend<br />
upon the special facts.<br />
<br />
There are two further points of importance<br />
dealing with the same subject. One is the ques-<br />
tion of transfer, and the other the question of<br />
registration.<br />
<br />
On reference to the section of the Act quoted<br />
above, it will be seen that, unless the copyright<br />
is either specially reserved by the author when<br />
making an assignment or specially transferred to<br />
the vendee in writing, neither party will obtain it,<br />
but it will become public property ; such is the<br />
absurd arrangement, statute made, for the transfer<br />
of artistic property.<br />
<br />
This difficulty does not of course arise if there is<br />
direct employment for valuable consideration,<br />
<br />
With regard to the second point, registration is<br />
an essential. Here, again, stands out another<br />
divergence between the Literary and Artistic Acts.<br />
In the Literary Copyright Act registration is only<br />
necessary before action is taken, and such registra-<br />
tion refers back to the date of publication. In<br />
artistic copyright, however, it is impossible to<br />
bring an action for infringement of rights before<br />
registration. In consequence registration is an<br />
essential, and an important essential. Registration<br />
takes place at Stationers’ Hall. t is not necessary<br />
<br />
to discuss in detail the particulars required when<br />
filling up the forms. Full explanation of these<br />
will be given at the office.<br />
<br />
It should be noted that a photographer who<br />
has taken a photograph on the ordinary terms of<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
employment, and publishes that photograph without<br />
leave, can be sued by the employer for infringement<br />
of contract, even though the photograph was not<br />
registered.<br />
<br />
International copyright of photographs under<br />
the Berne Convention must be left over for another<br />
time. Photographs are included in the list of<br />
things protected by the International Copyright<br />
Act. What photographs are copyright and what<br />
are not copyright, the duration of copyright, and<br />
other details in foreign countries is a very large<br />
and difficult subject.<br />
<br />
TONNAGE OF BRITISH BOOK EXPORTS<br />
AND IMPORTS.<br />
<br />
— ><br />
<br />
[From the Publishers’ Circular, and reprinted by the kind.<br />
permission of Scott, Greenwood & Co.] .<br />
<br />
FFICIAL statistics of exports and imports of<br />
books for last year compared with four pre-<br />
vious years,from which some extracts are<br />
<br />
given, compel serious consideration.<br />
<br />
The particulars of exports of British-made goods<br />
show that there has been a steady increase since<br />
1897 in the total value of books exported.<br />
<br />
Turning to the various markets, there has been<br />
a steady increase in the value of books exported<br />
to Japan, Atlantic ports of the United States, and<br />
to Denmark. .<br />
<br />
The imports show a slight increase in 1901 com-<br />
pared with 1900, but a decrease when comparing<br />
the former year with 1897 and 1898.<br />
<br />
The exports to America amount to more than<br />
half the total amount exported to foreign countries.<br />
Curiously enough, the imports of books from Hol-<br />
land almost equal in quantity and value those from<br />
the United States. his may be accounted for<br />
by the large numbers of English books printed in<br />
Holland, but it should not be forgotten that<br />
imports from that country often include goods<br />
from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, etc., shipped<br />
to Great Britain via the Hook of Holland or<br />
Flushing.<br />
<br />
In July, 1902 the value of exports from Great<br />
Britain shows an increase of £9,000 compared.<br />
with July, 1901, and £29,000 compared with 1900.<br />
The weight of these books was 22,806 cwts. in<br />
July, 1902, and 22,261 in July, 1901. This<br />
increase in the exports is an important sign. It<br />
would have been of further interest to know of<br />
what volumes these 505 cwts. were composed that.<br />
made an increase of £9,000 in value.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR. 43<br />
<br />
Exports to ForEIGN COUNTRIES.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Quantities. Value.<br />
Ee , | See ae oe<br />
1897 | 1898 1899 1900 1901 | 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901<br />
jt ae<br />
| Cwts. Cwts. Cwts. Cwts. | Cwts. a £ £ £ £<br />
| 67,655 | 66,864 | 70,665 | 81,258 | 75,107 499,723 506,262 | 537,486 578,779 587,219<br />
| |<br />
Exports to British POSSESSIONS.<br />
| | | |<br />
| 139,697 | 144,911 | 157,015 | 157,522 | 172,591 831,270 | 830,287 | 906,949 890,037 965,558<br />
Z oye el ee a<br />
|<br />
Total | 207,352 | 211,775 | 227,680 | 238,780 | 247,698 | 1,330,993 | 1,336,549 | 1,444,435 1,468,816 | 1,552,772<br />
. Iuvorts FRomM ForREIGN COUNTRIES.<br />
45,054 | 40,969 | 41,688 | 40,139 | 44,834 | 269,522 245,424 224,073 228,799 244,278<br />
Imports FROM BririsH POSSESSIONS.<br />
| | | ' | | 1 | |<br />
| 1,430 | 1,879 | 1,810 | 765 1,143 || 7,872 | 9,251} 10,097 | 4,930 | 6,889<br />
ee ee oes _| LE |<br />
Total | 46,484 | 45,977 | 277,394 254,675 045,170 | 233,709 | 251,167<br />
} | |<br />
<br />
ae 43,448 | 40,904 |<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE COMPLETE AUTHOR.*<br />
<br />
—-——<br />
<br />
ay practical guide to authorship has yet to<br />
be written. Mr. Lacon Watson’s “ Hints<br />
<br />
to Young Authors ” is an attempt to remove<br />
this reproach, and, so far as it goes, it is a well<br />
carried out one. Unfortunately, it does not go<br />
far enough: nor is it remarkably practical. In-<br />
deed, the “ young author’”’—and the old one, too,<br />
for that matter—may rise from its perusal with his<br />
knowledge on the subject but very little increased<br />
thereby. The work of genius, however, is not to<br />
<br />
be made by instructional manuals, and great circu- :<br />
y : S * province of authorship proper. They deal instead<br />
<br />
lations will ever be achieved without resort to these<br />
adventitious aids. Mr. Lacon Watson’s name is<br />
familiar on the title-pages of several agreeable<br />
novels, while he has also been responsible for some<br />
excellent journalism in the better known among<br />
the evening papers. He is, accordingly, fully<br />
qualified to treat of the important subject of<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
* “Vints to Young Authors,” by E. H. Lacon Watson.<br />
(London: Grant Richards.)<br />
<br />
authorship. The professional writer will probably<br />
be of opinion that he takes a rather more opti-<br />
mistic view of the craft than hard facts will<br />
warrant. He observes, for instance, that while a<br />
certain novelist of his acquaintance has no par-<br />
ticular difficulty in making from six to eight<br />
thousand pounds a year out of pen, paper, and<br />
brains, “the few at the apex of the pyramid do<br />
even better than this.” Such as these latter are<br />
remarkably few, and in all probability they are<br />
either dramatists, or, in addition to being novelists,<br />
they devote their superfluous energy to other forms<br />
of making money. A large proportion of the<br />
“hints” in this volume are rather outside the<br />
<br />
with such bye-ways of the calling as reviewing,<br />
cultivating editors, paragraph writing, and free-.<br />
lance journalism generally. A whole chapter, too,<br />
is devoted to describing a literary club, and the<br />
manner in which certain more or less distinguished<br />
members of the world of letters unbend when in<br />
its precincts. It is all entertainingly and interest-<br />
ingly done, however, even if it fails to show the<br />
seeker after big circulations how he may best attain<br />
his object.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
GENERAL MEMORANDA.<br />
<br />
1<br />
<br />
ERE are a few standing rules to be observed in an<br />
agreement. There are four methods of dealing<br />
with literary property —:<br />
<br />
I. Selling it Outright.<br />
<br />
This is in some respects the most satisfactory, if a proper<br />
price can be obtained. But the transaction should be<br />
managed by a competent agent, or with the advice of the<br />
Secretary of the Society.<br />
<br />
Il. A Profit-Sharing Agreement (a pad form of<br />
agreement).<br />
<br />
In this case the following rules should be attended to:<br />
<br />
(1.) Not to sign any agreement in which the cost of pro-<br />
_duction forms a part without the strictest investigation.<br />
<br />
(2.) Not to give the publisher the power of putting the<br />
profits into his own pocket by charging for advertisements<br />
in his own organs, or by charging exchange advertise-<br />
ments. Therefore keep control of the advertisements.<br />
<br />
(3.) Not to allow a special charge for ‘‘ office expenses,”<br />
unless the same allowance is made to the author.<br />
<br />
(4.) Not to give up American, Colonial, or Continental<br />
rights.<br />
<br />
5.) Not to give up serial or translation rights.<br />
<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 />
<br />
Ill. The Royalty System.<br />
<br />
It is above all things necessary to know what the<br />
proposed royalty means to both sides. It is now possible<br />
for an author to ascertain approximately and very nearly<br />
the truth. From time to time the very important figures<br />
-connected with royalties are published in The Author.<br />
Readers can also work out the figures themselves from the<br />
-* Cost of Production.”<br />
<br />
IV. A Commission Agreement.<br />
<br />
The main points are :—<br />
<br />
(1.) Be careful to obtain a fair cost of production.<br />
(2.) Keep control of the advertisements.<br />
<br />
(3.) Keep control of the sale price of the book.<br />
<br />
General.<br />
<br />
All other forms of agreement are combinations of the four<br />
-above mentioned.<br />
<br />
Such combinations are generally disastrous to the author.<br />
<br />
Never sign any agreement without competent advice from<br />
-the Secretary of the Society.<br />
<br />
Stamp all agreements with the Inland Revenue stamp.<br />
<br />
Avoid agreements by letter if possible.<br />
<br />
The main points which the Society has always demanded<br />
<br />
‘from the outset are :-—<br />
<br />
(1.) That both sides shall know what an agreement<br />
means.<br />
<br />
(2.) The inspection of those account books which belong<br />
to the author. We are advised that this is a right, in the<br />
nature of a common law right, which cannot be denied or<br />
-withheld.<br />
<br />
——_—__—_- +<br />
<br />
WARNINGS TO DRAMATIC AUTHORS.<br />
<br />
><br />
<br />
EVER sign an agreement without submitting it to the<br />
Secretary of the Society of Authors or some com-<br />
petent legal authority.<br />
<br />
2, {t is well to be extremely careful in negotiating for<br />
the production of a play with anyone except an established<br />
manager.<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
3. There are three forms of dramatic contract for PLAYS<br />
IN THREE OR MORE ACTS :—<br />
<br />
(a.) SALE OUTRIGHT OF THE PERFORMING RIGHT.<br />
This is unsatisfactory. An author who enters<br />
into such a contract should stipulate in the con-<br />
tract for production of the piece by a certain date<br />
and for proper publication of his name on. the<br />
play-bills.<br />
<br />
(b.) SALE OF PERFORMING RIGHT OR OF A LICENCE<br />
TO PERFORM ON THE BASIS OF PERCENTAGES<br />
on gross receipts. Percentages vary between<br />
5 and 15 per cent. An author should obtain a<br />
percentage on the sliding scale of gross receipts<br />
in preference to the American system. Should<br />
obtain a sum in advance of percentages. A fixed<br />
date on or before which the: play should be<br />
performed.<br />
<br />
(c.) SALE OF PERFORMING RIGHT OR OF A LICENCE<br />
TO PERFORM ON THE BASIS OF ROYALTIES (.2.,<br />
fixed nightly fees). This method should be<br />
always avoided except in cases where the fees<br />
are likely to be small or difficult to collect. The<br />
other safeguards set out under heading (0.) apply<br />
also in this case.<br />
<br />
4. PLAYS IN ONE ACT are often sold outright, but it is<br />
better to obtain a small nightly fee if possible, and a sum<br />
paid in advance of such fees in any event. It is extremely<br />
important that the amateur rights of one-act plays should<br />
be reserved.<br />
<br />
5. Authors should remember that performing rights can<br />
be limited, and are usually limited, by town, country, and<br />
time, This is most important.<br />
<br />
6. Authors should not assign performing rights, but<br />
should grant a licence to perform. The legal distinction is<br />
of great importance.<br />
<br />
7. Authors should remember that performing rights ina<br />
play are distinct from literary copyright. A manager<br />
holding the performing right or licence to perform cannot<br />
print the book of the words.<br />
<br />
8. Never forget that AMERICAN RIGHTS may be exceed-<br />
ingly valuable. ‘they should never be included in English<br />
agreements without the author obtaining a substantial<br />
consideration.<br />
<br />
9. Agreements for collaboration should be carefully<br />
drawn and executed before collaboration is commenced.<br />
<br />
10. An author should remember that production of a play<br />
is highly speculative: that he rums a very great risk of<br />
delay and a breakdown in the fulfilment of his contract.<br />
He should therefore guard himself all the more carefully in<br />
the beginning.<br />
<br />
11. An author must remember that the dramatic market<br />
is exceedingly limited, and that fora novice the first object<br />
is to obtain adequate publication.<br />
<br />
As these warnings must necessarily be incomplete on<br />
account of the wide range of the subject of dramatic con-<br />
tracts, THOSE AUTHORS DESIROUS OF FURTHER INFORMA-<br />
TION ARE REFERRED TO THE SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY.<br />
<br />
<_< ___—<br />
<br />
HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br />
<br />
————<br />
<br />
1. VERY member has a right toask for and to receive<br />
advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub-<br />
lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his<br />
<br />
business or the administration of his property. If the<br />
advice sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor,<br />
the member has a right to an opinion from the Society’s<br />
solicitors. If the case is such that Counsel's opinion is<br />
desirable, the Committee will obtain for him Counsel's<br />
opinion, All this without any cost to the member.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
8<br />
a<br />
it<br />
<br />
n |<br />
2<br />
4<br />
a<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
2, Remember that questions connected with copyright<br />
and publishers’ agreements do not generally fall within the<br />
experience of ordinarysolicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br />
to use the Society.<br />
<br />
3..Send to the Office copies of past agreements and past<br />
accounts, with a copy of the book represented. The<br />
Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new<br />
or old, for inspection and note. The information thus<br />
obtained may prove invaluable.<br />
<br />
4, BEFORE SIGNING ANY AGREEMENT WHATEVER, send<br />
the document to the Society for examination,<br />
<br />
5. Remember always that in belonging to the Society<br />
you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you<br />
are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are<br />
advancing the best interests of literature in promoting the<br />
independence of the writer.<br />
<br />
6. The Committee have now arranged for the reception<br />
of members’ agreements and their preservation in a fire-<br />
proof safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as<br />
confidential documents to be read only by the Secretary,<br />
who will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers :<br />
—(1) To read and advise upon agreements and to give<br />
advice concerning publishers. (2) To stamp agreements<br />
in readiness for a possible action upon them. (3) To keep<br />
agreements. (4) To enforce payments due according to<br />
agreements.<br />
<br />
7. No contract should be entered into with a literary<br />
agent without the advice of the Secretary of the Society.<br />
Members are strongly advised not to accept without careful<br />
consideration the contracts submitted to them by literary<br />
agents, and are recommended to submit them for inter-<br />
pretation and explanation to the Secretary of the Society.<br />
<br />
This<br />
<br />
8. Many agents neglect to stamp agreements.<br />
The<br />
<br />
must be done within fourteen days of first execution.<br />
Secretary will undertake it on behalf of members,<br />
<br />
9. Some agents endeavour to prevent authors from<br />
referring matters to the Secretary of the Society ; so do<br />
some publishers. Members can make their own deductions<br />
and act accordingly.<br />
<br />
2 —_ ay ao<br />
<br />
THE READING BRANCH.<br />
<br />
EMBERS will greatly assist the Society in this<br />
branch of its work by informing young writers<br />
of its existence. Their MSS. can be read and<br />
<br />
treated as a composition is treated by a coach. The term<br />
MSS. includes NOT ONLY WORKS OF FICTION, BUT POETRY<br />
AND DRAMATIC WORKS, and when it is possible, under<br />
special arrangement, technical and scientific works. The<br />
Readers are writers of competence and experience. The<br />
fee is one guinea,<br />
<br />
——-_+—~_ 6<br />
<br />
NOTICES.<br />
1<br />
<br />
HE Editor of The Author begs to remind members of<br />
<br />
the Society that, although the paper is sent to them<br />
<br />
free of charge, the cost of producing it would be a<br />
<br />
very heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br />
many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br />
5s. 6d. subscription for the year.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
45<br />
<br />
Communications for Zhe Author should be addressed to<br />
the Offices of the Society, 39, Old Queen Street, Storey’s<br />
Gate, S.W., and should reach the Editor NOT LATER<br />
THAN THE 21st OF EACH MONTH.<br />
<br />
All persons engaged in literary work of any kind,<br />
whether members of the Society or not, are invited to<br />
communicate to the Editor any points connected with their<br />
work which it would be advisable in the general interest to<br />
publish.<br />
<br />
¢—<>— as<br />
<br />
COMMUNICATIONS AND LETTERS ARE INVITED BY THE<br />
EpITOoR on all subjects connected with literature, but on<br />
no other subjects whatever. Every effort will be made to<br />
return articles which cannot be accepted.<br />
<br />
SREY aca eae<br />
<br />
THE SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY begs to give notice<br />
that all remittances are acknowledged by return of post,<br />
and he requests members who do not receive an<br />
answer to important communications within two days to<br />
write to him without delay. All remittances should be<br />
crossed Union Bank of London, Chancery Lane, or be sent<br />
by registered letter only.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
AUTHORITIES.<br />
<br />
—+<br />
<br />
HE Musical Summary Proceedings Copyright<br />
Act has now been running for a month,<br />
Three points appear to be noticeable. Firstly,<br />
<br />
the agents who have acted on behalf of the Musical<br />
Copyright Association have taken the vendor of<br />
pirated copies before the magistrate, and then failed<br />
to produce evidence of title. In these circumstances<br />
the question has had to beadjourned. The magis-<br />
trates in some instances have made remarks about<br />
the time of the Court being wasted by such<br />
adjournment. In future the agents will no doubt<br />
be fully prepared. The second point is one due to<br />
the faultiness of the Act, and attention was drawn<br />
to it in the last number of Zhe Author. It is<br />
impossible to ascertain who are the printers of<br />
these pirated copies, as the vendors in every case<br />
refuse to give up the names. They know well<br />
that if they stick by the printers they will be able<br />
to obtain another supply when necessary. The<br />
third case is that of a vendor who kept his stock<br />
in a sack, or at the nearest publichouse. He held<br />
a few copies in his hand ; these the agent secured<br />
as they were exposed for sale, the stock was beyond<br />
his reach. ‘This, to the lay mind, may seem a<br />
curious interpretation of the Act, and may lead<br />
to further difficulties and complications,<br />
<br />
The following interesting story in the history of<br />
authorship is taken from the American Author.<br />
Can anyone quote an analogous tale, in which an<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
46<br />
<br />
author has had a difficulty in establishing his own<br />
identity ?<br />
<br />
“The autumn announcements of Messrs. Lee and<br />
Shepard begin with the autograph edition of Mrs. Elizabeth<br />
‘Akers’s “Sunset Song, and Other V erses,” a volume of<br />
poems hitherto unpublished, with a single exception, * Rock<br />
Me to Sleep, Mother,” which is printed at the end of the<br />
volume with a spirited note from the publisher, giving its<br />
history. The Saturday Evening Post originally printed<br />
the poem, paying the author five dollars. A firm of music<br />
publishers issued it with a setting by Ernest Leslie and<br />
paid nothing, but munificently offered the author five<br />
dollars apiece for any more songs as good as the first. As<br />
their profits during the first six months amounted to many<br />
thousands, they could then afford this extravagance, but<br />
when Mrs. Akers actually sent them a song they refused it,<br />
on the ground that they “could do nothing with it.” A<br />
few years after the first appearance of the song Mr.<br />
‘Alexander T. W. Ball, of New Jersey, declared that it was<br />
his. Certain newspapers espoused his cause, and had he<br />
not published_ what Mr. Rossiter Johnson calls the most<br />
absurd pamphlet ever written the real author might have<br />
been deprived even of the credit of originating her<br />
pseudonym of “Florence Percy.” The pamphlet aroused<br />
some able defenders for her, and at last the late William<br />
Douglas O’Connor, writing in the New York Times,<br />
utterly crushed Mr. Ball’s pretensions to be “ Florence<br />
Percy,” or anything but an imitator. In her new volume<br />
Mrs. Akers includes a grateful eulogy of her defender.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The editor of a certain literary paper in the<br />
United States is in the habit of endeavouring to<br />
answer some of the literary conundrums of his<br />
readers.<br />
<br />
‘A correspondent wrote to him on one occasion<br />
stating that after a lengthy debate about a well-<br />
known novel by a modern writer it was decided to<br />
take the editor’s opinion upon the moral tone of<br />
the book.<br />
<br />
The editor was fearful of a trap. His response<br />
was given with the wisdom of a Solomon: “ With<br />
regard to the book in question, if you will tell us<br />
the things you think about it, I will then tell you<br />
whether the things 1 think about it are the same<br />
as those things which you think about it.”<br />
<br />
We trust the contributor was satisfied.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The Dumas Centenary has just gone by. To<br />
those who are interested in these anniversaries the<br />
following list may afford some useful information :—<br />
Bulwer Lytton (1903), Beaconsfield (1904), Haw-<br />
thorne (1904), Whittier (1907), Longfellow (1907),<br />
Tennyson (1909), Holmes (1909), Poe (J 909),<br />
Gautier (1911), Thackeray (1911), Dickens (1912),<br />
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1912), Henry Ward<br />
Beecher (1918).<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
A correspondent sends us the enclosed :<br />
« Certain officials of the income tax department,<br />
the police court, not to mention census takers, and<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
the registrars of limited companies, demand a<br />
description of one’s trade or profession. For<br />
myself, I make a humble living from the making<br />
of novels, and have persistently written myself<br />
down ‘ novelist. This is almost invariably<br />
ignored, and for it is substituted ‘ gent.,’ which is<br />
vague, ‘ esq.," which is inaccurate, or ‘journalist,’<br />
which J am not.<br />
“Can anyone suggest a better term? ‘ Littérateur’<br />
I object to for patriotic reasons. “ Man of letters’<br />
is clumsy and misleading—indeed, it is more<br />
suggestive of a compositor or a window-ticket<br />
stenciller. ‘Writer’ might be all very well in<br />
England, but amongst Scots it would lead to<br />
misapprehension.<br />
« | should be very much obliged for a suggestion,<br />
as I have bought a motor car recently, and am just<br />
now being officially asked for a description of my-<br />
self with much frequency.”<br />
YACHTSMAN.<br />
<br />
——__—__——_+ <><br />
<br />
KN ACADEMY OF LETTERS.<br />
<br />
———-—+—<br />
<br />
1<br />
<br />
O judge by the autumn announcements of<br />
certain publishing houses, masterpieces—<br />
in one department of literature at least—<br />
<br />
are being just now showered upon us, thick as the<br />
falling leaves. This is inspiriting news ; or would<br />
be so, had one the happiness to belong to that con-<br />
siderable section of the British public which has<br />
kept its first innocence in regard to advertisement,<br />
still believing that things printed and things true<br />
are necessarily one and the same. Not belonging<br />
to that enviable section, one is constrained to<br />
admit a doubt of the entire reliability of these<br />
announcements, while the simile of the falling<br />
leaves takes on @ slightly sinister significance.<br />
For to one whose memory carries him back some<br />
twenty, thirty, or possibly more years, it too often<br />
appears that though the annual output of books<br />
has trebled, may be quadrupled, masterpieces have<br />
by no means multiplied in proportion during that<br />
period. And this is liable to make him reflective,<br />
since he is one of a generation which—without<br />
vanity—had, in its youth, more than a bowing<br />
acquaintance with masterpieces. He grows sad,<br />
for, as he reflects, it even occurs to him that<br />
English literature, in its higher and more dis-<br />
tinguished expression, is sick, almost sick unto<br />
death. Then he looks round anxiously, asking<br />
whether from any quarter may come some effective<br />
remedy, some wise physician capable of giving new<br />
life to this moribund creature. Hence it is that<br />
some of us hail the idea of an English Academy of<br />
Letters, regarding it as a possible remedial agency<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
SO ASD rregt RD Sees<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
)<br />
<br />
SELF<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR. AT<br />
<br />
which, allowed time and patience, may eventually<br />
restore to our over-prolific and under-vitalised<br />
literature a measure of its earlier dignity, beauty,<br />
and strength.<br />
<br />
After all an Academy of Letters, that is a central<br />
authority having practical jurisdiction in technical<br />
literary questions, is no such innovation in the<br />
history of our literature as its opponents would<br />
have us believe. Until recently it has always<br />
existed, if not explicitly, yet implicitly ; and its<br />
judgments have been obeyed or defied—in either<br />
case to the wholesome stimulation of literary<br />
effort. Ard that such central authority, whether<br />
vested in a single individual—as Dr. Johnson—or<br />
a group of persons—such as Pope, Lady Mary<br />
Wortley Montagu, and the wits surrounding them<br />
whose quarrels and reconciliations make such<br />
diverting reading—to mention but two examples<br />
among many—that this central authority did on<br />
the whole make for literary righteousness, main-<br />
tained a high standard of style and of taste,<br />
encouraged intelligence, damned not only dull-<br />
ness but vulgarity and folly, supported the dignity<br />
of letters, securing to them a solid standing<br />
and value in our national life, is, surely, incon-<br />
trovertible. That this central authority was<br />
in the past, and will most probably be in the<br />
future, subject to a few of the unamiable weak-<br />
nesses common to mankind, that it may have its<br />
moments of envy and jealousy, that it did not in the<br />
past, and may not in the future, always acclaim the<br />
advent of budding genius with unlimited enthu-<br />
siasm, is beside the mark. Genius, especially<br />
English genius, which is wont to be of a very<br />
sufficiently robust and self-confident sort, may<br />
safely be left to take care of itself. Should an<br />
Academy of Letters unwisely try to extinguish<br />
some twentieth-century Byron, it will fail just<br />
as absolutely as the “Scotch Reviewers” failed<br />
to extinguish those “English Bards” whom the<br />
nineteenth-century Byron so wittily defended.<br />
It may seriously be questioned whether genius,<br />
worth the name, has ever suffered permanent<br />
injury yet from the pressure of adverse criticism<br />
brought to bear upon it in its youth. Genius<br />
which has not the courage of its convictions, is not<br />
really genius at all.<br />
<br />
It is not, therefore, mainly in the interests of<br />
genius—which sooner or later is bound, by right<br />
divine, to conquer and control the intellectual<br />
and artistic life of its day—but in the interests<br />
of the rank and file of writers, who produce<br />
the great bulk of contemporary poetry, fiction,<br />
drama, criticism, elles lettres, that an English<br />
Academy is just now so urgently needed. For the<br />
majority of these, indeed, “wander ”—as_ the<br />
Psalmist has it—‘‘in the wilderness in a solitary<br />
way, and have no city to dwell in.” The right of<br />
<br />
private judgment has run mad, thanks to a graft-<br />
ing of so-called modern ideas upon the old<br />
Protestant stock. The result, as Mr. Herbert<br />
Trench has admirably pointed out, is anarchy ;<br />
and anarchy always has been, and always must be<br />
disastrous to art. One cannot but believe that a<br />
central authority, composed of the ripest and most<br />
gifted minds of our day, would in time evolve<br />
order out of thischaos; and, imposing its influence<br />
upon the conscience and imagination of the rank and<br />
file of writers, convince each literary aspirant that<br />
merely to do right in the sight of his own eyes,<br />
merely to follow his own immature and unstable<br />
opinions, is to court an oblivion even more speedy<br />
than is his natural inheritance.<br />
<br />
As Maxime du Camp has well said—* Les lettres<br />
consolent de tout, & la condition que lon y reste,<br />
que Von se donne « elles sans esprit de retour<br />
et que Von les respecte absolument.” And it is<br />
this, the dignity, the consoling efficacy, the high,<br />
national, as well as personal, worth of letters, that<br />
it is so eminently desirable a central authority<br />
should bring home to the writers of the younger<br />
generation. For unquestionably one of the main<br />
causes of the present poverty—in quality not<br />
alas! in quantity—of literary work in England,<br />
is the refusal of the younger writers to give them-<br />
selves loyally. Their tendency is to regard letters<br />
as a means, not as an end. They will have letters<br />
lead on, by way of notoriety or hard cash, to quite<br />
other forms of activity—to society, to politics, to<br />
philanthropy—of the more public sort. Letters<br />
have become a form of self-advertisement. Not<br />
the book, but he or she who writes it, is too often<br />
the main object to him or her self. It may be<br />
argued that thisis very human—pathetically, engag-<br />
ingly so. Granted. Only let it be remembered<br />
literature is a jealous mistress. No art—just as<br />
no god—endures a divided allegiance for long.<br />
These writers may leave letters for something they<br />
reckon more worthy of their attention; but not,<br />
in the majority of cases, before letters have rather<br />
conspicuously left them.<br />
<br />
It is easy for the poor to gird at riches. Yet<br />
one cannot but fancy that before the millionaire—<br />
Trans-Atlantic, Semitic, Colonial—invaded English<br />
society and materialised our ambitions and ideals,<br />
matters were different in this particular. We<br />
know, on the highest authority, it is not easy for<br />
a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven ;<br />
and one ventures to suspect it is equally difficult<br />
for him to enter into the Kingdom of Art—except<br />
as a purchaser. We can hardly blame him if,<br />
confused by the evident power of wealth, he fails<br />
to understand that to own a work of art is not<br />
necessarily to possess it, and that to pay for a<br />
work of art is by no means the same as to<br />
produce it. Under this head he suffers strong<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
AG<br />
<br />
author has had a difficulty in establishing his own<br />
identity ?<br />
<br />
“The autumn announcements of Messrs. Lee and<br />
Shepard begin with the autograph edition of Mrs. Elizabeth<br />
Akers’s “Sunset Song, and Other Verses,’ @ volume of<br />
poems hitherto unpublished, with a single exception, “ Rock<br />
Me to Sleep, Mother,” which is printed at the end of the<br />
volume with a spirited note from the publisher, giving its<br />
history. The Saturday Evening Post originally printed<br />
the poem, paying the author five dollars. A firm of music<br />
publishers issued it with a setting by Ernest Leslie and<br />
paid nothing, but munificently offered the author five<br />
dollars apiece for any more songs as good as the first. AS<br />
their profits during the first six months amounted to many<br />
thousands, they could then afford this extravagance, but<br />
when Mrs. Akers actually sent them a song they refused it,<br />
on the ground that they “ could do nothing with it.” A<br />
few years after the first appearance of the song Mr.<br />
‘Alexander T. W. Ball, of New Jersey, declared that it was<br />
his. Certain newspapers espoused his cause, and had he<br />
not published what Mr. Rossiter Johnson calls the most<br />
absurd pamphlet ever written the real author might have<br />
been deprived even of the credit of originating her<br />
pseudonym of ‘“ Florence Percy.” The pamphlet aroused<br />
some able defenders for her, and at last the late William<br />
Douglas O’Connor, writing in the New York Times,<br />
utterly crushed Mr. Ball’s pretensions to be “ Florence<br />
Perey,” or anything but an imitator. In her new volume<br />
Mrs. Akers includes a grateful eulogy of her defender.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The editor of a certain literary paper in the<br />
United States is in the habit of endeavouring to<br />
answer some of the literary conundrums of his<br />
readers.<br />
<br />
‘A correspondent wrote to him on one occasion<br />
stating that after a lengthy debate about a well-<br />
known novel by a modern writer it was decided to<br />
take the editor’s opinion upon the moral tone of<br />
the book.<br />
<br />
The editor was fearful of a trap. His response<br />
was given with the wisdom of a Solomon: “ With<br />
regard to the book in question, if you will tell us<br />
the things you think about it, J will then tell you<br />
whether the things I think about it are the same<br />
as those things which you think about it.”<br />
<br />
We trust the contributor was satisfied.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The Dumas Centenary has just gone by. To<br />
those who are interested in these anniversaries the<br />
following list may afford some useful information :—<br />
Bulwer Lytton (1903), Beaconsfield (1904), Haw-<br />
thorne (1904), Whittier (1907), Longfellow (1907),<br />
Tennyson (1909), Holmes (1909), Poe (1909),<br />
Gautier (1911), Thackeray (1911), Dickens (1912),<br />
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1912), Henry Ward<br />
<br />
Beecher (1918).<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
A correspondent sends us the enclosed :<br />
“ Gertain officials of the income tax department,<br />
the police court, not to mention census takers, and<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
the registrars of limited companies, demand a<br />
description of one’s trade or profession. For<br />
myself, I make a humble living from the making<br />
of novels, and have persistently written myself<br />
down ‘ novelist. This is almost invariably<br />
ignored, and for it is substituted ‘ gent.,’ which is<br />
vague, ‘esq.,’ which is inaccurate, or ‘journalist,’<br />
which I am not.<br />
<br />
“(an anyone suggest a better term? ‘ Littérateur’<br />
I object to for patriotic reasons. ‘ Man of letters ’<br />
is clumsy and misleading—indeed, it is more<br />
suggestive of a compositor or a window-ticket<br />
stenciller. ‘Writer’ might be all very well in<br />
England, but amongst Scots it would lead to<br />
misapprehension.<br />
<br />
«J should be very much obliged for a suggestion,<br />
as I have bought a motor car recently, and am just<br />
now being officially asked for a description of my-<br />
self with much frequency.”<br />
<br />
YACHTSMAN.<br />
<br />
—_—_———__1+—>—_ ><br />
<br />
AN ACADEMY OF LETTERS.<br />
<br />
——-— +<br />
<br />
iT<br />
<br />
O judge by the autumn announcements of<br />
certain publishing houses, masterpleces—<br />
in one department of literature at least—<br />
<br />
are being just now showered upon us, thick as the<br />
falling leaves. This is inspiriting news ; or would<br />
be so, had one the happiness to belong to that con-<br />
siderable section of the British public which has<br />
kept its first innocence in regard to advertisement,<br />
still believing that things printed and things true<br />
are necessarily one and the same. Not belonging<br />
to that enviable section, one is constrained to<br />
admit a doubt of the entire reliability of these<br />
announcements, while the simile of the falling<br />
leaves takes on a slightly sinister significance.<br />
For to one whose memory carries him back some<br />
twenty, thirty, or possibly more years, it too often<br />
appears that though the annual output of books<br />
has trebled, may be quadrupled, masterpieces have<br />
by no means multiplied in proportion during that<br />
period. And this is liable to make him reflective,<br />
since he is one of a generation which —without<br />
vanity—had, in its youth, more than a bowing<br />
acquaintance with masterpieces. He grows sad,<br />
for, as he reflects, it even occurs to him that<br />
English literature, in its higher and more dis-<br />
tinguished expression, is sick, almost sick unto<br />
death. Then he looks round anxiously, asking<br />
whether from any quarter may come some effective<br />
remedy, some wise physician capable of giving new<br />
life to this moribund creature. Hence it is that<br />
some of us hail the idea of an English Academy of<br />
<br />
Letters, regarding it as a possible remedial agency<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR. AT<br />
<br />
which, allowed time and patience, may eventually<br />
restore to our over-prolific and under-vitalised<br />
literature a measure of its earlier dignity, beauty,<br />
and strength.<br />
<br />
After all an Academy of Letters, that is a central<br />
authority having practical jurisdiction in technical<br />
literary questions, is no such innovation in the<br />
history of our literature as its opponents would<br />
have us believe. Until recently it has always<br />
existed, if not explicitly, yet implicitly ; and its<br />
judgments have been obeyed or defied—in either<br />
case to the wholesome stimulation of literary<br />
effort. And that such central authority, whether<br />
vested in a single individual—as ))r. Johnson—or<br />
a group of persons—such as Pope, Lady Mary<br />
Wortley Montagu, and the wits surrounding them<br />
whose quarrels and reconciliations make such<br />
diverting reading—to mention but two examples<br />
among many—that this central authority did on<br />
the whole make for literary righteousness, main-<br />
tained a high standard of style and of taste,<br />
encouraged intelligence, damned not only daull-<br />
ness but vulgarity and folly, supported the dignity<br />
of letters, securing to them a solid standing<br />
and value in our national life, is, surely, incon-<br />
trovertible. That this central authority was<br />
in the past, and will most probably be in the<br />
future, subject to a few of the unamiable weak-<br />
nesses common to mankind, that it may have its<br />
moments of envy and jealousy, that it did not in the<br />
past, and may not in the future, always acclaim the<br />
advent of budding genius with unlimited enthu-<br />
siasm, is beside the mark. Genius, especially<br />
English genius, which is wont to be of a very<br />
sufficiently robust and self-confident sort, may<br />
safely be left to take care of itself. Should an<br />
Academy of Letters unwisely try to extinguish<br />
some twentieth-century Byron, it will fail just<br />
as absolutely as the ‘Scotch Reviewers” failed<br />
to extinguish those “English Bards” whom the<br />
nineteenth-century Byron so wittily defended.<br />
It may seriously be questioned whether genius,<br />
worth the name, has ever suffered permanent<br />
injury yet from the pressure of adverse criticism<br />
brought to bear upon it in its youth. Genius<br />
which has not the courage of its convictions, is not<br />
really genius at all.<br />
<br />
It is not, therefore, mainly in the interests of<br />
genius—which sooner or later is bound, by right<br />
divine, to conquer and control the intellectual<br />
and artistic life of its day—but in the interests<br />
of the rank and file of writers, who produce<br />
the great bulk of contemporary poetry, fiction,<br />
drama, criticism, belles /ettres, that an English<br />
Academy is just now so urgently needed. For the<br />
majority of these, indeed, “ wander ”—as_ the<br />
Psalmist has it—‘in the wilderness in a solitary<br />
way, and have no city to dwell in.” The right of<br />
<br />
private judgment has run mad, thanks to a graft-<br />
ing of so-called modern ideas upon the old<br />
Protestant stock. The result, as Mr. Herbert<br />
Trench has admirably pointed out, is anarchy ;<br />
and anarchy always has been, and always must be<br />
disastrous to art. One cannot but believe that a<br />
central authority, composed of the ripest and most<br />
gifted minds of our day, would in time evolve<br />
order out of this chaos ; and, imposing its influence<br />
upon the conscience and imagination of the rank and<br />
file of writers, convince each literary aspirant that<br />
merely to do right in the sight of his own eyes,<br />
merely to follow his own immature and unstable<br />
opinions, is to court an oblivion even more speedy<br />
than is his natural inheritance.<br />
<br />
As Maxime du Camp has well said—* Les lettres<br />
consolent de tout, & la condition que Pon y reste,<br />
que Von se donne a elles sans esprit de retour<br />
et que Von les respecte absolument.” And it is<br />
this, the dignity, the consoling efficacy, the high,<br />
national, as well as personal, worth of letters, that<br />
it is so eminently desirable a central authority<br />
should bring home to the writers of the younger<br />
generation. For unquestionably one of the main<br />
causes of the present poverty—in quality not<br />
alas! in quantity—of literary work in England,<br />
is the refusal of the younger writers to give them-<br />
selves loyally. Their tendency is to regard letters<br />
as a means, not as an end. They will have letters<br />
lead on, by way of notoriety or hard cash, to quite<br />
other forms of activity—to society, to politics, to<br />
philanthropy—of the more public sort. Letters<br />
have become a form of self-advertisement. Not<br />
the book, but he or she who writes it, is too often<br />
the main object to him or her self. It may be<br />
argued that thisis very haman—pathetically, engag-<br />
ingly so. Granted. Only let it be remembered<br />
literature is a jealous mistress. No art—just as<br />
no god—endures a divided allegiance for long.<br />
These writers may leave letters for something they<br />
reckon more worthy of their attention; but not,<br />
in the majority of cases, before letters have rather<br />
conspicuously left them.<br />
<br />
It is easy for the poor to gird at riches. Yet<br />
one cannot but fancy that before the millionaire—<br />
Trans-Atlantic, Semitic, Colonial—invaded English<br />
society and materialised our ambitions and ideals,<br />
matters were different in this particular. We<br />
know, on the highest authority, it is not easy for<br />
a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven ;<br />
and one ventures to suspect it is equally difficult<br />
for him to enter into the Kingdom of Art—except<br />
as a purchaser. We can hardly blame him if,<br />
confused by the evident power of wealth, he fails<br />
to understand that to own a work of art is not<br />
necessarily to possess it, and that to pay for a<br />
work of art is by no means the same as to<br />
produce it. Under this head he suffers strong<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
48<br />
<br />
delusion, and, the worst of it is, a rich man’s<br />
delusions are rather violently infectious. Thanks<br />
mainly to him, money has become the measure of<br />
suecess in literature—the having made money<br />
enough to be practically free of literature, able to<br />
go away and play at something else—almost any-<br />
thing will serve—is the most triumphant success<br />
of all. And to make money in any consider-<br />
able quantity the modern author must conciliate<br />
the “popular shilling.” He must write down. to<br />
the understanding of the vast semi-educated<br />
public, English and American, which has next to<br />
no power of discrimination or sense of values—<br />
how should it have them ?—which demands that<br />
which is at once superficial and extravagant, that<br />
which at once flatters and emboldens its own<br />
cheap opinions and tastes. Thus, from above and<br />
from below alike, the best literature, in every<br />
department, is in risk of being strangled.<br />
Individually the inordinately rich—from the social<br />
atmosphere they create—collectively the compara-<br />
tively poor—from the necessity the writer is under<br />
to secure their suffrages—are alike its enemies.<br />
<br />
Time was when one feared to meet a renowned<br />
author lest his personality should prove less<br />
interesting than his books. Now it is all the other<br />
way. One fears to read the books lest they should<br />
fall short of the charm and ability of their author.<br />
To invert a famous saying, these gentlemen talk<br />
like angels while, too often, they write like poor<br />
Poll. For it seems incredible that such very well-<br />
equipped persons could not give us worthier books<br />
if they really tried. Then one begins to entertain<br />
an unpleasant suspicion that they are a little<br />
ungenerous, that they are saving themselves, only<br />
putting so much strength into their work as will<br />
just make it pay, while carefully husbanding the<br />
rest for something quite other than letters.<br />
<br />
Ts it too much to hope that a recognised central<br />
authority—to which the elect among themselves<br />
may presently belong—an association of the most<br />
distinguished and enlightened minds of our day,<br />
might provoke in the rank and file a finer ambition<br />
and higher conception of the dignity of their calling,<br />
a sounder scholarship, a greater humanity and love<br />
of beauty, a greater self-forgetfulness in work ?<br />
<br />
Only to do this, our Academy must itself be<br />
broadly based, be fearless and impartial, liberal in<br />
sympathy and in thought. It must have—if one<br />
dare say so—no conscience save the literary one.<br />
For the last thing we want just now is a multi-<br />
plied censorship, a Vigilance Committee, or Church<br />
Congress, or Conference of Head-Masters, or Prim-<br />
rose League, least of all a Social Bureau under<br />
another name. In England pedants too often<br />
render learning odious, and purists render art<br />
ridiculous, and little schools with their little<br />
shibboleths are a weariness to humour and to<br />
<br />
‘speak—of all this.<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
common sense. We want no legalising—so to<br />
Our Academy is designed to<br />
combat prejudice, not to stereotype it. If it is<br />
to be truly efficacious it must not narrow, but<br />
widen the literary outlook. It must exist not for<br />
itself, but for others; not for the glorification of<br />
the past even, but for the redemption of the<br />
present and inspiration of the future. Its func-<br />
tion, to put it briefly, is not the laudation either of<br />
itself or of dead lions; but—far humbler one—<br />
the salvation of live dogs.<br />
<br />
Upon the practical organisation of an English<br />
Academy of Letters, the present writer is not<br />
qualified to speak. Still he would venture to add<br />
two names to those already suggested by Mr.<br />
Herbert Trench as members of a possible -central.<br />
committee— namely, that of Algernon Charles<br />
Swinburne, our greatest living poet, and that of<br />
Thomas Hardy, one of our two greatest living<br />
novelists.<br />
<br />
Lucas Maer.<br />
<br />
———<br />
<br />
II.<br />
<br />
I have no sympathy whatever for the proposal<br />
to form any such body as a British Academy<br />
of Letters, although I have every sympathy for<br />
the spirit in which Mr. Herbert Trench pro-<br />
poses it. And, as Mr. Trench argues in general<br />
principles, it may be permitted to condemn his<br />
scheme upon them. Viewed through the colour<br />
of his bright spirit no doubt the Academy<br />
shines like a temple on Olympus: without<br />
his glasses it would show in a generation as a<br />
clique in St. James’s. An academy is nothing if<br />
<br />
not academic : its republicanism degenerates into<br />
<br />
oligarchy : its principles become rigid: it ends in<br />
unimposing senility. However its members are<br />
chosen there must inevitably be a tail of medio-<br />
crities, and this tail by the mere efflux of time<br />
will wag the dog. The newer members will be<br />
choked by the fetid atmosphere which their elders<br />
breathe with placid enjoyment ; the whole body<br />
will be a corporation without a soul and nothing to<br />
kick. _No academy or academic body has ever<br />
encouraged originality ; and by the very nature of<br />
academies none ever will. But they have often<br />
crushed it, often swallowed it. Mr. Trench’s<br />
notions of criticism are in themselves conserva-<br />
tive: indeed, the very notion of a formal judg-<br />
ment is conservative, and the spirit of conservatism<br />
is the one thing which it is desirable to avoid in<br />
literature. For conservatism can always take<br />
<br />
care of itself: the traditions in a.writer’s mind,<br />
without any external reinforcement, are, as most<br />
men can recognise on analysis of their moods, the<br />
great enemy of their progress and originality.<br />
What makes Mr. Trench imagine that the<br />
<br />
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<br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR. 49<br />
<br />
endorsement of Matthew Arnold by Messrs.<br />
Lecky and Bryce would help other spirits than<br />
those now in touch with that poet? At the best<br />
they might make him fashionable; at the worst<br />
they would make themselves ridiculous. It is<br />
<br />
‘sufficient that Arnold and Tourgueniev should be<br />
<br />
on the way to immortality by the slow decay of<br />
their more futile rivals. An academy, inevitably<br />
destined by its nature to worship form, is more<br />
likely to renew Tennyson’s hold upon the bourgeois<br />
than to attach him to any greater poet.<br />
Mr. Trench is a poet : his notion of an academy is<br />
poetical: it is a dream. To translate such a<br />
vision into a body of men is as futile a task as to<br />
stage the Keltic imagination. The appeal of pure<br />
literature is by its very nature personal, and an<br />
academy is a crowd, a lower organism, a thing of<br />
averages, make-shifts, mutual concessions, mass<br />
prejudices. We are better without it.<br />
a Morey ROBERTS.<br />
<br />
—_+—+—<br />
<br />
III.<br />
<br />
I don’t think an Academy of Letters can possibly<br />
‘be invented to do what those who advocate the estab-<br />
lishment of one desire. It would be admirable<br />
if we could have a body to “hall-mark,” as Mr.<br />
Trench puts it, what is really of fine quality so soon<br />
as it appears, but the nearest approach we can ever<br />
get to such a body is a large well-educated reading<br />
public, keenly interested in criticism; and even<br />
then there will be winds and currents of favour.<br />
<br />
The chief objection to Mr. Trench that occurs<br />
to me is the fact that a man may bea quite splendid<br />
figure in contemporary literature, and yet spend<br />
remarkably little time in the research after con-<br />
temporary merit, much less contemporary promise.<br />
Consider three names Mr. Trench has given.<br />
What good would Mr. George Meredith be in the<br />
capacity of a hall-marker if—as I have heard<br />
asserted—he confines his reading to the literature<br />
<br />
of France, or Mr. John Morley (who is engrossed —<br />
<br />
in politics), or Mr. Frazer, whose rich work in<br />
anthropology is no guarantee that he has the<br />
slightest qualification for what would be one of<br />
the most difficult and unavoidable tasks of this<br />
hall-marking Academy, the sifting of contemporary<br />
fiction? There are men to whom no one would<br />
deny the crowns and glories of literature, but it is<br />
another matter to ask them to control its des-<br />
tinies. Mr. Trench, like most Academy projectors,<br />
overlooks the fact that a new addition to literature<br />
is almost invariably a breach of the established<br />
boundaries, a variation of style, matter, treatment,<br />
a revelation of new aspects and new thoughts. I<br />
do not see that it is reasonable to expect the Old<br />
Men, resting gloriously amidst their accomplished<br />
<br />
work, to bother about the New Men, or to assimi-<br />
late the new views. They are far more likely to<br />
fill their gaps with the Scholarly Gentleman, the<br />
Able Imitator—quite apart from wire-pulling and<br />
intrigue and the natural desire of those who have<br />
arrived and are accepted to lead a pleasant life. Far<br />
more efficient to the end Mr. Trench desires would<br />
be an Academy of lively and contemporary critics<br />
—Messrs. Gosse, Edward Garnett, Waugh, Bennett,<br />
William Archer, Street, Chesterton, for example—<br />
but even then. . . . Probably they would never be<br />
sufficiently agreed to elect anybody. And before ever<br />
you come to the question of replacement you have<br />
to consider that you will never get a really literary<br />
Academy as things are at present. You will get a<br />
few indisputable literary figures, the conscience<br />
members one might call them, and the rest will be<br />
men who are really only well-bred, influential<br />
amateurs, men no one would dream of putting into<br />
an Academy if they had done just exactly what<br />
they have done now from the starting point of a<br />
lower class home. There are Mr. Balfour, for<br />
example, and Lord Rosebery. You will never be<br />
able to float an Academy without this element<br />
unless you have that educated public we need—<br />
and then your Academy, I submit, will be totally<br />
unnecessary. The Good Outsider, that Intrusive<br />
Bounder, who is the living soul of literature, will<br />
be left outside anything Mr. Trench and his fellow<br />
workers can possibly invent, and the Uninspired<br />
Respectability will be in—from the very beginning.<br />
It is inherent in the nature of Academies and<br />
unavoidable. You don’t get “hall-marked”’ till<br />
you are dead and a little obsolete. This is sad for<br />
the innumerable authors now palpitatingly con-<br />
scious of superlative merit, but it is one of the<br />
things you have to make your peace with in the<br />
literary life.<br />
H. G. WELLs.<br />
<br />
See gs<br />
<br />
IV.<br />
<br />
In The Author of October, p. 23, I read that<br />
a recent writer thinks “that an incorporated<br />
society might snuff out Wordsworths, Coleridges,<br />
Blakes, and Shelleys.”<br />
<br />
It seems worth while to note that Coleridge<br />
was not “snuffed out,” though he was one of the<br />
earliest members of the Royal Society of Litera-<br />
ture, to which a charter was granted by King<br />
George the Fourth, seventy-six years ago, accord-<br />
ing to Haydn’s Book of Dates.<br />
<br />
Lirr. 1.<br />
<br />
ee<br />
Vv.<br />
<br />
The Editor has received a letter from Mr.<br />
<br />
William Romaine Patterson (“Benjamin Swift”),<br />
<br />
in which he regrets that he is unable, through<br />
<br />
<br />
50<br />
<br />
pressure of business, to write an article for the<br />
columns of the Author, but states that he is in<br />
sympathy with Mr. Herbert Trench’s views. ' “ It<br />
seems to me,” so runs the letter, ‘high time that<br />
those for whom English literature is a great<br />
inheritance should unite against the vulgar mob<br />
of writers and readers who are at the present<br />
moment degrading its traditions.<br />
<br />
———— —<br />
<br />
VI.<br />
<br />
Dear Srr,—The evils which Mr. Trench justly<br />
deplores are due, not to the absence of an Academy<br />
of Letters, but to the absence of men, and to the<br />
vulgarity of the epoch.<br />
<br />
It is a pity that this question was not agitated<br />
in the mid-Victorian era, when a galaxy of genius<br />
almost as bright as the Elizabethan would have<br />
given dignity to the first Academy. Now we are<br />
in the trough of reaction, and must wait till there<br />
exists a body of men sufficiently weighty to overbear<br />
all cavil.<br />
<br />
Yours faithfully,<br />
<br />
J. ZANGWILL.<br />
<br />
—_—_——_1—>—_+—___—_—__<br />
<br />
THE DICKENS FELLOWSHIP.<br />
<br />
Sdn ane<br />
<br />
HE Dickens Fellowship had a splendid send-<br />
off at its first meeting at Anderton’s Hotel<br />
last Monday evening. The hall was crowded,<br />
<br />
and the meeting of the most enthusiastic kind.<br />
<br />
Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, an old friend of Charles<br />
Dickens, was in the chair, and among those present<br />
were Mr. and Mrs. Hall Caine, Mr. F. G. Kitton,<br />
Mr. Francesco Berger, Mr. Arthur Waugh, and<br />
Mr. Harry Furniss. Sympathetic messages were<br />
read from the veteran actor, Mr. J. L. Toole, Mr.<br />
M. H. Spielmann, and others. A very charming<br />
telegram was received from Sir Henry Irving just<br />
as the meeting commenced. It was as follows :—<br />
“Love and greetings to all. I wish I could be<br />
with you to-night. Hope I may at some future<br />
time.”<br />
<br />
Mr. Fitzgerald, in opening the proceedings,<br />
thanked the meeting for having invited him to<br />
occupy the chair, as it was always a delight to him<br />
to take a part in anything that was done to honour<br />
the memory of Charles Dickens. He was one of<br />
<br />
the few left who had known Dickens personally.<br />
He had walked with him, talked with him, and<br />
had travelled with him. He thought that outside<br />
Dickens’s own family there were only two men left<br />
who had been in close intimacy with him, and<br />
those were Mr. Marcus Stone and himself.<br />
<br />
They might congratulate themselves sincerely<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
upon the numerous attendance at the meeting, and!<br />
also upon the way in which the idea of the Fellow-<br />
ship had been taken up. Already there had been<br />
no less than 600 applications for membership, and<br />
there were proposals for the affiliation of the clubs<br />
in different parts of the country with the society.<br />
Then, again, only the other day two American<br />
ladies called upon the Secretary and said that it<br />
would give them great pleasure to act as mission-<br />
aries on behalf of the society in their own country.<br />
Then there was the telegram from Sir Henry Irving.<br />
Having spoken of the gentlemen whom it was pro-<br />
posed to elect as vice-presidents, a list of whom is<br />
given later on, Mr. Fitzgerald proceeded to say<br />
that it was proposed to have monthly meetings in<br />
connection with the society, on which occasions<br />
there would be papers read on some subjects<br />
connected with Dickens. .<br />
<br />
In this connection he would deprecate panegyric,<br />
and hoped that they would devote themselves more<br />
to a critical study of Dickens and what scholars<br />
called the exegesis of his works. A great deal of<br />
amusement was to be derived from the study of any<br />
author’s writings, because most authors were very<br />
fond of putting their own experiences into their<br />
books. It was well known that a great deal of<br />
Dickens’s biography was to be found in his writings,<br />
which were so sympathetic and so emotional. Mr.<br />
Fitzgerald proceeded, by reference to the “ Pickwick<br />
Papers” and to other writings of Dickens, to give<br />
instances of the author’s incorporation of his own<br />
experiences in his books. Speaking of “Pickwick,”<br />
he said it was a most marvellous book. It was<br />
written by a young man of twenty-three or twenty-<br />
four, and yet it contained the observations and<br />
experience which would guide a man through life.<br />
It was usually supposed that ‘‘ David Copperfield ”<br />
contained the real autobiography of Dickens, but<br />
he was almost inclined to think that “ Pickwick,”<br />
especially the earlier portion, contained a great<br />
deal more of his early history, and he would go<br />
so far as to say that it was entirely made up<br />
of reminiscences and recollections of what had<br />
occurred to himself. Mr. Fitzgerald proceeded to<br />
speak of the association of Dickens with Rochester,<br />
and how this locality figured in his books. His<br />
first book was about Rochester, and his last, when<br />
the pen fell from his hand, was about the same<br />
<br />
lace.<br />
<br />
: It was very commonly thought that Dickens<br />
was a town man, but the fact was that his writings<br />
showed an extraordinary knowledge of country life,<br />
and nothing was better than his descriptions of<br />
that life. Dickens enjoyed country walks, and<br />
from personal experience he (Mr. Fitzgerald) could<br />
say that he was a splendid walker. He thought<br />
nothing of a twenty miles’ daily walk. Mr. Fitz-<br />
gerald proceeded to explain how a number of<br />
<br />
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<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
localities which had been sketched in Dickens’s<br />
different works had been identified, and spoke in<br />
particular of how he had secured the material for<br />
the Eatanswill election from an electoral contest at<br />
Ipswich which he had reported for the Morning<br />
Chronicle.<br />
<br />
Mr. Hall Caine, who next addressed the meeting,<br />
said he was delighted to take his part in the<br />
establishment of the Fellowship. He had con-<br />
tributed in some degree to history, dictionaries,<br />
and biographies, and he had even written reviews<br />
of novels. None of these had exhausted all his<br />
faculties, but he could. honestly say that in the<br />
creation of the novel the author had to exert all<br />
his strength. He rejoiced in assisting in the<br />
establishment of a Dickens Fellowship, because he<br />
realised that Dickens was a leader of his craft. In<br />
his opinion Dickens was the greatest novelist of<br />
the Victorian or of any era, and he might ven-<br />
ture the further opinion that he was the greatest<br />
novelist of England or any other country. His<br />
<br />
influence was even now wider than that of any<br />
other. He rejoiced, too, because Dickens was in<br />
everything a man of principles. He loved truth,<br />
and he loved justice, and he was the exponent of<br />
the whole science of humanity. In an eminent<br />
‘degree he was a friend of the poor, and he was<br />
ever ready to say the strong word on behalf of the<br />
down-trodden.<br />
<br />
Then Dickens stood for the love of morality.<br />
He never hesitated to present things in their<br />
nakedness, but the virtue in him was that vice<br />
was always given its true picture. Dickens loved<br />
humanity, and that was the reason that humanity<br />
loved Dickens. Then Dickens stood for the love<br />
of God. Therefore, by establishing a Dickens<br />
Fellowship, they were encouraging truth, justice,<br />
morality, and the love of humanity, and thus they<br />
would be breaking down the barriers between man<br />
and man, and between nation and nation. For<br />
these reasons he wished the Dickens Fellowship<br />
every possible success.<br />
<br />
Mr. Arthur Waugh said that it had been<br />
suggested to him by a very able critic and editor<br />
that there was no particular “use” for such a<br />
Fellowship as this. Well, if it came to that, in<br />
the words of that stern moralist, Mr. Albert<br />
‘Chevalier, ‘‘ What’s the use of anythink? Why,<br />
nothink !” But if anything that appealed to the<br />
cause of intellectual progress was of “use” in the<br />
world, then there would be abundant use and<br />
value in this commemoration of the greatest<br />
novelist of his time, who taught men so much<br />
sympathy and humanity, and who was.as much<br />
alive now as ever when he was writing, and would<br />
continne to live long after his critics and detractors<br />
were forgotten.<br />
<br />
Mr. Harry Furniss, in a very humorous speech,<br />
<br />
51<br />
<br />
which provoked much laughter, spoke particularly<br />
of the illustrators of Dickens, and expressed the<br />
opinion that he had never yet been properly<br />
illustrated. His fat women were made thin, and<br />
some like fault could be found in many of the<br />
illustrations of his characters. The difficulty was<br />
that Dickens was so great an artist himself, that<br />
one could see the characters standing out in his<br />
pages better than any artist could drawthem. He<br />
was so fond of Dickens that he employed his spare<br />
time in illustrating him, but whether his work<br />
would ever see the light he did not know. He<br />
added that he had been brought up on Dickens<br />
since he was a small boy, and he was bringing up<br />
his children on Dickens too.<br />
<br />
Mr. Kitton and Mr. Francesco Berger briefly<br />
addressed the meeting.<br />
<br />
The election of officers then took place, Mr.<br />
Percy Fitzgerald being unanimously elected as<br />
President for the year, then Mr. Hall Caine, Mr.<br />
F. G. Kitton, Mr. Harry Furniss, Mr. Francesco<br />
Berger, Mr. W. Moy Thomas, Mr. M. H. Spiel-<br />
mann, Mr. Arthur Waugh, Mr. J. L. Toole, Mr.<br />
Hammond Hall, and Sir Henry Irving were<br />
elected as Vice-Presidents, and Mr. B. W. Matz as<br />
Hon. Secretary and Treasurer.<br />
<br />
“Household Words,” founded by Charles Dickens<br />
over 50 years ago, was declared the official organ<br />
of the Dickens Fellowship.<br />
<br />
At the conclusion of the meeting a very hearty<br />
vote of thanks to Mr. Percy Fitzgerald was moved<br />
by Mr. Harry Furniss, seconded by Mr. Hall<br />
Caine, and carried unanimously.<br />
<br />
—_—_——_1—<>—__+___—_—_-<br />
<br />
“THE EDINBURGH REVIEW.”<br />
October, 1802—October, 1902.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
HE centenary of The Edinburgh Review is an<br />
co historical event which cannot be passed<br />
over by any literary paper, and it is fitting<br />
that we should offer a special word of congratula-<br />
tion upon it to Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co.,<br />
who are in 1902, as they were in 1802, the<br />
publishers of what is still a leading enterprise in<br />
periodical literature.<br />
<br />
It is a very easy matter to criticise adversely<br />
the early numbers of the Review, and to express<br />
some tolerant surprise at the amazing popular<br />
success it immediately achieved ; but to do this is<br />
to miss part, if not indeed the major part, of its<br />
original purpose. That it was not primarily in-<br />
tended to deal with literary matters is evident<br />
from the fact that the words “and Critical<br />
Journal” form only its sub-title. Jeffrey himself<br />
wrote as follows to a friend who raised the point :—<br />
52<br />
<br />
“The Review has but two legs to stand on—<br />
Literature is one of them, but the right leg is<br />
Politics.” It would be more fair, therefore, for<br />
those who would seek to deprecate the worth of<br />
the Review, as originally issued, to devote their<br />
energies to riddling its political front instead of<br />
focussing their attention upon its critical articles.<br />
Yet, so far as we are aware, this has not been<br />
seriously attempted.<br />
<br />
Omitting, as outside our province, any discussion<br />
of the many political questions dealt with as they<br />
arose by the Edinburgh Reviewers, and of the<br />
treatment they received at their hands, it is yet<br />
proper to observe that the function of a great<br />
review is to anticipate the trend of thought upon<br />
subjects of the most diverse interest, to concen-<br />
trate the general attention within practicable<br />
Vimits, and to divert public opinion into that<br />
channel which it believes will lead to the happy<br />
issue. This 7he Edinburgh Review most certainly<br />
did. It stood for Whiggery first of all, and how-<br />
ever it may have blundered in its critical articles,<br />
it became a political force. Its politics may have<br />
been damnable, but its policy was soundly laid<br />
and has endured for a century. :<br />
<br />
It is possible that the explanation of its resisting<br />
power may be found in its consistency. Jeffrey’s<br />
instructions to Macvey Napier as to the responsi-<br />
bilities incidental to the editorial management of<br />
anonymous journalism have been preserved, and<br />
they have always ruled the conduct of the<br />
Review :—<br />
<br />
“There are three legitimate considerations,” he<br />
says, “by which you should be guided in your<br />
conduct as Editor generally ; and particularly as<br />
to the admission or rejection of articles of a political<br />
sort :—1. The effect of your decision on the other<br />
contributors upon whom you mainly rely ; 2. Its<br />
effect on the sale and circulation, and on the just<br />
authority of the work with the great body of its<br />
readers ; and 3. Your own deliberate opinion as to<br />
the safety or danger of the doctrines maintained<br />
in the article under consideration, and its tendency<br />
either to promote or retard the practical adoption<br />
of those liberal principles to which, and ¢heir prac-<br />
tical advancement, you must always consider the<br />
journal as devoted.” .. .<br />
<br />
The Edinburgh Review has at any rate been con-<br />
scientious and consistent, and it preserves vitality<br />
at the expiration of a hundred years. People who<br />
are interested in tracing the practical operation of<br />
principles in the trivial affairs of life may find<br />
some food for reflection in the fact.<br />
<br />
Sydney Smith and his friends not only correctly<br />
estimated the proper functions of their Review,<br />
but they seized the proper moment for its estab-<br />
lishment. By the mere fact of doing the right<br />
thing at the right time they justified their pre-<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
tensions to occupy the pulpit, and on the whole<br />
acquitted themselves remarkably well. Journalistic<br />
conditions are so different now from what they were<br />
then that it is impossible to realise the effect the<br />
Review had upon the intelligent community. The<br />
French Revolution had lately upset the mental<br />
equilibrium of the world, and thinking men were<br />
eager to keep abreast of the wave of intellectual<br />
activity that was sweeping over Europe. The<br />
founders of The Edinburgh Review perceived this.<br />
and leaped forward. They had enthusiasm. They<br />
were on the side of the angels, and were at pains<br />
to let everybody know it. If they sometimes used<br />
exaggerated language, they did so with the utmost<br />
purity of motive. They thought it better to cry<br />
“Havoc” when they scented battle, than to cry<br />
“Peace”? when there was no peace. And,<br />
humanly speaking, they were right. That the<br />
Review should be shorn of much of its political<br />
power in these later days is no reproach to it.<br />
History is made so rapidly that men cannot wait<br />
for quarterlies to shape their opinions on affairs.<br />
But The Edinburgh Review stands for Whiggery<br />
to-day as it stood a hundred years ago, and still<br />
enjoys the closest personal relations with the<br />
leaders of that great historical party.<br />
<br />
To make any adequate comment on its services.<br />
as a critica] journal in the space at our disposal is<br />
manifestly impossible. It established a precedent<br />
for criticism in the grand manner in periodical<br />
literature, and if it sometimes blundered, this was.<br />
the exception, not the rule. To look over the<br />
volumes of the Review is to peep into a vast mine<br />
of erudition, and its articles summarising the<br />
known facts of any given subject dealt with in<br />
books, or groups of books, remain models of what<br />
such literary essays should be. The art brought<br />
to such polished perfection by Macaulay, and first<br />
displayed to a delighted world through the medium<br />
of The Edinburgh Review, still has many able<br />
exponents. That the daily, or even the weekly,<br />
newspapers can cope with a tithe of the books<br />
poured upon the market is out of the question ;<br />
they must either ignore them or spare them space<br />
for a wholly inadequate “notice.” As the writer<br />
of the historical survey in the centenary number<br />
of The Edinburgh Review remarks: ‘ Books that.<br />
have taken able and learned men years to write<br />
deserve to be pondered, not merely to be read,<br />
by those who would give a really adequate account<br />
of them, and would criticise them in the old and<br />
true sense of the word. It is one advantage of the<br />
quarterlies that even in these days of electricity<br />
they have time to think.”<br />
<br />
It is probable, therefore, that it is as a critical<br />
journal rather than as a political review that The<br />
Edinburgh will continue its long and honourable<br />
career, and, as such, the twentieth century will<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR. 53<br />
<br />
have use for it. That it will maintain its old<br />
tradition of anonymity is devoutly to be wished,<br />
for so long as it preserves its characteristics, only<br />
advantage can be derived from its articles carrying<br />
the full weight of the journal’s prestige, instead of<br />
the mere weight given them by the qualifications<br />
of the individual writers. These characteristics are<br />
erudition without dulness, scholarship without<br />
pedantry, and dignity with restraint. We need<br />
them sorely in this age of flamboyant politics,<br />
hysterical journalism, and superficial cleverness,<br />
and we are confident that we shall continue to<br />
find them in The Edinburgh Review. So shall the<br />
judge not be condemned, even though the guilty<br />
sometimes go scot free.<br />
<br />
—____—___e——__.<br />
<br />
AN AUTUMN SALE.<br />
<br />
+<br />
<br />
soap first crisp breath of autumn in the air<br />
<br />
felt pleasant after the heat and closeness of<br />
<br />
an unusually dry summer. I paused for a<br />
moment outside an A.B.C. shop, undecided<br />
whether to have a cup of tea there, or wait till I<br />
got home ; as I did so a bill fastened to the swing<br />
doors of the adjacent building attracted my<br />
attention. It was worded as follows :—<br />
<br />
Sate. THs Day.<br />
<br />
END OF SEASON.<br />
<br />
In order to make room for an entirely<br />
new stock of Sea-side novel plots, and<br />
Summer Number novelties, the following<br />
Lots of valuable material for the manu-<br />
facture of Christmas Stories will be sold<br />
by auction.<br />
<br />
Sale at 2.45 for 3 to the minute.<br />
<br />
Then followed a lengthy catalogue, which at first<br />
T could not understand. It being then a quarter<br />
past three, and having rather a weakness for<br />
attending sales, I opened the swing doors, and<br />
walked inside.<br />
<br />
A crowd of persons of both sexes filled the<br />
reom, the faces of some seeming to bear striking<br />
resemblance to portraits [ had seen in the illus-<br />
trated magazines. The auctioneer was at his<br />
desk, hammer in hand ; but I saw no signs of the<br />
property which was to be sold. The assistant,<br />
who on these occasions exhibits the lots by<br />
holding them up, or handing them round, sat, in<br />
his shirt-sleeves, at a side table, having before him<br />
a list, and a pile of envelopes, each of which was<br />
numbered.<br />
<br />
“Two shillings I’m bid,” the auctioneer was<br />
chanting. ‘Two shillings, two and three, two<br />
and six. Two and six for the haunted room, with<br />
wood fire, and four-post bed; two and six ; why<br />
the room itself is worth the money, nothing ever<br />
seen, but people die of fright, and are found with<br />
petrified look of horror on their faces in the<br />
morning. No advance on two and six? Come,<br />
we must get on. Going at two and siz—at two<br />
and six!” Rap.<br />
<br />
I did not see who had secured the bargain, but<br />
the price seemed ridiculously small for a haunted<br />
room, four-post bed, and wood fire ; and I expressed<br />
this opinion to a seedy, elderly-looking man who<br />
stood by my side.<br />
<br />
“Small! Pooh—nonsense,” he replied. “ Quite<br />
out of date now. I know that bed; slept in it<br />
myself a dozen times—at least my characters have.<br />
You wouldn’t get ten shillings a thousand for it<br />
now.”<br />
<br />
“Not ten shillings for a thousand bedsteads ?”’<br />
I repeated, astonished.<br />
<br />
“No, words,’ he snapped. “ Don’t you under-<br />
stand this is an end-of-the-season clearance sale<br />
of material for Christmas stories.”<br />
<br />
“ But it still wants three months to Christmas.”<br />
<br />
‘© Of course, but the Christmas stories have all<br />
been written long ago; most of them finished<br />
before Midsummer Day. Buyers are acquiring<br />
stuff now with an eye to publication in fifteen<br />
months’ time.”<br />
<br />
“Less talking, please,” cried the auctioneer.<br />
“We've got to the end of the Haunted Houses,<br />
and now we come to Lot 15. A ship’s captain and<br />
a plum-pudding. By the way, Sam, isn’t there a<br />
storm at sea goes with this lot ?”<br />
<br />
“It’s put along of the other storms,” answered<br />
Sam, referring to his list. “There y’are : Lot 43,<br />
a storm at sea; two snowstorms; and some wind,<br />
rain, and hinky darkness.”<br />
<br />
“It ought by rights to have gone with this lot,”<br />
said the Knight of the Hammer. “Still, we'd<br />
better keep to the catalogue. What shall we say<br />
for the sea captain and his plum-pudding?”<br />
Will someone start the bidding ?”<br />
<br />
“Old as the hills,’ grumbled my companion.<br />
“Done to death, both in letterpress and<br />
illustration.”<br />
<br />
An elderly lady with spectacles eventually<br />
bought the captain and pudding, though at a price<br />
which the auctioneer declared was “ giving the<br />
things away.”<br />
<br />
«Tot 16” was the next announcement. “ 7'wo<br />
starving children; one drunken father ; and an<br />
angel, slightly damaged. What's the matter with<br />
the angel, Sam?”<br />
<br />
“ Hold age, I suppose,” mumbled Sam. “The<br />
feathers is a-coming out of its wings.”<br />
<br />
’<br />
<br />
%<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
bd THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
“ Perhaps it’s moulting, sir,” suggested a wag<br />
in the crowd.<br />
<br />
“Jn that case we may hope the feathers will<br />
come again ; at all events there’s no doubt about<br />
the children and drunken father. Now, what shall<br />
we say for Lot 16?”<br />
<br />
The spectacled lady was again a bidder, but<br />
this time she was not going to have it all her own<br />
way, for the lot seemed to have taken the fancy of<br />
a rotund, benevolent-looking gentleman, dressed<br />
in clerical clothes. Neither, however, seemed.<br />
inclined to pay a long price, and the hammer fell<br />
on the lady’s bid. :<br />
<br />
«“ That’s Miss Selina Simmonds,” muttered my<br />
companion. “ She’s prepared to buy up any<br />
amount of cheap stuff. Writes Children’s Columns<br />
and that sort of thing.” °<br />
<br />
“4 mad engine-driver; an armed commercial<br />
traveller ; a night express ; and a@ broken viaduct,”<br />
read out the auctioneer.<br />
<br />
“ That lot’s withdrawn,” remarked Sam.<br />
<br />
“ How’s that ?”<br />
<br />
“J dunno; it ain’t here. Better take the<br />
next.”<br />
<br />
“ Lot 18,” went on the auctioneer, brightening<br />
up. ‘“ Here’s something quite novel and up to<br />
date. Society lady, with smirched reputation ; and<br />
a double suicide. Just the thing for a Christmas<br />
number. Wait a moment; we'll take Lot 19 with<br />
it, and try them together. Lof 19, @ phial con-<br />
taining a narcotic drug.”<br />
<br />
To my surprise the bidding for this property<br />
was quite brisk, the best-dressed portion of the<br />
audience seeming to vie with each other for its<br />
possession. At length a fashionably-attired lady<br />
secured it with evident satisfaction.<br />
<br />
“Next we come to Lot 20,” proceeded the<br />
auctioneer. “An Assortment of Suggestive Titles.<br />
Read ’em out, Sam.”<br />
<br />
“ The Crack of Doom; Christmas with a Corpse ;<br />
By Midnight Mail; The Grave-Digger’s Story ; A<br />
Ghastly Secret,’ intoned the assistant.<br />
<br />
Once more the flagging interest of the assembly<br />
seemed quickened, and there was no lack of<br />
offers.<br />
<br />
“ Now, we’ve got a number of miscellaneous lots<br />
to deal with. Lot 21, five nine-gallon casks of<br />
blood. What am I offered for Lot 21?”<br />
<br />
There was no response.<br />
<br />
“Tt’s all ’uman blood,” prompted Sam from<br />
his table.<br />
<br />
“Come,” cried the salesman, “won’t anyone<br />
make a start? Nothing like plenty of blood in a<br />
Christmas story.”<br />
<br />
“Five casks is rather a large quantity for a<br />
single buyer,” suggested a gentleman.<br />
<br />
“Well, let’s divide the lot,” replied the<br />
auctioneer, making a pencil memo, on his<br />
<br />
catalogue. ‘ Lot 21a, three casks of blood; and<br />
Lot 210, the remaining two casks.”<br />
<br />
Under the new conditions the lot was soon<br />
disposed of ; everyone present seemed to have a<br />
use for blood, and bids were fired at the auctioneer<br />
from all quarters.<br />
<br />
The man by my side made an impatient<br />
movement. “I thought I’d wait and see how that<br />
went,” he remarked, pointing to a cross against<br />
one of the numbers on his catalogue. “ It’s sure<br />
to come in useful; but no, I shan’t stop any<br />
longer.”<br />
<br />
Lot 42, four unspeakable horrors. This was<br />
the line he indicated. We left the room, and<br />
passed through the swing doors together.<br />
<br />
“Christmas story writing must be rather a<br />
morbid and depressing sort of business,” I ventured<br />
to suggest.<br />
<br />
“Well, yes,” he answered, “if you keep abreast.<br />
of the times, and go in for good prices. Tt used<br />
not to be so,” he added, a trifle sadly, speaking as<br />
one who realises that his own day is past. «y<br />
remember the time when we used to go in for holly<br />
and good-cheer, warm firesides, and happy endings ;<br />
but bless you, that’s all altered now.”<br />
<br />
With a parting wave of his hand he turned<br />
abruptly, and went his way. The autumn chill,<br />
had strengthened in the air; I almost wished I had<br />
worn an overcoat.<br />
<br />
ee<br />
<br />
THE “YOUNG IDEA’S” VIEWS ON<br />
POETRY.<br />
<br />
— ><br />
<br />
[Reprinted by kind permission of the Editor from:<br />
the American Critic. ]<br />
<br />
A TEACHER in a public school in one of our<br />
<br />
larger cities thought to teach the Young<br />
Idea something about the beauty and meaning of<br />
poetry. Her class consisted of boys and girls<br />
from fourteen to eighteen years of age and of fair<br />
average intelligence. She read them Browning’s<br />
“ Meeting at Night,” and asked them to write out<br />
their opinions of the subject and its treatment..<br />
This they did with the unhesitating confidence of<br />
youth. Here is the poem:<br />
<br />
1,<br />
<br />
The grey sea and the long plack land ;<br />
And the yellow half-moon large and low ;<br />
‘And the startled little waves that leap<br />
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,<br />
<br />
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,<br />
And quench its speed i the slushy sand.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
wes<br />
<br />
Ie<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR. 55.<br />
<br />
Il.<br />
<br />
Then a mile of sea-scented beach ;<br />
<br />
Three fields to cross till a farm appears ;<br />
<br />
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch<br />
And blue spurt of a lighted match,<br />
<br />
And a voice less loud, through joys and fears,<br />
Then two hearts beating each to each !<br />
<br />
Some of the more candid criticisms are here<br />
ae 7 as they were wrote,” spelling, punctuation,<br />
and all :—<br />
<br />
“J think it presents a fine moonlight picture.<br />
it tell how far he has to travel and the greeting<br />
when he arrives, at the farm house, I think it is a<br />
sailor coming home from a voyage. ‘I'he peace is<br />
wrote in Irvings style being compact and expresses<br />
a clear idea in a very few lines.”<br />
<br />
“ T do not like it because it is not closely enough<br />
connected. The description of the sea or land is<br />
not very good. It isa very hurried description.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
“J think it is too dark because It would take<br />
longer that the time it took in the poetry and it<br />
show how scared a woman gets because when she<br />
heard him she could hardly talk between fear.”<br />
<br />
«This short piece of poetry in my opinion is a<br />
nice opening for a story because Brown illustrates<br />
it so finely as the moonlight on the lake.”<br />
<br />
“J think this little poetry is nice because it<br />
tells the nice route of the lover and would be much<br />
more beautiful if it was longer and contained many<br />
more interesting facts.”<br />
<br />
“Poor. Because it starts to quickly and because<br />
it tells nothing of where he was or how he came to<br />
be in the book and he skipped from the ocean to<br />
the moon & then back to the water.”<br />
<br />
“1 think It is a nice poem it explains about a<br />
man walking up the sea shore in dark he is just<br />
going home from work and as he reaches the house<br />
he tapps at the window to let his wife or friend<br />
know that it is no stranger or no body that will<br />
hurt her.”<br />
<br />
“TI think it is pretty good because it is taken<br />
from life and that when a man goes home he always<br />
kisses his wife.”<br />
<br />
“T don’t like it because it is not natural and I<br />
don’t think it is a piece of poetry.”<br />
<br />
“It is very pretty for the reason that is shows<br />
affection and because of the beautiful description<br />
of the road which the gentleman takes at sunset.”<br />
<br />
“The man came down the lake in a boat and<br />
was much excited and hurried to the land. The<br />
tide was coming in and he was obliged to walk<br />
along the beach and long distance and hurried<br />
across the fields and came to the farm house and<br />
rapped on the window and his lover lit a match<br />
and appeared at the window.”<br />
<br />
“Tts good. Because he has a good choice of<br />
words and has a good ending and describes the<br />
anxiety of the husband.”<br />
<br />
“Tt is no good. Because I think it is foolish.”<br />
<br />
“JT think it is good because it tells the hard<br />
time a man has in coming home sometimes.”<br />
<br />
“Tt is fairly good but I can see but little sence.<br />
It is well worded and the words are well connected.”<br />
<br />
“Good, because as a short passage it gives a<br />
good description from being to end of a Lovers<br />
course to his most Beloved.”<br />
<br />
“T think it is the description of a lover going to<br />
sce his sweetheart. But I believe it would be better<br />
if the sweetheart had had the light burning pre-<br />
vious to his arrival. The description of the waves<br />
as they beat against the boat is very good.”<br />
<br />
“TJ think it has very good descriptions, but I<br />
don’t fancy sentimental things, and that closes in<br />
that way.”<br />
<br />
“T think it is no good for a description of a<br />
lonely walk for there is not enough description of<br />
the walk to give you an idea of the beauty of the<br />
scenery. It isnot as good as the description of<br />
the moonlight on the snow in Snow Bound. The<br />
poem does not give enough time to the subject.”<br />
<br />
<br />
56<br />
<br />
«J think this is a very beautiful piece of poetry.<br />
For one reason I think it must have tickled the<br />
young girl to see her lover coming to see her and<br />
how happy she must have felt to be in his com-<br />
pany for the remainder of the evening. As I am<br />
not interested in love and no but very little about<br />
it I can give no further explanation in regard<br />
to it.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
“Pretty Bum because its to wishy-washy and<br />
because 1 don’t think it likely also because I dont<br />
like rhythm.”<br />
<br />
—<br />
<br />
CORRESPONDENCE.<br />
<br />
Se<br />
“AUTHOR AND EDITOR.”<br />
<br />
Srr,—I think your correspondent is rather hard<br />
on the editor of the Westminster Gazette. These<br />
are bookmaking days, and it is quite impossible<br />
for editors to find space to review anything like<br />
every book published. Hence there must always<br />
be a good many minor works which only have the<br />
good fortune to be reviewed in papers of secondary<br />
importance.<br />
<br />
New volumes of verse, even by the most cele-<br />
brated writers, are not much read by the British<br />
public nowadays, and the editor is bound to use his<br />
valuable space for popular novels and standard<br />
works. But even so, books of real merit often<br />
get passed over. It is the custom, I believe, for<br />
the editor to hand the books sent to him for<br />
criticism to his reviewer. The latter makes a<br />
selection of the books he intends to notice, and<br />
puts the remainder aside. Thus an excellent work<br />
by an unknown author might only be rewarded by<br />
having its title-page read! How much chance, for<br />
instance, would “Paradise Lost” have of being<br />
widely reviewed, were Mr. John Milton an obscure<br />
poet of to-day ?<br />
<br />
Yours faithfully,<br />
<br />
F. J. WINBOLT.<br />
October 6th, 1902.<br />
<br />
1 —<br />
<br />
STANDARD RULES FOR PRINTING.<br />
<br />
Srr,—If any improvement is to be effected in<br />
<br />
our spelling rules and customs, it must be by<br />
<br />
means of free discussion in the first place. So I<br />
<br />
gladly welcome the criticism of “W. W.S.” on my<br />
note, and equally gladly defer to him on any point<br />
which he can fairly establish against me.<br />
<br />
But let<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
me explain further about words in -able, full in<br />
composition, and the spelling of such words as<br />
connection and inflection.<br />
<br />
1. The object of my note was to gain a hearing<br />
for the simplification of our recognised spelling<br />
rules, and to make them less difficult by minimising<br />
the useless exceptions. My critic would apparently<br />
keep a number of these trying exceptions, because<br />
of the manner in which the words have come inte<br />
our language. For instance, he would keep -iae<br />
because it is Greek and phonetic. The obvious<br />
reply is that -ise is equally phonetic. Ours has two<br />
sounds, and it is no use pretending that we cannot<br />
make z sounds with it—try “nose,” ‘‘eyes,” “flies,”<br />
etc.; or again, he would keep the # in “ connection ”<br />
and “inflection,” because it is etymological and<br />
phonetic. But to spell these words with a c¢ equally<br />
preserves the etymology and the sound, and so<br />
there is no need for the .<br />
<br />
2. I considered myself under the necessity of<br />
brevity, as I do now; and it was under this dis-<br />
advantage that I only partially and awkwardly<br />
explained myself about Latin words in -<b/e. My<br />
idea was to make as many words as possible take<br />
the ending -able, and only to accept -2ble and -wble<br />
when absolutely necessary, on account of long use<br />
through direct derivation from Latin words in<br />
-ibilis. Possibly “W. W. 8.” and I together could<br />
draw up an acceptable list of such words.<br />
<br />
3. For the sake of making some definite rule<br />
which will hold in all cases, I still consider my<br />
suggestion regarding the spelling of fu/? in com-<br />
position worthy of consideration. It is impractic-<br />
able to spell by stress, for pronunciation throughout<br />
England is largely a matter of taste, locality, and<br />
education. For a fixed standard there must be a<br />
fixed rule.<br />
<br />
4. I shall be glad of criticisms on the other<br />
points, e.g., the adding of -ed, ~ing, -er, and other<br />
syllables; the spelling of “ attendance ” and<br />
“dependant,” etc. ; the use of a and an before the<br />
letter A.<br />
<br />
FUR:<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
——<br />
<br />
TYPEWRITING.<br />
To the Editor of THR AUTHOR.<br />
<br />
Srr,—Should any of your readers know of an<br />
intelligent type-writing lady, will they be so kind<br />
as to communicate to me her name and address.<br />
<br />
-GHORGE CECIL.<br />
<br />
Pall Mall Club,<br />
<br />
12, St. James’s Square, 8.W.<br />
September 1st, 1902.<br />
<br />
Che Hutbhor.<br />
<br />
(The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors.<br />
<br />
FOUNDED BY SIR<br />
<br />
Monthly.)<br />
<br />
WALTER BESANT. | https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/477/1902-11-01-The-Author-13-2.pdf | publications, The Author |