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289	https://historysoa.com/items/show/289	The Author, Vol. 06 Issue 12 (May 1896)	<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.+06+Issue+12+%28May+1896%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 Issue 12 (May 1896)</a>			<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</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>	1896-05-01-The-Author-6-12					269–288																		<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=6">6</a>											<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1896-05-01">1896-05-01</a>							12			18960501	C be<br /> El u t b or,<br /> (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors.<br /> Monthly.)<br /> C O N DU C T E D BY W.A. L TER BES.A. N. T.<br /> VoI. VI.-No. 12.]<br /> MAY 1, 1896.<br /> [PRICE SIXPENCE.<br /> For the Opinions eaſpressed in papers that are<br /> signed or initialled the Authors alone are<br /> responsible. None of the papers or para-<br /> graphs must be taken as eaſpressing the<br /> collective opinions of the committee unless<br /> they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br /> Thring, Sec.<br /> ----<br /> HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all<br /> remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and<br /> requests that all members not receiving an answer to<br /> important communications within two days will write to him<br /> without delay. All remittances showld be crossed Union<br /> Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered<br /> letter only.<br /> Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on<br /> all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub-<br /> jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are<br /> returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS.<br /> *- - --→<br /> r- ºr ~,<br /> WARNINGS AND ADWICE,<br /> I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.—It is not generally<br /> understood that the author, as the vendor, has the<br /> absolute right of drafting the agreement upon<br /> whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out.<br /> Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In<br /> every form of business, this among others, the right of<br /> drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or<br /> has the control of the property.<br /> 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.–In selling Serial Rights remember<br /> that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that<br /> is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you<br /> object to this, insert a clause to that effect.<br /> 3. STAMP YOUR AGREEMENTS. — Readers are most<br /> DRGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements<br /> immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected<br /> for two weeks, a fine of £10 must be paid before the agree-<br /> ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every<br /> case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter<br /> which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The<br /> author may be assured that the other party to the agree-<br /> ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society,<br /> to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of<br /> members stamped for them at no eaſpense to themselves<br /> eaccept the cost of the stamp.<br /> 4. ASCERTAIN WHAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVEs To<br /> BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an<br /> WOL. WI.<br /> arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi-<br /> ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party<br /> refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he<br /> reserved for himself.<br /> 5. LITERARY AGENTs.—Be very careful. You cannot be<br /> too careful as to the person whom you appoint as your<br /> agent. Remember that you place your property almost un-<br /> reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting<br /> the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience<br /> of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone.<br /> 6. COST OF PRODUCTION.——Never sign any agreement of<br /> which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part,<br /> until you have proved the figures.<br /> 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.–Never enter into any cor-<br /> respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad-<br /> vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced<br /> friends or by this Society.<br /> 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever,<br /> bind yourself down for future work to anyone.<br /> 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or<br /> responsibility whatever without advice.<br /> IO. R.E.JECTED MSS.—Never, when a M.S. has been re-<br /> fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises<br /> they may put forward, for the production of the work.<br /> I I. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American<br /> rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any<br /> agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the<br /> publisher, unless for a substantial consideration.<br /> 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper,<br /> either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright,<br /> without advice.<br /> I3. ADVERTISEMENTS. — Keep some control over the<br /> advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in<br /> the agreement.<br /> I4. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any<br /> other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy,<br /> charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with<br /> business men. Be yourself a business man. -<br /> Society’s Offices : —<br /> 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN&#039;s INN FIELDs.<br /> *~ 2- 2–º<br /> HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY,<br /> I. VERY member has a right to ask 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 /> business or the administration of his property. If the advice<br /> Sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member<br /> has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the<br /> case is such that Counsel&#039;s opinion is desirable, the Com-<br /> H. H. 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#624) ################################################<br /> <br /> 27O<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this<br /> without any cost to the member.<br /> 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br /> and publisher&#039;s agreements do not generally fall within the<br /> experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br /> to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually<br /> engaged upon such questions for us.<br /> 3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past<br /> accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in<br /> order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree-<br /> ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively<br /> so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any<br /> agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor-<br /> mation thus obtained may prove invaluable.<br /> 4. If the examination of your previous business trans-<br /> actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should<br /> take advice as to a change of publishers.<br /> 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro-<br /> posed document to the Society for examination.<br /> 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in<br /> the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish-<br /> ing firm in the country.<br /> 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you<br /> are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are<br /> reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing<br /> the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen-<br /> dence of the writer.<br /> 8. Send to the Editor of the Awthor notes of everything<br /> important to literature that you may hear or meet with.<br /> 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of<br /> members’ agreements and their preservation in a fireproof<br /> safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con-<br /> fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who<br /> will keep the key of the safe. The Society mow offers –(I)<br /> To read and advise upon agreements and publishers.<br /> stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon<br /> them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments<br /> due according to agreements.<br /> &gt;<br /> cº<br /> THE AUTHORS&#039; SYNDICATE,<br /> EMBERS are informed :<br /> 1. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate takes charge of<br /> the business of members of the Society. That it<br /> submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree-<br /> ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene-<br /> rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business<br /> details.<br /> 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured<br /> will be forwarded upon detailed application.<br /> 3. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate works only for those<br /> members of the Society whose work possesses a market<br /> value.<br /> 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations<br /> whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia-<br /> tions are placed ea clusively in its hands, and that all<br /> communications relating thereto are referred to it.<br /> 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by<br /> appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days&#039;<br /> notice should be given.<br /> 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi-<br /> cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent<br /> o defray postage.<br /> (2) To<br /> 7. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate does not invite MSS.<br /> without previous correspondence; does not hold itself<br /> responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that<br /> in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray<br /> postage.<br /> 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for<br /> lectures by some of the leading members of the Society;<br /> that it has a “Transfer Department’’ for the sale and<br /> purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register<br /> of Wants and Wanted &#039;&#039; is open. Members are invited to<br /> communicate their requirements to the Manager.<br /> There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services<br /> will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It<br /> is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the<br /> Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in<br /> the Syndicate.<br /> NOTICES.<br /> HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the<br /> Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br /> of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very<br /> heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br /> many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br /> 6s. 6d. subscription for the year.<br /> The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and<br /> communications on all subjects connected with literature<br /> from members and others. Nothing can do more good to<br /> the Society than to make the Author complete, attractive,<br /> and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this<br /> work send their names and the special subjects on which<br /> they are willing to write P<br /> Communications for the Author should reach the Editor<br /> not later than the 21st of each month.<br /> All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether<br /> members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate<br /> to the Editor any points connected with their work which<br /> it would be advisable in the general interest to publish.<br /> Members and others who wish their MSS. read are<br /> requested not to send them to the Office without previously<br /> communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable<br /> despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in<br /> which they are received. It must also be distinctly under-<br /> stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances,<br /> undertake the publication of MSS.<br /> The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at<br /> 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary<br /> for information, rules of admission, &amp;c.<br /> Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br /> have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do<br /> this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker&#039;s<br /> order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the<br /> trouble of sending out a reminder.<br /> Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br /> warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a<br /> most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding<br /> for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they<br /> would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five<br /> years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest<br /> or dishonest ? Of course they would not. Why then<br /> hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them-<br /> selves into literary bondage for three or five years P<br /> Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are<br /> requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15<br /> per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble<br /> of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the<br /> pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#625) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 271<br /> is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be<br /> added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands<br /> at £9 4s. The figures in our book are as near the exact<br /> truth as can be procured; but a printer&#039;s, or a binder’s,<br /> bill is so elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be<br /> arrived at.<br /> Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br /> in the “Cost of Production ” for advertising. Of course, we<br /> have not included any sums which may be charged for<br /> inserting advertisements in the publisher&#039;s own magazines,<br /> or in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too<br /> often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from<br /> sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket,<br /> by inserting any number of advertisements in his own<br /> magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are<br /> who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those<br /> who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it.<br /> *-<br /> r- - ---e.<br /> FROM THE COMMITTEE,<br /> T a meeting of the Committee held on<br /> Wednesday, the 18th inst., it was decided,<br /> as it had been impossible to arrange the<br /> Authors’ Society dinner in May, to postpone the<br /> date until the autumn. It was also decided to<br /> have a soirée after the dinner as usual. When<br /> the date is settled the notices will be issued from<br /> the office.<br /> The Committee are at present engaged in<br /> considering the question of a reform in the<br /> Copyright Law.<br /> G. HERBERT THRING, Secretary.<br /> April 28, 1896.<br /> LITERARY PROPERTY.<br /> I.—CANADIAN COPYRIGHT.<br /> LETTER on this subject addressed to Mr.<br /> Goldwin Smith by Mr. Henry Charles Lea,<br /> of Philadelphia, has been sent by the former<br /> to the Times (April 27). The writer points out, as<br /> if it were a new thing, that the real aim of the pro-<br /> posed legislation on the subject is the American<br /> market, and that if a certain section of Canadian<br /> legislators have their way, the long fought for, and<br /> hardly won, International Copyright will be more<br /> certainly lost. It is absurd to suppose that Mr.<br /> Hall Caine was ignorant of this danger when he<br /> went to Canada last autumn. The whole object<br /> of his mission was to avert that danger. Recent<br /> alarms and newer dangers have for the moment<br /> obscured this; but it still remains. Mr Lea’s<br /> letter reminds us of what we all knew very well<br /> eight months ago: it is useful as a reminder,<br /> though as a warning it comes too late. The gist<br /> of the reminder is in the following paragraph :<br /> tion of sales in the United States. Its most serious aspect<br /> is the peril to which it exposes the Act of 1891, which<br /> permits the copyright of English books in this country,<br /> subject to the condition of manufacture here. For fifty<br /> years there has not been a copyright measure discussed in<br /> which I have not taken a more or less active part, and I am<br /> familiar with the influences which for so many years<br /> prevented the enactment of international copyright, and<br /> which finally secured the adoption of the existing law. So<br /> long as the labour interests opposed it there was no chance<br /> of its passage. When they were won over to its support it<br /> was adopted, though not without prolonged exertion against<br /> strenuous opposition. If it be once fairly understood that<br /> Canadian printers are enjoying an advantage which is<br /> denied to our labour and is used to its detriment, there is<br /> no little danger that the labour organisations will seek to<br /> undo the work in which they assisted five years ago; and,<br /> if once aroused to this, you know as well as I do how<br /> respectfully their remonstrances will be received. If you<br /> have means of warning the English interests which are<br /> threatened, it would be wise for you to do so, for I am sure<br /> that they do not recognise the danger inherent in the<br /> present and prospective anomalous condition of Canadian<br /> copyright.<br /> II.--THE “Twent IETH CENTURY.”<br /> The following paragraph is taken from the<br /> Westminster Gazette :-<br /> “In the Queen&#039;s Bench Division to-day, before<br /> Mr. Justice Grantham, sitting without a jury,<br /> Dr. Forbes Winslow sued Mr. Graham, the<br /> editor of the Twentieth Century, for £48, for two<br /> magazine articles supplied in May and June, 1895.<br /> The price agreed upon was £2 a page, and the<br /> articles ran to twenty-four pages. Defendant was<br /> not represented, and judgment was entered for<br /> the plaintiff for the amount claimed, with costs.”<br /> Readers are requested to take a note of this<br /> case. The secretary has in his hands claims of<br /> the same kind against the same person repre-<br /> senting, together, over £60. He does not take<br /> action for the reason that it would be of no use,<br /> as the defendant has disappeared.<br /> III.-Associate D AUTHORs’ PUBLISHING<br /> CoMPANY.<br /> I have read with much interest your admirable<br /> review of the prospectus of this company, in your<br /> last issue, and your remarks seem to me to be very<br /> much to the point. You say that, given certain<br /> conditions, there can be no doubt whatever that<br /> an immense business awaits such a company.<br /> These conditions you specify as, (1) Sufficient<br /> capital; (2) An established business; (3) A<br /> manager of probity and experience; (4) “Methods<br /> of publishing based upon the points always<br /> advocated by the Society,” viz.: (5) No secret<br /> profits; (6) No charge for unpaid advertise-<br /> , ments; (7) A full understanding of what the<br /> The importance of the matter to the English author and iſ agreement means on both sides; (8) The right<br /> publisher, however, by no means rests solely on the diminu-<br /> of access to the author&#039;s own books; (9) The con-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#626) ################################################<br /> <br /> 272<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> fidence of authors; and (IO) professions honourably<br /> carried out.<br /> These points, I think, cover the ground abso-<br /> lutely, and I can give English authors the most<br /> complete assurance that the importance of each<br /> has been foreseen and special provision made to<br /> meet it. -<br /> It has been felt that the question of honest and<br /> accurate book-keeping would be a very important<br /> one from the authors&#039; point of view, and after<br /> careful reflection it has been decided to secure the<br /> services of some eminent firm of accountants,<br /> known both in London and New York, for the<br /> purpose not only of auditing the accounts but of<br /> keeping them properly posted up.<br /> Messrs. Price, Waterhouse and Co. have agents<br /> in this city—Messrs. Jones and Caesar, chartered<br /> accountants—and they have been seen on the<br /> subject, and preliminary arrangements discussed<br /> for the proper keeping and auditing of the<br /> company’s books. This question will be settled<br /> at an early date. -<br /> The standing of the incorporators and directors<br /> will no doubt influence the members of your<br /> Society. General James Grant Wilson is president<br /> of the American Authors’ Guild and is himself a<br /> well-known author; Mr. Frank R. Lawrence is<br /> president of the world-renowned Lotos Club,<br /> whose hospitality so many of England&#039;s most<br /> illustrious men have enjoyed both under his<br /> presidency and that of Mr. Whitelaw Read, pro-<br /> prietor of the New York Tribune and late<br /> American minister to Paris. Mr. Lawrence is an<br /> eminent counsel. Col. Sickely is late American<br /> minister to Siam and vice-president of the great<br /> American Surety Company. Hon. R. S. Ransom is<br /> late surrogate of New York. It is unnecessary to<br /> go further. New York has no better or sounder<br /> business men than these, and all are interested<br /> in literature and acquainted with the publishing<br /> business.<br /> It is expected that this company will begin<br /> business immediately.<br /> - C. L. BETTS, Sec. pro tem.<br /> *— = -º<br /> e- - -<br /> NEW YORK LETTER,<br /> April 17, 1896.<br /> - HE number of short stories of New England<br /> T life published during the last year is un-<br /> usual. It is true that the number of<br /> short stories of all kinds published during<br /> the year was unusual; it is true also that<br /> Americans produce short stories in much<br /> greater number, and of a much higher degree<br /> of excellence, than their novels; but even after<br /> these two things are taken into consideration<br /> the especial attention given to New England<br /> life is noticeable. Just why the short story is<br /> in so much favour here cannot be dogmatically<br /> stated; the publishers are said not to favour<br /> them, yet last fall some of the leading publishers<br /> published more volumes of them than they did of<br /> novels. Commenting on the superiority of our<br /> stories to our novels, Mr. Howell asks: “Is this<br /> so because the American life is scrappy and<br /> desultory, and instinctively seeks its expression in<br /> the sketch, the little tale, the miniature romance;<br /> or because the short story seems in all literatures<br /> to find its development earlier than the full-sized<br /> novel? Did our skill in writing short stories<br /> create the demand for them in the magazines, or<br /> did the demand of the magazines foster the skill P<br /> If the reader likes them so much in the maga-<br /> zines that the editors feel they must supply them<br /> at all hazards, why should they abhor them so<br /> much in the bound volume P”<br /> Each month seems to give a greater sign that<br /> the publishers abhor less and less the short stories<br /> in volumes. Where we have one novelist of high<br /> and deserved reputation, we have a number of<br /> story-tellers. In studies of Western life, Bret<br /> Harte, and now Hamlin Garland and Owen Wister,<br /> give us some of our best writings. On New<br /> England there are several writers who, in substance<br /> and especially in execution, are among the first,<br /> Miss Mary E. Wilkins and Miss Sarah Orne Jewett<br /> being easily first. In the works of each of these<br /> writers there is a thorough mastery of the New<br /> England types, combined with a sufficiency and<br /> lack of redundance of means that is not<br /> approached by any of the newer comers in the<br /> field of New England fiction. It is, however, of<br /> the less known names that this paper is to say a<br /> few words.<br /> First in importance among writers of New<br /> England stories whom the past year has brought<br /> into notice is Alice Brown. Her first book,<br /> “Meadow Grass,” published last summer by Cope-<br /> land and Day, of Boston, gives promise that she<br /> will shortly stand on a level with Miss Jewett<br /> and Miss Wilkins. Although she deals, like them,<br /> with the homely, well-known New England<br /> characters and events, in which humour and<br /> pathos are brought nearer together by being set<br /> in the bleakness of the physical surroundings,<br /> the crudity of expression, and the stern, ascetic<br /> Puritan spirit, her study is altogether first hand,<br /> and suggests no other writers. Her tone is less<br /> severe than that of Miss Wilkins, but she has<br /> much of the same austerity. She is more fond<br /> of humour than Miss Wilkins, and this is both<br /> a merit and a fault. It sometimes gives charm<br /> to her stories, and sometimes leads her to weaken<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#627) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 273<br /> them by prolixity.<br /> entertaining, and is not used to excess. Her<br /> touch in suggesting the intimate, especially the<br /> lighter, details of the New England country life,<br /> is particularly happy. The reputation which less<br /> than a year has established seems to be well<br /> founded.<br /> “Tales of the Maine Coast,” by Noah Brooks,<br /> published by Charles Scribner&#039;s Sons, should be<br /> mentioned in an account of recent New England<br /> fiction, although it was published a little over a<br /> year ago. His stories deal mainly with life in<br /> seaport towns, and bring in close contrast the<br /> native village traits and the odd bits of foreign<br /> life brought by the sailors. No one has recently<br /> given the character of these amphibious towns in<br /> some ways as well as Mr. Brooks.<br /> “Lover&#039;s Saint Ruth&#039;s, by Louise Imogene<br /> Guiney, published last year by Copeland and Day,<br /> is the writer&#039;s first attempt at fiction, although<br /> she has been well known in other branches of<br /> literature for some years. She touches in this<br /> volume some aspects of New England life with<br /> decided intelligence, but without any natural gift<br /> of narration.<br /> Another little book, “The Love Story of Ursula<br /> Wolcott,” is announced for an early appearance<br /> by Lamson, Wolffe, and Company, of Boston. It<br /> is to be a tale of early New England life, and to be<br /> historical. The same firm has recently issued a<br /> book by Mrs. Harrison, called “A Virginia Cousin<br /> and Bar Harbor Tales,” which are popular, but<br /> of no special value. They announce a novel by<br /> John P. Wheelwright, author of “Rollo&#039;s Journey<br /> to Cambridge,” which is to portray New England<br /> types of character at the time of the war of 1812.<br /> This firm, like several others of our newest firms,<br /> pay special attention to sectional stories, especially<br /> by new writers. They have another novel by F. J.<br /> Stimson (J. S. of Dale), who wrote “Guerndale.”<br /> during his law school course at Harvard and made<br /> his reputation at once, but since then has given<br /> most of his time to the law, although his ten or<br /> twelve books of fiction show him to be one of our<br /> strongest writers. This story will deal with early<br /> life in Devonshire and the early settlement of the<br /> American colonies. As he has worked for five<br /> years on the novel, it is likely to be of some<br /> permanent importance, as the writer&#039;s work has<br /> unusually strong dramatic qualities as well as<br /> subtle character drawing. By the same writer, a<br /> novel called “Pirate Gold,” a story of Boston in<br /> the middle of this century, is published by<br /> Houghton, Mifflin and Co., of Boston. It<br /> reproduces with a great deal of charm the special<br /> social characteristics of the town.<br /> Copeland and Day, also one of the newer firms<br /> of Boston, announce a New England story by<br /> Pier dialect is accurate and<br /> William M. Cole, formerly a Harvard professor;<br /> and they have also recently published “Moody’s<br /> Lodging House,” a collection of stories of Boston<br /> life, which has had considerable vogue.<br /> The Chicago firm of Way and Williams, also<br /> but a few years old, publishes a volume of New<br /> England stories by Mrs. Madeline Yale Wynne,<br /> a new comer in the field. She has considerable<br /> skill, especially in plot, but the thread of her<br /> stories is very slight, and their execution not<br /> distinguished.<br /> Among the stories published by Copeland and<br /> Day within a few months is “An Old Man&#039;s<br /> Romance,” by Christopher Craigie. Although<br /> this book, which is also a first attempt, has no<br /> special power, it is remarkably full of the real,<br /> typical New England spirit. It deals less with<br /> the picturesque externals which tempt most<br /> writers, and more with the social spirit as it<br /> seems to persons who have been long familiar<br /> with it.<br /> Bliss Perry is a writer already known for his<br /> pictures of New England life. “The Plated<br /> City,” published by Scribners, gives a picture of<br /> the social atmosphere in one of the New England<br /> manufacturing towns, which for distinctness,<br /> vividness, and faithfulness deserves a high place.<br /> These towns bring into sharp contrast the lowly<br /> life of the mill operatives and the prosperous life<br /> of those who have made their fortunes in the<br /> business. These classes are sharply separated<br /> geographically, the low lands being occupied by<br /> the poorer classes, and the hills further from the<br /> rivers by the rich. It is especially the picture of<br /> the more prosperous parts of such populations<br /> that Mr. Perry gives, but when he does touch<br /> the poorer parts of the town he is equally success-<br /> ful. His stories are romantic and old fashioned<br /> in a sense, but deal with entirely modern<br /> problems.<br /> An accidental find of considerable interest in<br /> New England literature was made by Lamson,<br /> Wolffe, and Co. of two essays by Ralph Waldo<br /> Emerson that date from his college days. One is<br /> a study of Socrates, and the other a study of<br /> the state of ethics at that time. Both are crude<br /> and decidedly young, but of importance in any<br /> study of Emerson&#039;s development.<br /> D. Appleton and Co. have issued recently<br /> several books dealing with New England life. “In<br /> Old New England,” by Hezekiah Butterworth, is<br /> a popular novel of a crude, fairly clever story-<br /> teller. “In Defiance of the King,” by Chauncey<br /> C. Hotchkiss, another first work, has some value<br /> as to plot, but is rambling, and, although it<br /> deals with important facts in American history,<br /> has no value as a character study either of indi-<br /> viduals or of the times. A stronger story than<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#628) ################################################<br /> <br /> 274<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> either of these deals not with New England, but<br /> with life in a closely neighbouring State, Penn-<br /> sylvania, among a class of labourers in the<br /> mining and manufacturing towns who have been<br /> very little studied. It is called “Stone Pastures,”<br /> is by Eleanor Stuart, and has vividness and<br /> strength enough to give promise. -<br /> Among the new books of interest is a novel by<br /> Gilbert Parker, called “The Pomp of the Lavil-<br /> lettes,” a story of forty-five thousand words, of<br /> which the scene is in Canada, and the story<br /> relates to the French-Canadian War. This has<br /> not yet been announced, but will be within two or<br /> three weeks.<br /> Another story by Gilbert Parker, “The Seats of<br /> the Mighty,” a romance of old Quebec, is pub-<br /> lished by D. Appleton and Co.<br /> Miss Ida C. Tarbell’s “Madame Roland’” is<br /> one of the most valuable books of the year. It<br /> will be handled by the Scribners in England.<br /> Miss Tarbell is one of our most conscientious<br /> students of history, and has within a few years<br /> gained a high reputation through her lives of<br /> Napoleon and Lincoln, which appeared serially in<br /> M“Clure’s Magazine. Next fall she will study<br /> in London preparatory to writing a history of<br /> that part of Lincoln&#039;s life which is connected<br /> with the Civil War. During five years of<br /> study in Paris, she obtained evidence about the<br /> life of Madame Roland which had not hitherto<br /> been used by biographers. These new letters<br /> showed that Madame Roland at one time sought<br /> a title, and they show the more important fact<br /> that at the time of her marriage she was passion-<br /> ately in love with her husband. All earlier<br /> biographers have accepted the statement made in<br /> her journal, that the marriage was one of cool<br /> reason. Miss Tarbell is able to show conclusively<br /> that this story was made up by Madame Roland<br /> after she was hopelessly in love with Buzot.<br /> Miss Tarbell goes deeply into the general move-<br /> ments of the Revolution with which her heroine<br /> was associated, and on them, as on the individual,<br /> she has produced a valuable study.<br /> Rudyard Kipling has come down from his<br /> home in Vermont to spend two weeks in the<br /> city. He has just finished his first serial, which<br /> deals entirely with American character. It is a<br /> tale of the sea, of a fishing fleet. The serial<br /> rights have not yet been disposed of.<br /> . The fourth volume of Theodore Roosevelt’s<br /> “Winning of the West” is published this month<br /> by Putnam. It covers the North-West and<br /> Louisiana, and brings the story down to 1809.<br /> On March 30, J. Selwin Tait, a New York<br /> publisher, started again by a letter to a newspaper<br /> the discussion about the present fortunes of<br /> American Literature—a subject which just now is<br /> very much in vogue. He speaks especially of the<br /> dark outlook for the native novelist. The result,<br /> of his reading of the thousands of manuscripts<br /> submitted to him is that the young American<br /> novelist has as much ability as the English<br /> beginner, though of a different kind. He is on<br /> the average less wordy, more sympathet c, and<br /> quicker to learn, but is over-confident, less<br /> patient, and more slovenly, and less willing to<br /> work. Mr. Tait gives several reasons for the cloud<br /> which he believes is hanging over American fiction.<br /> He says that last year foreign authors contributed<br /> two-thirds of the presentable fiction published<br /> in this country, whereas American authors con-<br /> tributed less than I per cent. of the fiction pub-<br /> lished abroad. The Io cent magazines, which<br /> have a very large circulation, and are supported<br /> mainly by advertisements, publish a great deal of<br /> fiction, and this cuts into the heart of the book<br /> trade and lessens the demand for new works.<br /> The daily papers are also blamed, on the ground<br /> that their sensational nature is doing much to<br /> spoil the public taste for fiction of the better<br /> kind. He thinks that the papers also fail to do.<br /> their duty in not giving more space to reviews of<br /> domestic literature. This subject was discussed<br /> the other night at a meeting of the Lanthorn<br /> Club given to Mr. Stephen Crane, author of the<br /> “Red Badge of Courage,” in which Mr. W. D.<br /> Howells took a view directly the contrary of that<br /> of Mr. Tait. He thought that the work of Mr.<br /> Crane, like that of Miss Wilkins and Miss<br /> Jewett, showed that the work produced by<br /> American story-tellers and novelists was as good<br /> as that produced anywhere, and would be recog-<br /> nised in a short time, if it is not already.<br /> *- &gt; *<br /> *<br /> NOTES FROM PARIS.<br /> HERE is one unpleasant day every year in<br /> M. Emile Zola&#039;s life, and that day is<br /> rapidly coming round upon him once<br /> more. On this day his pen will be busily<br /> occupied for some hours in a task unremune-<br /> rative and tedious. He will have to go to<br /> Charpentier&#039;s warehouse, where, in an office<br /> specially arranged for the purpose, he will find<br /> stacked up some hundred copies of his new novel<br /> “Rome.” There will be two tables in the room.<br /> At one of these M. Zola will seat himself; at<br /> the other will be a clerk with a book of addresses<br /> before him. Another clerk will stand between<br /> the stack of volumes and the table at which<br /> the master is seated. Zola will sigh and say<br /> “Allons.” Then a copy of the book will be<br /> handed to him, and at the same time the clerk<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#629) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 275<br /> with the address-book will read out the first name<br /> on his list. Then Zola will write on the fly-leaf<br /> of the volume his “ dédicace,” the formula of<br /> which will vary according to the degree of<br /> intimacy in which he stands towards this person.<br /> For strangers, amongst the pressmen and re-<br /> viewers who are entitled to receive presentation<br /> copies of his book, he will merely write “A<br /> Monsieur X., son dévoué confrère.” For a friend,<br /> or a brother author of distinction, he will write<br /> several lines of comment and compliment. This<br /> will go on until the whole stack of yellow backs<br /> has been exhausted, when Zola will throw down<br /> his pen with an “Ouf!” of relief and go off to<br /> lunch at Foyot&#039;s. There are more presentation<br /> copies of Zola&#039;s books distributed than of any<br /> other French author, and Zola makes a point of<br /> writing an autograph dédicace in each.<br /> Journalism and literature in France most often<br /> lead to a political career and to office, though the<br /> very highest office in France is usually given to<br /> the candidate who has attracted least attention<br /> to himself. In most cases men who have passed<br /> from journalism to politics do not return to it.<br /> There are, however, notable exceptions. There is<br /> Henri Rochefort, who threw up his seat in the<br /> Chamber because his political work did not leave<br /> him enough time for his journalism. But a more<br /> striking example is Clemenceau ; more striking<br /> because, whilst Rochefort never took any pro-<br /> minent part in politics at the Chamber, Clemenceau<br /> was always a most ardent politician, ever forming<br /> Ministries or overthrowing them. Well, he too,<br /> like Rochefort, to use the expression of Monsieur<br /> Thiers when he had resigned the Presidency, has<br /> returned to his chères études. And so notable a<br /> success has he made of it, that we who read the<br /> French papers cannot but regret the many years<br /> that Clemenceau was talking when he might<br /> have been writing. It is true he was writing all<br /> the time, for nearly every day he contributed an<br /> article to his own paper, La Justice, but that was<br /> political writing of limited interest, whereas now<br /> he gives us critiques, feuilletons, and general<br /> articles, which are as good as anything in the<br /> French Press. Everybody looks out for the<br /> Clemenceau article in Le Journal, and Daudet<br /> has often said to me that with Coppée Clemenceau<br /> is the foremost journalist in France. He seems<br /> to write, and to write well, on every conceivable<br /> subject. I think that his last article was about<br /> a man with a tail, who had been discovered in<br /> Annam, and on this subject Clemenceau wrote<br /> two sparkling columns. The politician, of course,<br /> always betrays himself. For instance, he con-<br /> cludes the article on “The Man with a Tail”<br /> in the following words: “All we need now is<br /> the man with a tail. The Government has him.<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> Tet the Government show him to us, instead<br /> of keeping him selfishly for its own enjoyment.<br /> This should be easier to do than to reform<br /> taxation.” - -<br /> Gounod&#039;s Memoirs have been published by<br /> Calman-Levy under the title of “Memoires d&#039;un<br /> Artiste.” The book is made up of articles<br /> written by Gounod and various letters to and<br /> from him. It divides itself into “Memoires de<br /> Jeunesse” and “Souvenirs Artistiques.” His<br /> account of the difficulties he had in getting a<br /> hearing for Faust should prove interesting to<br /> brother artists who have had similar experiences.<br /> We very nearly missed having Faust altogether.<br /> It was refused everywhere: publisher after pub-<br /> lisher bundled it back. At the first performance<br /> it was nearly hooted off the stage. Jules<br /> Massenet has often told me of that memorable<br /> night. At that time he was playing in the<br /> orchestra, where he wielded the cymbals. He<br /> said that he was so enraged with the public for<br /> hissing what he considered a masterpiece that it<br /> was with difficulty that he restrained himself<br /> from jumping over the partition and using his<br /> cymbals on the blockheads in the orchestra stalls.<br /> Another interesting volume of memoirs is the<br /> second of Rochefort&#039;s autobiography, which takes<br /> us from the author&#039;s first exile up to the Com-<br /> mune. The third volume, dealing mainly with<br /> the part that Rochefort played in these troubled<br /> times, should be still more interesting, as it will<br /> give him an opportunity of vindicating his con-<br /> duct, which has been bitterly attacked. But I<br /> think most people will look with most anticipation<br /> for the story of his connection with the unfor-<br /> tunate General Boulanger. That, however, will<br /> not come for some time yet. -<br /> At a recent literary soirée the idea was pro-<br /> pounded that the immense popularity of some<br /> books may be attributed to the fact that, public<br /> interest having been whetted by preceding works<br /> on the same subject, they arrive at the psycho-<br /> logical moment, so the authors of the preceding<br /> works, by being too previous, act only as the<br /> pioneers of the success of the book which comes<br /> just at the right moment. A number of instances<br /> were cited which bore out this theory. Sic vos<br /> mon vobis might be said to the pioneer authors.<br /> I know of more than once French writer who<br /> has adopted the typewriter. Daudet tried it,<br /> but abandoned its use, as the noise was too great<br /> for his nerves. The French printers are delighted<br /> at the increasing popularity of the machine-pen.<br /> This, I believe, is the opposite of what was mani-<br /> fested by English printers when the machine<br /> first came into general use for the production of<br /> copy. But, then, was there not some talk of<br /> reducing the rates per IOOO ems, for type set up<br /> I I<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#630) ################################################<br /> <br /> 276<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> from typed copy P. In France no master would<br /> dare to suggest such a diminution, as the working<br /> printers are a very powerful body. And as<br /> most French hommes de lettres write a terrible<br /> hand, the advantage to the printers is great.<br /> Much of the MS. copy sent into the composing-<br /> room of a French newspaper would be absolutely<br /> undecipherable to an English comp. Your<br /> French homme de lettres often prides himself on<br /> the number of erasures, corrections, and addenda<br /> On his page.<br /> Balzac is still famous amongst French printers<br /> for his beautiful copy, but then Balzac reserved<br /> his corrections, erasures, and addenda for the<br /> first proofs. These were so numerous that most<br /> of his royalties were swallowed up by the<br /> expenses.<br /> A pretty present was sent me the other day<br /> from Hawkshead. It was a Paschal-egg, or<br /> Easter-egg, carved by James Dixon, who was<br /> for forty years valet to William Wordsworth.<br /> After the poet&#039;s death he went to live at Hawks-<br /> head, and used to spend most of his time in<br /> carving Paschal-eggs with his pocket-knife. He<br /> had gone into Wordsworth’s service from the<br /> workhouse, and was much attached to his master.<br /> The cottage at Hawkshead, where Wordsworth<br /> lived as a boy, when he was attending Hawks-<br /> head Grammar School, was recently taken by a<br /> lady who lives in America, and has been hand-<br /> somely furnished. She does not, however, appear<br /> to have any intention of living there.<br /> ROBERT H. SHERARD.<br /> *-- ~ *-*<br /> NOTES AND NEWS,<br /> T has been resolved by the Committee to hold<br /> | the annual dinner of the Society in the<br /> autumn instead of May or June. This step<br /> has been often advised, chiefly on account of the<br /> great number of functions which are held in the<br /> spring months, some of which always interfere with<br /> our own. It has also been suggested that after<br /> the dinner there should be one speech only, after<br /> which a conversazione should be held. The late<br /> after dinner gatherings have hitherto been too<br /> short on account of the long speeches made at the<br /> dinner.<br /> A member of the Society sends me the circular<br /> of a newly-established agency for playwriters. I<br /> do not present the name of the agent, because, as<br /> I know nothing at all about him, I should be<br /> unwilling to seem to be recommending him on<br /> the one hand, or, on the other, to be saying any-<br /> thing that might injure him. We have said so<br /> * -<br /> much in favour of the literary agent that the<br /> playwriters&#039; agent might expect some considera-<br /> tion as well. Now, it is notorious that the<br /> number of plays written and submitted to managers<br /> is, like the articles submitted to editors, very far<br /> above the number which can be produced; and,<br /> for many reasons, it is, and always must be, very<br /> much more difficult to get a play put on the stage<br /> than to get a MS. published in a magazine. The<br /> managers, however, keep their theatres open<br /> under the present system : they seem never at a<br /> loss for a new play : and it is not easy to discover<br /> in what way an agent can be useful to them.<br /> How then can an agent help a candidate for the<br /> stage P Let us see how this agent before us<br /> proposes to help. First, he will give the author,<br /> for a small fee, a “thoroughly competent” opinion<br /> of his work; if the opinion is favourable he will<br /> “use his utmost influence and energy&quot; to get the<br /> play accepted by a manager. There is more:<br /> but this is the only important part. If the agent<br /> gets hold of a good play he will try to introduce<br /> it. This brings us to the important question of<br /> the qualifications of such an agent. They seem<br /> to be : first, that he should know a good play<br /> when he reads one; next, that he must be<br /> personally acquainted with, and trusted by,<br /> managers or actors or both. Of course, he must<br /> also be an entirely honourable person. This is<br /> understood without further words. Now, if any<br /> of our readers desire to avail themselves of such a<br /> dramatic agent they are hereby invited to con-<br /> sider carefully the following advice and warning:<br /> Let them ascertain for whom the agent has<br /> worked before they entrust any work to him : let<br /> them find out who knows him : who recommends<br /> him ; and what is his “record,” so far. If in all<br /> these points their inquiries prove satisfactory,<br /> they may save themselves a great deal of trouble<br /> by going to him. Whether he will be able to<br /> persuade managers to produce their pieces is quite<br /> another matter. -<br /> The first and inaugural meeting of the Society<br /> of Publishers was held at Stationers&#039; Hall, on<br /> Tuesday, the 21st April last. The proceedings<br /> consisted of the presidential address by Mr.<br /> Charles J. Longman. The address was eminently<br /> Calculated to inspire confidence that the new<br /> Society, whilst prepared to stand firmly for<br /> the rights of publishers, is not contemplating<br /> destructive measures against the two classes on<br /> whom publishers live and flourish—viz., those<br /> who do the real work: the authors and the book-<br /> sellers. This Society will welcome Mr. Long-<br /> man&#039;s Sober and sensible address, and will gladly<br /> recognise in the words of the President a sincere<br /> desire that their business should be conducted<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#631) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 277<br /> fairly and equitably ; which, of course, means,<br /> among other things, that both parties should<br /> know what proportion of the returns by any<br /> agreement shall go to each.<br /> It is said that a certain writer, enraged, justly<br /> or unjustly, at his treatment by the reviewers, has<br /> resolved that in future he will not allow any of his<br /> books to be sent to the Press for review. As editors<br /> can hardly be expected to buy books for review,<br /> this means that in future he will dispense with the<br /> publicity and therefore, in a sense, the assistance<br /> hitherto given him by the critic. The question<br /> arises whether this course of action is wise or not.<br /> First, what does he gain by it P. He will get rid<br /> of the reviewer: not only the incompetent, the<br /> venomous, and the lying reviewer: but he will<br /> also get rid of the honourable, capable, and con-<br /> scientious reviewer—the truest friend to literature<br /> that exists. It is, of course, exasperating for a<br /> writer to find his book “slated” venomously by<br /> some anonymous person who shows in every line<br /> that he has not read the book : observe, that to<br /> “slate” a book is perfectly easy without reading<br /> it; but to praise it requires first some study of the<br /> book, otherwise the reviewer is certain to make<br /> blunders that will expose him. Next, it will be a<br /> relief to him to feel that the man who does not read<br /> will not review. At the same time, in order to<br /> get rid of him, he must at the same time lose the<br /> unbiassed and impartial and conscientious critic.<br /> But there are other losses: he will throw away a<br /> large and very valuable advertisement of his<br /> his book. If fifty press copies are sent round and<br /> forty notices appear; if only half are appreciative,<br /> what an excellent and wide-spread recommenda-<br /> tion is thus given On the whole, it seems better<br /> to go on under the present system; to groan<br /> under the affliction of the venomous and the<br /> incompetent, and to be thankful for the man who<br /> understands the duties and the responsibities of<br /> his post.<br /> A letter has been written to the Times by “An<br /> Author” concerning the payment of income tax.<br /> It was needless to write to the Times, because his<br /> solicitor would have set that matter straight for<br /> him with no difficulty whatever. The letter, how-<br /> ever, was useful in calling attention to the fact<br /> that the “office expenses” or “outgoings” of an<br /> author must be taken into account whether in<br /> sending in an income tax return or in sending<br /> in an agreement to a publisher. The writer of<br /> the letter says, “I wrote a book not long ago<br /> about a distant country. In order to make<br /> myself competent to treat the subject I spent<br /> three-fourths of the price in visiting and studying<br /> it.” By the “price” he means the sum for<br /> which he parted with this literary estate of his.<br /> The principle applies to almost every kind of<br /> book. Here, for instance, before me is a volume<br /> of literary essays. The investment of house,<br /> furniture, library, and years of study, corresponds<br /> exactly to the publisher&#039;s investment of capital,<br /> time and work of clerks, personal services, atten-<br /> tion and experience. In the case of a book of<br /> travels, of course, there is an enormous preliminary<br /> outlay which can hardly ever be recouped. In<br /> fiction work it would seem as if all came straight<br /> from the brain. Not at all : it comes from observa-<br /> tion of humanity, and it means sketches, journeys,<br /> observations, books, all kinds of things. For<br /> instance, I once wrote a novel dealing with life<br /> in Northumberland nearly two hundred years<br /> ago. For this novel I made four journeys into<br /> that county: I bought a great quantity of books:<br /> in my journeys “en zigzag&quot; I had to resort to<br /> the old method of posting, which is pleasant but<br /> costly. Now, when one sees a claim of so much<br /> per cent, for “office expenses” one thinks of<br /> these things, and naturally asks what right the<br /> publisher has to charge office expenses while the<br /> author does not.<br /> There is another curious point about this letter.<br /> The writer says, “I am a member of the literary<br /> profession so much overstocked, and which has<br /> been subject to so many diminutions of profit in<br /> these latter days.” This is amazing. The lite-<br /> rary profession has never been so flourishing, so<br /> well paid, so prosperous as at present. Very<br /> large incomes are made by educational writers;<br /> by dramatists; by historians; by novelists; by<br /> writers of religious books; by writers of travels.<br /> Never before have literary men and women been so<br /> prosperous. And there seems room for all. The<br /> field enlarges daily and rapidly. Perhaps—but<br /> he says that his income is in the four figures—<br /> this writer is considering the immense gap between<br /> those who wholly succeed and those who only<br /> half succeed. Literature, as a profession, is like<br /> the Bar: there are a great many solid prizes in<br /> every branch of it. Between the prize winners<br /> and those who come after them there is too often<br /> a huge gap.<br /> The secretary of the Associated Authors’<br /> Publishing Company has sent a letter on my<br /> remarks which will be found under the head of<br /> “Literary Property.” He claims that all the<br /> conditions which were laid down as necessary for<br /> success are fulfilled in his company. Without<br /> endorsing his statement, I have inserted it<br /> because, if a bond fide attempt to publish on those<br /> terms is to be made, it will be necessary to inquire<br /> further into the matter, WALTER BESANT,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#632) ################################################<br /> <br /> 278<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> ADDRESS TO PUBLISHERS’ ASSOCIATION,<br /> APRIL 21, 1896.<br /> Reproduced from a copy presented by Mr. Longman to the<br /> Chairman, Mr. H. Rider Haggard.<br /> |ENTLEMEN, It is with a considerable<br /> (i. feeling of responsibility that I rise to<br /> address you to-day. Your Association<br /> has been formed owing, I believe, to the fact that<br /> a real need for such a body has been widely felt<br /> throughout the trade. That feeling received<br /> expression in the motion made by Mr. Murray at<br /> our first meeting here, in November last, to the<br /> effect that steps should be taken to form an<br /> Association of the Publishers of Great Britain<br /> and Ireland, and the fact that the motion was<br /> carried by acclamation in so large a gathering of<br /> publishers, coupled with the unanimity and har-<br /> mony which have attended our subsequent pro-<br /> ceedings, prove that the feeling of which I have<br /> spoken was widely felt and deeply rooted. But<br /> so far no attempt has been made to lay down the<br /> lines of policy which our Association shall follow.<br /> In our rules the objects of the Association are<br /> stated to be to promote and protect by all lawful<br /> means the interests of the publishers of Great<br /> Britain and Ireland. This definition is wisely<br /> drawn very widely, and it is now necessary to<br /> come to closer quarters with the work that lies<br /> before us. The character of the Association and<br /> its usefulness in the future will much depend<br /> upon the position it takes up during the first<br /> year or two of its existence, and it is on this<br /> account that I feel a great weight of respon-<br /> sibility in expressing to you my views of what<br /> work it is that we should take in hand. Since,<br /> however, you have done me the great honour of<br /> electing me your first President, I feel that I<br /> should be failing in a duty which you have a<br /> right to expect from me were I to shrink from<br /> the task, and, though of course I speak for<br /> myself alone, I hope that what I say may be so<br /> fortunate as to meet with your approval.<br /> The first subject that naturally must claim the<br /> attention of such an Association as ours, is also<br /> perhaps the most complicated and difficult—I<br /> allude of course to the question of copyright. A<br /> satisfactory law of copyright is the prime need of<br /> all who are engaged in the production and sale of<br /> books, whether as authors, publishers, booksellers,<br /> printers, or in any other capacity whatsoever.<br /> This subject is so complex, so many sided, and<br /> has such an extraordinary faculty for cropping up<br /> at the least opportune times and places, that it is<br /> obviously impossible for me to attempt now any<br /> lengthy examination of the question. At the same<br /> time I should like to state briefly my view of<br /> what is the ideal to the attainment on which this<br /> Association should devote its efforts. The Copy-<br /> right Law which I should like to see is one which<br /> should have four salient features: it should be<br /> easy to comprehend, liberal in its provisions to the<br /> producers of literature, universal in its application,<br /> and capable of being readily enforced. Whether<br /> such an ideal is attainable I will not undertake to<br /> say, but you will all, I believe, admit that we are<br /> at present far short of it. This subject has long<br /> been under the attention of the Copyright Associa-<br /> tion (a body which has done much good work)<br /> and also of the Society of Authors. A draft Bill<br /> has been prepared by each of these bodies, which<br /> drafts have since been compared and consolidated,<br /> and no doubt when the time comes for seriously<br /> pressing this question on the attention of Parlia-<br /> ment your Association will be able to render<br /> valuable assistance in this difficult question. In<br /> the meantime I think it very necessary that we<br /> should have this important matter constantly<br /> before us, and be prepared, at suitable oppor-<br /> tunities, either to promote fresh legislation, to<br /> ascertain definitely what the law now is on<br /> obscure points, or to assist to enforce obedience<br /> to the law where we have reason to think it is<br /> being violated.<br /> I would especially at this moment call your<br /> attention to the third of the four points which I<br /> think should be found in any satisfactory copy-<br /> right law—viz., that it should be universal in its<br /> application, because I believe that we are at the<br /> present moment in some danger in this country<br /> of taking a step of a retrogade character which<br /> may put back the hope of a single universal copy-<br /> right law indefinitely. I do not know that any-<br /> one will claim for the British Law of Copyright<br /> that it is in all points particularly simple or easy<br /> to define ; still less will it be said that it is under<br /> all circumstances easy to enforce; it has, however,<br /> at present this virtue, that, within the limits of the<br /> British Empire, it is universal in its application.<br /> There are certain local modifications in existence<br /> even now, but it is at present true that any man,<br /> whether he be a British subject or an alien, who<br /> writes a book and first publishes it within the<br /> limits of the British Empire does by that act of<br /> publication secure a copyright in it for a term of<br /> forty-two years, or for his life and seven years after,<br /> which ever term is the longest; and, moreover, he<br /> will at the same time acquire rights of copyright<br /> in all countries which are signatories of the Con-<br /> vention of Berne.<br /> It is, however, now in contemplation to intro-<br /> duce a bill into the Legislature of the Dominion of<br /> Canada, which will absolutely destroy this inesti-<br /> mable boon which we now have—viz., that British<br /> copyright runs throughout the British Empire.<br /> By demanding certain special conditions on which<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#633) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 279<br /> copyright is to be granted in the Dominion, the<br /> Canadians also run the risk of defeating their own<br /> claim, and possibly the claims of their fellow sub-<br /> jects throughout the Empire, to reciprocal advan-<br /> tages from the Powers who have signed the Berne<br /> Convention. There is also a possibility that by<br /> their action British subjects may be deprived of<br /> copyright in America. It is fortunately the case<br /> that at the present moment we have no bill before<br /> us. The draft which was sent over last year has<br /> not been proceeded with. Since then Mr. Hall<br /> Caine and, on behalf of the Copyright Association,<br /> Mr. Dalby, have been in Canada, and it is said<br /> that these gentlemen, by their tact and courtesy,<br /> have produced a better feeling, and that it is<br /> probable that the next bill may be less disas-<br /> trous than the last one would have been. But,<br /> gentlemen, this is no case for compromise. We<br /> are playing with fire. If it is once admitted that<br /> copyright is a subject on which the Colonies are<br /> free to legislate—not only for their own citizens,<br /> but also to the detriment of the inhabitants of<br /> these islands—the mischief will not stop with<br /> Canada. We shall soon have to deal with half a<br /> dozen different and conflicting codes, I trust,<br /> therefore, that the influence of this Association,<br /> and I trust that the influence of all who are in-<br /> terested in any degree in the trade of bookselling,<br /> will be exerted to the full to prevent any tampering<br /> with the unity of British copyright, and I hope<br /> that when the true interests of literature are<br /> better understood, both at home and abroad, the<br /> result will be that a simple, liberal, easily enforced<br /> law of copyright will come into existence, not<br /> only in the British Empire, which is much—not<br /> only aluong all English-speaking peoples, which<br /> would be much more—but throughout the whole<br /> of the civilised world.<br /> I now turn to a widely different subject, but<br /> one that is not less interesting or important, I<br /> mean the relations between publishers and authors.<br /> A society such as this can hardly fail to have some<br /> effect on those relations. If its policy is guided<br /> in the narrowest trade union spirit it seems to me<br /> improbable that much advantage will arise. If,<br /> however, we endeavour to handle any questions<br /> that may from time to time be subjects of con-<br /> troversy in a liberal and broad spirit; if, while<br /> firmly maintaining our rights, we at the same time<br /> endeavour to consider such subjects not only<br /> from our own point of view, but also from the<br /> point of view of other interested parties, then it<br /> seems to me that we shall be in a fair way to<br /> promote what is the greatest interest of all to<br /> those who are engaged in the publication of<br /> books—namely, harmonious and pleasant rela-<br /> tions with their authors. Fortunately, we are<br /> all of us able to testify, from our own experience,<br /> that in the large majority of cases these cordial<br /> relations now exist—that, in fact, as many<br /> close friendships exist between authors and their<br /> publishers as between solicitors and their<br /> clients, between doctors and their patients,<br /> or between any other classes which have<br /> intimate business relations. Still, no doubt,<br /> differences do from time to time occur, and<br /> as human nature is constituted it is probable<br /> that they must occur. I believe that it will<br /> be in the power of this Association, if its<br /> proceedings are guided in the spirit I have indi-<br /> cated, to do something to minimise the occasions<br /> on which such differences could arise, and also to<br /> render them easier of arrangement. I have one<br /> subject in my mind that seems to me ripe for<br /> treatment, and should it be successfully treated<br /> I believe that much opportunity for friction will<br /> have been removed.<br /> It is sometimes said that there is a natural<br /> antagonism between authors and publishers,<br /> owing to the fact that their pecuniary interests<br /> are divergent; and, on the other hand, it is not<br /> less frequently asserted that there is no such<br /> antagonism—that we row in the same boat, and<br /> that what is good for one is necessarily good for<br /> the other. Neither of these views is true, or<br /> rather neither is the whole truth. In the first<br /> stage of the business between the author and the<br /> publisher there is an obvious diversity of interest<br /> —the diversity which always exists between the<br /> buyer and the seller. When this stage is got<br /> over the antagonism should cease, and for the<br /> future the interests of the two parties should be<br /> identical. Nevertheless, when disagreements arise<br /> it is not seldom that they occur at this second<br /> stage, when any real cause for difference ought to<br /> have disappeared. The reason of this is that in<br /> a large number of cases a simple sale is not<br /> effected. Where an author comes with a MS.<br /> ready for the printer and offers it for sale the<br /> transaction is a simple one: so much money is<br /> offered, and if it is accepted the MS. is handed<br /> over and the money paid, and there is an end of<br /> it. But though this often takes place the business<br /> frequently takes a different course. Possibly the<br /> MS. is not in existence—the author merely con-<br /> tracts to deliver it at some future time. Possibly<br /> it is in existence, but the author, instead of selling<br /> it, publishes it on one of the many systems of<br /> payment by results known in the trade—such as<br /> royalties, division of profits, publication on com-<br /> mission, and so forth. It is in the subsequent<br /> interpretation of the arrangements made that an<br /> opportunity occurs for differences of opinion.<br /> These arrangements are not always committed to<br /> paper, and even when they are expressed in an<br /> agreement the agreement is not always explicit,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#634) ################################################<br /> <br /> 28o<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> comprehensive, and easy to enforce. Now I think<br /> this Association would do well to take up seriously<br /> this question of agreements.<br /> I think it is most advisable that we should<br /> draw up model forms of agreement, designed to<br /> cover all the usual terms on which books are<br /> published, and that those model forms should be<br /> supplied to anyone, whether author or publisher,<br /> who may require them. The task would probably<br /> not be an easy one, and it would no doubt be<br /> most desirable that it should be undertaken in<br /> concert with able and experienced authors. It<br /> would perhaps be presumptuous on the part of<br /> so young an Association as ours to issue any<br /> invitation to co-operate in this work to the older<br /> established Society of Authors. But it is obvious<br /> that if any given form of agreement should<br /> receive the sanction of both Societies, it would<br /> have very great authority, and that an important<br /> step would have been gained. Before leaving<br /> this subject I would add that I do not for a<br /> moment propose that this Society should interfere<br /> in the preliminary arrangements which must of<br /> necessity be carried on by the individual author<br /> and publisher. Our functions would commence<br /> when a bargain has been struck ; we should then<br /> endeavour to supply the means of recording<br /> accurately and simply, and of duly enforcing, the<br /> contract.<br /> Another important interest of the publishing<br /> trade is that cordial and satisfactory relations<br /> should exist with a numerous and a prosperous<br /> body of retail booksellers. It is matter for deep<br /> regret that prosperity in the retail trade has<br /> by no means gone hand in hand with the<br /> increase in the volume of the trade which has<br /> taken place. The cause is of course well known—<br /> namely, the excessive discount which is given by<br /> the booksellers to the public. This subject has<br /> been so thoroughly discussed of late, and has<br /> received so much attention from all classes in<br /> the trade, that I confess that I despair of any<br /> satisfactory solution being found by this associa-<br /> tion, since none has occurred to the various<br /> gentlemen of whom it is composed, in spite of<br /> the earnest thought they have given to it. I am<br /> sure, however, that the Association will do well<br /> to give sympathetic consideration to any proposal<br /> which may be brought forward by the retail trade<br /> which has a reasonable chance of success. I do<br /> not propose now to go over this well-trodden<br /> ground in detail, but I feel it incumbent on me to<br /> say that I believe that no good purpose would be<br /> served by reviving a proposal which has been<br /> recently made, and, after thorough consideration,<br /> rejected by the publishing trade. I mean the<br /> proposal for the establishment of a ring of<br /> publishers to raise prices, and to maintain them<br /> by the application of coercion to those who did<br /> not obey its regulations. I trust that this Asso-<br /> ciation will never fall to the level of a ring. The<br /> large and influential meeting of publishers which<br /> constituted the Association also declined unani-<br /> mously to discuss this proposal further, which I<br /> believe to be entirely outside the region of what<br /> is practicable or desirable.<br /> It is my object to-day to lay before you the<br /> general lines on which I hope to see the busi-<br /> ness of this Association conducted, rather than to<br /> enumerate in detail the points which will occupy<br /> the attention of the council. These will, no doubt,<br /> be numerous and varied. Many points will come<br /> up which are at present entirely unforeseen; others<br /> are already in contemplation, of which I would<br /> mention one as an example. It has come to the<br /> notice of several publishers recently that a large<br /> contraband trade is going on in some of our<br /> colonies in pirated editions of copyright books.<br /> Steps are now being taken by individual pub-<br /> lishers, and by groups of publishers acting<br /> together, to abate this nuisance. The matter has<br /> been brought before your Council, who are<br /> considering whether it will not be possible to go<br /> further in this matter and devise some means to<br /> stamp it out altogether. This is one instance of<br /> useful work which may be properly undertaken<br /> by this association. There seems, in fact, to be<br /> every prospect that the hands of those gentlemen<br /> whom you have honoured by electing as your<br /> officers and council will be full. I would ask you,<br /> therefore, to judge our work leniently, and if the<br /> results seem to you, as is very probable, to be<br /> scanty and long in coming, I hope you will<br /> remember that we are all men whose time is<br /> already fully occupied, and that the hours which<br /> we have already given, and shall continue to give,<br /> to the affairs of this association must be taken<br /> from a leisure which has not been hitherto<br /> regarded as excessive. But whether our work<br /> proves fruitful or whether it be barren, it will<br /> always be our endeavour so to conduct the affairs<br /> of this association that it shall not be an unworthy<br /> representative of your ancient and honourable<br /> trade.<br /> In conclusion, I would like to say with what great<br /> satisfaction it is that we have received the kind<br /> permission of the Worshipful Company of Sta-<br /> tioners to hold in their ancient hall our general<br /> meetings and the meetings of our council;<br /> further, by their kind permission we have been<br /> able to engage the services of Mr. Poulten as<br /> secretary to the council; and it is also a matter of<br /> congratulation that we shall be able to rely on<br /> the valuable legal assistance of Mr. C. R.<br /> Rivington, the clerk of the company. The<br /> Stationers&#039; Company have—unlike many of the<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#635) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 281<br /> City companies—always preserved their connec-<br /> tion with the trade from which they derived their<br /> origin, and I hope that from this friendly alliance,<br /> which undoubtedly will be a source of great con-<br /> venience and stability to our Association, the<br /> company itself may eventually derive some<br /> benefit. C. J. LONGMAN.<br /> *-*. 2.--<br /> -&gt;<br /> AMERICAN AND ENGLISH FICTION,<br /> HE following appeared in the Evening Post,<br /> New York, on March 31 last :-<br /> “Sir, The Evening Post has always<br /> been prominent in the cultivation of arts and<br /> letters, and for that reason I invite its attention<br /> to the darkening fortunes of the native novelist<br /> of respectable tastes. To some it may seem<br /> a matter of Small importance if, as a class, he<br /> should become altogether extinct, because, say<br /> they, “as a nation we have not got the “novel<br /> habit”’; but I am very certain that such a judg-<br /> ment is hastily snatched, and is, moreover,<br /> entirely wrong. During the past five years I<br /> have read—personally and not by deputy—fully<br /> as many manuscripts as any single publisher in<br /> this country—read them, too, carefully and criti-<br /> cally, and, although sympathetically as a brother<br /> author, still, with a perfectly unbiassed mind,<br /> and with this great advantage over the pro-<br /> fessional reader, that I come in contact with the<br /> book trade and know what is wanted by its<br /> members, who are the book-buyers crystallised. As<br /> a result of this experience I would say that, in my<br /> judgment, the young American novelist has just<br /> as much ability and natural aptitude for novel-<br /> writing as an English beginner, while he is less<br /> wordy—excepting where he has taken an over-<br /> dose of our classic writers—and quicker in getting<br /> at the point or pith of his subject. He is more<br /> sympathetic too, swifter to learn, and brings a<br /> freer mind to his task. On the other hand, he is<br /> over-confident, he lacks the patient drudgery of<br /> his British rival, his work is apt to be slovenly,<br /> he is prone to think that success in fiction-writing<br /> is all a question of native talent, whereas, unlike<br /> the poet, the novelist is made and not born—<br /> made by years of patient toil, study, and observa-<br /> tion, Still his faults are those of strength and<br /> not of weakness; and if his countrymen believe<br /> in the wholesome novel as an institution, and in<br /> my judgment it is one of the greatest in the<br /> world — he should be encouraged and not<br /> strangled. Is that too strong a word P. Well,<br /> let the reader reserve his judgment until he has<br /> glanced at a few of the influences dragging at<br /> the rope: -<br /> “(I.) Last year foreign authors contributed<br /> two-thirds of the presentable fiction published<br /> in this country—reciprocally, our authors con-<br /> tributed less than I per cent. of the fiction<br /> published abroad.<br /> “(2.) Of the ten cent magazines subsidised by<br /> generous advertisers to the extent of probably<br /> 2,OOO,OOO dols, per annum, 2O,OOO,OOO copies are<br /> sold annually at a third of the price possible<br /> without the advertising. This business cuts<br /> right into the heart of the book trade, and so<br /> lessens the demand for new fiction.<br /> “(3.) The daily press throughout the country<br /> is so superabundant in its sensationalism that it<br /> leaves the ordinary reader—male and female—<br /> neither time nor inclination to take up fiction,<br /> unless it be of the kind which tends to further<br /> vitiation of the taste. -<br /> “ (4.) The sellsationalism which the press culti-<br /> Vates in its news it denounces—even when in its<br /> most harmless form—in its reviews of fiction, as<br /> if it wanted a monopoly of the business; so that<br /> When a native writer endeavours to cater in an<br /> honest way to the appetite made by the press and<br /> writes a book after the style of the works of<br /> Doyle, Weyman, or Hope, the reviewers promptly<br /> dub his work ‘a dime novel,&#039; solely on account of<br /> its romanticism and without regard to its style or<br /> general merit.<br /> “(5.) The adoration of the foreign writer.<br /> London&#039;s imprimatur is omnipotent; without it<br /> nothing in fiction goes. The result is our<br /> American writers are carting themselves off to<br /> the English metropolis in the same ships with<br /> California claret and with the same object, a<br /> foreign label ! -<br /> “(6.) And the result of all these actual condi-<br /> tions is that the majority of our domestic pub-<br /> lishers do not care to publish native works,<br /> because it is so much easier and more profitable<br /> to handle the foreign article.<br /> “Is ‘strangling’ too severe a term F Scarcely<br /> a year passes without London making three or<br /> four great literary reputations. How long is it<br /> since New York made one, and whose fault is it<br /> that this great city has to accept such a subordi-<br /> nate position in literature ?&#039; I will vouch for the<br /> fact that it is not the fault of the domestic<br /> authors. I think, however, that it is very largely<br /> the fault of the press, which could do so much,<br /> and, with one or two notable exceptions like the<br /> Evening Post, does so little. There is no busi- .<br /> ness in the country which deserves so well of the<br /> press as the publishing business, because none<br /> advertises so freely in proportion to its profits;<br /> nevertheless, the tendency of the sensational press<br /> to-day is to encourage the demand for literature<br /> which does not advertise at all, and is never sub-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#636) ################################################<br /> <br /> 282<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> mitted to the criticism of the reviewer. A glance<br /> at the average bookstall will convince the most<br /> sceptical, as the space not occupied by magazines<br /> and periodicals is covered by books which it would<br /> be outrageous flattery to call ‘literature.’”<br /> *... a 2-sº<br /> s- * ==<br /> THE CHICAGO PRIZE COMPETITION.<br /> T will be remembered that the Record of<br /> Chicago recently offered prizes to the<br /> extent of 30,000 dols. for novels. They<br /> were to be of what used to be known here as<br /> “three volume &#039;’ length, i.e., consisting of about<br /> 150,000 words divided into chapters of 2500<br /> words each. The prizes ranged in value from<br /> Io,000 dols. to 600 dols. There were 816 candi-<br /> dates. The winners of the prizes are enumerated<br /> in the Author&#039;s Journal (New York), from which<br /> paper we copy it, as follows:<br /> FIRST PRIZE–Io,ooo dols. : Harry Stillwell Edwards of<br /> Macon, Ga... for the story entitled “Sons and Fathers.”<br /> SECOND PRIZE - 3000 dols. : Bernard Edward Joseph<br /> Capes of Winchester, England, for the story entitled “The<br /> Mill of Silence.”<br /> THIRD PRIZE—1500 dols. : Bert Leston Taylor and Alvin<br /> T. Thoits of Manchester, N. H., for the story entitled “Under<br /> Three Flags.” .<br /> FourTH PRIZE—IOOO dols. : William Augustine Leahy<br /> of Boston, Mass , for the story entitled “The Incendiary.”<br /> FIFTH PRIZE—8oo dols. : Edward S. Ellis of Engle-<br /> wood, N. J., for the story entitled “The Eye of the Sun.”<br /> SIXTH PRIZE—6OO dols. : Miss Edith Bland of Grove<br /> Park, Lee, England, for the story entitled “The Marden<br /> Mystery.”<br /> SEVENTH PRIZE – 600 dols. : Jesse C. Cowdrick of<br /> Ogdensburg, N.J., for the story entitled “The Cask of Gold.”<br /> EIGHTH PRIZE–5oo dols.; Thomas H. A. McGill of<br /> Denver, Col., for the story entitled “Tangled Threads.”<br /> NINTH PRIZE–5oo dols. : John D. Parsons of Newbury-<br /> port, Mass., and Frederick R. Burton of Yonkers, New<br /> York, for the story entitled “The Mystery of a Time-Lock.”<br /> TwPLFTH PRIZE — 5oo dols. : Crittenden Marriott of<br /> Shelbyville, Ky., for the story entitled “The More<br /> Mystery.” -<br /> SPACE RATEs—500 dols. : William Sands Laurie, B.A.,<br /> of Manchester, England, for the story entitled “The Yellow<br /> Horse Caravan.”<br /> SPACE RATEs—5oo dols. : Miss Blanche Timmonds of<br /> Louisville, Ky., for the story entitled “A Mystery of<br /> Resemblance.”<br /> SPACE RATEs—500 dols. : Miss Katherine Lee Bates of<br /> Wellesley, Mass., for the story entitled “The Turret<br /> Chamber.”<br /> SPACE RATEs—500 dols. : Miss Belle Moses of New York<br /> City, for the story entitled “The Quest for Sophie.”<br /> SPACE RATEs—5oo dols : Frederick W. Davis of Chelsea,<br /> Mass., for the story entitled “Under Oath.”<br /> SPACE RATEs—500 dols. : Edgar Pickering of Margate,<br /> Rent, England, for the story entitled “The Wanishing of<br /> Cornelius Druce.”<br /> SPACE RATEs—500 dols. : E. H. Clough of Oakland,<br /> Cal., for the story entitled “The Going Out of Gordon<br /> Ledyard.”<br /> SPACE RATEs—5oo dols. : Miss Bessie E. Duffett of St.<br /> Leonard’s-on-the-Sea, England, for the story entitled “The<br /> Mysteries of Legh Hall.”<br /> SPACE RATEs—500 dols. : Mrs. Jeanette H. Walworth<br /> of New York City, for the story entitled “Under One<br /> Star.”<br /> SPACE RATEs—5oo dols. : Miss Amy Skene of Hatfield,<br /> Herts, England, for the story entitled “The Swansborough<br /> Diamonds.”<br /> Twenty prize winners in all and six from our<br /> country. Now let us get up such a competition<br /> here and see what the proportions would be. It<br /> is remarkable that, although MSS. were sent in<br /> from all parts of the world, no competitor from<br /> any part except the United States and England<br /> succeeded. Meantime we shall look forward with<br /> interest to the appearance of the first three or four<br /> of the prize stories.<br /> sº wº. --<br /> LITERATURE IN THE PERIODICALS.<br /> THE LAW OF DRAMATIC CoPYRIGHT. Correspondence<br /> of the Times: H. Beerbohm Tree, April 16; H. H. Morell<br /> and James M. Glover, April 17; G. Herbert Thring (Society<br /> of Authors), April 18. Leading article in Daily Chronicle,<br /> April 16.<br /> CANADIAN COPYRIGHT. Letter from Henry Charles Lea<br /> to Goldwin Smith. The Times for April 27.<br /> A QUESTION OF COPYRIGHT. Frances Hindes Groome.<br /> Athenæum for April II.<br /> BEN JONSON. T. E. Brown. New Review for May.<br /> HAMPSTEAD AND KEATS. Edwin Oliver. Atalanta for<br /> May.<br /> THE DUTY OF A BIOGRAPHER.<br /> Sign of the Ship.” Andrew Lang.<br /> for May.<br /> M. ZOLA AND THE POOR AUTHOR.<br /> for April 18.<br /> GEORGE BORRow. National Observer for April 18.<br /> BOOTS AND Books. National Observer for April 18.<br /> THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY AND THE CLARENDON<br /> PRESS. Saturday Review for April 18.<br /> DANTE IN AMERICA. Speaker for April 4.<br /> DEAF AND DUMB HEROINEs IN FICTION.<br /> Cromarty and the author of “In a Silent World.”<br /> spondence in Athenaewm for April 4 and I 1.<br /> ENGLISH LETTER-WRITING IN THE NINETEENTH<br /> CENTURY. Edinburgh Review for April.<br /> UNFINISHED Books. Macmillan’s Magazine for April.<br /> THE CONNECTION OF NAMES AND CHARACTERs. Inter<br /> alia in “Without Prejudice.” I. Zangwill. Pall Mall<br /> Magazine for May.<br /> THE ART OF NoMENCLATURE.<br /> May.<br /> THE SUPPosLTIOUs WICKEDNEss of MINor PoETs.<br /> F. Norroys Connel. To-Morrow for May 5.<br /> SOME MEMORIES OF HAwTHORNE : III. Rose Haw-<br /> thorne Tathrop. Atlantic Monthly for April.<br /> THE NEw EDITION OF PoE. Atlantic Monthly for April.<br /> MARK TwAIN. Joseph H. Twichell. Harper&#039;s Monthly<br /> for May.<br /> JEAN BAPTISTE AND HIS LANGUAGE.<br /> ennedy. Contemporary Review for April.<br /> NATURE IN THE EARLIER Roman PoETs. The Countess<br /> Martinengo Cesaresco. Contemporary Review for April.<br /> Inter alia in “At the<br /> Longman’s Magazine<br /> National Observer<br /> Deas<br /> Corre-<br /> Cornhill Magazine for<br /> Howard Angus<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#637) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 283<br /> BEVIEWS AND REVIEWING. J. Leisure Howr for<br /> May.<br /> NOVALIS.<br /> May.<br /> The Rev. J. Rice Byrne. Humanitarian for<br /> NoTABLE REVIEWs.<br /> Of H. G. Wells’s “The Island of Dr. Moreau.” Daily<br /> Telegraph for April 3. Satwrday Review (by P. Chalmers<br /> Mitchell), for April 11.<br /> Of Mr. Fraser Rae’s “Sheridan.”<br /> Of H. S. Salt&#039;s “Shelley.”<br /> April 23.<br /> Of Mr. Gladstone on the Bible. Spectator for April 18.<br /> Of the “Centenary&quot; Burns. Times for April 13.<br /> Of “Recent Poetry &#039;&#039; (Austin, Watson, Thompson, David-<br /> son, and others). Edinburgh Review for April.<br /> Mr. Beerbohm Tree calls attention to the in-<br /> adequate protection which the dramatic copyright<br /> laws afford to novelists, playwrights, and theatrical<br /> managers. He is advised, he writes, that (accord-<br /> ing to the Fauntleroy decision) in certain circum-<br /> stances the author, in order to prevent his story<br /> being dramatised and played without his consent,<br /> has to base his claim not, as a layman might<br /> suppose, on the fact that a dramatic version of<br /> his book has been played, but on the fact that<br /> there has been a multiplication of copies of the<br /> play in manuscript or in print containing sub-<br /> stantial extracts from his book. The author of a<br /> play and the manager who has bought it, Mr.<br /> Tree continues, are so beset with difficulties in<br /> protecting their property against “pirates” that<br /> before long piracy will probably be far more<br /> profitable than legitimate labour. Mr. Tree&#039;s<br /> precise case, then, is that “by the anomalies and<br /> weakness of the copyright laws, and the cumber-<br /> some and costly procedure which has to be<br /> resorted to in order to protect property of this<br /> kind,” provincial speculators are enabled to play<br /> “Trilby,” the rights of which in the British<br /> Isles are his, without paying a farthing. A side<br /> point is that “the public is likely to be seriously<br /> prejudiced against the play by the manner in<br /> which it is represented by persons who have<br /> neither money nor reputation to stake.” He<br /> suggests that the time has come for combined<br /> action towards formulating a draft of a moderate<br /> and practical Bill such as is likely to be accept-<br /> able to the Legislature.<br /> Mr. Thring, for the Society of Authors, writes<br /> cordially seconding Mr. Tree&#039;s suggestion for<br /> combined action, and adding that “such a Bill<br /> ought to secure the rights of an author to the<br /> dramatisation of his own work at any time during<br /> which copyright exists in his book, and also to<br /> secure to the author a like property in his title.”<br /> In America, the dramatisation at any rate is<br /> secured to the author, and this point, Mr. Thring<br /> observes, was not neglected in a Bill drafted on<br /> behalf of the Society of Authors and placed in<br /> Lord Monkswell&#039;s hands in 1886. The following<br /> Times for April 27.<br /> Daily Chronicle for<br /> are the remaining passages of Mr. Thring&#039;s<br /> letter:—<br /> There is no need to point out that the case commonly<br /> known as the “Little Lord Fauntleroy Case ’’ has no proper<br /> protection for the author against “pirates.” If the un-<br /> authorised dramatiser had, instead of duplicating copies of<br /> his play with dialogue taken from the novel, chosen to buy<br /> copies of the novel and cut out those portions of the dialogue<br /> that he required for his dramatic version, then it would have<br /> been, according to the present law, impossible for the author<br /> of the book to have obtained redress.<br /> TJnder these circumstances, it is highly essential that the<br /> remedial measures suggestions should at once be taken, and<br /> with the authority of the chairman of the Society of Authors<br /> I have much pleasure in stating that the Society will gladly<br /> aid Mr. Tree or any one else interested in dramatic copyright<br /> in their endeavour to amend and strengthen the law.<br /> Mr. Morell’s letter concerns a personal point,<br /> namely, it makes known that he and Mr. F.<br /> Mouillot leased the play from the proprietor of<br /> the provincial rights. [Mr. Tree, in an after-<br /> note, explains that his charge, of course, does not<br /> refer to companies thus legitimately leasing the<br /> play.] Mr. Glover argues that Mr. Tree&#039;s failure<br /> to obtain an absolute injunction in the case of<br /> “Tree v. Bowkett’’ was due merely to an irregu-<br /> larity in procedure; that is to say, that the judge<br /> obviously would have granted it if the proprietor<br /> of the provincial rights, Mr. Abud, had raised<br /> the action, or had been joined with Mr. Tree in<br /> it. The Daily Chronicle is sympathetic, but<br /> oppressed by the difficulties of drafting such a<br /> bill, and remarks that, unless Mr. Tree and his<br /> fellow-managers are prepared to go the length of<br /> demanding that any dramatic representation<br /> should be penalised which a jury might consider<br /> to be based in whole or in part upon a copyright<br /> novel, they will not succeed in making such<br /> alteration in the present situation. Even then a<br /> man would have to prove his case, and there<br /> would be the question of costs. It thinks that on<br /> the whole the authors are very handsomely pro-<br /> tected by the law.<br /> Mr. Francis Hindes Groome says that “The<br /> Oracle Encyclopædia’’ has reprinted verbatim et<br /> literatim an article on Guizot, which he wrote in<br /> “The Globe Encyclopaedia.” Replying to his<br /> complaint, Messrs. J. S. Virtue and Co. Limited<br /> wrote that :—<br /> We are afraid we differ from you entirely on the question<br /> of copyright. Had you written to us in a more friendly<br /> strain some time ago, we should have been pleased to give<br /> you further particulars. We may say, however, that<br /> although our opinion at that time was that you had neither<br /> the right nor the power to interfere with our publication, we<br /> have since confirmed this by consulting several gentlemen<br /> respecting copyright, and, amongst others, one of the lead-<br /> ing authorities on the subject—a gentleman, we may add,<br /> who is always consulted by the Government on copyright<br /> matter. He informs us that you have not the slightest<br /> right to interfere with our publication.<br /> Therefore their solicitors would be prepared to<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#638) ################################################<br /> <br /> 284<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> defend any action brought. “Comment upon<br /> this letter (says Mr. Groome to the Athenæum)<br /> were superfluous. But I should like a set-off to<br /> record the fact that a few weeks since I received<br /> from the American publishers, Messrs. Appleton,<br /> the munificent sum of £7 18s. Iod. for the mere<br /> revision of the articles ‘Fan&#039; and “Gypsies’ in<br /> their new edition of ‘Johnson’s Cyclopaedia.’”<br /> Astonishment and indignation, says the<br /> Saturday, will be felt by many upon hearing<br /> that the delegates of the Clarendon Press are<br /> now considering whether they will continue to<br /> defray the expense of carrying on the great<br /> English Dictionary, except on the condition that<br /> its scale is greatly reduced. Such a decision<br /> would be a national calamity; and if matters<br /> come to this pass it feels sure that an appeal to<br /> the public, and perhaps even to the Government,<br /> would not be made in vain. En passant, our<br /> contemporary expresses surprise that the chief seat<br /> of learning should have given no official recog-<br /> mition of the immense services of Dr. Murray.<br /> In the article “Boots and Books’’ the<br /> National Observer bestows praise of the flippant<br /> order upon the action of the Parisian poet M.<br /> Jacques de Lorrain in turning from the pen to<br /> shoemaking. “If all our minor poets and<br /> novelists would follow his example and choose<br /> a second string to their bow, there might be less<br /> confusion in the world of letters, and less debate<br /> in public about these mysterious phrases—<br /> limited editions, the cost of production, and the<br /> price per thou.”<br /> Mr. Andrew Lang takes that view of the duty<br /> of a biographer which the majority of commen-<br /> tators on the question—raised out of Mr. Purcell&#039;s<br /> “Life of Cardinal Manning ”—have supported,<br /> namely, that limits must be placed on “the whole<br /> truth.” If a biographer discovers a single action<br /> (of which no trace is now left) in an honourable life<br /> in which his hero “ sails near the wind,” truth<br /> does not compel him to drag it into the central<br /> lights; the feelings of other people, too, must be<br /> considered, and the secrets of the dead. “Ali<br /> the characters of interesting persons long ago<br /> with Tullus and Ancus are part of our stock of<br /> pleasure in life. If I discovered, per impossibile,<br /> that Jeanne d’Arc ever did a wrong thing, my<br /> duty to the stock of human pleasure would out-<br /> weigh my duty to the truth.” Writing upon the<br /> presentation by Mr. Willard Fiske of 3000 Dante<br /> works to Cornell University, the Speaker declares<br /> that this case is a striking illustration of the<br /> advantage of having a millionaire as librarian,<br /> but hopes, nevertheless, than an effort will be<br /> made to establish a Dante library in London, the<br /> adopted home of Baretti and Foscolo, Rosetti and<br /> Mazzini.<br /> BOOK TALK,<br /> D&quot; JOSEPH PARKER, of the City Temple,<br /> has just issued three works of fiction: (1)<br /> “Wilmot&#039;s Child” (Fisher Unwin), price<br /> 1s. 6d. ; (2) “Walden Stanyer” (Sampson Low),<br /> 6s. ; (3) “Tyne Folk : Masks, Shadows, and<br /> Faces” (Allenson), 3s. 6d.<br /> Mr. E. J. Goodman, author of “The Best Tour<br /> in Norway,” has in the press “New Ground in<br /> Norway,” so called as it relates to the Ringerike,<br /> Telemarken, and Soetersdalen, which are very<br /> little known to English travellers. It will be<br /> illustrated with a large number of pictures from<br /> original photographs by Mr. Paul Lange, of<br /> Liverpool, and will be published by George<br /> Newnes (Limited) about the middle of May.<br /> Professor Saintsbury has written a paper on<br /> the literature of the age, for the fifth volume of<br /> Mr. Traill’s “Social England.”<br /> Mr. Quiller Couch’s volume of “Adventures<br /> in Criticism&quot; is expected to be ready this<br /> month.<br /> Mr. Churton Collins (the Athenaeum under-<br /> stands) has in view the preparation of an anno-<br /> tated anthology of examples of verse drawn from<br /> hitherto unknown sources, or from the less-<br /> known works of authors known to the public by<br /> single masterpieces only.<br /> Mr. Swinburne has an important work in the<br /> press, namely, a poem on Malory&#039;s story of<br /> Balen. It is told in an elaborate rhymed<br /> measure, but with great closeness to the original.<br /> Messrs. Chatto and Windus will publish the<br /> work.<br /> A story in English by M. Alphonse Daudet<br /> and Mr. R. H. Sherard will shortly be published.<br /> Mr. F. W. Bussell, a young Oxford man, is<br /> engaged on a work on “The School of Plato,” in<br /> which he will endeavour to trace the origin and<br /> revival of the Platonic school under the Roman<br /> Empire. In the first volume (to be published<br /> immediately by Messrs. Methuen) he will give a<br /> general survey of the Roman period, and in the<br /> second the various philosophic systems of that<br /> time will be dealt with in detail.<br /> The selection from the poems of the late Pro-<br /> fessor Blackie, edited, with an appreciation, by<br /> his nephew, Dr. Stodart Walker, will be pub-<br /> lished shortly by Mr. John Macqueen.<br /> The Hon. Mrs. Henniker is bringing out a<br /> volume of stories, some of which she has contri-<br /> buted to periodicals, while others are now to<br /> appear for the first time. One of the tales was<br /> written in collaboration with Mr. Thomas Hardy;<br /> it is of a dramatic character, and styled “The<br /> Spectre of the Real.” The title of the volume<br /> will be “In Scarlet and Grey.”<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#639) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 285<br /> Mrs. Oliphant writes a volume on “Joan of<br /> Arc,” in the Heroes of the Nations Series pub-<br /> lished by Messrs. Putnam. It will appear in a<br /> few days hence.<br /> Mr. J. E. Muddock, who was in India during<br /> the time of the Sepoy Rebellion, has finished a<br /> story on that subject which Messrs. Hutchinson<br /> will publish shortly, called “The Great White<br /> Band.”<br /> A South African story, entitled “Isban Israel,”<br /> by Mr. George Cossins, will be published this<br /> month by Messrs. Gay and Bird. Isban Israel<br /> of the story is the high priest of a powerful<br /> tribe of cave-dwellers who kidnapped the<br /> daughters of an English sportsman. The author<br /> took part in the Zulu War, and he lays his story<br /> in the Transvaal and Matabeleland.<br /> Mrs. Hylton Dale has written a romantic novel<br /> of the French Revolution around the characters<br /> and exploits of Camille Desmoulins and his wife<br /> Lucile. It will be published at once by Mr.<br /> H. S. Nichols.<br /> “The Wooing of Phyllis,” by Katherine E.<br /> Colman, and “Kate&#039;s Wise Woman,” by Clara<br /> Louise Burnham, are among the new books which<br /> Messrs. Gay and Bird will send out this month.<br /> They have also nearly ready a volume of verse by<br /> Eleanor Foster, entitled “With the Tide, and<br /> other Poems.”<br /> The three-volume novel by Mr. Justin M’Carthy,<br /> which we mentioned some time ago as one of<br /> several productions to be expected from him early,<br /> is to be called “The Riddle Ring,” and will<br /> appear this month from Messrs. Chatto and<br /> Windus. His monograph on “Pope Leo XIII.”<br /> will be issued also before long by Messrs. Bliss,<br /> Sands, and Foster.<br /> Mr. “Sutcliffe March&quot; has laid the scene of<br /> his new novel in Holland. It will be called “A<br /> Stumbler in Wide Shoes,” and Messrs. Hutchinson<br /> will publish it soon.<br /> The biography of Dr. Jowett has been under-<br /> taken by his old Balliol friends, Professor Lewis<br /> ‘Campbell and Mr. Evelyn Abbott. It will be in<br /> two volumes, and its publication—by Mr. Murray<br /> —will not take place for some time.<br /> Major-General Robley has written and illus-<br /> trated a book on “Moko or Maori Tattooing,”<br /> an art which, it seems, is fast disappearing in New<br /> Zealand. Messrs. Chapman and Hall will publish<br /> the book.<br /> Professor J. K. Laughton, R.N., is writing a<br /> volume on “Naval Strategy and the Protection<br /> of Commerce,” for the popular series of naval<br /> handbooks published by Messrs. Bell.<br /> Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson is preparing a<br /> Volume with reminiscences of his professional life,<br /> an account of some of the aims of his career,<br /> and a number of essays on scientific and philo-<br /> sophical topics. The house of Messrs. Longman<br /> will publish the work. Sir Benjamin has also<br /> finished a work on the question of experimenta-<br /> tion on living animals, which will be issued by<br /> Messrs. Bell shortly, called “Biological Experi-<br /> mentation.”<br /> Mr. Henry James is writing a love story for<br /> the Illustrated London News, beginning in July<br /> and lasting to thirteen instalments. He has<br /> finished a new volume of stories which is to be<br /> called “ Embarrassments.”<br /> Mr. Standish O&#039;Grady has edited a new two-<br /> volume issue of “ Hibernia Pacata ; or The Wars<br /> in Ireland during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth.”<br /> Among the illustrations will be some new<br /> portraits.<br /> A book of travel by Katharine S. and Gilbert<br /> S. Macquoid is to be published by Messrs.<br /> Butchinson, entitled “In the Volcanic Eifel : a<br /> Holiday Ramble.” Three maps, and over fifty<br /> pictures by Mr. Thomas R. Macquoid, R.I., will<br /> adorn it.<br /> “Dr. Johnson and the Fair Sex&quot; was published<br /> a few months ago, and more recently there has<br /> been a book on Queen Elizabeth’s Courtships.<br /> The same class of literature is about to receive<br /> “The Story of Sir Walter Scott&#039;s First Love,”<br /> now told for the first time in all its detail. There<br /> will be portraits of Sir Walter and Lady Scott,<br /> and of Sir William and Lady Forbes in the book, of<br /> which Messrs. Macniven and Wallace, Edinburgh,<br /> are the publishers.<br /> Mr. W. Roberts, in the Athenæum of the 4th<br /> ult., told that the missing MSS. of the first two<br /> volumes of the Paston Letters are in the hands<br /> of Captain Pretyman, of Orwell Park, Norfolk.<br /> As a part of the King&#039;s Library they are, he<br /> says, legally and morally the property of the<br /> British Museum. Mr. Fr. Norgate, in the issue<br /> of the 18th, says he announced five years ago<br /> where the MSS. were, and as to the right of<br /> possession, he says, George IV. made over to the<br /> Museum what he had — and these MSS. he<br /> certainly had not.<br /> A London bookseller suggests, in the April<br /> number of the Bookseller, that publishers should<br /> imitate in some respects the German system by<br /> sending to selected booksellers in each neigh-<br /> bourhood a suitable quantity of their publica-<br /> tions, on terms of “sale or return.” This<br /> custom, he thinks, would lead to increase circu-<br /> lation.<br /> A too sanguine friend of an author, evidently,<br /> has created some perturbation in the mind of<br /> Messrs. Chapman and Hall, publishers. By<br /> common course an announcement was issued to<br /> the Press of a new book about to be issued.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#640) ################################################<br /> <br /> 286<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Extraordinary statements were added, however,<br /> including one that “we have read the author&#039;s<br /> manuscript, and his arguments appear quite<br /> unassailable.” One London paper in printing<br /> this remarked sapiently that it preferred as a rule<br /> to take its opinions from its reviewers. A letter<br /> of surprise immediately followed from the pub-<br /> lishers, totally disclaiming the “puff,” and<br /> stating that they had now been informed by the<br /> author that a friend of his was responsible for<br /> the information and the opinions put forward.<br /> More Napoleon, and this time from no other<br /> than Mr. T. P. O&#039;Connor. The M.P. has just<br /> finished a book on Napoleon&#039;s social and domestic<br /> life, which will come from Messrs. Chapman and<br /> Hall in a week or two. A bibliography of the<br /> works about Napoleon published during, say,<br /> the last four years would probably be chiefly<br /> interesting because of its length.<br /> Mr. David S. Salmond, whose name as a<br /> lecturer on South Africa is familiar to many<br /> parts of the kingdom, especially to central Scot-<br /> land, is publishing a book called “The Diary of<br /> a Trip to South Africa.” The publishers are<br /> Messrs. Brodie and Salmond, Arbroath. The<br /> author is connected with the Castle Line of<br /> vessels.<br /> The most important books which have appeared<br /> during the past month are: in fiction Mr. William<br /> Black’s “Briseis” (Sampson Low), which has<br /> run in Harper&#039;s, was most noticeable ; of political<br /> interest “Boer and Uitlander,” by Mr. William<br /> F. Regan, got a good deal of attention. The<br /> outstanding work in April was, however, Mr. W.<br /> Fraser Rae&#039;s biography of Sheridan (Bentley).<br /> It is in two volumes, with an introduction by the<br /> Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, Sheridan&#039;s great<br /> grandson, who roundly condemns previous bio-<br /> graphies as vastly imperfect. An interesting<br /> point cleared up in the new work is the circum-<br /> stances of Sheridan&#039;s death, which were not, as is<br /> so generally supposed, sordid, but peaceful, the<br /> patient having every comfort and suffering no<br /> pain. -<br /> Another of a common pattern of story is<br /> supplied by a correspondent of the New York<br /> Critic. “Searching in St. Louis for a de lure<br /> copy of ‘Trilby,’” he says, “I called at Boland&#039;s<br /> —the largest and oldest establishment in that<br /> city—and, on asking if they had a copy, received<br /> the answer, “We have Du Maurier’s ‘Trilby,&#039; but<br /> do not keep Deluxe&#039;s.’”<br /> A new work on “The Labour Problem,” by<br /> Mr. Geoffrey Drage, M.P., will be published<br /> during May by Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co.<br /> The life of Sir Frederick Gore Ouseley, of<br /> ecclesiastical music fame, has been written by<br /> the Rev. F. W. Joyce, rector of Burford. Two.<br /> chapters on Sir Frederick as a musician are:<br /> by Mr. G. R. Sinclair, organist of Hereford<br /> Cathedral. Messrs. Methuen will publish the<br /> book.<br /> A volume of varied Ulster stories, by Mr.<br /> Caldwell Lipsett, entitled “Where the Atlantic.<br /> meets the Land,” will be published immediately<br /> by Mr. Lane. The same publisher announces.<br /> that the second volume of his Pierrot Library<br /> will be a historical story called “My Little Lady<br /> Anne,” by Mrs. Egerton Castle.<br /> The following extract is from the New York.<br /> Critic. It is Mr. Arthur Waugh who speaks, and<br /> upon a practice reported common in a section of<br /> the London publishing trade :-<br /> It would appear that nowadays no book can be called<br /> successful which does not pass through several editions.<br /> before it is published at all. This morning&#039;s papers are full<br /> of advertisements of a new book by a well-known purveyor.<br /> of sensational fiction, whose story is not to be issued till.<br /> Monday, and will then be in its fourth edition. Whether.<br /> the public is taken in by this sort of thing or no, it is diffi-<br /> cult to say ; but it is certainly the cheapest kind of mani-<br /> pulation. It means either one of two things. The pub-.<br /> lisher may, firstly, have underrated the number of copies.<br /> likely to be sold upon subscription, and so given a first.<br /> printing-order inadequate to the demand; or, secondly, he<br /> may have printed the words “First Edition ” upon the first,<br /> few thousand, “Second ’’ on the next batch, and so on. In<br /> neither case do the additional copies constitute a genuine.<br /> edition, which means, if it means anything, a reprint,<br /> rendered necessary by the exhaustion of stock placed upon<br /> the market in the usual course of business.<br /> “Soaps and mustards,” adds Mr. Waugh,<br /> “ have their methods, but one wishes better treat-<br /> ment for even the most vulgar and incompetent.<br /> of novels.”<br /> Carrying out a family arrangement, Mr.<br /> Theodore Watts has added to his surname that.<br /> of his mother, and will in future sign himself as<br /> Theodore Watts Dunton.<br /> In periodicals a new penny morning paper for<br /> London has to be recorded this month. This is<br /> the Daily Courier—owned by Sir George Newnes,<br /> and edited by Mr. Earl Hodgson assisted by Mr.<br /> L. F. Austin—of which the first number appeared<br /> on the 23rd ult. It eschews a political side, but,<br /> cultivates social interest, and contains thirty-two.<br /> pages of the St. James&#039;s size. Messrs. Harms-<br /> worth will start a new halfpenny daily paper, the<br /> Daily Mail, on the 4th inst. Cheshire is about<br /> to follow the example of Essex and Kent by<br /> establishing a quarterly journal of local anti-<br /> quarian record and folk-lore, called “Cheshire<br /> Notes and Queries.”<br /> It is now definitely stated that Mr. Clement.<br /> Scott&#039;s first volume of dramatic criticisms will<br /> appear in the course of a few days. It will be<br /> concerned exclusively with the Irving productions<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#641) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 287<br /> at the Lyceum, and will be called “From ‘The<br /> Bells&#039; to “King Arthur.’” The publisher is Mr.<br /> Macqueen.<br /> A six-volume edition of “Boswell&#039;s Life of<br /> Johnson,” with an introduction and some notes<br /> by Mr. Augustine Birrell, is about to be published<br /> by Messrs. Constable.<br /> Mr. James Baker, who last year was acting as<br /> special correspondent upon the Nile, is going to<br /> Moscow for the coronation festivities ; he will<br /> journey to St. Petersburg by the “ss. Midnight<br /> Sun * instead of by the overland route.<br /> Messrs. A. Constable and Co. have just pub-<br /> lished a collection of short stories by Mrs. Nella<br /> Parker, entitled “Dramas of To-day.”<br /> A report on the conference at Ottawa on the<br /> copyright question, at which Mr. Hall Caine and<br /> Mr. Daldy were present, has been published as<br /> an appendix to the annual report of the Minister<br /> of Agriculture for 1895. Copies of this appendix<br /> may be obtained at the offices of the High<br /> Commissioner for Canada, 17, Victoria-street,<br /> S.W.<br /> Mr. Charles J. Mansford has in the press, to<br /> be published very shortly (Mentz, Kennor, and<br /> Co.), a romance of sea and shore called “The<br /> Dutchman’s Luck.” The same author will pro-<br /> duce in the autumn (John Hogg, Paternoster-<br /> row) a story of adventure in Northern India,<br /> illustrated by Mr. J. Ayton Symington.<br /> Esmé Stuart has just published “A Mine of<br /> Wealth” (3 vols., Hurst and Blackett), and<br /> “Harum Scarum, a Poor Relation,” in one vol.<br /> (Jarrold and Sons).<br /> Mrs. Hartley Perks has in the press and will<br /> shortly publish a novel entitled “Among the<br /> Bracken” (Archibald Constable).<br /> Commander Claud Harding will shortly publish<br /> (Sampson Low, Marston and Co.) a new story<br /> entitled “Jack Stapleton,” or “The Romance of<br /> a Coral Island,” the scene of which is laid in the<br /> West Indies and Central America.<br /> Mr. John Lascelles’ new volume of verse—<br /> “The Great Drama and Other Poems”—will be<br /> issued immediately by the Leadenhall Press<br /> Limited. This will be the second volume of a<br /> “Sun and Serpent Series” of books of verse, each<br /> complete in itself, which will be published, at<br /> intervals, by the same author. -<br /> A long letter from Mr. Thomas Hutchinson,<br /> Dublin, the well-known Wordsworth authority,<br /> appeared in the Academy for April 18, with refer-<br /> ence to the recent edition of the poet by Professor<br /> Enight in the Eversley series. Mr. Hutchinson<br /> bitterly complains that his name has not been<br /> included in the acknowledgments which Professor<br /> Enight makes for assistance rendered in detecting<br /> errors in the previous text. It is shown, more-<br /> over, that Professor Knight acknowledged these<br /> services by letter.<br /> Mr. Anthony Hope&#039;s next book, “The Heart of<br /> Princess Osra,” will be published early in the<br /> autumn, by Messrs. Longmans.<br /> From time to time the Rev. Frederick Lang-<br /> bridge has produced verses, which, if slight, are<br /> yet pleasing, and have the true ring. He has<br /> now published, through the Religious Tract<br /> Society, a little volume of verse called “A Cluster<br /> of Quiet Thoughts.” Mostly they are quite<br /> short, as the following:<br /> Deem thou of no estate—<br /> As doomed and reprobate,<br /> And call thou no man devil, brute, or clod:<br /> One worketh in the dark,<br /> Whose ways are long to mark;<br /> Despair of man is black despair of God.<br /> Mrs. Helen C. Black has just published<br /> (Spottiswoode and Co.). “Pen, Pencil, and<br /> Mask,” being a collection of biographical sketches<br /> of sixty eminent persons connected with Art and<br /> the Drama.<br /> Mr. Tuer, author and publisher, has at last<br /> completed his “History of the Horn Book” after<br /> three years’ work. In his latter capacity no one<br /> excels Mr. Tuer in the “mounting ” of the book.<br /> In three volumes he has collected 3oo illustra-<br /> tions, including I 50 examples. Seven horn<br /> books and A. B. C. Battledores are recessed within<br /> the covers. In the binding a return has been<br /> made to the thick vellum so much used formerly.<br /> It is understood that both publisher and author<br /> are completely satisfied with the agreement as to<br /> the production of this book.<br /> In the Cymmrodorion section of the National<br /> Eisteddfod at Llandudno, Mr. W. Edwards<br /> Tirebuck is to read a paper entitled “Welsh<br /> Thought and English Thinkers.” Mr. Tirebuck&#039;s<br /> “Tales from the Welsh Hills,” which appeared in<br /> serial form in English, Scotch, and Welsh papers<br /> last year, are to be shortly published in cheap<br /> volume form, illustrated by a Welsh artist. Mr.<br /> Heinemann has added Mr. Tirebuck&#039;s latest book,<br /> “Miss Grace of All Souls&#039;,” to his Colonial<br /> Library.<br /> *- ~ *-*<br /> e- - -s<br /> CORRESPONDENCE,<br /> I.—Is IT RIGHT P<br /> ILL it be credited that, although I sent a<br /> W W stamped directed envelope to the editor<br /> of a certain weekly magazine, to know<br /> the fate of a poem, I never had the slightest<br /> inkling as to its fate, either directly or through<br /> the “Answers to Corrrespondents’ columns !<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#642) ################################################<br /> <br /> 288<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I am quite aware, of course, that an editor is<br /> not bound to give his reasons in any case, but all<br /> I asked for was “Yes” or “No.” In the mean-<br /> time I could not send the poem elsewhere, as I<br /> had no copy of it (my own fault that (); but even<br /> had I kept one I should not have sent it else-<br /> where until I knew it would not appear, in the<br /> paper to which I had sent it. Assumption of<br /> rejection, through delay in answering, or no<br /> answer at all, is dangerous ; and I have got into<br /> trouble that way, and been charged for it ! This<br /> is an unanswerable argument, is it not? But my<br /> real grievance was that I could get no reply as to<br /> fate of verses in the acknowledged channel—i.e.,<br /> “Answers to Correspondents”—where hundreds<br /> of comparative no-bodies were replied to weekly.<br /> Not very creditable to the paper in question, is<br /> it P What should we think of such a standard<br /> of courtesy—or discourtesy—in ordinary social<br /> life? And the ordinary discourtesy was intensi-<br /> fied here a thousandfold by the fact of the sub-<br /> editor having once been a friend of mine (save<br /> the mark 1), and I had offered social amenities<br /> to the editor. F. B. D.<br /> [Would it not be prudent in such cases always<br /> to keep a copy of the poem, and to send the<br /> editor a notice that if the contribution is not<br /> accepted within a certain time the author will<br /> hold himself free to send elsewhere? And may<br /> not the silence of the editor be accounted for in one<br /> of two ways: First, that, owing to the thousands of<br /> communications received, he had simply forgotten<br /> the case; secondly, that he had made it a rule<br /> never to explain his reasons for refusing or<br /> accepting 2–ED.]<br /> II.-EDITORS AND AUTHORs.<br /> An American writer asks (Authors’ Journal,<br /> April, 1896) why an editor does not, in accepting<br /> a contribution, state what he proposes to give for<br /> it before he uses it P *-<br /> “In common honesty ought not the sale of<br /> literary contributions to be conducted on the<br /> same principles that govern other mercantile<br /> transactions P Is not the author entitled, quite<br /> as much as the farmer or the merchant, to say<br /> whether he will accept or refuse the terms offered<br /> him for his wares?<br /> “‘Our regular rates’ are a very uncertain<br /> quantity, and usually an unknown one; but<br /> however liberal they may be, the author should<br /> surely be allowed his opinion about accepting or<br /> declining them.”<br /> The question is very pertinent, but there are so<br /> many contributors anxious above all things to see<br /> themselves in print that a writer must belong to<br /> the class of those whom the public desire to see<br /> º print before he can expect to be treated with<br /> the consideration that is paid to the farmer or<br /> the merchant. These two persons pursue their<br /> business from a business point of view. The<br /> young Writer does not : he is anxious, above all, to<br /> be accepted : when that is accomplished, and not<br /> till then, he begins to think about the money.<br /> III.-GRAB-ALLs of LITERATURE.<br /> Here is a pretty experience which adds to the<br /> sweets of our calling. A month back a produc-<br /> tion of mine appeared in a so-called “popular ”<br /> weekly paper. Neither MS. nor printed sketch<br /> has ever received a word of acknowledgment,<br /> notwithstanding letters to editor and proprietors.<br /> It is a scandalous shame that one’s work should<br /> be thus appropriated without even receiving the<br /> scanty bone of recognition. If this be not an<br /> example of literary theft, I know not what is.<br /> CECIL CLARKE.<br /> Authors’ Club, 21st April.<br /> [The Secretary of the Society would settle this<br /> case very quickly if it were placed in his hands,-<br /> ED.] -<br /> IV.-CoIPY OF ADVERTISEMENT IN A PARISIAN<br /> JOURNAL.<br /> “Auteurs inédits peuvent inserer manuscrit<br /> dans une revue indépendente illustrée.”<br /> This announcement appeared about a year ago,<br /> and I answered it out of curiosity, receiving the<br /> following postcard in reply:<br /> “Monsieur, La revue dont il était question<br /> dans l&#039;annonce du Journal est la Libre Critique,<br /> 37, rue Souveraine à Bruxelles. Je vous en<br /> addresse un specimen en même temps que cette<br /> réponse.<br /> “Vous comprendrez qu&#039;il nous soit tout à fait<br /> impossible d’accepter ou de refuser l&#039;insertion de<br /> votre nouvelle sans l’a voir lue.<br /> Les conditions de collaboration se résument en<br /> l&#039;acceptation par les auteurs d’un abonnement à la<br /> revue (IO francs l&#039;an). Du Ist Octobre prochain,<br /> notre publication comportera I6 pages de texte et<br /> les pages supplémentaires seront consacrées à la<br /> littérature.<br /> “Croyez moi, Monsieur, votre tout dévoué,<br /> “ANDRE REMONT.”<br /> I could not resist sending the following reply:<br /> “Monsieur, Je vous remercie pour l&#039;envoi de<br /> votre journal et de la carte que vous avez bien<br /> woulu m&#039;adresser; d&#039;après elle il me semble que<br /> l’exploitation des auteurs a fait un pas de plus—<br /> demanderait-on à un cordonnier de payer le<br /> plaisir de vous chausser P<br /> “Acceptez, monsieur,<br /> tinguées, -<br /> mes salutations dis-<br /> “ M. M. M.”	https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/289/1896-05-01-The-Author-6-12.pdf	publications, The Author
288	https://historysoa.com/items/show/288	The Author, Vol. 06 Issue 11 (April 1896)	<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.+06+Issue+11+%28April+1896%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 Issue 11 (April 1896)</a>			<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</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>	1896-04-01-The-Author-6-11					245–268																		<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=6">6</a>											<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1896-04-01">1896-04-01</a>							11			18960401	C be El u t b or,<br /> (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.)<br /> CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESAN. T.<br /> Wol. VI.-No. 11.]<br /> APRIL 1, 1896.<br /> [PRICE SIXPENCE.<br /> For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are<br /> signed or initialled the Authors alone are<br /> responsible. None of the papers or para-<br /> graphs must be taken as eaſpressing the<br /> collective opinions of the committee unless<br /> they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br /> Thring, Sec.<br /> *— a 2-2<br /> z--- - -<br /> HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all<br /> remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and<br /> requests that all members not receiving an answer to<br /> important communications within two days will write to him<br /> without delay. All remittances should be crossed Union<br /> Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered<br /> letter only.<br /> Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on<br /> all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub-<br /> jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are<br /> returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS.<br /> *- a 2-2<br /> WARNINGS AND ADWICE,<br /> { . RAWING THE AGREEMENT.-It is not generally<br /> understood that the author, as the vendor, has the<br /> absolute right of drafting the agreement upon<br /> whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out.<br /> Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In<br /> every form of business, this among others, the right of<br /> drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or<br /> has the control of the property.<br /> 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.—In selling Serial Rights remember<br /> that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time ; that<br /> is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you<br /> object to this, insert a clause to that effect.<br /> 3. STAMP YOUR AGREEMENTs. – Readers are most<br /> URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements<br /> immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected<br /> for two weeks, a fine of £Io must be paid before the agree-<br /> ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every<br /> case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter<br /> which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The<br /> author may be assured that the other party to the agree-<br /> ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society,<br /> to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of<br /> members stamped for them at no ea pense to themselves<br /> eaccept the cost of the stamp.<br /> 4. AsCERTAIN WHAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES To<br /> BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an<br /> WOL. W.I.<br /> arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi-<br /> ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party<br /> refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he<br /> reserved for himself.<br /> 5. LITERARY AGENTs.-Be very careful. You cannot be<br /> too careful as to the person whom you appoint as your<br /> agent. Remember that you place your property almost un-<br /> reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting<br /> the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience<br /> of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone.<br /> 6. CosT OF PRODUCTION.--Never sign any agreement of<br /> which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part,<br /> until you have proved the figures.<br /> 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.-Never enter into any cor-<br /> respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad-<br /> vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced<br /> friends or by this Society.<br /> 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever,<br /> bind yourself down for future work to anyone.<br /> 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk o<br /> responsibility whatever without advice. -<br /> Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a MS. has been re-<br /> fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises<br /> they may put forward, for the production of the work.<br /> II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American<br /> rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any<br /> agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the<br /> publisher, unless for a substantial consideration.<br /> 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper,<br /> either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright,<br /> without advice. -<br /> I3. ADVERTISEMENTS. — Reep some control over the<br /> advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in<br /> the agreement.<br /> 14. NEvKR forget that publishing is a business, like any<br /> other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy,<br /> charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do wit<br /> business men. Be yourself a business man. -<br /> Society’s Offices :-<br /> 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN&#039;s INN FIELDs.<br /> *-*.<br /> e-<br /> HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br /> I . VERY member has a right to ask 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 /> business or the administration of his property. If the advice<br /> sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member<br /> has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the<br /> case is such that Counsel’s opinion is desirable, the Com-<br /> E E 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#600) ################################################<br /> <br /> 246<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this<br /> without any cost to the member.<br /> 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br /> and publisher&#039;s agreements do not generally fall within the<br /> experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br /> to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually<br /> engaged upon such questions for us.<br /> 3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past<br /> accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in<br /> order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree-<br /> ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively<br /> so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any<br /> agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor-<br /> mation thus obtained may prove invaluable.<br /> 4. If the examination of your previous business trans-<br /> actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should<br /> take advice as to a change of publishers.<br /> 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro-<br /> posed document to the Society for examination.<br /> 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in<br /> the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish-<br /> ing firm in the country.<br /> 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you<br /> are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are<br /> reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing<br /> the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen-<br /> dence of the writer.<br /> 8. Send to the Editor of the Author notes of everything<br /> important to literature that you may hear or meet with.<br /> 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of<br /> members’ agreements and their preservation in a fireproof<br /> safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con-<br /> fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who<br /> will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers —(1)<br /> To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To<br /> stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon<br /> them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments<br /> due according to agreements.<br /> THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE,<br /> EMPERS are informed :<br /> 1. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate takes charge of<br /> the business of members of the Society. That it<br /> submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree-<br /> ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene-<br /> rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business<br /> details.<br /> 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured<br /> will be forwarded upon detailed application.<br /> 3. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate works only for those<br /> members of the Society whose work possesses a market<br /> value. -<br /> 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations<br /> whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia-<br /> tions are placed ea:clusively in its hands, and that all<br /> communications relating thereto are referred to it.<br /> 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by<br /> appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days&#039;<br /> notice should be given.<br /> 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi-<br /> cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent<br /> to defray postage.<br /> 7. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate does not invite MSS.<br /> without previous correspondence ; does not hold itself<br /> responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that<br /> in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray<br /> postage.<br /> 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for<br /> lectures by some of the leading members of the Society;<br /> that it has a “Transfer Department&#039; for the sale and<br /> purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register<br /> of Wants and Wanted” is open. Members are invited to<br /> communicate their requirements to the Manager.<br /> There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services<br /> will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It<br /> is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the<br /> Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in<br /> the Syndicate.<br /> * As-º<br /> NOTICES.<br /> HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the<br /> Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br /> of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very<br /> heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br /> many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br /> 6s. 6d. subscription for the year.<br /> The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and<br /> communications on all subjects connected with literature<br /> from members and others. Nothing can do more good to<br /> the Society than to make the Author complete, attractive,<br /> and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this<br /> work send their names and the special subjects on which<br /> they are willing to write P<br /> Communications for the Author should reach the Editor<br /> not later than the 21st of each month.<br /> All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether<br /> members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate<br /> to the Editor any points connected with their work which<br /> it would be advisable in the general interest to publish.<br /> Members and others who wish their MSS. read are<br /> requested not to send them to the Office without previously<br /> communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable<br /> despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in<br /> which they are received. It must also be distinctly under-<br /> stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances,<br /> undertake the publication of MSS.<br /> The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at<br /> 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary<br /> for information, rules of admission, &amp;c.<br /> Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br /> have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do<br /> this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker&#039;s<br /> order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the<br /> trouble of sending out a reminder.<br /> Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br /> warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a<br /> most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding<br /> for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they<br /> would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five<br /> years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest<br /> or dishonest ? Of course they would not. Why then<br /> hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them-<br /> selves into literary bondage for three or five years P<br /> Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are<br /> requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15<br /> per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble<br /> of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the<br /> pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#601) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 247<br /> is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be<br /> added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands<br /> at £948. The figures in our book are as near the exact<br /> truth as can be procured; but a printer&#039;s, or a binder&#039;s,<br /> bill is so elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be<br /> arrived at.<br /> Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br /> in the “Cost of Production” for advertising. Of course, we<br /> have not included any sums which may be charged for<br /> inserting advertisements in the publisher&#039;s own magazines,<br /> or in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too<br /> often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from<br /> sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket,<br /> by inserting any number of advertisements in his own<br /> magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are<br /> who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those<br /> who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it.<br /> *-<br /> FROM THE COMMITTEE,<br /> HE Committee beg to remind members that<br /> the Subscription for the year is due on<br /> January the First.<br /> The most convenient form of payment is by<br /> order on a Bank. This method saves the trouble<br /> of remembering.<br /> The Secretary will in future send reminders to<br /> members who are in arrear in February.<br /> The Author will not be sent to members in<br /> arrear after the month of March.<br /> The members of the Society were invited by<br /> the General Meeting of Feb. 17 to nominate<br /> certain men and women of letters willing and<br /> able to serve on the sub-committee for the con-<br /> sideration of changes—if any—that might be<br /> thought desirable in the constitution and manage-<br /> ment of the Society, and especially with the view<br /> of making the Committee more representative of<br /> the whole body of members.<br /> It was also ordered by the second resolution—<br /> see the Author for March, pp. 223, 22.4—that the<br /> names thus proposed and seconded should be<br /> published in the April number of the Society&#039;s<br /> paper, and that this list should be accompanied<br /> by a balloting paper.<br /> The second Resolution cannot be carried out<br /> for the reason that no names at all have been<br /> sent in. The subject will be laid before the Com-<br /> mittee at the next meeting.<br /> G. HERBERT THRING, Secretary.<br /> March 30, 1896.<br /> LITERARY PROPERTY.<br /> Mºº of the Society are invited to<br /> observe that when a case is quoted in<br /> these pages, they can learn the name of<br /> the publisher, if they desire to do so, by calling<br /> upon the Secretary. The name of the author<br /> concerned in the case is however confidential, and<br /> will not be divulged without his direct sanction.<br /> It is found necessary to make this known, as it<br /> has been suggested that the cases quoted in the<br /> Author have no real existence, but are inventions<br /> of some persons connected with the Society.<br /> ſ.—AN EXAMINATION OF Accounts.<br /> In this case an author receiving the accounts<br /> of his book was not satisfied with certain figures,<br /> and demanded an audit. The account, as ren-<br /> dered, showed a balance of so much against the<br /> author. The auditor examined the books and<br /> found the exact contrary—a balance due to the<br /> author. Such a case by no means necesssarily<br /> implies dishonesty, but a certain amount of care-<br /> lessness; it shows very strongly the necessity for<br /> auditing the accounts. The balance due to the<br /> author, on the amended account, was paid.<br /> II. THE CASE OF ABERNETHY v. HuTCHINson :<br /> A MUCH QUOTED CASE OF COPYRIGHT LAw.<br /> This was a very extraordinary suit, and as one<br /> of the three decisions upon its merits now forms<br /> the legal precedent upon which most disputes as<br /> to copyright in lectures are decided, we think<br /> that the account of the case, as published recently<br /> in the Lancet, will have interest for many of our<br /> readers—for all, indeed, who have made a study<br /> of questions of copyright.<br /> The Lancet, upon its appearance in 1823,<br /> started the practice of reporting certain medical<br /> lectures delivered to the classes of students at the<br /> Borough Hospital, St. Bartholomew&#039;s Hospital,<br /> and in other public or semi-public places.<br /> The first victim—for so the reported men con-<br /> sidered themselves—was Sir Astley Cooper, who<br /> tacitly acquiesced in a publicity that served him<br /> well. The second was Abernethy, who brought<br /> an action against Hutchinson, the publisher of<br /> the Lancet, for infringement of copyright.<br /> “On the hearing of the motion,” says the<br /> Zancet, “an affidavit was put in by Abernethy<br /> which at great length cited the circumstances of<br /> the delivery of the lectures and gave an account<br /> of his calling forth ‘the hireling of the<br /> Lancet’ from the ranks of his students without<br /> response. He bitterly inveighed against the<br /> appropriation of his copyright, but at the same<br /> time protested that he would never withhold<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#602) ################################################<br /> <br /> 248<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> from mankind any words of his the publication<br /> of which was for the true good of the public.<br /> The affidavit of the defendant Hutchinson con-<br /> tended that the publication was made exactly for<br /> the good of the public, and, such being the case,<br /> free publication ought to be permitted without<br /> legal restriction. He further tried to show that<br /> there was no precedent for the recognition of<br /> copyright vested in verbal utterances. The Lord<br /> Chancellor (Lord Eldon) on the third day refused<br /> to grant an application, but several times in the<br /> course of his judgment said that he would hear<br /> an argument upon the point whether there had<br /> been a breach of trust or of implied contract.<br /> Thus it was temporarily decided that words<br /> used in lectures for the public benefit had<br /> no copyright vested in them, and were liable<br /> to be published without reserve for the good of<br /> humanity.”<br /> Four months were allowed by Abernethy to<br /> elapse before he made his second application to<br /> the Lord Chancellor for an injunction on the<br /> ground suggested to him by his lordship, viz.,<br /> that his lectures were delivered to persons under<br /> an implied contract not to publish them ; but<br /> at the end of May the application was made<br /> and the hearing was commenced on June I.O.<br /> Abernethy renewed his application obviously<br /> rather in the interests of other lecturers than his<br /> own, for at the time his lectures were not being<br /> printed in the Lancet, having been discontinued<br /> at the completion of the course some two months<br /> previously. “He may possibly have vamity enough<br /> to suppose that we shall reprint his lectures,” wrote<br /> Thomas Wakley, the editor of the paper. “On<br /> this point his mind may be perfectly at ease;<br /> our pages have been already obscured with<br /> his hypothetical nonsense during six tedious<br /> months, and when we read the proof of the last<br /> paragraph we felt relieved of a most intolerable<br /> incubus.”<br /> The result of the second application was that<br /> Abernethy was successful. The Lord Chancellor<br /> in his judgment to a certain extent went back on<br /> himself. He held that the lectures could not be<br /> published for profit, that if any pupil who had<br /> paid only to hear them afterwards sold them to<br /> the publisher he infringed the law, and that the<br /> publishers in so publishing them enacted “what<br /> this Court would call a fraud in a third party.”<br /> He dwelt upon the practical difficulty that existed<br /> in bringing home this fraud to anyone where no<br /> manuscript was in existence, but did not other-<br /> wise allow that there was any difference as far as<br /> the author&#039;s rights were concerned whether the<br /> lecture was delivered from a manuscript or as an<br /> extemporary effort. This is the judgment which<br /> forms the precedent upon which cases of infringe-<br /> ment of copyright in lectures are always decided,<br /> and in text-books upon the subject it is the case<br /> that is always quoted. Mr. Lely, in his excel-<br /> lent little pamphlet, “Copyright Law Reform,”<br /> published by the Society of Authors, quotes the<br /> case of Caird v. Syme; but the judgment here<br /> was, we believe, founded upon Lord Eldon&#039;s<br /> judgment in Abernethy v. Hutchinson. Mr.<br /> Scrutton, in our edition of “The Law of Copy-<br /> right” (1890), refers only to this judgment in<br /> Abernethy’s second application, and gives the<br /> place of the delivery of the lectures in question<br /> wrongly. He says they were delivered at Guy’s<br /> Hospital. They were delivered at St. Bartholo-<br /> mew’s Hospital, a distinction, as will be seen, with<br /> some difference. The lecturers at Guy’s Hospital<br /> never disputed the right of the Lancet to publish<br /> their lectures.<br /> Six months later Wakley applied to the Lord<br /> Chancellor to dissolve the injunction restraining<br /> him from continuing to publish or sell Abernethy’s<br /> lectures in the Lancet. The motion was un-<br /> opposed, and Lord Eldon dissolved the injunction.<br /> This judgment did not, and does not, affect the<br /> value of his previous judgment with regard to<br /> the legality of the publication of lectures, for the<br /> dissolution was granted upon new facts which<br /> were brought to the knowledge of the Court.<br /> Wakley had all along contended that it was<br /> monstrous that Abernethy should by one Act<br /> confer upon himself as a member of the Court<br /> of Examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons<br /> the exclusive right of lecturing in the character<br /> of a public functionary, and by another Act claim.<br /> the protection due to private lecturers on the<br /> ground of the injury which his reputation or<br /> pecuniary interests might sustain from the issue<br /> of his lectures in cheap form. For it must be<br /> understood that the said Court of Examiners, of<br /> which Abernethy was a member and at one time<br /> Chairman, decided who were to be the official<br /> lecturers to the students, and would take no<br /> other man’s certificates as to the competency<br /> of candidates for diplomas. After the injunction<br /> Abernethy had delivered an address to the students<br /> on the occasion of the opening of the session at<br /> St. Bartholomew&#039;s Hospital, and this address had<br /> appeared in full in the Lanceſ, precisely as if no<br /> injunction existed, on the ground that it had<br /> been delivered by Abernethy in a public capacity.<br /> No retaliatory steps were taken by Abernethy.<br /> Shortly after this, a few days only before Wakley&#039;s<br /> application for a dissolution of the injunction,<br /> Abernethy tendered his resignation as a surgeonto<br /> the governors of St. Bartholomew&#039;s Hospital whilst<br /> desiring to remain a lecturer to the institution.<br /> The governors refused to accept his resignation<br /> as a surgeon unless he also tendered his resig-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#603) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 249<br /> nation as a lecturer. This recognition of an<br /> inseparable tie between the two posts of surgeon<br /> and lecturer reached Wakley&#039;s ears, and supplied<br /> him with the very point in his argument for a<br /> dissolution of the injunction that he required.<br /> “Of course Abernethy’s lectures were public<br /> property,” he said: “they are delivered in his<br /> public capacity as surgeon to a public charity,<br /> and the students of the metropolis must attend<br /> them, or lectures from some five or six other<br /> functionaries similarly situated, whether they<br /> like or no.” The five or six others being the<br /> other lecturers licensed by the Court of Ex-<br /> aminers. The facts of Abernethy’s offer of resig-<br /> nation to the governors of St. Bartholomew&#039;s<br /> Hospital were set out in the form of an affidavit,<br /> and, no one appearing to represent Abernethy in<br /> opposition to a motion for dissolution of the<br /> injunction, Lord Eldon removed the restriction.<br /> The practical termination of this case, therefore,<br /> was, curiously enough, in exact opposition to the<br /> temporary termination which forms a precedent<br /> that is so widely quoted, and the Lancet, in<br /> publishing the whole story, has furnished us<br /> with an interesting piece of old-world literary<br /> history.<br /> III.--THE AMERICAN AUTHORs&#039; GUILD.<br /> Some account appears in the Author for March<br /> of the Associated Authors&#039; Publishing Company in<br /> New York, an enterprise destined, I trust, for good<br /> service to European as well as American authors.<br /> A remark in the Author, that the (English) Society<br /> of Authors could hardly enter upon the business<br /> of publishing, may lead to the inference that the<br /> American Guild has entered upon such business.<br /> But the Guild takes no responsibility for the new<br /> publishing company. On the other hand, it is<br /> important to add that the incorporators of the<br /> company include the president (General Grant<br /> Wilson) and other active members of the Guild,<br /> and that a majority of our Board of Manage-<br /> ment have recorded their “cordial approval and<br /> endorsement of the objects of the proposed<br /> corporation.”<br /> The American Guild, founded in May, 1892,<br /> incorporated in January, 1895, grows rapidly, and<br /> by latest accounts numbers more than 400<br /> members. Its aims, as stated in the act of<br /> incorporation, are “to promote a professional<br /> spirit among authors; to foster a more friendly<br /> feeling, and create greater confidence, between<br /> authors and publishers, and to devise some<br /> practical means of securing accurate returns of<br /> sales by publishers; to advise authors as to the<br /> value of literary property and the different<br /> methods of publishing books, and to see that<br /> their contracts are so drawn as to secure to them<br /> their lawful rights; to determine disputes between<br /> authors and publishers by arbitration, or, if<br /> necessary, by an appeal to the courts; to maintain<br /> and defend literary property, and to advance the<br /> interests of American authors and literature; the<br /> furtherance of library, literary, benevolent, and<br /> social purposes.”<br /> There are twenty-one officers of the Guild.<br /> The monthly meetings have been well attended<br /> by these, and by unofficial members. The con-<br /> ferences have been quick with interest, and there<br /> has been a steady development of practical<br /> purposes. The Guild is about to establish a sort<br /> of club, or “Guild Home,” in New York, a relief<br /> insurance fund, a library, and the monthly<br /> Bulletin will be enlarged into a magazine. Thus<br /> far the only action towards national reform has<br /> been a petition to Congress for a manuscript<br /> post ; for it is one symptom of the long neglect<br /> under which our authors have suffered, that they<br /> must pay letter postage on manuscripts, though<br /> the very same manuscripts, when accompanied by<br /> the publisher&#039;s proof, pass as printed matter.<br /> When the presidential election is over this<br /> petition will probably be granted, but the reform-<br /> ing tendencies of the Guild constitute its raison<br /> d&#039;être, and will ultimately deal with more serious<br /> evils than the postal anomaly. This organisation<br /> represents, as I believe, the awakening of literary<br /> men in America to the fact that in the republic<br /> of letters their nation is placed in the rear of<br /> civilised States by injurious external conditions,<br /> while possessing ample intellectual ability to keep<br /> abreast of other States. For the present the<br /> Guild is gathering its forces, and organising<br /> them; it is also studying seriously the causes of<br /> the injurious conditions, and steadily reaching a<br /> consensus thereon ; and on several occasions I<br /> have beard in its meetings the rights and wrongs<br /> of foreign authors, as affected by American legis-<br /> lation, considered with deep concern. The leaders<br /> of the Guild are men of experience and practical<br /> wisdom, and any Quixotic efforts at reform are as<br /> little to be apprehended as passive acquiescence<br /> in the oppressions under which American<br /> literature is suffering, and by which foreign<br /> authors are largely burdened. From letters just<br /> received from the president of the Guild and<br /> others I learn that international questions were<br /> to be discussed at an ensuing monthly meeting,<br /> and it is probable that I may ask space in a<br /> future number of the Author for a further state-<br /> ment. Mon CURE D. ConwAY.<br /> IV.--THE TRELOAR BILL.<br /> At a meeting of the Executive Committee of<br /> the American Publishers’ Copyright League, held<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#604) ################################################<br /> <br /> 25O<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> on the 2nd of February, the following resolutions<br /> were presented and adopted:—<br /> Resolved : That the American Publishers&#039; Copyright<br /> League disapprove, on the following grounds, of the pro-<br /> visions of the bill introduced into the House of Represen-<br /> tatives by Mr. Treloar (H. R. 5976) for the revision of the<br /> copyright law :<br /> I. The bill provides for the restriction to “citizens of the<br /> United States” of the privilege of securing copyright under<br /> the statute. The Act of 1891 extended the privilege of<br /> securing copyright within the United States to the citizens of<br /> foreign states which conceded to American citizens the<br /> benefit of copyright. The Act of 1870 had limited the<br /> privilege of securing copyright to persons who were<br /> “residents * of the United States. The restriction now<br /> proposed, limiting the copyright privilege to citizens, would<br /> bring about a revocation or cancellation of the copyright<br /> relations which have been entered into by the United States,<br /> under the Act of 1891, with Great Britain, France, Germany,<br /> Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, and Denmark,<br /> and would constitute a distinct step back of the policy of<br /> even our most primitive copyright laws in the recognition<br /> of literary and artistic property.<br /> 2. The bill provides for the addition to the list of articles<br /> which, in order to secure the privilege of copyright in the<br /> United States, must be wholly manufactured within the<br /> limits of the United States, of musical compositions and of<br /> reproductions of works of art in the form of engravings,<br /> cuts, or prints. In the discussion of the provisions of the<br /> Act of 1891 it was held by those having expert knowledge<br /> of the subject that the application of the manufacturing<br /> requirement to the production of foreign musical composers<br /> would in practice prevent such composers, in the majority of<br /> cases, from securing the benefit of American copyright, and<br /> would simply perpetuate the practice previously existing of<br /> the appropriation by American reprinters of the property in<br /> such productions. It was further established, during this<br /> discussion, that a condition requiring the manufacture or<br /> production in the United States of an engraving of a work<br /> of art by a foreign designer must, in the majority of in-<br /> stances (and particularly in the cases of the more important<br /> works of art which could not be brought across the Atlantic<br /> for the purpose of being engraved) render impracticable the<br /> securing of American copyright, and would leave open, as<br /> heretofore, the property in such reproductions to be appro-<br /> priated by unauthorised publishers.<br /> In connection with the difficulties in the way of securing<br /> simultaneous publication in the United States for editions of<br /> Continental books printed in the language of the country of<br /> their origin, the authors of France, Germany, and Spain<br /> have thus far secured but inconsiderable advantage from<br /> the American Copyright Act ; although the several nations<br /> which have entered into copyright relations with the United<br /> States have extended to our citizens, without any restric-<br /> tions of local manufacture, the full copyright privileges<br /> enjoyed by their own citizens. This result has naturally<br /> brought about, on the part of the nations referred to, a large<br /> measure of dissatisfaction with their copyright relations<br /> with the United States, and these relations would before now<br /> have been terminated (greatly to the disadvantage of<br /> American authors and artists) if it had not been for certain<br /> advantages secured under the Act of 1891 to the foreign<br /> producers of works of art. If the protection of American<br /> copyright is to be withdrawn also from the productions of<br /> foreign artists (as would be the result under the Treloar<br /> Hill), international copyright relations between the United<br /> States and the nations above specified will inevitably be<br /> brought to a close.<br /> 3. The provision in the bill under which the total amount<br /> to be collected for the infringement of the copyright<br /> of a literary production is limited to 5000 dollars is<br /> inequitable in itself, and constitutes a distinct departure<br /> from the principles heretofore controlling the law of copy-<br /> right throughout the world. An authorised reprinter might<br /> easily secure, through the appropriation of copyrighted work,<br /> proceeds which would enable him to pay such a penalty as<br /> that provided for, and still secure a satisfactory return from<br /> his undertaking. The penalty should be left, as under the<br /> present law, proportioned to the extent of the injury caused<br /> to the owner of the copyright, and proportioned also to the<br /> proceeds secured to the person appropriating the copyrighted<br /> property, which proceeds have been diverted from the right-<br /> ful owner. -<br /> 4. The plan for instituting the office of commissioner<br /> of copyrights can, in our judgment, be dealt with more<br /> effectively in a separate bill, such as has already been<br /> introduced in the House by Mr. Bankhead and in the<br /> Senate by Mr. Morrill. It is also our opinion that the<br /> staff provided under the Treloar bill for the Copyright<br /> Bureau would be unnecessarily large and expensive, and<br /> that the services of so many employes would probably not<br /> be required, at least during the earlier years of the opera-<br /> tion of the office.<br /> 5. The purpose expressed in clause XXVIII. of the bill<br /> for securing adequate protection for the property rights of<br /> dramatic authors can also, in our judgment, be better<br /> brought about under the provisions of the Cummings bill<br /> now pending the House of Representatives. -<br /> For these several considerations it is our judgment that<br /> the enactment of the Treloar bill would constitute a serious<br /> injury to the rights of producers of copyright property and<br /> to the interests of the community for the use of which<br /> such copyright property is brought into existence. It would<br /> further constitute, on the part of the United States, a<br /> breach of international good faith with the several nations<br /> of Europe that have extended copyright privileges to<br /> American citizens. We, therefore, ask that the bill may<br /> receive the unfavourable action of Congress and of the<br /> Executive.<br /> On motion it was also resolved “that this com-<br /> mittee cordially approves the purpose of the bills<br /> introduced in the House by Mr. Bankhead, and<br /> in the Senate by Senator Morrill, for instituting<br /> a separate bureau for the registry of copyrights.<br /> It is, however, the judgment of the committee<br /> that a larger staff of assistants than that specified<br /> in these bills will be required for the effective<br /> conduct of the work that is to be confided to this<br /> bureau; and it is further our opinion that more<br /> effective service will be secured if the responsibility<br /> for the selection of all the members of his working<br /> staff be placed in the hands of the proposed<br /> register of copyrights.”<br /> W.—A GREAT CHANCE.<br /> The following are certain novel conditions<br /> under which any writer may make a certainty of<br /> being heard in a Paper especially provided for<br /> him. It affords one the greatest pleasure to give<br /> publicity to this noble offer.<br /> “THIS offer is made to provide a means whereby Authors,<br /> Writers, and others of a literary bent or ability, may obtain<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#605) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 251<br /> publication for their work, and receive adequate remumera-<br /> tion from the owtset, besides bringing them into public<br /> notice, without ea pense to themselves.<br /> The Paper, which will be of a high class, will be issued at<br /> a popular price, and its circulation will ensure to its con-<br /> tributors a position unobtainable by other means.<br /> CoNDITIONs.<br /> (1) The Editor will receive, accept, and pay for on<br /> publication, at a liberal rate, any Article or Work, either in<br /> prose or verse, sent in by a Contributor, provided it be<br /> original.<br /> (2) The Editor shall have power to delete, alter, cut out,<br /> shorten, or expand any Article or Work as he may think<br /> fit, and any alteration so made shall be accepted by the<br /> Contributor.<br /> (3) The rate of remuneration shall be fixed on a basis<br /> according to the literary merit, ability, and length of the<br /> Work, but in no case shall it be less than at a rate of £5 58.<br /> for an Article of 5000 words, and at proportionate rates for<br /> other quantities.<br /> (4) The decision of the Editor as to the remuneration for<br /> any Work shall be accepted as final and binding upon all<br /> parties concerned.<br /> (5) A copy of each issue of the Paper will be sent post<br /> free to every Contributor.<br /> (6) Every Contributor is required to agree to subscribe<br /> to the Paper for a period of seven years, and to pay each<br /> year the Annual Subscription of £3 3s., in advance, failing<br /> which their contributions will not be accepted, published, or<br /> paid for.<br /> (7) The work of the Paper, such as reviews, reports,<br /> criticisms, notices, &amp;c., will be distributed (and paid for at<br /> liberal rates) amongst Contributors only. This will give<br /> further opportunities of remuneration to them apart from<br /> their own original contributions. r<br /> (8) Every Contributor has the right under these Con-<br /> ditions of sending in work to the Paper, which will be<br /> accepted and paid for on publication in accordance with<br /> Conditions 1, 2, and 3. .<br /> (9) Every Contributor, on signing these Conditions and<br /> sending the Subscription, will be duly registered, and<br /> obtain the privileges contained herein.<br /> I agree to become a Contributor in accordance with the<br /> foregoing condidions, which I accept and agree to, and I<br /> inclose here with the sum of £3 38. as my first year&#039;s<br /> subscription.<br /> Signatwre............ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .<br /> Address in full<br /> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *<br /> I think that a few questions should be sent to<br /> the editor before we make haste to pay our annual<br /> subscription of £33s.<br /> 1. Does the first condition really mean that<br /> every contribution sent in by any subscriber or<br /> contributor must be accepted and published by<br /> the editor? In that case the Tower of Babel<br /> itself would be intelligible and interesting in com-<br /> parison with a paper which published everything<br /> sent in. -<br /> 2. Does the second condition contradict the<br /> first P In the first the editor seems to bind<br /> himself to publish whatever is offered him. In<br /> the second he reserves the power to delete, i.e., to<br /> cut out, whatever is offered him.<br /> WC) L, WI.<br /> 3. The third condition appears to contradict<br /> itself. The pay is to depend on the literary<br /> merit and length of the work offered. But it is<br /> never to be less than a guinea for a thousand<br /> words. How, then, in the case of articles of no<br /> literary merit whatever, which the editor, by the<br /> first condition, is bound to publish P<br /> 5. A copy to be sent post free to each contri-<br /> butor. This is unheard of generosity.<br /> 6. This is the most startling condition. We<br /> are to engage to pay an annual subscription of<br /> 33 3s. a year for seven years | That is to say,<br /> we are to promise £3 3s. a year—we can get<br /> Longman&#039;s for 6s.-for a magazine of which we<br /> know nothing—for seven years to come ! This<br /> betrays an amount of confidence in the artlessness<br /> of literary aspirants which with all our experience<br /> we could never reach. For seven years l Blind<br /> confidence in the unseen for seven years!<br /> Wonderful -<br /> 8. The eighth condition clears up the doubt<br /> expressed above. The contributor by this con-<br /> dition seems to receive the absolute right of<br /> having his work, whatever it is, however impos-<br /> sible, however miserable, accepted, published, and<br /> paid for<br /> Another question or two:<br /> I. How many contributors will be accepted for<br /> each number P A thousand P Ten thousand P<br /> 2. What is to be the form, size, price, of the<br /> organ in question ?<br /> 3. What guarantee does the editor offer (I<br /> that the paper will continue; (2) that it will<br /> appear; (3) that he can carry out his promises P<br /> 4. Is it to be a political, a literary, or scientific<br /> organ P A weekly, monthly, or a daily organ P<br /> A London or a provincial organ P<br /> 5. Suppose it to be a monthly organ : suppose<br /> it to have acquired a thousand “contributors: ”<br /> has every contributor the power of contributing<br /> a contribution every month P If so, the maga-<br /> zine would contain something like 500 pages at<br /> least every month. Will not this bulk somewhat<br /> tax the resources of the enterprising editor P<br /> If the projector will enlighten us upon these<br /> points he may perhaps attract a large number of<br /> contributors. He will observe that I have given<br /> him for nothing an excellent advertisement.<br /> W. B.<br /> F. F.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#606) ################################################<br /> <br /> 252<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> NEW YORK LETTER,<br /> NEVERAL bills affecting copyright have been<br /> introduced into the present Congress. There<br /> T are first two short bills, providing for a<br /> separate bureau of copyright registry, differing<br /> chiefly in matters of salary and of sources from<br /> which the assistants in the proposed bureau are to<br /> be appointed. A third bill, by Mr. Cummings<br /> of New York, embodies the views of the owners of<br /> dramatic copyrights as to an adequate provision<br /> for enforcing the law against pirates of their<br /> works. A fourth bill, introduced by Mr. Treloar<br /> of Missouri, includes Mr. Cummings&#039; bill ver-<br /> batim, and provides also for the much needed<br /> copyright bureau. It also extends the terms of<br /> copyright from twenty-eight and fourteen to forty<br /> and twenty years respectively, a provision suffi-<br /> ciently acceptable to the owners of copyright, but<br /> one for which there is no organised demand, and<br /> one which is deemed by the Authors&#039; League im-<br /> practicable at the present time. It also makes<br /> some minor changes looking to the greater<br /> efficiency of the law as respects copyright in<br /> photographs. The rest of the bill is irredeemably<br /> bad, and would operate as a virtual repeal of the<br /> copyright law. It provides, first, that copyrights<br /> shall be given only to citizens of the United<br /> States, a provision repealed by the present<br /> Act. The exceptions to the non-importation<br /> clause in the case of copyright material are all<br /> omitted, with the exception of books in foreign<br /> languages. The present importation of two copies<br /> of a foreign edition of a copyrighted book for<br /> use and not for sale is stricken out. Newspapers<br /> could lio longer be imported if they contained<br /> copyright material, nor could books over twenty<br /> years of age, or books for libraries, governments,<br /> &amp;c. This section is perhaps the most clumsy and<br /> unintelligent of the whole measure. Third, the<br /> manufacturing clause is extended to pe iodicals,<br /> maps, charts, musical compositions, engravings,<br /> cuts, and prints, in addition to the four articles<br /> from which that condition is now exacted, namely,<br /> books, chromos, lithographs, and photographs.<br /> The other details show that the bill is constructed<br /> in the most provincial spirit; but the changes<br /> provided for are so radical that the bill has<br /> already, awakened a storm of indignation among<br /> the friends of international copyright. The<br /> American Authors’ Copyright League and the<br /> American Publishers&#039; Copyright League have<br /> already plotested in vigorous terms against the<br /> measure, which was opposed at a meeting of a<br /> committee on patents of the House of Represen-<br /> tatives on March 4, by Mr. Richard Underwood<br /> Johnson, secretary of the American Copyright<br /> League. Moreover, the American publishers<br /> themselves are by no means in favour of the<br /> measure, although it evidently had its origin in<br /> the desire to extend the manufacturing clause to<br /> music, as Mr. Treloar, who introduced it, is a<br /> music publisher. Mr. Treloar, to do him justice,<br /> is somewhat aghast at the destructive work of<br /> his measure, and has shown signs of desisting.<br /> There seems to be small chance of the bills pass-<br /> ing with these objectionable features, and as the<br /> removal of them would remove what was the<br /> motive of the introduction of the bill, it is im-<br /> probable that the bill will pass in any form.<br /> Meantime it is probable that the Authors&#039; League<br /> will follow the Publishers&#039; League in indorsing<br /> Mr. Bankhead’s bill for a bureau of copyright<br /> registry, but as that bill carries an appropria-<br /> tion with it, it is likely to meet with consider-<br /> able opposition at this time, when the leaders<br /> of the majority in the House of Represen-<br /> tatives are endeavouring to make a record for<br /> economy.<br /> English friends of international copyright<br /> need have little anxiety about public opinion<br /> in the United States on this question. Both<br /> the Authors’ and the Publishers&#039; League look<br /> upon it as part of their duty to resist<br /> constantly any invasion of the present copy-<br /> right law tending to a less liberal policy.<br /> During the five years of its operation the recipro-<br /> cal operation of the American law has been<br /> extended steadily, so that now the United States<br /> is in copyright relations with Great Britain and<br /> her colonies, France, Germany, Belgium, Switzer-<br /> land, Portugal, and Denmark, and efforts are<br /> being made to strengthen the law still further<br /> by similar arrangements with other countries.<br /> This policy in its results has already shown its<br /> value, for now the authors are able to show<br /> Congress that an invasion of the present law<br /> would imperil the privileges of American citizens<br /> in foreign countries. Of course any change in the<br /> direction of liberality would not be met with this<br /> objection. It is to be borne in mind, also, that all<br /> the attacks upon the law at the present time have<br /> started from provincial sources and from men<br /> who had little conception of what would be the<br /> result of their proposed legislation. Should the<br /> bill by any chance succeed in passing the com-<br /> mittee there will be a vigorous agitation against<br /> it from all sides similar to that which succeeded<br /> in defeating the less radical Hicks bill of last<br /> year.<br /> A second edition of “The Question of Copy-<br /> right,” by George Haven Putnam, will be issued<br /> immediately by C. P. Putnam&#039;s Sons, This work is<br /> sound and complete in its history of copyright<br /> legislation and discussions of the underlying laws<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#607) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 253.<br /> of property, and this edition will bring the story<br /> of the subject in America down to the present<br /> month. Another book by Mr. Putnam about to<br /> appear is the first volume of “Books and their<br /> Makers during the Middle Ages,” a study of the<br /> conditions of the production and distribution of<br /> literature from the fall of the Roman Empire to<br /> the end of the seventeenth century.<br /> Chicago is rapidly taking its place as an<br /> important publishing centre as well as a literary<br /> centre. Still, rapid as has been the progress in<br /> the last five years, there is now a magnifying of<br /> everything coming from there which shows a<br /> great deal of the provincial spirit remaining.<br /> Charles Scribner&#039;s Sons have just issued “The<br /> Love Affairs of a Biblomaniac,” by Eugene Field,<br /> in a costly edition, and are about to issue “The<br /> House,” by the same author. Mr. Field, who is<br /> probably almost unknown to English readers, was<br /> a Chicago journalist who has just died. He<br /> wrote light poems and essays entirely without<br /> permanent value, and the announcement of these<br /> volumes, with the great amount of talk that has<br /> been made about the author since his death, is<br /> one of many indications that America in general<br /> and Chicago and the new West in particular have<br /> a local literary vanity which shows itself markedly<br /> in the output of the leading publishers. Henry<br /> B. Fuller, of Chicago, author of “The Chevalier<br /> of Pensieri Vani ’’ and of “The Cliff Dwellers,” is<br /> to have a volume of one act plays published this<br /> spring by the Century Company. He is a man<br /> who has shown literary powers of several different<br /> kinds, and he is one of the writers watched with<br /> real interest in his future by observers of<br /> American literature. The principal Chicago<br /> publishers, Stone and Kimball, who publish more<br /> books of Western life than any other house, have<br /> within the half dozen years of their existence<br /> come to play a leading part in the literary world<br /> here. Their last move was to establish, two weeks<br /> ago, a branch house in New York. As John Lane<br /> is to publish their Chap-Book in England,<br /> readers on the other side will get a very fair idea<br /> of the nature of present American taste in light<br /> semi-artistic literature. One of the most promis-<br /> ing of young Western writers is Hamlin Garland.<br /> His last book, “Rose of Dutcher&#039;s Coolly,”<br /> recently published by Stone and Kimball, has<br /> been much discussed. In its strength and its<br /> crudity it represents the best of our new work<br /> from the Western States. One of the publishers<br /> of the book remarked in conversation last week<br /> that what Mr. Garland needed for a real advance<br /> in power was a wider horizon, an experience in<br /> the old countries of Europe. This subject is<br /> being discussed vigorously just now ; the general<br /> subject of the value of European influence on our<br /> the stage.<br /> writers. Mr. Brander Matthews has just aroused<br /> controversy by the introduction and the conclu-<br /> sion of his “Introduction to American Literature,”<br /> published by the American Book Company. The<br /> author lays great emphasis on the distinction<br /> between British and English literature, including<br /> under the latter term the literature of all English<br /> speaking countries, and he emphasises the wisdom<br /> of taking our keellest interest in our own writers.<br /> This has been attacked on the one hand as literary<br /> jingoism, and defended on the other as an intelli-<br /> gent emancipation from secondhand ideas and<br /> interests. Whatever the merits of the case, the<br /> book is an excellent one for the clearness with<br /> which it points out, mainly for use in schools, the<br /> broad and simple traits which have thus far<br /> marked American literature. -<br /> In New York no writer of the last two or three<br /> years has attracted more attention than Edward<br /> Townsend. His “Chimmie Fadden º’ had an<br /> enormous sale, and is now having a success on<br /> It deals with a Bowery hero, or the<br /> typical Irish-American boy of the poorer district<br /> of the city. His “Daughter of the Tenements”<br /> if about to be published in England. It gives a<br /> fair idea of the quality of a kind of literature<br /> much in Vogue here, stories of local colour<br /> written by ready, versatile newspaper men, who<br /> are quick to seize upon the aspects of our life<br /> obviously available for literary purposes. The<br /> newspaper reporter is the material from which<br /> many of our most prominent young writers are<br /> now made. Stephen Crane, the author of<br /> “The Red Badge of Courage,” was a reporter<br /> here. Richard Harding Davis, Julian Ralph,<br /> and Earnest Riis are also reporters. So much<br /> “special work,” or articles of general local<br /> interest, of a half literary quality, are required by<br /> our newspapers now, especially for their great<br /> Sunday editions, that the more successful reporters<br /> become almost inevitably magazine writers, as the<br /> magazines, especially the illustrated ones, want<br /> the same sort of matter. The Scribner’s will<br /> publish this spring “Cinderella and other<br /> Stories,” by Mr. Davis.<br /> One of our best writers of stories of western<br /> life, Owen Wister, is a grandson of Fanny<br /> Kemble. He was a class-mate of Henry Norman<br /> at Harvard University, and acted with him in the<br /> famous Greek play given there, the GEdipus.<br /> Nſr. Norman’s “The Near East” will be published<br /> this spring by the Scribner&#039;s.<br /> The May number of the Bookman will contain<br /> an article on Samuel L. Clemens called “Mark<br /> Twain as an Historical Novelist,” and about the<br /> same time the Harper&#039;s will announce officially<br /> that Mr. Clemens is the author of “The Personal<br /> Recollections of Joan of Arc,” the series which<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#608) ################################################<br /> <br /> 254<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> has been running in Harper&#039;s Monthly signed<br /> Louis Leconte, announced by the Harper&#039;s as by<br /> the most popular magazine writer in the world.<br /> This article will take the position that Mark<br /> Twain is one of the writers of permanent impor-<br /> tance, especially for his pictures of south-western<br /> American life. “The Adventures of Huckle-<br /> berry Finn’’ is the book in which Mark Twain<br /> has made the solidest pictures of the characteris-<br /> tics of the people of that region, especially of the<br /> attitude toward slavery and of the conditions<br /> which still cause the violent bloody feuds.<br /> Cosmopolis is being watched with interest<br /> here. The critics have treated it kindly, but its<br /> sale has not been great. Any periodical published<br /> at a high price must have a hard time at present<br /> to compete with the mass of cheap ones. It is<br /> pointed out, by the way, with significance varying<br /> according to the point of view of the critic, that<br /> of the four Americans who have been asked to<br /> contribute to Cosmopolis but one lives in this<br /> country, Albert Shaw ; Joseph Pennell, Henry<br /> James, and Harold Frederick all live abroad.<br /> It is generally believed here that Thomas<br /> Hardy tried to withdraw “Jude the Obscure &quot;<br /> from the Harpers’ on account of the omissions<br /> upon which they insisted. The present attitude<br /> towards realistic studies of what we call un-<br /> pleasant subjects is shown by a decision just<br /> reached, and not yet made public, by the faculty<br /> of Yale University. A course on modern novels,<br /> including George Moore’s “Esther Waters,” and<br /> several others of a similar unconventionality, is<br /> to be suppressed next year on account of the<br /> amount of unfavourable comment aroused by it.<br /> *- 2. ~~<br /> NOTES AND NEWS.<br /> \O the members of the Society desire a more<br /> direct representation—viz., by some form<br /> of election by themselves—in the manage-<br /> ment P They have been invited to forward names<br /> of persons willing to consider the subject; they<br /> have been promised, further, the selection of three<br /> such persons from the list. The totally un-<br /> expected result has been that not one single name<br /> has been sent in. This result may be interpreted<br /> in two ways: either as a proof that the members<br /> are satisfied with the management, or that the<br /> members are apathetic on the subject. Satisfac-<br /> tion is, T venture to think, the principal cause ; for<br /> if we guard the essentials, no change would make<br /> much difference. The essentials are that the<br /> managing body shall keep steadily to the original<br /> principles of the Society, that is, that light should<br /> be constantly thrown upon the meaning of pub-<br /> new departure.<br /> lishing; the cost of production ; the meaning of<br /> agreements; the meaning of royalties; the tricks<br /> of tricky or dishonest publishers; and, in fact,<br /> on all actual facts connected with the business<br /> side of literature. Those who are not concerned<br /> with literary property have nothing to do with the<br /> Society. For those who are, the Society will, I<br /> hope, however it is governed, continue to carry on<br /> the work of ascertaining and making public the<br /> facts as connected with the production and the<br /> distribution of literature.<br /> Given the preservation of the essentials I<br /> think it matters very little indeed how the Society<br /> is governed—whether by a dictator or a Parlia-<br /> ment. At the same time there must be changes<br /> in the constitution of every society from time to<br /> time. One change that I have myself desired very<br /> strongly is the election of women on the Council.<br /> I believe that a great many other members<br /> hold this view. Considering how many women<br /> writers are members of the Society: considering,<br /> further, the place held in modern literature by<br /> wom, n: it does seem absurd that a Society of<br /> Authors should have no women on its Council.<br /> At the next meeting of Council, if no more per-<br /> suasive person takes up the matter, I propose to<br /> bring it forward and to propose members. By<br /> the Articles of Association the number of<br /> the Council is limited to sixty—I have never<br /> understood why. We limit the number when we<br /> wish to confer a distinction. In this case the<br /> distinction is conferred not upon the members,<br /> but upon the Society. However, there is the<br /> limit laid down. Now, we desire to have on our<br /> Council (I) the persons most largely interested<br /> in literary property of various kinds; and (2)<br /> those persons able to bring special knowledge on<br /> the subject of literary property and its manage-<br /> ment. A deliberative body, it may be urged,<br /> must not be too large : there should be some limit :<br /> the Council, however, is seldom called upon to<br /> exercise deliberative functions: its chief purpose is<br /> to show the world, by the guarantee of well-known<br /> names, that we are in earnest, and to supply, from<br /> its body, new members for the committee of<br /> management.<br /> --&gt;ecº-<br /> A correspondent speaks of the Committee of<br /> inquiry into educational books as if it were a<br /> Not at all. Educational books :<br /> have hitherto been taken just as they come, with<br /> other books. It appears that it has seemed to<br /> some as if the Society was principally occupied<br /> with fiction. That is partly because fiction is a<br /> very important branch of literary property: partly<br /> because writers of fiction have now become<br /> awakened to this fact : partly because the kind<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#609) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE<br /> 255<br /> A UTHOR.<br /> and other books as the example is the very con-<br /> venient unit — the six-shilling book—in which<br /> most works of fiction now appear : but mainly<br /> because writers of educational works do not, as yet,<br /> half understand the value of their own works.<br /> Hence they have been led to sign agreements of<br /> the most monstrous kind—taking small royalties,<br /> deferred till thousands—literally thousands—of<br /> copies have been sold. There are many other<br /> points connected with the publishing of educa-<br /> tional books which require separate and careful<br /> investigation. The sub-committee hope to receive<br /> assistance during this investigation from those<br /> members who have published educational works.<br /> My correspondent asks that a wider range of<br /> subjects should be explicitly classified and repre-<br /> sented. If the writer will turn to the prospectus,<br /> to the annual reports, to everything published<br /> by the Society, he will find that the widest<br /> possible range is already claimed. We look upon<br /> literary property of every kind as our field : there<br /> is no limit as to fiction or anything else: literary<br /> property of every kind belongs to the range of<br /> the Society’s work. The reason why my corre-<br /> spondent feels himself in the wrong corner is,<br /> to repeat, simply that educational writers as a<br /> rule do not understand their own rights or the<br /> value of their own property: therefore their cases<br /> are not often sent to the Secretary, and therefore<br /> the columns of the Author have contained, so far,<br /> very little reference to educational subjects.<br /> We approach the conclusion of another volume<br /> of this journal, and I take the opportunity of<br /> speaking about arrangements for the future.<br /> Our correspondents at Paris and New York will<br /> continue their monthly letters: Mr. Thring will<br /> communicate a series of papers from his own<br /> experience on agreements and their meaning :<br /> the members will, it is hoped, contribute notes<br /> as to their forthcoming books, with letters and<br /> papers on points of personal experience: cases<br /> and legal actions bearing on literary property<br /> will be reported : we shall repeat certain things<br /> already published in these pages: such as the<br /> meaning of royalties: and we shall continue to<br /> present certain unanswered questions: as, for<br /> instance, to the equitable remuneration due for the<br /> administration of an author&#039;s work : i.e., in those<br /> cases where a royalty or profit-sharing agreement<br /> is accepted. The warnings and notices which<br /> have hitherto been presented with every number of<br /> the journal will be recast, with certain additions<br /> and alterations. And it is hoped to present<br /> instructions of a practical and simple, kind to the<br /> WOL. W.I.<br /> of book adopted in the “Cost of Production ”<br /> candidate for literary success. As the presenteditor,<br /> I wish to point out that one cannot hope to provide<br /> a paper every word of which will be approved<br /> |by all the readers : I beg them, however, to<br /> remember that the only raison d’être of the<br /> Author is the definition and the defence of literary<br /> property: so far as it does that it is the organ and<br /> mouthpiece of the Society : as for the rest, we<br /> cannot all think alike. Further, signed articles<br /> must be taken to represent only the views of the<br /> writer: and the editor cannot, clearly, be held<br /> responsible for the opinions of his correspondents.<br /> Finally, I hope to continue for 1896-97 the feuille-<br /> tons that used to please some of our members: they<br /> were stopped because the supply was stopped: and<br /> that stoppage was caused by the pressure of other<br /> work. . t<br /> A note will be found in “Book Talk,” extracted<br /> from the Athenaeum, on the belief that a publisher,<br /> or, indeed, even an author, can command a good<br /> review. This note deserves a little attention. Ihave<br /> on several occasions “struck” this singular belief,<br /> which I think is wide spread. People write to<br /> me—“Your well-known friendship with editors:<br /> your immense influence with publishers”—it is,<br /> indeed, immense: “Your knowledge of journal-<br /> ists, your &amp;c., &amp;c., will enable you to procure a<br /> good review for my new work.” It is of no use<br /> to get angry with people who write in this way;<br /> it is generally a proof of ignorance to believe the<br /> worst. On one occasion a certain person—an old<br /> acquaintance—sent me a book with the usual<br /> request for assistance. I replied that the only<br /> possible way was to send round press copies: to<br /> hope for good reviews: and to advertise. He<br /> showed my letter around. “I have known this<br /> man,” he said bitterly, “for forty years—and this<br /> is all he will do for me!” What else could one<br /> do for the man? His fixed belief—it is the fixed<br /> belief of many—was that a good review is just a<br /> matter of private interest—that and nothing more.<br /> On Saturday, March 28, died, at her resi-<br /> dence at Hampstead, a gentlewoman whose<br /> writings have endeared her name wherever the<br /> English language is spoken. I do not pretend<br /> that she was a great writer, but I do pretend<br /> that what she produced always possessed the true<br /> ring; was always charming; was always delicate<br /> and pure and elevating. Mrs. Charles, the<br /> widow of the late Mr. Andrew Paton Charles, whose<br /> brother is the present Mr. Justice Charles, was a<br /> woman of wide reading, of many friends, of deep<br /> sympathies. In religion she was a strong<br /> Anglican without a touch of narrowness: among<br /> her closest friends were Dean Stanley and Lady<br /> G. G.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#610) ################################################<br /> <br /> 256<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Augusta, of whom she wrote a memoir: and the<br /> only enemies she had in the world were those<br /> whose writings “made ’’ for what she considered<br /> evil. It is a great happiness for the Church of<br /> England that it can, and does, produce women<br /> such as Mrs. Charles; souls so pure, so high-<br /> minded, so sincere. Others will no doubt follow<br /> her, but to those who knew Mrs. Charles no one<br /> can take her place. WALTER BESANT.<br /> *~ * →<br /> THE SONNET.<br /> The sonnet is a dainty gem of rhyme,<br /> Where ten sweet syllables may smoothly flow<br /> &quot; Through fourteen lines, all neatly set a-row,<br /> And linked together with harmonious chime ;<br /> Where some grave poet, with a thought sublime,<br /> May teach a thousand listening hearts to glow ;<br /> Or, word by word, as fancies come and go,<br /> A lighter muse may charm the flight of time.<br /> Will Shakespere wrought it, all in purest gold;<br /> Austerer beauty grew &#039;neath Milton’s hand;<br /> &#039;Mid Wordsworth’s bays it glittered like a star:<br /> And thou, presumptuous pen, dar&#039;st thou ? Withhold !<br /> . . Nor dream to mingle with that deathless band,<br /> But humbly follow, thou, afar—afar !<br /> ‘. CRESANDIA.<br /> *-- ~ *-*<br /> g- &gt; -º<br /> FEUILLETONS.<br /> I.—THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.<br /> ** * * HEN his friends heard that Walter<br /> - . Hawkins was engaged, most of them<br /> wondered how that industrious journalist<br /> had found time to fall in love. However, they<br /> agreed, his life would be the better for a flavour<br /> of romance in it, for his daily work was more<br /> than sufficiently prosaic. He reviewed novels—<br /> which he really did read—for one paper, put<br /> together pot-boiling descriptive articles for others,<br /> was “Our London Correspondent’’ to more than<br /> one provincial journal, and, by dint of great<br /> facility and astonishing powers of work, derived<br /> from these various sources an income of about six<br /> hundred pounds a year. Once only had he been<br /> known to take a holiday, and this he had employed<br /> in falling in love with all the ardour of a beginner<br /> at that pastime.<br /> holiday was run he had found himself an engaged<br /> Iſlän.<br /> The benevolent friends who, as their kindly<br /> custom is, wondered what on earth he’d seen “in<br /> that girl” to attract him spoke in this instance<br /> with more show of reason than usual. The only<br /> daughter of a well-to-do solicitor, Margaret<br /> Wycherley had passed most of her life in her<br /> parents’ home at Wimbledon, where, despite her<br /> Before the brief course of that<br /> environment, she developed theories about life of<br /> a delightfully visionary kind. She dabbled a<br /> little in painting, and spent much of her time in<br /> an aesthetically-furnished studio, wherein she read<br /> Ruskin and Rossetti, and dreamed about Ideal<br /> Art. Is it necessary to add that she was barely<br /> twenty P<br /> Walter&#039;s daily work in town prevented him<br /> from seeing very much of his fiancée during the<br /> week, but he so far relaxed his industry as to<br /> permit himself an occasional Saturday-to-Monday<br /> visit to Wimbledon. Occasionally Margaret.<br /> questioned him about his work, but he had fenced<br /> with the subject so far, feeling uncomfortably<br /> conscious that her canons of literary taste could<br /> scarcely be satisfied by a young journalist of the<br /> modern time. He himself, he remembered, had<br /> suffered from youthful delusions like hers; but,<br /> judging from his own experience, he felt certain<br /> that her views would become more practical and<br /> less idealistic after a year or two.<br /> One Sunday evening in July, as he and<br /> Margaret were slowly pacing up and down the<br /> garden after dinner, she began to talk on her<br /> favourite theme—the dignity and responsibility<br /> of the literary life. Walter made haste, for the<br /> sake of peace and quietness, to agree with every-<br /> thing she said, and even—after several ineffectual<br /> attempts to change the subject—to quote poetry<br /> in support of her views, feeling all the time<br /> that he was an outrageous hypocrite. Unfortu-<br /> nately, his apparent sympathy only encouraged<br /> Margaret to pass from the discussion of literary<br /> work in general to that of her lover in par-<br /> ticular.<br /> “You never send me any of your things to<br /> read,” she said, reproachfully. “But I’m sure<br /> they must be noble, like yourself.”<br /> Walter laughed, rather uneasily. “Well,<br /> dearest, I didn’t think they would be much in<br /> your line. They’re not noble, by any means.<br /> I’m not a poet, you see; in fact, I gave up.<br /> writing verses years ago.” -<br /> “But noble thoughts can be expressed in<br /> prose,” replied Margaret; “and it isn’t kind of<br /> ou to laugh at me. Do you think I’m not<br /> intellectual enough to appreciate your writing P”<br /> Walter protested that this wasn’t at all his<br /> view. On the contrary, he didn’t think his work<br /> was worth showing to her.<br /> “Still,” he added, “ of course, you shall see it,<br /> if you really care to. Let me see, there’s a paper<br /> of mine on Lady Bicyclists in Wednesday&#039;s<br /> Mirror, and an illustrated article on “How Pins<br /> are Made ’’ in this month’s Fleet Street. Then<br /> there’s that 2 3 -<br /> Margaret suddenly came to a halt, and turned<br /> towards him. “Walter!” she cried piteously,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#611) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 257<br /> “don’t-don&#039;t tell me that you write things like<br /> that ” - -<br /> “Such is the appalling fact, I assure you. It&#039;s<br /> not very high-class literature, but it’s good, sound<br /> journalism, and pleases my editors.”<br /> “But—oh, that you should write trash of that<br /> kind | **<br /> Now, not even a penny-a-liner likes his<br /> paragraphs to be called “trash.” So it was<br /> much to Walter&#039;s credit that he replied<br /> tenderly :<br /> “At any rate, Madge, it fills my pocket, and<br /> we couldn’t be married without its help. But<br /> don’t trouble about my work, darling. Let&#039;s talk<br /> about something else.”<br /> “But I must talk about your work,” exclaimed<br /> Margaret. “You have the power of writing, the<br /> most precious gift that man can possess, and you<br /> have—I am sure of it—the feelings and nature<br /> of a poet—how else could I have come to care for<br /> you ?—and yet you are content to stifle your<br /> better self, and to do the work of a literary hack.<br /> Walter, it is unworthy of you!”<br /> It may be conceded in extenuation of Hawkins&#039;s<br /> subsequent folly that the girl really did look very<br /> beautiful as she stood there with sparkling eyes<br /> and lips quivering with the earnestness of her<br /> appeal.<br /> “I’m afraid it&#039;s too late to change now,” he<br /> answered. “I did think once upon a time—but<br /> that&#039;s long ago. Besides, there&#039;s the money to<br /> be considered. You wouldn’t like to be the wife<br /> of a poor man.”<br /> “Of course I shouldn’t, but there’s no reason<br /> why your higher work shouldn&#039;t bring you mone<br /> as well as fame.” Walter shook his head doubt-<br /> fully. “Oh, but I’m a better judge than you<br /> suppose P And you did feel, you say, at one<br /> time the desire to write poetry P. How could you<br /> ever be false to that purpose ! But I’m sure it&#039;s<br /> not too late to return to it. Have you kept any<br /> of your poems ?” 4”<br /> “No,” replied the other; “none of the editors<br /> would have them, and so one day I burnt the lot.<br /> They seemed to me, then, precious poor stuff,<br /> though, of course, I thought them magnificent<br /> when I wrote them.”<br /> “Your second thoughts were worst, then. If<br /> only you had persevered, what splendid things<br /> you would have done by this time!”<br /> Walter reflected in silence for a few moments.<br /> Like almost every literary neophyte, he had<br /> written quantities of verse in his youth. In the<br /> light of a later wisdom they had seemed only the<br /> feeble and imitative efforts of a beginner. But<br /> supposing Margaret were right after all, and a<br /> higher path than that of journalism lay open to<br /> him P -<br /> “Well, Madge,” he replied at length, “perhaps<br /> there&#039;s something in what you say. Anyhow,<br /> I’ll have a try at verse again, if I can find time.”<br /> “You’re certain to fail if you make the attempt<br /> in that spirit,” said Margaret with much scorn.<br /> “Poetry demands a greater sacrifice than that.<br /> You must give up your present degrading work,<br /> and follow Art with all your power. I never<br /> realised before to-night, Walter, how far you had<br /> forsaken your ideal. I loved you chiefly because I<br /> thought that you were an artist, but I can never,<br /> never give myself to one who has deliberately<br /> abandoned his proper aim in life for the miserable<br /> sake of making money. Let me help to recall<br /> you to the better way. You cannot really like<br /> your present employment—will it be so hard to<br /> leave it for Art’s sake and mine P’’<br /> Walter listened to all this eloquence in some<br /> bewilderment. It had not occurred to him that<br /> anyone could reproach him for earning by honest<br /> hard work a sufficient income wherewith to sup-<br /> port himself and his future wife. She, indeed,<br /> would have some money of her own, but<br /> still He turned desperately to Margaret.<br /> “Tell me exactly what you want me to do,” he<br /> said humbly.<br /> “Do you need to ask P You must give up<br /> this cheap and nasty newspaper work. You<br /> must write, not for the sake of filling so many<br /> columns, but as inspiration moves you. You<br /> must look deep into your own soul, and enrich<br /> humanity with noble thoughts. Consecrate your-<br /> self to Art — thus will you lead the Ideal<br /> Tlife ”<br /> As she spoke, the last faint tints of sunset<br /> were dying out of the western sky, the stars were<br /> beginning to show overhead. A gentle evening<br /> breeze had sprung up, and all the air was fragrant<br /> with the scent of flowers. And there stood<br /> Margaret beside him in the twilight, her fair<br /> face raised pleadingly toward his own. What<br /> wonder that the sober journalist was thrown off<br /> his mental balance, that the girl’s earnestness<br /> raised an answering glow in his heart, that he<br /> saw an impossible vision of his own career as<br /> a poet, enabled to do splendid things by his<br /> own dormant powers, stimulated by his wife&#039;s<br /> divine sympathy P<br /> Everyone is a fool now and then, and many<br /> of us with far less justification for our folly than<br /> Walter. He stooped over Margaret and kissed<br /> her tenderly. -<br /> “You have indeed inspired me, darling,” he<br /> said. “I will do as you wish me. Only, I’m<br /> afraid 2 3<br /> “No l’’ cried Margaret, “say nothing more.<br /> You will—you must succeed. Oh, Walter, how<br /> happy we shall be ” -<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#612) ################################################<br /> <br /> 258<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> It is one thing to make an heroic promise to a<br /> charming young lady in the summer twilight; it<br /> is quite another to keep it in the stress and hurry<br /> of everyday life. As Walter journeyed up to<br /> London next morning, he reflected with some<br /> dismay on the course to which he had committed<br /> himself. What would his editors think of him;<br /> how would his friends regard this new departure ?<br /> He put aside these uncomfortable reflections, and<br /> began to read his daily paper. In it he chanced<br /> on a paragraph which suggested a capital subject<br /> for an article. He had already drawn his note.<br /> book from his pocket with the intention of jotting<br /> down the idea, when he suddenly replaced it with<br /> a guilty start. For the moment he had forgotten<br /> his compact of the previous night, but hence-<br /> forth he was to write no more newspaper articles.<br /> He reached Waterloo in an extremely despondent<br /> frame of mind, walked quickly to his chambers<br /> in the Temple, and sat down to his writing-<br /> table to produce the soulful poetry which<br /> alone would satisfy Margaret&#039;s ambition for<br /> him.<br /> Some days later a number of men were gathered<br /> in the smoking-room of the “Pen and Ink” club,<br /> of which Walter was a member. There you may<br /> find any day at luncheon-time a miscellaneous<br /> assemblage of literary men, a sprinkling of well-<br /> known novelists, a stray editor or two, a wander-<br /> ing “Paris correspondent,” and certain humble<br /> journalists whose ambitions scarcely go further<br /> than the writing of paragraphs at three halfpence<br /> a line.<br /> “Has anyone seen Hawkins lately P” asked<br /> Johnson, the well-known critic, from his arm-<br /> chair by the fireplace. “He’s not been here for<br /> some time.”<br /> “No,” said another man; “and have you heard<br /> the extraordinary stories about him P. He must<br /> be mad, if they’re at all true. I hear he&#039;s been<br /> throwing up his commissions right and left—<br /> refused an article for Fleet Street which he had<br /> promised ages ago—declined a first-class offer<br /> for a series from the Trifler, and so on. What<br /> on earth’s come to the chap P”<br /> Johnson whistled softly. “Ah, I thought<br /> that might happen. Do any of you men know the<br /> girl he&#039;s engaged to ? No! Well, if you did,<br /> you’d understand.” -<br /> He broke off suddenly, for the door opened,<br /> and Walter himself appeared, looking very ill and<br /> worried. -<br /> “ Hullo, Hawkins,” said a novelist called<br /> Manby, breaking the rather awkward silence<br /> that followed Walter&#039;s entrance; “we were just<br /> wondering what had become of you. Have you<br /> seen my new book P. Give it a good notice in the<br /> Mirror, there’s a good chap.”<br /> Walter smiled faintly. “Delighted to do so,<br /> I’m sure, only, you see, I’ve left the Mirror.”<br /> “What ?” chorused the rest in astonishment.<br /> “Yes, it’s quite true—no, Manby, no one&#039;s left<br /> me a fortune—wish they had. The fact is, that I<br /> have come to see how degrading a profession is<br /> journalism, and I’m going to have nothing more<br /> to do with it.”<br /> Johnson shook his head sadly, while the others<br /> stared at Walter in blank amazement.<br /> “But, great heavens, man l’’ cried one of them,<br /> “you must be making near a thousand a year out<br /> Of it.”<br /> “I am going to devote myself to true literature<br /> —to essays, to poetry.”<br /> There was a roar of laughter at this announce-<br /> ment. But Johnson sat up in his chair and<br /> turned round impatiently.<br /> “This is no laughing matter,” he said shortly.<br /> “Look here, Hawkins, let me entreat you not to<br /> be an infatuated ass. I can guess pretty well<br /> where you got this mad idea &quot;–Walter reddened<br /> —“Yes, I thought so. Well, how much do you<br /> intagine your—your adviser really knows? All<br /> that high-flown talk about Art is sheer rot for a man<br /> like you. Some of us are made to be poets, and<br /> others to be journalists. The mistaken editors<br /> seem to think you&#039;re a good journalist—no one<br /> could ever suspect you of being even a tolerable<br /> poet. Take your inoney, and be precious thank-<br /> ful you can get it. And, for heaven&#039;s sake, don’t<br /> throw up your chance in life and behave like a<br /> raving lunatic.”<br /> Walter looked at him indignantly. “You don’t<br /> know what what you&#039;re talking about,” he<br /> exclaimed. “Of course, you don’t understand—<br /> how should you?—the pure joy of pursuing Ideal<br /> Art. Anyhow, I’ve done with journalism for<br /> ever,” and with these words he left the room,<br /> It would be too painful to dwell minutely on<br /> the next two months of Walter Hawkins’ life.<br /> Hardly any of his friends saw him during that<br /> period; he spent his days in miserable solitude,<br /> racking his brains for poetical thoughts, looking<br /> for the inspiration which never came. He did,<br /> indeed, manage to compose a few short poems of<br /> a kind, which he offered to the magazines under a<br /> pseudonym. But their prompt rejection was not<br /> necessary to convince him of their exceeding<br /> badness; he knew already in his own heart that<br /> they were worthless.<br /> As almost his entire income had been derived<br /> from journalism, his lot was speedily changed<br /> from that of a well-to-do bachelor to that of a<br /> very poor man. During these two months he did<br /> not once visit Wimbledon, for it would have been<br /> impossible for him to do so without confessing<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#613) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 259<br /> his failure to Margaret, and that might greatly<br /> change her feelings towards him. He wrote to<br /> her, however, from time to time, and at last was<br /> driven to explain that their marriage could not<br /> take place until he had managed in some way or<br /> other to secure an income. But he still hoped to<br /> succeed ultimately. -<br /> Margaret&#039;s reply to this letter did not greatly<br /> comfort him ; in fact, it seemed a little cold and<br /> heartless. She was sorry to hear that he was not<br /> making money, but she fully agreed that it would<br /> never do to marry unless they had plenty to live<br /> upon. Still, she was glad that he was striving<br /> patiently after true Art. Had he, by the<br /> way, read a little book of poems entitled<br /> “Heart - Throbs,” by Eustace Vanborough P<br /> If so, he would do well to take them for his<br /> model, they were so full of noble and beautiful<br /> thoughts.<br /> When “Heart-Throbs,” an elegant volume,<br /> beautifully printed and bound, arrived a few days<br /> later, Walter glanced at a few lines of it, and then<br /> flung it into the waste-paper basket. It was the<br /> most feeble, affected nonsense imaginable. Then<br /> he rose from his chair, and walked restlessly up<br /> and down his room.<br /> “Can Johnson have been right?” he thought.<br /> “Have I made a hideous mistake? Margaret’s<br /> view seemed far nobler than my own, and yet she<br /> admires that balderdash.” He took the volume<br /> out of the waste-paper basket again. “‘By<br /> Eustace Wanborough.” What an idiot the man<br /> must be l’’ Then he came back to his own<br /> position.<br /> “After all,” he reflected, “I have made this<br /> sacrifice for Madge’s sake, and so long as I have<br /> her love, nothing else can matter very much.<br /> And who knows whether she is not right—<br /> whether I shall not succeed—— ”<br /> There was a knock at the door, and his friend<br /> Johnson entered.<br /> “Came to see how you were getting on. How<br /> is—er, the Ideal Art prospering P Are you<br /> coming back to journalism P. &quot;<br /> Walter groaned. “It’s no use your coming<br /> here,” he said. “I know you mean well, but it’s<br /> not a bit of good. You know—you said so that<br /> day at the club—who has made me change my<br /> work P”<br /> Johnson<br /> here.”<br /> “Well, I don’t mind confessing to you that<br /> I’m not sure whether her theories are right, at<br /> any rate for me. But if you loved that girl as I<br /> do, you would be content to follow her wishes<br /> blindly. Nothing you can say will make me alter<br /> my intention. I’ve resigned my income and my<br /> position as a journalist for her sake, and as long<br /> nodded. “Yes — that&#039;s why I&#039;m<br /> as Miss Wycherley exists, I ask nothing better<br /> than to please her in every way I can.”<br /> “Quite so,” replied Johnson drily; “your senti-<br /> ments do you much credit, I’m sure. But as<br /> Miss Wycherley exists no longer —— ”<br /> “What 2&quot; gasped Walter, growing deadly<br /> bale.<br /> pal Don’t excite yourself—she isn’t dead—far<br /> from it. Surely you must have heard P Why,<br /> she married the fellow who calls himself Eustace<br /> Wanborough this morning !”<br /> II.-IN THE NAME OF THE PROPHET-DESKs.<br /> There were once two shops on opposite sides<br /> of the street. They were both devoted to the<br /> sale of writing-desks – rosewood or mahogany,<br /> brass bound. One of these shops was avowedly<br /> run in order to make money, if possible; the<br /> other was run on the highest religious princi-<br /> ples possible, with prayers when the directors met,<br /> solely for thesake of spreading abroad true religion.<br /> Nothing could be more noble than the objects of<br /> this shop. Its friends called it the House<br /> Venerable; the manager they called the Hammer<br /> of Injquity; of him it was reported that at the<br /> mere sight of him Dissent curled and Infidelity.<br /> lay down and died. Now, at the first shop—the<br /> secular, worldly shop, whose interests were earthly<br /> and grovelling—the desks in the window were<br /> greatly superior to those in the window of the<br /> other shop. They were so much better that<br /> nobody would step across the street to look at the<br /> Christian writing-desks. Perhaps the reason was<br /> that, at the earthly, worldly shop the man who<br /> made the desk was paid for his desk a sum of<br /> money which was uniformly calculated on a certain<br /> proportion to the price for which the desk was<br /> sold. Thus, if a desk was to be priced at 50s.,<br /> that irreligious proprietor gave the workman 25s.<br /> As he always took off large discounts and some-<br /> times sold his desks wholesale to the trade, the<br /> proprietor made a profit of no more than 158. to<br /> the workman’s 25s., so that the latter was quite<br /> satisfied, and put in his best work, and brought all<br /> his desks to this shop.<br /> At the other shop the workman was beaten down<br /> —of course, in the Cause of Pure Religion.<br /> If he was in necessity, he was offered a third, a<br /> quarter, an eighth of the price of 50s. In any<br /> case he was beaten down: he was offered a far<br /> lower price than he could get across the road.<br /> These two shops are still going on. But the<br /> desks in the House Venerable, which is managed<br /> by the Hammer of Iniquity, are reported to be<br /> growing daily worse and worse.<br /> *-* -º<br /> - - -n<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#614) ################################################<br /> <br /> 26o<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> BOOK TALK.<br /> M* WILLIAM LE QUEUX has almost<br /> finished “A Romance of the Land of No<br /> Return,” as the sub-title has it, called<br /> “The Eye of Istár.” He has also on hand a<br /> new novel for serial pu lication entitled “Devil&#039;s<br /> Dice.”<br /> The author of “Charles Dickens by Pen and<br /> Pencil,” Mr. F. G. Kitton, is engaged upon a new<br /> work dealing with the illustrations in the various<br /> editions of the novelist&#039;s writings.<br /> A third series of “Eighteen-Century Wignettes,”<br /> by Mr. Austin Dobson, is shortly to be published<br /> by Messrs. Chatto and Windus.<br /> Mrs. Marshall is writing a story of the period<br /> of the Jacobite rising in 1715, which Messrs.<br /> Seeley will issue.<br /> A new volume of stories by Mr. W. B. Yeates<br /> will be published immediately by , Messrs.<br /> Lawrence and Bullen.<br /> “George Egerton’’ is at work on a study<br /> called “The Hazard of the Ill,” which will<br /> appear this summer.<br /> a volume of short stories before leaving in the<br /> early autumn to join her husband in South<br /> Africa.<br /> A romance of African adventure called “The<br /> Oracle of Baal,” by J. Provand Webster, who<br /> herein makes his début, is announced by Messrs.<br /> Hutchinson for speedy publication.<br /> Mr. Robert Hichens has a new volume of<br /> stories in the press, entitled “The Folly of<br /> Eustace.” (Heinemann.)<br /> The popular thirst for information about the<br /> British Navy is at length to be gratified, as the<br /> publication of an exhaustive history is announced<br /> by Messrs. Sampson Low. Mr. W. Laird Clowes<br /> is the editor of the work, and the contributors<br /> include the foremost writers on naval matters.<br /> In the first volume the story of the Navy will be<br /> told from the beginning down to the Elizabethan<br /> period.<br /> An uncommon form of literary censorship is<br /> reported to have taken place at the Kingston<br /> Workhouse. A parcel of books for the inmates<br /> had been presented, consisting, it would appear,<br /> mostly of works which gave anything but enter-<br /> taining leading. Two of the guardians — a<br /> clergyman of the Church and a Nonconformist<br /> minister — after examining them, cast aside<br /> about one hundred and fifty as unsuitable.<br /> “Why?” asked the Chairman. “Because,” was<br /> the reply, “they are extremely dry theological<br /> works,”<br /> She will also have ready<br /> The following, from “A Publisher,” appeared<br /> in the Athenæum of the 14th ult.:—<br /> I lately had occasion to inform an author that his book, so<br /> far from having produced any profit, as he expected, had<br /> not paid expenses. In reply (I quote textually) he says,<br /> “Perhaps if you get somebody even now to give the book<br /> a good review, the remaining copies might be sold.” May<br /> authors, I have often suspected, have a Sneaking belief that a<br /> publisher keeps a stock of “good reviewers” as part of his<br /> regular staff, but I never met with such a naïve expression<br /> of the belief before.<br /> Mr. John O&#039;Leary’s “Recollections of Fenian-<br /> ism,” will be published in two volumes by Messrs.<br /> Downey, probably this month, and also a volume<br /> of reminiscences by Mr. W. P. O&#039;Brien, entitled<br /> “&#039;The Great Famine.”<br /> “The Queen&#039;s Prime Ministers,” by the Hon.<br /> Reginald Brett, will be published immediately by<br /> Messrs. Macmillan. Other books from this firm<br /> will include a series of anecdotal sketches by<br /> Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, entitled “Personal<br /> Characteristics from French History ‘’’; and “A<br /> System of Medicine,” written by various autho-<br /> rities and edited by Dr. Allbutt, Regius Pro-<br /> fessor of Physics in the University of Cambridge.<br /> The discovery of a parcel of valuable old books<br /> is reported from the Cams Hall Estate, Hamp-<br /> shire. Among them are some of Caxton&#039;s, dating<br /> from 1474 to 1494, including “Justinian’s Law,”<br /> a later copy of which recently changed hands in<br /> London for over £IOOO. The books were found<br /> in a cupboard by Mr. M. H. Foster, the new<br /> proprietor, and are all in good condition.<br /> In a recent book sale at Sotheby’s, Goldsmith&#039;s<br /> “Deserted Village,” 1770, first edition, uncut,<br /> brought 345; “Paradise Tost,” 1667, first edition,<br /> presentation copy from Milton to his “loving<br /> friend” Mr. Francis Rea, 3885; and St. Jerome&#039;s<br /> “Epistles,” printed by Schiffer, 1470, on fine<br /> vellum, 38o.<br /> Mr. Clement Shorter is editing for Messrs.<br /> Ward, Lock, and Co. a series of Nineteenth<br /> Century Classics. The first volume will be<br /> “Sartor Resartus,” for which Professor T)owden<br /> writes an introduction ; the next two will also be<br /> Carlyle&#039;s, namely, “Heroes and Hero-Worship ’’<br /> and “Past and Present,” with introductions by Mr.<br /> Gosse and Mr. Frederic Harrison respectively.<br /> These will be followed by Matthew Arnold’s<br /> poems, Mrs. Browning’s “Prometheus Bound,”<br /> and Mrs. Gaskell’s “Cranford.”<br /> A new year-book of London, “The London<br /> Manual,” in which the functions of all public<br /> bodies in the metropolis will be explained for the<br /> benefit of the ratepayers, is about to appear from<br /> the offices of London. It will have maps and<br /> diagrams, and will cost one shilling,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#615) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 261<br /> Mr. Edward Carpenter&#039;s new volume of essays,<br /> which is to be published shortly by Mr. Dobell,<br /> will be entitled “Love&#039;s Coming of Age.” Mrs.<br /> Meynell is publishing in book form, through Mr.<br /> Lane, a number of her essays which have ap-<br /> peared in “The Wares of Autolycus’ column of<br /> the Pall Mall Gazette. The title is “The<br /> Colour of Life.”<br /> An account of the life and times of Alexander<br /> Russel, of the Scotsman, ought to be a con-<br /> siderable contribution to the political and social<br /> history of Scotland, and particularly of Edin-<br /> burgh. Such a work has been undertaken by<br /> Sheriff Campbell Smith, of Dundee, who knew<br /> Russel and wrote articles in his columns.<br /> There will be in May a volume of short stories<br /> by Marie Corelli, under the title of “Cameos&#039;<br /> (Hutchinson).<br /> An illustrated book on “Notable Welsh<br /> Musicians,” by Mr. Frederic Griffith, will shortly<br /> be published by Mr. Francis Goodwen, 47,<br /> Leadenhall-street, E.C. The work will be rather<br /> of a descriptive than a critical character, and will<br /> notice alike the composers, the instrumentalists,<br /> and the vocalists in the musical community of<br /> Wales.<br /> Rarely a month passes without a Stevenson item<br /> or two. This time the record includes a volume<br /> of “Wailima Table-Talk,” which Mrs. Strong and<br /> Mr. Lloyd Osbourne have edited. Stevenson, it<br /> appears, consented to be “taken down&quot; in his<br /> everyday utterances, and inclined to make a<br /> joke of it. Secondly, a new essay, which has<br /> been found among his papers, is to appear<br /> in the summer issue of the Illustrated London<br /> News.<br /> A history of architecture, written by Professor<br /> Banister Fletcher and Mr. Banister F. Fletcher,<br /> will be published shortly by Mr. B. T. Bats-<br /> ford. It will be illustrated chiefly by collotype<br /> plates.<br /> Lady Lindsay is about to bring out, through<br /> Messrs. Longmans, a new volume of verse<br /> entitled “The Flower Sellers.” Mr. Bliss Car-<br /> men&#039;s new volume and Mr. Percy Hemingway&#039;s<br /> “The Happy Wanderer” are to be published<br /> soon by Mr. Mathews, in whose “Shilling Gar-<br /> land ” Series will appear “Christ in Hades,” by<br /> Mr. Stephen Phillips. Mr. A. Barnard Miall is<br /> the author of a book of “Nocturnes and Pastorals,”<br /> which will be published by Mr. Smithers. The<br /> verse of the near future will also include Mr.<br /> Kipling&#039;s new volume.<br /> At the annual meeting of the Royal Literary<br /> Fund it was reported that forty-three grants,<br /> representing £1905, had been awarded during<br /> 1895, males receiving £1 185 and females 3720.<br /> Thirteen were to novelists, eight to authors of<br /> historical and biographical works, and eight to<br /> classical literature and educational authors. The<br /> fund has now £51,912 invested, yielding an income<br /> of £1676.<br /> The past month had a fairly large and un-<br /> usually interesting output of new books. Mr.<br /> Lecky&#039;s large work “Democracy and Liberty”<br /> was published by Messrs. Longmans, and Dr.<br /> Traill’s “Life of Sir John Franklin” by Mr.<br /> Murray. In travel there was Captain Young-<br /> husband’s “The Heart of a Continent” (Murray);<br /> while the social and dramatic world welcomed<br /> “A Few Memories” (Osgood), by the famous<br /> actress who was Mary Anderson. Mr. Crockett&#039;s<br /> “Cleg Kelly” appeared, and Mrs. Hodgson<br /> Burnett’s “A Lady of Quality.”<br /> Mr. James St. Loe Strachey, the well-known<br /> Spectator writer, has been appointed editor of<br /> the Cornhill Magazine in succession to Mr.<br /> James Payn, who has had to relinquish the<br /> position because of continued ill-health. This<br /> old-established sixpenny monthly will now be<br /> raised to Is.<br /> Mr. H. S. Salt, who is already known for works<br /> on Shelley, is about to issue a biographical study,<br /> “Percy Bysshe Shelley, Poet and Pioneer,” in<br /> which he will claim that the verdict of time has<br /> not only pronounced Shelley to be a great poet,<br /> but has also corroborated his social and religious<br /> views. The work will be published in London by<br /> Mr. W. Reeves.<br /> An American paper recently asked why did not<br /> some British journal get Olive Schreiner to tell<br /> its readers all about life in the Transvaal. The<br /> hint has been taken or anticipated, for the<br /> authoress begins in the April number of the<br /> Fortnightly Review a series of articles on “The<br /> Boers of the Transvaal.” Miss Beatrice Harraden<br /> contributes to the new number of Blackwood’s<br /> Magazine the opening chapters of a story of<br /> California entitled “Hilda Strafford,” while<br /> Chapman&#039;s will have the first instalment of “The<br /> Herb Moon,” by John Oliver Hobbes.<br /> ‘H pumópova (stepmother) of Gregorios Xeno-<br /> poulos will be issued from the “Bodley Head”<br /> during this season, done into English by Mrs.<br /> Edmonds; also a one-volume novel by Mrs.<br /> Edmonds, entitled “Links in a Chain,” will be<br /> published by Messrs. Jarrold and Sons.<br /> Hilton Hill&#039;s novel, “His Egyptian Wife,”<br /> which has enjoyed a large sale for a first book,<br /> has just been issued in a 2s. railway edition.<br /> Mr. Hill has ready a new novel, which will be<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#616) ################################################<br /> <br /> 262<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> published in the autumn, like his first book,<br /> simultaneously in London and New York.<br /> We are glad to learn that Annabel Gray&#039;s<br /> book “Comrades,” recently published by Messrs.<br /> Drane and Chant, has met with so much success<br /> that the publishers will shortly issue a second<br /> edition.<br /> In “Phinlay Glenelg&#039;s&#039; Maxims in last number<br /> of the Author, amend one line as follows:<br /> War is more a manner of emotion than a matter of reason.<br /> Mrs. E. Rentoul Ester&#039;s novel “The Way of<br /> Transgressors” has just appeared in a new edi-<br /> tion (Sampson Low and Co.). Mrs. Ester&#039;s new<br /> book “The Wardlaws” (which Messrs. Smith,<br /> Elder, and Co. will publish immediately) treats<br /> of an Irish family of long descent. It will pro-<br /> bably be found to occupy comparatively new<br /> ground on topics Hibernian.<br /> “The Saint of Poverty,” a drama founded<br /> on the life of Frances of Assisi, by Henry N.<br /> Maughan, will be issued very shortly by Mr.<br /> Elliot Stock.<br /> The Roxburghe Press will issue, almost imme-<br /> diately, a volume entitled “Carina Songs ’’ and<br /> others, by Miss Amy C. Morant; a lady who is<br /> identified with most of the labour and social<br /> movements of the time.<br /> Mr. John Milne, late of Wilsons and Milne,<br /> Paternoster Row, has resumed publishing at<br /> Amberley House, Norfolk-street, Strand. It is<br /> his intention to issue works of a popular kind,<br /> and he is now making up a list of entirely<br /> original books of sport, travel, biography, adven-<br /> ture, fiction, and other light forms of literature.<br /> Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s article on “Danish versus<br /> English Butter-making,” which appeared in the<br /> Fortnightly, last May, has gone through several<br /> developments. It was afterwards enlarged and<br /> brought out as a pamphlet (Horace Cox) the<br /> result of which being that Mrs. Tweedie spoke<br /> on Agriculture—or more properly speaking dairy-<br /> ing—at the meeting of the Grand Council of<br /> Women at St. Martin’s Town Hall lately, when<br /> she advocated the formation of a Women&#039;s<br /> British Produce League for the encouragement of<br /> home trades generally, and more particulary to<br /> keep the £14,000,000 a year in this country<br /> which is paid out annually for dairy produce<br /> alone. She suggested women taking up dairying<br /> as a profession.<br /> A correspondent of the Bookseller suggests<br /> that as it is doubtful whether this year a dinner<br /> will be held in connection with the Booksellers&#039;<br /> Provident Institution, a dinner representative of<br /> the three branches – author, publisher, and book-<br /> seller—should be held instead. If representative,<br /> he says, its permanent success should be as much<br /> assured as the annual dinner of the Royal<br /> Academy.<br /> Mrs. Elizabeth Rundle Charles, author of<br /> “The Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family”<br /> and other well-known works, died at her residence,<br /> Combe Edge, Hampstead, on Saturday afternoon.<br /> She came of an old Devonshire family, and<br /> was brought up in an ancient manor house<br /> near Tavistock, which town her father, Mr. John<br /> Rundle, represented for nine years in Parliament.<br /> She was born in Jan. 1828, at Tavistock, and<br /> began writing when she was twenty-two. Her<br /> first book was a translation from Neander, “Ilight<br /> in Dark Places: Memorials of Christian Life in<br /> the Middle Ages.” In 1851 she married Mr.<br /> Andrew Paton Charles, a brother of the present<br /> Mr. Justice Charles, who died in 1868. Mrs.<br /> Charles was a woman of considerable learning as<br /> well as of deep religious feeling, and she united<br /> marked literary ability with a strong, but sym-<br /> pathetic, Anglicanism. Encouraged by a certain<br /> modest success, Mrs. Charles went on writing.<br /> She published “Tales and Sketches of Christian<br /> Life in Different Lands and Ages,” 1851; “The<br /> Two Vocations,” 1853; “The Cripple of Antioch,”<br /> 1855; “The Song without Words,” 1856; “The<br /> Voice of Christian Life in Song” and “Sketches<br /> of Hymns and Hymn-Writers,” 1858; “The<br /> Three Wakings,” 1859; “Wanderings over Bible<br /> Lands and Seas” and “The Martyrs of Spain,”<br /> 1862; and “Sketches of Christian Life in England<br /> in the Olden Time,” in 1864. In 1864, also,<br /> she published “Chronicles of the Schönberg-<br /> Cotta Family.” This book was reviewed in the<br /> Times with warm eulogium, and it achieved at<br /> Once great popular success, which has continued<br /> to the present day. In America, the book was<br /> extensively pirated. Her “Diary of Mrs. Kitty<br /> Trevelyan,” 1865, was also widely read. Her.<br /> other works include : “Winifred Bertram and<br /> the World She Lived In,” 1866; “The Draytons<br /> and the Davenants’’ and “On Both Sides of<br /> the Sea : a Story of the Commonwealth and<br /> Restoration,” 1867; “The Women of the<br /> Gospels,” 1868; “Watchwords for the Warfare<br /> of Life,” 1869; “Diary of Brother Bartholo-<br /> mew,” 1870; “The Victory of the Wanquished,”<br /> 1871; “The Cottage by the Cathedral,” 1872;<br /> “Against the Stream,” 1873; “The Bertram<br /> Family ’’ and “Conquering and to Conquer,”<br /> 1876; “Lapsed, but not Lost,” 1877; “Joan<br /> the Maid,” 1879; “Sketches of the Women of<br /> Christendom,” 1880. Mrs. Rundle Charles knew<br /> many distinguished Churchmen, including Dr.<br /> Pusey, Archbishop Tait, Dr. Liddon, Professor<br /> Jowett, and Charles Kingsley. She was particu-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#617) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 263<br /> larly intimate with Dean Stanley and his wife, and<br /> she wrote a slight, but admirable, sketch of Lady<br /> Augusta Stanley&#039;s life. She was also the author<br /> of several popular hymns. Many of her books<br /> have been translated into German and Swedish.<br /> Of late years she did not write much, but recently<br /> she published a work on the black-letter saints,<br /> and last year appeared “Ecce Homo, Ecce Rex,”<br /> from her pen.—Times, March 30.<br /> e &lt;3<br /> LITERATURE IN THE PERIODICALS,<br /> MR. Low ELL IN ENGLAND. George W. Smalley. Harper’s<br /> for April.<br /> CANDOUR IN BIOGRAPHY. Wilfrid Ward. New Review<br /> for April.<br /> NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY. Leslie Stephen. National<br /> Review for March.<br /> MATTHEW ARNOLD. Frederic Harrison. Nineteenth<br /> Century for March.<br /> HERR SUDERMANN’s NOVELS.<br /> Fortnightly Review for April.<br /> THE PLAYS OF HROSWITHA.<br /> Review for March.<br /> ROBERT BURNS.<br /> for April.<br /> PEPYS AND EVELYN.<br /> April.<br /> THOMAS GENT, PRINTER. Austin Dobson.<br /> Magazine for April.<br /> MATTHEW ARNOLD’s POETRY.<br /> March 14.<br /> DEAF AND DUMB HEROES IN FICTION. Correspondence<br /> of Cuming Walters and the author of “In a Silent World.”<br /> Athenæum for Feb. 22 and March 21.<br /> M. ZoDA’s FROG. Speaker for March 7.<br /> THE ELDER. DUMAs. Emily Crawford. Century Maga-<br /> zine for March.<br /> ON AN AUTHOR’s CHOICE OF COMPANY.<br /> Wilson. Century Magazine for March.<br /> MR. HALL CAINE ON CANADIAN COPYRIGHT. Goldwin<br /> Smith. Letter to the Times of Feb. 29.<br /> LIVING CRITICS.–VI. Mr. Coventry Patmore. R.<br /> Garnett. Bookman for March.<br /> THE ETHICS OF MODERN JOURNALISM. Aline Gorren.<br /> Scribner’s for April.<br /> NOTABLE REVIEWS.<br /> Of Saintsbury’s “History of Nineteenth Century Litera-<br /> ture.” C. M. Hereford. Bookman for March.<br /> Of Crawfurd’s “Lyrical Verse from Elizabeth to Wic-<br /> toria.” Athemaewm for March 7.<br /> Of Frederick Tennyson’s “Poems of the Day and Year.”<br /> Athenaewm for March 21.<br /> Of “Brother and Sister” (The Renans). Daily Chronicle<br /> for March 25.<br /> Of Professor Bury’s “Gibbon.”<br /> Daily Chronicle for March 19.<br /> Of Lecky’s “Democracy and Liberty.”<br /> March 24.<br /> Mr. Goldwin Smith writes to the Times con-<br /> tradicting Mr. Hall Caine by saying that there<br /> was no “five years&#039; outcry&quot; in Canada, and no<br /> more excitement about the liberty of “self-mis-<br /> Janet E. Hogarth.<br /> G. de Dubor. Fortnightly<br /> D. F. Hannigan. Westminster Review<br /> E. E. Kitton. Atalanta for<br /> Longman&#039;s<br /> Saturday Review for<br /> Woodrow<br /> Frederic Harrison.<br /> Daily News for<br /> government” than about the question of copyright<br /> itself. Further, that the “marvellous unanimity”<br /> of the Canadian Parliament on the Act of 1889<br /> was the unanimity of ignorance and indifference.<br /> “The Canadian Copyright Act, even supposing it<br /> to be intra vires, might with perfect safety have<br /> been disallowed as contrary to imperial policy,<br /> and subversive of the rights of subjects of the<br /> empire. It is really provoking to think of the<br /> smallness of the force which has given rise to all<br /> this trouble.”<br /> The company which an author should keep is<br /> the theme of Mr. Woodrow Wilson. While he<br /> lives a man can keep the company of the masters<br /> whose words contain the mystery of the entrance<br /> to the community of letters—and open it to those<br /> who can see almost with every accent, and in<br /> such company it may at last be revealed to him.<br /> Two tests admit to that company, namely, Are<br /> you individual? Are you conversable? He must<br /> speak with an individual note; and he must<br /> speak in such speech and spirit as can be under-<br /> stood from age to age, and not in the pet terms<br /> and separate spirit of a single day and generation.<br /> “Frequent the company in which you may learn.<br /> the speech and the manner which are fit to last.<br /> Take to heart the admirable example you shall<br /> See set you there of using speech and manner to<br /> speak your real thought and be genuinely and<br /> simply yourself.”<br /> Mr. Smalley thinks that Lowell&#039;s life in London<br /> is a much misunderstood part of his career.<br /> TI erefore the present article. In an introduction<br /> to a collection of some of the poet&#039;s letters, to<br /> be issued shortly, he will go into the subject more<br /> fully. Meanwhile he points out the important<br /> change which London made upon the character of<br /> Lowell. The recluse ceased to be a recluse; he<br /> perceived that a knowledge of men and of what<br /> is best in men was to be had otherwise than from<br /> books; he became a diner-out ; he was ripened,<br /> he got courage. The Lowell that came from<br /> Madrid “never would have written or never have<br /> delivered that essay on Democracy which probably<br /> reached the whole English mind as no other ever<br /> did.” Mr. Smalley, who was an intimate and<br /> long-standing friend, has much to say of Lowell&#039;s<br /> charity: “anybody could extract a letter from<br /> him as they could a five pound note;” “yet, if a<br /> man presumed upon his kindliness so far as to<br /> talk nonsense in bad English, or to be slovenly in<br /> his facts, woe unto him l’’ This disposition Mr.<br /> Smalley attributes to Lowell&#039;s inexhaustible faith<br /> in human nature, though surely the literary<br /> agent of to-day, if asked to explain his raison<br /> d’étre, might point to Lowell&#039;s case as sufficient<br /> answer (if “inexhaustible faith in human nature”<br /> be ruled out as not, primá facie, practicable):—<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#618) ################################################<br /> <br /> 264<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> He had no notion of accounts and no capacity for private<br /> business. From the beginning, like Renan, he took what<br /> his publishers offered him for his books or other writings,<br /> and thanked God it was no less. Long after they ought to<br /> have brought him a handsome income he was content with<br /> a fixed moderate sum. When the Century and other<br /> magazines in later days sent him large cheques for verses<br /> and essays which he thought too slight for such ample pay, he<br /> seemed astonished at this wise liberality, and more than<br /> once protested. The early letters show him writing for<br /> almost nothing.<br /> As for Lowell’s ideas on style, the following<br /> single sentence, says Mr. Smalley, is more expres-<br /> sive than many an essay on the subject. Mr.<br /> Smalley had asked him to admit that Pepys,<br /> unscholarly and slovenly as he is, had often a<br /> power of expressing himself with effect and<br /> point:—<br /> Says Lowell: “I admit that Pepys was capable of<br /> writing good sentences when he tried. But Gray, for<br /> example, couldn’t write a clumsy one without trying, and<br /> this is what I mean by style.” [Again :] “Pepy&#039;s language,<br /> you must remember, has the freshness of being nowadays<br /> unfamiliar. There is a good deal of originality in having<br /> learned one’s English two hundred and fifty years ago, as<br /> Lamb discovered.”<br /> Mr. Frederic Harrison examines Matthew<br /> Arnold as poet, as critic, and as philosopher. As<br /> a poet, he says, Arnold is saturated with the<br /> clasical genius more than any in the roll of litera-<br /> ture (unless it be Milton), although his poetry<br /> is essentially modern in thought, and has all that<br /> fetishistic worship of natural objects which is<br /> the true note of the Wordsworthian school. It is<br /> perplexing that no sooner does Arnold pass into<br /> philosophy, into politics, into theology, than he<br /> disclaims any system, principles, or doctrines of<br /> any kind. His exquisite taste, his serene sense<br /> of equity, and his genial magnanimity made him<br /> a consummate critic of style, though “neither<br /> as theologian, philosopher, and publicist was he<br /> at all adequately equipped by genius or by edu-<br /> cation for the office of supreme arbiter which he<br /> so airily and perhaps so humorously assumed to<br /> fill. On the matter of criticism we extract the<br /> following from Mr. Harrison&#039;s paper:—<br /> The function of criticism—though not so high and mighty<br /> as Arnold proclaimed it with superb assurance—is not so<br /> futile an art as the sixty-two minor poets and the eleven<br /> thousand minor novelists are now wont to think it. Arnold<br /> committed one of the few extravagances of his whole life<br /> when he told us that poetry was the criticism of life, that<br /> the function of criticism was to see all things as they really<br /> are in themselves—the very thing Kant told us we could<br /> never do. On the other hand, too much of what is now<br /> called criticism is the improvised chatter of a raw lad<br /> portentously ignorant of the matter in hand. It is not the<br /> “indolent” reviewer that we now suffer under, but the<br /> lightning reviewer, the young man in a hurry with a Kodak,<br /> who finally disposes of a new work on the day of its publica-<br /> tion. One of them naïvely complained the other morning of<br /> having to cut the pages, as if we ever suspected that he cut<br /> the pages of more than the preface and table of contents.<br /> The Saturday Review article agrees with Mr.<br /> Harrison that Arnold&#039;s poetry will be longest<br /> remembered, and says incidentally that as one<br /> reflects on Mr. Swinburne&#039;s remarkable prescience<br /> as shown by his estimates (to give three) of<br /> Arnold, Dante Rossetti, and Christina Rossetti<br /> published many years ago, one regrets the more<br /> that Mr. Swinburne does not speak his mind as to<br /> the prospects of English poetry in the immediate<br /> future.<br /> The German novel, like the German nation, is<br /> still im werden, says the writer of the estimate of<br /> Sudermann in the Fortnightly. She points out,<br /> however, that Herr Sudermann has made a great.<br /> advance within the last ten years, and predicts<br /> for him a wider audience than the German. “It<br /> is a remarkable coincidence,” she continues, “that<br /> his best literary work should date from the period<br /> when he made his first appearance as a dramatic<br /> author. From that time, too, dates seemingly<br /> his popular recognition as a novelist.” His<br /> salvation in literature may have been, therefore,<br /> in learning, as a dramatist, to make his effect and<br /> make it directly. One important lesson, the writer<br /> explains in the following passage, Sudermann has<br /> been taught in his advance:—<br /> The affinity is clear between “Der Katzensteg” and that<br /> most singularly ugly play “Sodom’s Ende,” but since then<br /> Herr Sudermann has repented. He has learned to<br /> subordinate external nature to that interplay of character<br /> which might perhaps be not inaptly called morality. tº º<br /> “Man must begin, know this, where nature ends.” That.<br /> is the true answer to the naturalism of “Der Katzensteg,”<br /> and that is the lesson which the proper study of mankind<br /> had not failed to teach Herr Sudermann.<br /> Mr. Wilfrid Ward (who, by the way, is<br /> engaged on the Life of Cardinal Wiseman) sup-<br /> ports the view that there should be discreet.<br /> selection on the part of the biographer in pub-<br /> lishing documents, and considers it fortunate<br /> that the class of biography which leaves nothing<br /> unsaid which would tell in a man’s favour is more<br /> common than that which omits nothing which<br /> tells against him. Mr. Leslie Stephen indicates<br /> the value of the national dictionary of biography<br /> as preserving the commemorative instinct, and<br /> also shows how it is an amusing work. The<br /> writer on Journalism in Scribner&#039;s is concerned<br /> particularly with that of America, the personal<br /> and unliterary element of which is regarded as a<br /> result of the social system ; and European<br /> journalism is to be Americanised shortly.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#619) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE<br /> 265<br /> A UTHOR.<br /> TESTIMONIAL TO MR, GEORGE KNOTTES-<br /> FORD FORTESCUE.<br /> COMMITTEE has been formed of the<br /> following gentlemen:—Dr. Samuel Raw-<br /> son Gardiner (chairman and treasurer);<br /> the Rev. Dr. Samuel Kinns (hon. secretary); the<br /> Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Ripon; the Right<br /> Hon. Lord Ribblesdale, P.C.; Sir Henry H.<br /> Howorth, K.C.I.E., M.P.; Sir George Sitwell,<br /> Bart.; Prof. W. J. Courthope, C.B.; the Rev.<br /> Sabine Baring-Gould, M.A.; Mr. T. B. Browning,<br /> M.A., of the Canadian Bar; Mr. Samuel Butler,<br /> B.A.; Mr. Alexander H. Grant, M.A.; Mr. Sidney<br /> Lee; and Mr. Alexander Macdonald, C.S.; to<br /> present Mr. George Knottesford Fortescue, the<br /> late superintendent of the reading room of the<br /> British Museum, with an illuminated address<br /> expressive of the readers&#039; hearty appreciation of<br /> the ability and courtesy which he manifested in<br /> the performance of the duties of his office during<br /> the past eleven years, and also of the important<br /> service he has rendered to students by the com-<br /> pilation of the “Subject Catalogue,” a work of<br /> no little magnitude, involving considerable labour<br /> and care.<br /> The late Dr. George Bullen, when keeper of the<br /> printed books, tells us, in an introductory note<br /> to this catalogue, that it was compiled under his<br /> sanction, and adds:—“This useful work forms a<br /> nearer approximation to a general index of current<br /> literature than has yet been attempted. It<br /> remains for me to add that it has been compiled<br /> by Mr. Fortescue solely, and for the most part<br /> when away from the museum during non-official<br /> hours.”<br /> The committee would be very glad if any of<br /> the readers who are disposed to contribute a small<br /> sum towards this purpose, not exceeding 2s. 6d.,<br /> would kindly give it to the treasurer or any<br /> member of the committee; or send it to the Hon.<br /> Secretary, at his private address, 182, Haverstock-<br /> hill, Hampstead.<br /> *~ - 2–’<br /> z- * ~<br /> BOOKS PUBLISHED IN 1895.<br /> HE number of publications issued in the<br /> course of last year almost exactly coincides<br /> with the output of its predecessor. We<br /> have to record an increase of thirty-one only.<br /> Theology shows a slight increase. In education<br /> the total is a little more than before. Works of<br /> fiction show a slight decline from the prodigious<br /> record for 1894, which, including new editions,<br /> furnished the reader of imaginative literature<br /> with about six fresh books for every week-day in<br /> the year. In political economy, trade, &amp;c., the<br /> figures are somewhat higher than before Arts<br /> and sciences show a small decrease in their figures.<br /> Works of travel and adventure are also less in<br /> number than previously. History and biography<br /> in 1895 are largely in excess of the production of<br /> 1894. Of poetry we have nearly 50 per cent.<br /> more books. Serials somewhat decreased. Medi-<br /> cine and surgery show a rather remarkable in-<br /> crease in number. In general literature the<br /> figures do not call for remark, and miscellaneous<br /> publications are nearly the same in 1895 as they<br /> were in 1894.<br /> As our readers will observe, we have this year<br /> made one category of novels and juvenile works,<br /> both of these kinds being works of imagination,<br /> and very difficult at times to discriminate from the<br /> mere titles of the books.<br /> The analytical table is divided into thirteen<br /> classes; also new books and new editions:<br /> <br /> 1894. 1895.<br /> Divisions. a-— —A- -—, 2-———<br /> New New New New<br /> Books. Editions. Books. |Editions.<br /> Theology, Sermons,<br /> Biblical, &amp;c. - 476 80 501 69<br /> Educational, Clas-<br /> sical, and Philo-<br /> logical - - - 615 127 660 111<br /> Novels, Tales, and<br /> Juvenile Works... 1,584 366 1,544 347<br /> Law, Jurisprudence,<br /> &amp;c. * * * . . . . 126 23 57 33. ,<br /> Political and Social<br /> Economy, Trade<br /> and Commerce ... 141 21 163 23.<br /> Arts, Sciences, and<br /> Illustrated Works 98 30 96 16.<br /> Voyages, Travels,<br /> Geographical Re-<br /> search ... - - - 282 68 263 75<br /> History, Biography,<br /> &amp;c. * * * . . . . 256 58 353 68.<br /> Poetry and the<br /> Drama ... - - - 160 21 231 16<br /> Year - Books and<br /> Serials in Volumes 328 2 311 -<br /> Medicine, Surgery, - -<br /> &amp;c. a º e - - - 97 59 153 53<br /> Belles-Lettres, Es-<br /> says, Monographs,<br /> &amp;c. 370 115 400 42<br /> Miscellaneous, in-<br /> cluding Pamph-<br /> lets, not Sermons 767 215 749 182<br /> 5,300 1,185 5,581 935<br /> 5,300 5,581<br /> 6,485 6,516<br /> <br /> — Publishers’ Circular.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#620) ################################################<br /> <br /> 266<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> CORRESPONDENCE,<br /> I.—ConstructION AND CHARACTER.<br /> WRITER of largely circulated fiction once<br /> A told me bluntly that his calling was a<br /> trade. I have heard the same avowal<br /> from an author whose work is taken more<br /> seriously. -<br /> Certainly the trade-test is not generally accepted<br /> by novelists or by critics. Yet at the present<br /> time, to the question whether fiction should be<br /> regarded as an art or a trade, the corpus of<br /> current criticism seems to answer—“A little of<br /> both.”<br /> But the two standards are inconsistent.<br /> trade-author writes to gain the largest number of<br /> readers that his qualifications will enable him to<br /> secure. He has to shape his utterances, guided<br /> by the formation of a whole world of tradition,<br /> prejudice, superstition, transient fashion, transient<br /> philosophy. He must suit himself to the tone of<br /> a particular decade. The larger percentage of<br /> his readers will be avid of sensation, unthinking<br /> as concerns literature, hasty in judgment, im-<br /> patient of subtle effects. He must depict<br /> “characters” that they will heartily like or<br /> utterly dislike. He must study construction ;<br /> that is to say, he must first work out his plot (to<br /> himself) and then make his puppets move along<br /> the lines of it, and hit out the situations in it,<br /> whether such folk would do so in nature or not.<br /> He must ignore the laws of character whenever<br /> needful, and make his marionettes get to and<br /> through the complications. The laws of character<br /> being to him of optional acceptance, he usually<br /> follows the course of ignoring them altogether,<br /> and works entirely by the lights of construction.<br /> A writer who writes by construction rejects the<br /> standard of characterisation ; one who writes by<br /> characterisation, ipso facto rejects the standard of<br /> construction. Yet how often do we see an author<br /> blamed because he has not combined his correct<br /> characterisation with that excellence in construc-<br /> tion which would, in fact, falsify his work, or his<br /> good construction with that true characterisation<br /> which would inevitably falsify his plot He is<br /> told, in other words, that he should have shaped<br /> up his book more with a view to the all-round<br /> requirements of the market—that he should try<br /> to get at readers by both methods, and be thorough<br /> in neither.<br /> . If we accept the dictum of Balzac.—-and Scho-<br /> penhauer was in accord with him as concerns<br /> literature—that the mission of art is to express<br /> nature, we perceive a reason for saying that<br /> “construction” work is inartistic. One does not<br /> express nature by presenting as actual events<br /> The<br /> series after series of ingeniously interwoven<br /> circumstances carrying certain lives to certain<br /> situations useful to the novelist, and happening<br /> ad hoc ; nor does one express nature by depicting<br /> as human lives trade characters bowdlerised or<br /> broadened to the taste of the fifties or the sixties,<br /> or the eighties or the nineties, of this or any<br /> other century. One expresses mature to the<br /> human soul by showing the envoi of what does<br /> subsist and consist in nature to this psyche.<br /> Certainly the laws of reality are deep and diffi-<br /> cult; as Balzac said of the fantastic beings evoked<br /> by Hoffmann, “they nevertheless have life.”<br /> But Hoffmann wrote on the plane of the avowedly<br /> fanciful, and the art-faculty can, perhaps, create<br /> phantasms showing the essence of reality on any<br /> plane. But each plane has its own truth. The<br /> ordinary trade-novel is nominally written on the<br /> plane of daily-human life actuality, and written<br /> falsely on this plane.<br /> If the recent development of fiction, the<br /> increased number of novels wrought with art-<br /> striving, be a sign that art-fiction has a consider-<br /> able audience, he surely would do both writers<br /> and readers a great service who would bring them<br /> to closer, clearer acquaintance, and find a certain,<br /> short means of communication between them, not<br /> perilous with draughts and blasts of inconsistent<br /> criticism.<br /> GODFREY BURCHETT.<br /> Farthingstone Rectory, Jan. 23.<br /> II.-AT HIS OWN ExPENSE.<br /> There ought to be no longer any confusion of<br /> thought as to the relative positions of authors<br /> and the publishers who produce their works. An<br /> author invents a book, just as an inventor invents<br /> a machine. The author employs a publisher to<br /> do the mechanical work of producing his book,<br /> sending out review copies to the Press, and selling<br /> It to the public—just as an inventor, who is not a<br /> machinist, employs a man who is, to make his<br /> machine, and perhaps advertise and sell it. The<br /> inventor is the employer, the machinist is the<br /> employed—who does the mechanical work of<br /> putting his ideas into brass and iron ready for the<br /> market. If the inventor is poor, he sells his<br /> invention to a capitalist—just as an author some-<br /> times sells his book to a publisher. An inventor,<br /> who had capital and business capacity, would<br /> not, as a rule, sell his invention; and an author,<br /> having capital and business capacity, ought not<br /> to sell his book. He ought to keep the copyright<br /> under his own control. The inventor who had<br /> capital and business capacity would start en-<br /> gineering works, and would manufacture his own<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#621) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 267<br /> machine and sell it to the public himself. By<br /> keeping the profits of the manufacturer in his<br /> own hands, he could increase his sales, by giving<br /> better terms to the distributing shopkeepers.<br /> This is what authors, having capital and business<br /> capacity, ought to do. By keeping the profits of<br /> the book manufacturer in their own hands, they<br /> could benefit the reading public, and increase<br /> their own sales, by offering better terms to the<br /> booksellers.<br /> It is not necessary for authors to start book<br /> manufacturing works to do what I suggest.<br /> Publishers do not necessarily print and bind the<br /> books they publish. Given the capital required,<br /> the work of placing orders for printing and bind-<br /> ing, sending out review copies, &amp;c., could be done<br /> through a central office, worked on the co-opera-<br /> tive principle. The Society of Authors might<br /> organise such a central office; and the expense of<br /> working it would not be heavy. I know there is<br /> an absurd stigma attached to an author who<br /> publishes his book at his own expense. Who<br /> attached this stigma P Probably publishers did<br /> it from interested motives. In my opinion no<br /> author, having capital to stand the risk of pub-<br /> lishing his own book, ought to part with the<br /> control over the copyright to a publisher. How<br /> is it possible that the acceptance of a book by a<br /> publisher can be any recommendation of it in the<br /> eyes of a man of sense and reflection ? What<br /> does it mean? Merely that a tradesman thinks<br /> the book is likely to take—“ catch on ”—with an<br /> uncritical and uncultured public; that it is likely<br /> to be a good business speculation. A publisher<br /> is not necessarily a man of culture or critical<br /> acumen. The probability is that, if he ever had<br /> the critical faculty, it has been so blunted by his<br /> tradesman’s way of judging of books that it has<br /> become worthless. It is not his business to judge<br /> of the literary and intrinsic value of a book; his<br /> test of merit is whether it will sell or not. His<br /> judgment has been so warped by the exigencies<br /> of his business, that he is one of the last men<br /> whose judgment, as to the literary excellence of a<br /> book, ought to be taken.<br /> 5 * JOHN LASCELLEs.<br /> III.-A SIDE LIGHT.<br /> Here is a side light on the royalty system. I<br /> have patented several small inventions, and have<br /> placed them with good firms to manufacture.<br /> The invariable terms have been these : The<br /> manufacturers have first calculated the actual<br /> cost of making : they have then added IO per<br /> cent. for working expenses and IO per cent. for<br /> their own profit; finally, they have asked me to<br /> add my royalty, with the warning that it should<br /> not exceed a certain sum, otherwise the sale<br /> would be too keenly handicapped. The total has<br /> made the selling price to the trade about one-<br /> half the selling price to the public. My royalty<br /> has varied from 12% to 33 per cent. of the selling<br /> price to the public.<br /> Why should not the same principle be applied<br /> to books? Surely it is ridiculous that (say) a<br /> novel of IOO,OOO words by a well-known author<br /> should be sold at the same price as a novel of<br /> the same length by a beginner. If the selling<br /> price were regulated by the royalty (other things<br /> being equal), the beginner, content with a small<br /> royalty, would have a better chance than he has<br /> now, while the receipts of the well-known author<br /> would not be affected, in spite of his larger<br /> royalty. I very much doubt whether his sales<br /> would suffer either.<br /> It will be observed that the manufacturer, .<br /> although his share in the production of a patented<br /> article is, as a rule, far greater than the in-<br /> ventor&#039;s, is satisfied with a profit of Io per cent.<br /> Is the publisher, small as is his share in the pro-<br /> duction of a book compared with the author&#039;s P<br /> Some time ago the editor of a London daily<br /> asked me to investigate certain financial matters,<br /> and with that object in view I inserted an adver-<br /> tisement stating that I had money to invest. Of<br /> course my name was not given. For days after-<br /> wards the postman staggered to the door with<br /> piles of letters. They came from all countries<br /> and from all sorts of people, cranks, swindlers,<br /> and a few honest men with genuine businesses.<br /> Among the last—at least I hope so — was a<br /> certain publisher, who offered me a partnership<br /> and invited me to inspect his books, which, he<br /> said, would prove his statement that he made<br /> “30 per cent. nett profit without risk.” He<br /> little thought he had hooked an author. As I<br /> did not inspect his books, I have no right to<br /> accept his statement. But unquestionably, if<br /> publishers make “30 per cent. nett profit without<br /> risk” while other business firms are content with<br /> IO, there is something radically wrong. X.<br /> IV.-EDUCATIONAL.<br /> I, and probably others, have always been in<br /> some doubt as to what was intended to be<br /> included in the term “author” as applied to our<br /> Society and Club. I joined both, as an author<br /> of educational works, and as financially interested<br /> in a Union or Mutual Protection Society of<br /> Authors in the widest sense. The first two or<br /> three pages of the Author usually reassure me;<br /> but the remaining pages always, now, raise<br /> serious misgivings as to whether I have not mis-<br /> taken the number of the house and got into the<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#622) ################################################<br /> <br /> 268<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> wrong evening party. The last number of the<br /> Author suggests a kind of ea post facto invitation,<br /> for it reports that the chairman of the Society<br /> announced that it “proposed to go into the<br /> question of watching the interests of educational<br /> writers and musical composers, which was a<br /> branch quite by itself.” On the strength of that<br /> incidental remark, I venture to suggest that it<br /> would be well to define now more clearly what<br /> ground the Society really means to cover. At<br /> present I fear that the casual and thoughtless<br /> reader or observer would think it was mainly<br /> limited to fiction and light literature. If a wider<br /> range of subjects were explicitly claimed and<br /> represented, wider interests would be aroused,<br /> and wider support secured for the Club and the<br /> Society; if, on the other hand, it were felt that<br /> certain departments, e.g., educational and musical,<br /> were too large to be embraced by the Society,<br /> and explicitly disclaimed, the field would be left<br /> open for founding a Society for the protection of<br /> those interests, which are even larger and more<br /> in need of protection than those of fiction. The<br /> work already done has been so valuable that it<br /> seems a pity that it should not be made the basis<br /> for larger and wider efforts. Perhaps the new<br /> Committee might provide for the representation<br /> of such interests.<br /> [See p. 254.—ED.] J. E. N.<br /> =&gt;e-<br /> W.—PUBLISHERS ONLY.<br /> Is it not worth recording in your columns that<br /> in the current year, 1896, for the first time<br /> “Publishers” find themselves under a separate<br /> heading in the Trades&#039; section of the London<br /> Post Office Directory; a work which is, I believe,<br /> “official,” though emanating from the office of<br /> Messrs. Kelly and Co.?<br /> Hitherto anyone wishing to find the address of<br /> a publisher, or possibly to look through the list<br /> of publishers for an attractive name to which to<br /> consign the first fruits of his brain, found under<br /> the title “Publishers” no names at all, but only<br /> a note recommending him to see Booksellers,<br /> Diary Publishers, Engravers, Fashions (publishers<br /> of), Music, etc. Sellers, Photographic Publishers,<br /> Printers, also Printsellers, each and all of which<br /> trades had separate headings assigned under<br /> which their members’ names appeared.<br /> Now all this is changed, and publishers find a<br /> place allotted all to themselves, between a<br /> “publican’s stocktaker” and “publishers&#039; central<br /> show rooms,” whatever these last may be.<br /> It is curious to note that each of these two<br /> trades has a heading to itself, though each is<br /> represented by a single address only.<br /> E. A. A.<br /> WI.-ON SELLING Books.<br /> Are we not in danger, while we talk so much<br /> about royalties and agreements, of forgetting the<br /> many conveniences of selling the copyright for a<br /> lump sum ? The advantages of doing this are the<br /> freedom from subsequent worry : relief from the<br /> worry of getting a proper agreement: from the<br /> suspicion of subsequent fraud. The dangers or<br /> disadvantages are — (1) that the price offered<br /> will be too low : an experienced agent would<br /> meet that difficulty; (2) the chance that the<br /> book might prove a great and unexpected success.<br /> This is most unlikely; and (3) the temptation<br /> to regard the lump sum as income, and to expect<br /> it to come in regularly for the rest of the natural<br /> span. Suppose that a book by one of the mode-<br /> rately successful would, on a 20 per cent. royalty,<br /> produce £300 the first year, and then 325 the<br /> next, getting gradually less for the next five<br /> years. Surely it would be in some cases better<br /> to capitalise this source of revenue, and to take,<br /> say, 3360 down, leaving the book in the pub-<br /> lisher&#039;s hands.<br /> A MODERATE SUCCEss.<br /> <br /> *-- ~ *-*<br /> *— - -<br /> At present, the few poets of England no longer<br /> depend on the great for subsistence; they have<br /> now no other patrons but the public; and the<br /> public, collectively considered, is a good and a<br /> generous master. It is, indeed, too frequently<br /> mistaken as to the merits of every candidate for<br /> favour; but, to make amends, it is never mistaken<br /> long. A performance indeed may be forced for a<br /> time into reputation, but destitute of real merit<br /> it soon sinks; time, the touchstone of what is<br /> truly valuable, will soon discover the fraud, and<br /> an author should never arrogate to himself any<br /> share of success till his works have been read at<br /> least ten years with satisfaction.<br /> A man of letters at present whose works are<br /> valuable is perfectly sensible of their value.<br /> Every polite member of the community, by buy-<br /> ing what he writes, contributes to reward him.<br /> The ridicule, therefore, of living in a garret<br /> might have been wit in the last age, but continues<br /> such no longer, because no longer true. A writer<br /> of real merit may now easily be rich if his heart<br /> be set only on fortune; and for those who have<br /> no merit it is but fit that such remain in merited<br /> obscurity.<br /> GoLDSMITH,<br /> “Citizen of the World,” Let. 84.	https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/288/1896-04-01-The-Author-6-11.pdf	publications, The Author
287	https://historysoa.com/items/show/287	The Author, Vol. 06 Issue 10 (March 1896)	<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.+06+Issue+10+%28March+1896%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 Issue 10 (March 1896)</a>			<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</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>	1896-03-02-The-Author-6-10					221–244																		<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=6">6</a>											<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1896-03-02">1896-03-02</a>							10			18960302	C be El u t b or,<br /> (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors.<br /> Monthly.)<br /> CON DUCTED BY WALTER BESAN T.<br /> Vol. VI.-No. 10.]<br /> MARCH 2, 1896.<br /> [PRICE SIXPENCE.<br /> For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are<br /> signed or initialled the Authors alone are<br /> responsible. None of the papers or para-<br /> graphs must be taken as eacpressing the<br /> collective opinions of the committee unless<br /> they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br /> Thring, Sec.<br /> * - a .sº<br /> e- &gt; -s;<br /> HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all<br /> remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and<br /> requests that all members not receiving an answer to<br /> important communications within two days will write to him<br /> without delay. All remittances should be crossed Union<br /> Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered<br /> letter only.<br /> Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on<br /> all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub-<br /> jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are<br /> returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS.<br /> *- ~ *<br /> WARNINGS AND ADVICE,<br /> I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.—It is not generally<br /> understood that the author, as the vendor, has the<br /> absolute right of drafting the agreement upon<br /> whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out.<br /> Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In<br /> every form of business, this among others, the right of<br /> drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or<br /> has the control of the property.<br /> 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.—In selling Serial Rights remember<br /> that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that<br /> is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you<br /> object to this, insert a clause to that effect.<br /> 3. STAMP You R AGREEMENTs. – Readers are most<br /> URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements<br /> immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected<br /> for two weeks, a fine of £Io must be paid before the agree-<br /> ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every<br /> case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter<br /> which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The<br /> author may be assured that the other party to the agree-<br /> ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society,<br /> to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of<br /> members stamped for them at no ea pense to themselves<br /> except the cost of the stamp.<br /> 4. AscERTAIN WEEAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES To<br /> BOTH SLDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an<br /> arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi-<br /> ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party<br /> WOL. WI.<br /> refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he<br /> reserved for himself.<br /> 5. LITERARY AGENTS.–Be very careful. You cannot be<br /> too careful as to the person whom yow appoint as your<br /> agent. Remember that you place your property almost un-<br /> reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting<br /> the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience<br /> of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone.<br /> 6. COST OF PRODUCTION.——Never sign any agreement of<br /> which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part,<br /> until you have proved the figures.<br /> 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.–Never enter into any cor-<br /> respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad-<br /> vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced<br /> friends or by this Society.<br /> 8. FuTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever,<br /> bind yourself down for future work to anyone.<br /> 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or<br /> responsibility whatever without advice.<br /> IO. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a MS. has been re-<br /> fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises<br /> they may put forward, for the production of the work.<br /> II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American<br /> rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any<br /> agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the<br /> publisher, unless for a substantial consideration.<br /> 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper,<br /> either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright,<br /> without advice. *. -<br /> 13. ADVERTISEMENTS. —- Keep some control over the<br /> advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in<br /> the agreement.<br /> I4. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any<br /> other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy,<br /> charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with<br /> business men. Be yourself a business man.<br /> Society’s Offices :-<br /> 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN&#039;s INN FIELDs.<br /> *- - --º<br /> •- * ~s<br /> HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY,<br /> I. VERY member has a right to ask 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 /> business or the administration of his property. If the advice<br /> sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member<br /> has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the<br /> case is such that Counsel’s opinion is desirable, the Com-<br /> mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this<br /> without any cost to the member.<br /> 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br /> and publisher&#039;s agreements do not generally fall within the<br /> B B 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#576) ################################################<br /> <br /> 222<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br /> to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually<br /> engaged upon such questions for us.<br /> 3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past<br /> accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in<br /> order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree-<br /> ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively<br /> so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any<br /> agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor-<br /> mation thus obtained may prove invaluable.<br /> 4. If the examination of your previous business trans-<br /> actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should<br /> take advice as to a change of publishers.<br /> 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro-<br /> posed document to the Society for examination.<br /> 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in<br /> the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish-<br /> ing firm in the country.<br /> 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you<br /> are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are<br /> reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing<br /> the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen-<br /> dence of the writer.<br /> 8. Send to the Editor of the Author notes of everything<br /> important to literature that you may hear or meet with.<br /> 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of<br /> members’ agreements and their preservation in a fireproof<br /> Yafe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con-<br /> fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who<br /> will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers :—(1)<br /> To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To<br /> stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon<br /> them. - (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments<br /> due according to agreements.<br /> *- 2 =º<br /> 4- ºr *.<br /> THE AUTHORS&#039; SYNDICATE,<br /> EMBERS are informed :<br /> I. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate takes charge of<br /> the business of members of the Society. That it<br /> submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree-<br /> ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene-<br /> rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business<br /> details.<br /> 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured<br /> will be forwarded upon detailed application.<br /> 3. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate works only for those<br /> members of the Society whose work possesses a market<br /> value.<br /> 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations<br /> whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia-<br /> tions are placed eaclusively in its hands, and that all<br /> communications relating thereto are referred to it.<br /> 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by<br /> appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days&#039;<br /> notice should be given.<br /> 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi-<br /> cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent<br /> to defray postage.<br /> 7. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate does not invite MSS.<br /> without previous correspondence ; does not hold itself<br /> responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that<br /> in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray<br /> postage.<br /> 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for<br /> lectures by some of the leading members of the Society;<br /> that it has a “Transfer Department&#039; for the sale and<br /> purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register<br /> of Wants and Wanted” is open. Members are invited to<br /> communicate their requirements to the Manager.<br /> There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services<br /> will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It<br /> is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the<br /> Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in<br /> the Syndicate.<br /> *... a 2-sº<br /> a- - -<br /> NOTICES.<br /> HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the<br /> Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br /> of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very<br /> heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br /> many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br /> 6s. 6d. subscription for the year.<br /> The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and<br /> communications on all subjects connected with literature<br /> from members and others. Nothing can do more good to<br /> the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive,<br /> and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this<br /> work send their names and the special subjects on which<br /> they are willing to write P<br /> Communications for the Author should reach the Editor<br /> not later than the 21st of each month.<br /> All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether<br /> members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate<br /> to the Editor any points connected with their work which<br /> it would be advisable in the general interest to publish.<br /> Members and others who wish their MSS. read are<br /> requested not to send them to the Office without previously<br /> communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable<br /> despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in<br /> which they are received. It must also be distinctly under-<br /> stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances,<br /> undertake the publication of MSS.<br /> The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at<br /> 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary<br /> for information, rules of admission, &amp;c.<br /> Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br /> have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do<br /> this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker’s<br /> order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the<br /> trouble of sending out a reminder.<br /> Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br /> warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a<br /> most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding<br /> for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they<br /> would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five<br /> years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest<br /> or dishonest ? Of course they would not. Why then<br /> hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them-<br /> selves into literary bondage for three or five years P<br /> Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are<br /> requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15<br /> per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble<br /> of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the<br /> pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding<br /> is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be<br /> added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands<br /> at £948. The figures in our book are as near the exact<br /> truth as can be procured; but a printer&#039;s, or a binder&#039;s,<br /> bill is so elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be<br /> arrived at.<br /> Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br /> in the “Cost of Production’ for advertising. Of course, we<br /> have not included any sums which may be charged for<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#577) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 223<br /> inserting advertisements in the publisher’s own magazines,<br /> or in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too<br /> often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from<br /> sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket,<br /> by inserting any number of advertisements in his own<br /> magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are<br /> who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those<br /> who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it.<br /> *–<br /> sº-<br /> FROM THE COMMITTEE.<br /> HE Committee beg to remind members that the Sub-<br /> scription for the year is due on January the First.<br /> The most convenient form of payment is by order<br /> on a Bank. This method saves the trouble of remembering.<br /> The Secretary will in future send reminders to members<br /> who are in arrear in February.<br /> The Awthor will not be sent to members in arrear after<br /> the month of March.<br /> At the end of the year the three retiring members of the<br /> committee, Sir W. Martin Conway, Mr. Arthur àBeckett,<br /> and the Hon. John Collier submitted their names for re-<br /> election and were duly re-elected members of the committee.<br /> At the meeting of Jan. 27th the committee proceeded to<br /> elect a chairman in the room of Sir W. Martin Conway,<br /> whose year of office expired on Dec. 31st, 1895. Mr. H. Rider-<br /> Haggard was unanimously elected chairman.<br /> G. H. THRING, Secretary.<br /> s:<br /> -<br /> FROM THE COMMITTEE,<br /> TVHE following are the resolutions proposed<br /> and carried at the General Meeting of the<br /> Society:—<br /> RESOLUTION I. — “That a special committee of three<br /> members of the Society be elected in the manner here-<br /> after described to confer with a sub-committee of three<br /> members and the chairman of the committee of manage-<br /> ment as to changes to be introduced into the constitution<br /> of the Society, with the object of making the managing<br /> committee more representative of the members, and as to<br /> other matters connected with the welfare and development<br /> of the Society generally.”<br /> REsolution II.-“That there be sent out with the April<br /> number of the Awthor a list of names of members of the<br /> Society, not being members of the managing committee,<br /> who have been duly proposed and seconded by members,<br /> and have signified their willingness to serve on the special<br /> committee, and that this list be accompanied by a balloting<br /> paper, to be signed by the member voting and filled up by<br /> him with the names of the three persons selected by him from<br /> the aforementioned list who he desires to serve on the<br /> special committee, and that the special committee be con-<br /> stituted of the three members who shall respectively<br /> receive the largest number of votes.”<br /> The intention is that all the members through<br /> the circulation of the Author should have the<br /> resolutions before them. That those who desire<br /> to do so should obtain the names of suitable men<br /> and women of letters to stand on the sub-<br /> committee. That they should get these names<br /> seconded by another member and should forward<br /> them to me in the course of the month of March.<br /> That all the names should then be inserted in a<br /> list in the April number of the Author, and a<br /> voting slip should be sent round with that<br /> number for three members to sit on the com-<br /> mittee. Those who obtain the greatest number<br /> of votes should then be considered elected.<br /> G. HERBERT THRING.<br /> &gt;<br /> s:<br /> SOCIETY OF AUTHORS, º<br /> WHE annual general meeting of the Incorpo-<br /> rated Society of Authors was held yester-<br /> day afternoon at the rooms of the Royal<br /> Medical and Chirurgical Society, 20, Hanover-<br /> square, W. Mr. Rider Haggard presided, and<br /> there was a numerous attendance.<br /> The CHAIRMAN presented the report, and, in<br /> doing so, referred to the losses which the Society<br /> had sustained by death during the year. Among<br /> many others who had died were Professor<br /> Huxley, the Earl of Pembroke, Mr. Henry Reeve,<br /> Major-General Sir Henry Rawlinson, and Mr.<br /> George Augustus Sala. The question of Canadian<br /> copyright was the one which had attracted,<br /> perhaps, most attention in connection with the<br /> Society during the year. They had elected 214<br /> members to the Society, and had lost sixty, some<br /> by death and some by resignation. The Society<br /> now numbered 1300 members, and its finances<br /> were in a satisfactory state. He thought they<br /> would admit that the year&#039;s work had been of a<br /> useful character. About IOO cases had been<br /> settled through the Society, and the secretary<br /> had written letters of advice to about half of the<br /> members; many manuscripts had been read by<br /> skilled readers for members of the Society, and<br /> also in a large number of instances money which<br /> was due to members, and which they were<br /> unable to recover for themselves, had been re-<br /> covered through the action of the Society or its<br /> solicitors. The Society proposed to go into the<br /> question of watching the interests of educational<br /> writers and musical composers, which was a<br /> branch quite by itself. It should be understood<br /> that the Society did not exist for the purpose of<br /> attacking publishers, but for the purpose of<br /> defending authors. He hoped to see in the<br /> future the establishment of an esprit de corps<br /> among authors, a feeling of fellowship in which,<br /> up to the present time, they had been greatly<br /> wanting. Complaints had been made that the<br /> Society did not do everything it ought to do.<br /> The committee especially wished to make it as<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#578) ################################################<br /> <br /> 224<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> useful as it could be to the general interests of<br /> authors, and if any of them had any doubt of it<br /> he would ask them to read the resolution which<br /> was to be moved by Sir Martin Conway, and<br /> seconded by Mr. Anthony Hope Hawkins. Mr.<br /> W. H. Wilkins had a motion on the paper which<br /> ran :-‘‘That this meeting repudiates the address<br /> headed, “The Authors of England to the Authors<br /> of America,’ and regrets that the Society was in<br /> any way connected with it.” They would under-<br /> stand that he himself felt diffidence in ap-<br /> proaching and some difficulty in dealing with that<br /> subject, because anything he said might be made<br /> more of on the other side of the water than<br /> it deserved. Perhaps he could not do better<br /> than read the resolution which the committee<br /> of management came to : “The committee<br /> of management of the Society of Authors,<br /> having investigated the circumstances under<br /> which the address to American authors and its<br /> covering letter were issued from the Society&#039;s<br /> offices, have unanimously found that the address<br /> expressly purports to proceed from its signatories<br /> alone; that it was neither printed or circulated<br /> at the expense of the Society&#039;s funds; and that<br /> the use of the Society&#039;s letter-paper in soliciting<br /> signatures was unauthorised by them. The com-<br /> mittee, while entertaining all friendly feelings<br /> possible towards their American brethren, are of<br /> opinion that action on international questions<br /> does not fall within the scope of their corporate<br /> powers.” He thought that resolution explained<br /> everything that it was necessary to explain, and<br /> that the responsibility for that address had not<br /> been accepted by the Society or its committee.<br /> Perhaps under those circumstances Mr. Wilkins<br /> might on consideration see fit not to press his<br /> motion for obvious reasons. (“No, no.”) He<br /> would point out that really for political reasons<br /> it was rather a difficult matter to be violently<br /> discussed in public. (Hear, hear.)<br /> Sir MARTIN CONWAY moved—“That a special<br /> committee of three members of the Society be<br /> elected in the manner hereafter described to<br /> confer with a sub-committee of three members<br /> and a chairman of the committee of manage-<br /> ment as to changes to be introduced into the<br /> constitution of the Society, with the object of<br /> making the managing committee more representa-<br /> tive of the members, and as to other matters<br /> connected with the welfare and development of<br /> the Society generally.” He said that the resolu-<br /> tion was substantially the same as one of which<br /> notice was originally given by Mr. Wilkins. He<br /> was very glad indeed that Mr. Wilkins withdrew<br /> it, and he was also very glad to be able to adopt<br /> it and move it and have Mr. Wilkins&#039;s support in<br /> doing so, as he thought that a motion of that<br /> kind would better come from the managing com-<br /> mittee than from the body of the members. The<br /> Society owed most in its initiation and building<br /> up to Sir Walter Besant, and but for him would<br /> not exist to-day. There had been many letters<br /> in the papers, some of which seemed to cast<br /> reflections on Sir Walter Besant, and he was very<br /> glad to be able to state that Mr. Wilkins, at all<br /> events, had publicly disavowed any desire to cast<br /> any reflection on Sir Walter Besant or to disavow<br /> him as the member of the Society to whom the<br /> Society owed most. If Sir Walter Besant had<br /> been able to be present that day he would have<br /> supported the resolution.<br /> Mr. ANTHONY HoPE HAwkINs seconded the<br /> resolution in a few words.<br /> Mr. W. H. WILKINs supported the resolution.<br /> He was glad that the council had abandoned<br /> their non possumus attitude of former years.<br /> The only desire he, and those who thought as<br /> he did, had was to do good to the Society. They<br /> had no wish to make a personal attack on any<br /> prominent member of the Society. They all<br /> admitted the great sacrifices made by those who<br /> originally formed the Society, and more especially<br /> by Sir Walter Besant. The younger generation<br /> was, however, knocking at the door and wanted<br /> to come in, and although an oligarchy might be<br /> an admirable way of governing a society when it<br /> was young, yet when it had arrived at man’s<br /> estate he thought it was high time that those who<br /> kept the Society going with their own money<br /> should be admitted to have a voice in its manage-<br /> ment. He thought the committee might consider<br /> the question of admitting women to some share<br /> of responsibility on the council. There was a<br /> great deal of dissatisfaction existing in the<br /> Society. He had taken no share in agitating for<br /> reforms until a few weeks ago, and when he did<br /> so and wrote a létter to the papers he was inun-<br /> dated with letters from all sorts of people, and<br /> his chambers became for a week or two a positive<br /> Cave of Adullam.<br /> Mrs. STANNARD (“John Strange Winter”)<br /> supported the suggestion that women should be<br /> allowed to have representatives on the council.<br /> Mr. C. H. Cook (“John Bickerdyke”) strongly<br /> objected to attacks being made in the papers<br /> until the Society had heard, in their ordinary<br /> meeting, what was brought against them, and<br /> had had an opportunity of answering the charges.<br /> They were the most intelligent people in England<br /> —(laughter)—and if any member came to the<br /> general meeting and said that there were griev-<br /> ances, no doubt those grievances would be dis-<br /> cussed in a fair and proper way. He strongly<br /> supported the suggestion that women should<br /> have a place on the council, and also on the com-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#579) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 225<br /> mittee. He thought that only the most eminent<br /> men of letters should be allowed a place on the<br /> council. He supported the motion, which was<br /> carried.<br /> Sir MARTIN ConwAY moved:—“That there be<br /> sent out with the April number of the Author a<br /> list of names of such members of the Society, not<br /> being members of the managing committee, as<br /> have been duly proposed and seconded by<br /> members and have signified their willingness to<br /> serve on the special committee, and that this list<br /> be accompanied by a balloting paper to be signed<br /> by the member voting and filled up by him with<br /> the names of the three persons selected by him<br /> from the aforementioned list whom he desires to<br /> serve on the special committee, and that the<br /> special committee be constituted of the three<br /> members who shall respectively receive the largest<br /> number of votes.”<br /> Mr. ANTHONY HoPE HAwkINs seconded the<br /> resolution, and it was carried.<br /> Mr. W. H. WILKINs thought that after the<br /> remarks which had fallen from the chairman, and<br /> the expressions of opinion of different members<br /> of the Society, there was no course open to him<br /> but to withdraw his motion. (Cheers.)<br /> From the Times, Feb. 18, 1896.<br /> *- a .msº<br /> *—s<br /> THE APPEAL OF THE BRITISE AUTHORS,<br /> HE regular monthly meeting of the American<br /> Authors’ Guild, at the Windsor Hotel, on<br /> Jan. 8, was enlivened by an animated dis-<br /> cussion of the following resolution introduced by<br /> Mr. Charles Burr Todd :<br /> “Resolved, that the American Authors’ Guild<br /> heartily endorses the appeal of the authors of<br /> Great Britain for peace between the two countries.<br /> “A war would dismember the Anglo-Saxon<br /> race, destroy international literature, and put back<br /> the progress of the world a hundred years.<br /> “By common consent nations have established<br /> in arbitration a tribunal for the settlement of<br /> those questions formerly submitted to the arbitra-<br /> ment of the sword, and at this crisis the wise and<br /> patriotic citizens of both countries should use<br /> their influence with their governments to bring<br /> about a settlement of the questions at issue by<br /> such a tribunal, to the end that peace, with honor<br /> and self-respect, may still remain the inestimable<br /> boon of both England and America.”<br /> Col. Richard Henry Savage, Hon. Ellis H.<br /> Roberts, and others opposed the resolution,<br /> chiefly on the ground of want of authority and<br /> inexpediency; it was favoured by Secretary Hard-<br /> wicke, Rev. Dr. Flagg, Messrs. Todd, MacCulloch,<br /> and Betts, but after a sharp debate of over an<br /> hour, was laid on the table.—From the Authors’<br /> Journal (New York).<br /> := e &lt;3<br /> LITERARY PROPERTY.<br /> I.—A NEW INVENTION.<br /> HE following is noteworthy. The letter<br /> explains itself. It is from the editor of a<br /> montbly magazine :<br /> Dear Sir, I am obliged to you for your short story which<br /> you sent to this magazine.<br /> The magazine is now published by this company, and as<br /> we have a department for literary agency, it is necessary to<br /> pass all magazine matter through its books. If you will<br /> allow me to do this and to charge the usual commission<br /> of Io per cent., I shall be very glad to accept the story at<br /> the price you name.—I remain, &amp;c.<br /> This is ingenious. The spirited directors of<br /> the company apparently propose to knock off Io<br /> per cent. from the price paid for articles and<br /> papers sent to the magazine. To be your own<br /> literary agent; to pass on things to your own<br /> magazine ; and then to take off IO per cent. from<br /> everybody—observe that “all magazine matter<br /> must pass through its books”—“must &quot; –is<br /> surely as meat, as easy, and as pretty a way of<br /> making money as ever was invented.<br /> II.-RELIGION IN DAILY LIFE.<br /> A young novelist, beginning to be successful,<br /> recently received an invitation from the S.P.C.K.<br /> to let them have a story. He had one ready, and<br /> asked them what terms they were prepared to<br /> offer. He was told that they would give him<br /> £120. He asked what rights this sum covered;<br /> if it meant anything, for instance, beyond serial<br /> rights. They said that it covered everything,<br /> serial right, American right, book right, colonial<br /> right, everything. It was a most amazing offer:<br /> it covered the face of the whole earth. The<br /> author withdrew his MS., with a few remarks on<br /> religion in daily life.<br /> Now, what has been the future of that novel?<br /> The writer, who, one repeats, has only recently<br /> made a mark, has made arrangements with that<br /> novel which will produce for him in the end<br /> more than four times the sum offered in the name<br /> of Religion<br /> The point to notice is that this excellent insti-<br /> tution, which really makes every clergyman glow<br /> with honest pride and joy in it, endeavoured to get<br /> the whole rights of a good novel—everything—for<br /> the sum of £120. They may say that they could<br /> not tell that it would be worth so much. To<br /> this there are two answers. (I.) The writer had<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#580) ################################################<br /> <br /> 226<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> already done so well that £120 was an absurd<br /> price to offer for all rights of a book by him.<br /> (2.) That no provision was made for im-<br /> proving the author&#039;s position in case of the work<br /> proving a success. What is thought of this<br /> transaction ? -<br /> There are two ways of dealing with a book,<br /> which is a property. One way is to take it over<br /> on terms which recognises the proprietor&#039;s<br /> interest in it and his just rights in it. The<br /> other way is to grab at it ; to give for it the<br /> smallest sum that the exigencies of the author<br /> force him to accept, without the least heed to the<br /> possible value of the book or the real rights of<br /> the author.<br /> Which of these two ways does the Committee<br /> of the S.P.C.K. prefer in the conduct of their<br /> business?<br /> III.--THE AMERICAN AUTHORs&#039; PUBLISHING<br /> CoMPANY.<br /> A circular has been issued in New York pro-<br /> posing the creation of an Associated Authors’<br /> Publishing Company. The capital is 50,000<br /> dollars, i.e., 38 Io,000 in 25oo shares of 20 dollars,<br /> or £4 each. The incorporators, who are, appa-<br /> rently, the first ten shareholders, include the<br /> President of the American Authors’ Guild, the<br /> President of the Lotos Club, and the Vice-Presi-<br /> dent of the American Surety Company.<br /> According to the prospectus, the company will<br /> buy a publishing business as a going concern and<br /> run it for a moderate dividend, the surplus, if any,<br /> to be divided among the authors whose books they<br /> produce. The first point to be considered is, that<br /> it is intended to be a perfectly straightforward,<br /> honourable company. It may be objected that<br /> there are already honourable publishers in New<br /> York. No doubt—what advantage, then, will the<br /> author obtain P First, one takes it, the right of<br /> inspecting his own books whenever he pleases;<br /> that is to say, such of the books as his agreement<br /> allows; next, his books will be managed for him,<br /> and not for the publisher. Consider the differ-<br /> ence by examining the figures.<br /> This association wants, first of all, to pay its<br /> working expenses, which with a modest business<br /> would amount to, say, 32OOO ; and next 6 per<br /> cent. On capital, say, £600; perhaps 2 per cent. On<br /> the book. If the proportion of expenses due to<br /> one successful book were Io per cent. we might<br /> have these figures:<br /> Sale of 8000 copies at 3s. 6d. ......... 3I400<br /> Less Io per cent. for publisher £140<br /> ,, 2 per cent, for dividend 28<br /> , cost of production at Is. 400 568<br /> Beturn to author... 38832<br /> selves.<br /> Suppose the same author had taken a royalty<br /> of one-sixth he would have received £400.<br /> So that, by this arrangement, he would just<br /> double his returns.<br /> There are certain dangers which present them-<br /> The directors must not allow the shares<br /> to be sold except to persons of their own know-<br /> ledge, otherwise the shares would be eagerly<br /> bought up by persons interested in wrecking the<br /> Company.<br /> The company must be run on purely “busi-<br /> mess” lines. We are always saying, what is<br /> perfectly true, that publishers are business men,<br /> first and foremost. This company must not only<br /> be run for its 6 per cent. dividend, but it must<br /> actually make that 6 per cent., otherwise authors<br /> will not place confidence in it.<br /> The question naturally arises whether it would<br /> be wise and expedient to imitate this action over<br /> here. The council of the Society could hardly<br /> enter upon the business of publishing. Nor<br /> would authors place confidence in a publishing<br /> company unless it began with a business already<br /> established, and was ruled by a managing<br /> director of known experience and capacity.<br /> Given a sufficient capital : an established busi-<br /> mess: a manager of experience and probity ; and<br /> methods of publishing based upon the points<br /> always advocated by the Society—viz.:<br /> I. No secret profits.<br /> 2. No charge made for unpaid advertisements.<br /> 3. A full understanding of what the agreement<br /> means to both sides.<br /> 4. The right of access to the author&#039;s own<br /> books.<br /> And given, further, the confidence of authors<br /> that these professions are honourably carried out,<br /> there can be no doubt whatever that an immense<br /> business would await that company. Confidence<br /> is, however, the one thing absolutely necessary.<br /> We await with considerable interest the pro-<br /> gress and the development of this company. The<br /> address, in case any reader would like to take up<br /> shares, or at least to send for the papers, is—<br /> Mr. C. L. Betts, Secretary, Associated Authors’<br /> Publishing Company, 65, Fifth Avenue, New<br /> York.<br /> *- - -<br /> w- w -<br /> NEW YORK LETTER,<br /> New York, Feb. 14, 1896.<br /> HE appearance to-morrow of the fortnightly<br /> Chap-Book at double its former size and<br /> double its former price marks the success<br /> of a periodical which represents so important a<br /> phase of contemporary American taste that in the<br /> two years of its existence it has had an unpara-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#581) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR,<br /> 227<br /> lelled number of imitators, many of which are still<br /> struggling for existence with small hope of<br /> success. Only yesterday I noticed the latest born<br /> of the flock, a small thing called by the name of<br /> Whims, according to the same principles, no doubt,<br /> that inspired the names of Moods, Clips, and<br /> otners of the kind. It is an exact parody of the<br /> Chap-Book in appearance and contents. It was<br /> intended by Stone and Kimball, the Chicago<br /> publishing house which gets out the Chap-Book,<br /> at the same time that they put up the price to<br /> IO cents. a copy and 2 dollars a year, to establish<br /> a London agency. The negotiations with the<br /> International News Company, however, never<br /> resulted in an agreement, and, although it is<br /> probable that before long the magazine will be re-<br /> published in England, no definite announcement<br /> can be made at this writing.<br /> The history of this venture, which has not<br /> been told before even in America with any ful-<br /> ness, is comforting to the observer of fads on this<br /> side of the water and the part they play in our<br /> literary world. In the month of April, 1894,<br /> IHerbert Stuart Stone, of Chicago, a member of<br /> the class of 1893 at Harvard, and a son of one<br /> of the wealthy business men of Chicago, with a<br /> class-mate from the South, H. Ingalls Kimball,<br /> decided that the publishing business which they<br /> had already started during their college course,<br /> with headquarters in Cambridge, needed some<br /> regular means of sending information about their<br /> books to the Press. They spoke of it to Bliss<br /> Carman, a young romantic American poet and<br /> critic, who had just become their reader. He<br /> suggested that they should issue some sort of a<br /> periodical, possibly with an occasional original<br /> contribution to make it sufficiently interesting to<br /> attract attention. This idea appealed to them, and<br /> they set to work to develop some definite scheme.<br /> As there was no necessity for a large paper, and<br /> as Stone was particularly fond of small books,<br /> magazines and newspapers—things that could<br /> be handled conveniently—the Chap-Book size<br /> was selected. For three weeks they hunted for<br /> a name, all sorts of things being suggested and<br /> discussed. It was not until innumerable titles<br /> had come up and been discarded that Stone hit<br /> one night on The New Chap-Book and Literary<br /> Review. It was suggested by some old Chap-<br /> Books which he was reading at the time, and as<br /> the size was precisely the same, the title did not<br /> seem inappropriate. It was, however, modified<br /> before the first number was made up, as both<br /> Carman and Kimball seemed to think it too long.<br /> It appealed to Stone on account of its old-time<br /> flavour. He would rather have enjoyed calling it<br /> as a sub-title A Miscellany of Polite Literature.<br /> They then had no idea of charging anything for<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> hand in the editing of the paper.<br /> the paper, and in order to give it a fair start, and<br /> to do away with the appearance of an advertise-<br /> ment, they purposely left out reviews of their<br /> own books. They expected, however, to outgrow<br /> this righteous idea very shortly. On May 15,<br /> rather less than a month after the plan first<br /> occurred, the first number appeared. They put<br /> on the outside, “price five cents a year,”<br /> but merely for form&#039;s sake, for they gave away<br /> about three thousand copies. The affair, how-<br /> ever, attracted some little attention as the latest<br /> literary Cambridge toy, as a contributor called it,<br /> and they found that by taking subscriptions<br /> they could pay at least part of the expenses. The<br /> Chap-Book thus became what it has since been<br /> called, “A Miniature Magazine and Review.”<br /> Some friends of the publishers, Charles G. D.<br /> Roberts, Marie Louise Pool, Bliss Carman, and<br /> Louise Imogen Guiney sent things for the initial<br /> number. Miss Guiney wrote the unsigned essay<br /> entitled “A Bitter Complaint of the Ungentle<br /> Reader.” The “Notes” were written by Carmen<br /> and Stone, and it was recklessly announced that<br /> prospective numbers would contain contributions<br /> from fifteen or twenty prominent young writers,<br /> from no one of whom had the publishers any<br /> assurance. This, however, was a minor considera-<br /> tion which did not worry them. The editorial<br /> duties were divided almost equally between<br /> Carman and Stone, who, with much help from<br /> Miss Guiney and occasionally from Louise<br /> Chandler Moulton, prepared all the “Notes,”<br /> and not a little part of the body of the magazine<br /> for many months.<br /> When Stone and Kimball moved to Chicago in<br /> 1894, Carmen practically ceased his connection<br /> with the firm. The idea of living in the West did<br /> not appeal to him, and, although he sent articles<br /> and notes for some time thereafter, he had no real<br /> Since that<br /> time Stone has had complete charge and, with<br /> regular assistance from Harrison Rhodes, has<br /> done all the work.<br /> The Chap-Book has grown steadily, and with<br /> speed, the circulation now averaging about fifteen<br /> thousand. The change in the price is now made<br /> to enable the publishers to pay better prices for<br /> contributions, to publish more matter, and to<br /> enlarge the department of “Notes,” which from<br /> the very start has been the chief source of interest<br /> in the magazine. Just what the effect of this<br /> advance of price will be it is impossible now to<br /> tell, but the way in which subscriptions are<br /> coming in before the new terms go into effect,<br /> makes the publishers feel easy about the change.<br /> The Chap-Book was started with absolutely no<br /> models and no inspiration this side of 1790.<br /> The whole plan has been to make a periodical of<br /> C C<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#582) ################################################<br /> <br /> 228<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> IY),621).<br /> taste and judgment, which should be distinctly<br /> literary, and which, while recognising traditions<br /> and the experience of the past, should at the<br /> same time appreciate contemporary work, and<br /> record the more important of the movements in<br /> literature and art. It has been frankly faddish;<br /> it has dwelt largely on the tendencies which were<br /> shown in the Yellow-Book in its earlier days, and<br /> yet it has a conservatism which acts somewhat as<br /> a wise restraint. It is the attention paid to new<br /> things, the general look of novelty, and the<br /> typographical appearance of the Chap-Book that<br /> have inspired the hosts of imitators. There have<br /> been at least twenty-six different ones, beginning<br /> with the Biblot, the Philistine and Chips, and<br /> ending with the Fly - Leaf and Miss Blue<br /> Stocking.<br /> Many are dead, and none have any circulation.<br /> They have varied in aim, in form, and in ability,<br /> and the reasons for their failure are many; but<br /> all of them lack the backing of a successful pub-<br /> lishing house and the editorship of men who<br /> know the actual book-market, and in their search<br /> after originality are limited by common sense and<br /> a foresight of results. Some of the imitations<br /> (which word is used with some elasticity to<br /> describe all the small magazines with an aim at<br /> literary and artistic character whose existence is<br /> due to the success of the Chap-Book) have made<br /> the mistake of laying emphasis on certain things<br /> which cannot receive the sanction of any large<br /> body of American readers. This, of course, is an<br /> error similar to that made in England by the<br /> Yellow Book at its start. One of the late<br /> creations in New York is a thin Fortnightly of<br /> this order, the small sale of which must cease as<br /> soon as the small capital of its owner, editor,<br /> and principal writer is exhausted. A large<br /> part of these experiments have been made by<br /> men of no experience and no success in litera-<br /> ture, but much desire for publication, and<br /> naturally the results have been of little interest<br /> to the world. Curious observers read a copy or<br /> two and stop. - *<br /> Meantime the Chap-Book goes on alone success-<br /> ful. It appeals to the current taste for lightness,<br /> modernity, and anti-Philistinism, but it remains<br /> within the bounds of established decency always.<br /> The same practical sagacity is shown in its list of<br /> contributors. Several of the similar ventures<br /> have small success because they rely on prominent<br /> names alone, giving second-rate work of first-rate<br /> Others have made the opposite mistake of<br /> relying entirely on writers absolutely unknown.<br /> Stone and Kimball recognise the value of names,<br /> but only in rare cases is material admitted for the<br /> sake of its author, and never is suitable matter<br /> neglected because the writer is unknown. The<br /> following list of recent writers shows many known<br /> even in England.<br /> Robert Louis Stevenson<br /> Thomas Bailey Aldrich<br /> Stéphane Mallarmé<br /> Richard Henry Stoddard<br /> Gilbert Parker<br /> Bliss Carman<br /> Charles G. D. Roberts<br /> H. B. Marriott Watson<br /> Norman Dale<br /> Maria, Louise Pool<br /> William Sharp<br /> Archibald Lampman<br /> Richard Burton<br /> H. W. Mabie<br /> F. Wallotton<br /> J. F. Raffaelli<br /> H. H. Boyesen<br /> H. D. Wells<br /> Kenneth Grahame<br /> Paul Verlaine<br /> William Ernest Henley<br /> Eugene Field<br /> Hamlin Garland<br /> I. Zangwill<br /> Louise Imogen Guiney<br /> Gertrude Hall<br /> John Davidson<br /> Alice Brown<br /> Julian Hawthorne<br /> Clyde Fitch<br /> Edmund Gosse<br /> Maurice Thompson<br /> C. F. Bragdon<br /> Will H. Bradley<br /> Louise Chandler Moulton<br /> Max Beerbohm<br /> Almost as long a list, however, might be made<br /> of unknown contributors, and probably Stone<br /> and Kimball are doing more than any other of<br /> our publishing houses to bring to notice new<br /> writers, especially writers from the Western<br /> States. The same is true on the side of illus-<br /> tration.<br /> Another recent change in the magazine world<br /> is also suggestive of the interest taken in artistic<br /> things by the American reading public. With<br /> the January number Scribner&#039;s Magazine began<br /> two new departments. One is to be devoted to<br /> general subjects of present-day interest, the other<br /> to deal especially with art topics. The appeal is<br /> to a more serious interest than that reached by<br /> the department of notes and the essays in the<br /> body of the Chap-Book, but the fields overlap<br /> enough to make the two changes illustrate some<br /> of the same truths about the American reading<br /> public. We are very fond of literary talk about<br /> art. This new departure of Scribner&#039;s has dis-<br /> cussions of art subjects, all unsigned, written<br /> almost entirely by artists. A large number of<br /> our best critics of art and literature here in New<br /> York are painters and illustrators. Speaking of<br /> this fact the other day a man who is prominent<br /> in both ways said to me: “It is rather curious<br /> that although artists have become more and more<br /> specialists within the domain of art, they are<br /> becoming more and more writers.”<br /> Whatever the cause it is certainly true. A<br /> large part of our painters not only write, but<br /> write remarkably well. The little essays in<br /> Scribner&#039;s by the artists deal with their subjects<br /> in a way that the general reader can understand.<br /> Indeed, the idea is to have the subject-matter,<br /> the methods, and the ends of art explained to the<br /> public by men who have both the point of view<br /> of the expert and the point of view of the serious<br /> reader who is not a specialist. Papers which<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#583) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 229<br /> point out the artistic aspect of some common<br /> thing near home, of some New York corner, for<br /> instance, or of some unnoticed little masterpie e<br /> to be found in the city, will often be seen in this<br /> department. There are also critical comments on<br /> movements in the art world and on particular<br /> artists. The department is in charge of August<br /> F. Jaccaci, the art editor of the magazine, who<br /> has charge of all the illustrations, perhaps the<br /> most important and most excellent feature of our<br /> three leading magazines. As Mr. Jaccaci is a<br /> literary man in taste and practice as well as a<br /> painter and illustrator, besides having the prac-<br /> tical editorial instinct which watches every ripple<br /> of popular opinion, this department is sure of<br /> success; and as his ideals are very high it is<br /> also sure to be a good influence in the struggle<br /> that is now going on here between good art and<br /> same thought and cheap chromo art and sensa-<br /> tionalism. 3.<br /> In connection with what has been said about<br /> the place at which our reading public draws<br /> the line, it may be remarked that, in spite<br /> of the popularity of Thomas Hardy, “Jude the<br /> Obscure,” which has been roughly treated<br /> by the public, will have a much smaller<br /> sale than might have been expected for the<br /> successor of “Tess.” “Tess” succeeded in spite of<br /> its revolt from what the author deems Philistine<br /> ideals, not at all on account of it; and to-day the<br /> demand for the literature of revolt is decidedly<br /> smaller. This is shown in the failure of all of the<br /> so-called problem plays put on the New York<br /> stage this year as clearly as it is shown in the<br /> book and magazine world. One of the periodicals<br /> born this month, by the way, recognises this, in<br /> spite of its name. The Parisian, published by<br /> M. L. Dexter, at Carnegie Hall, as a quarterly<br /> until August, then as a monthly, promises to give<br /> in its translations from contemporaneousleuropean<br /> articles and its notes on European literature a<br /> selection made with an eye to permanent standards<br /> of this market. * N. H.<br /> * - a -º<br /> ---<br /> NOTES FROM PARIS.<br /> Y remarks on a certain side of French<br /> journalism, which were published in the<br /> Author last month, have attracted some<br /> attention both in England and France, and<br /> certain journalists in the latter country are<br /> vowing to execute all sorts of unpleasantness<br /> upon me when they meet me. Well, at least,<br /> they will find 4 qui parler. These menaces,<br /> indeed, only stimulate me to write further on the<br /> nauseous subject, and, alas ! I have superabundant<br /> materials, There was once in a French midland<br /> town a certain journalist who conducted a certain<br /> paper, which, for reasons into which it is not neces-<br /> sary to enter, systematically and regularly attacked<br /> a certain great lady. This lady was my friend,<br /> and One day she came to me and begged me, her<br /> peace of mind being at stake, to interfere on her<br /> behalf. “It is, I know,” she said, “only a<br /> question of terms. In fact, I have proof that this<br /> fellow only attacks me because he is paid to do<br /> so by Mr. X. If we offer him better terms he<br /> will be silent.” As it was impossible for her to<br /> appear in the matter, and T was anxious to oblige<br /> her, I undertook to see the man. I accordingly<br /> took train to the Midland town, and called on the<br /> able editor. I found a miserable, consumptive<br /> individual, living en fau,v ménage with an ex-circus<br /> lady “who forced me,” as he wrote to me after-<br /> wards, shortly before his death, “to do these<br /> wretched things.” I did not mince matters. I<br /> said that Madame X. and her friends were tired<br /> of his attacks, that we knew that these formed<br /> interesting reading, and had consequently, from<br /> a journalistic point of view, a cash value, and<br /> that what we wanted to know was what that cash<br /> value was. The wretched man coughed and<br /> flushed and spoke of his dignity. He said that<br /> it was in the interests of morality and public<br /> order that he attacked Madame X., that it was<br /> an insult to offer him money. I then produced<br /> my pocket book and began counting some hundred-<br /> franc notes with which I had provided myself.<br /> His words were indignant, but his eyes, which<br /> fixed themselves greedily on the blue notes, told<br /> a different tale, and I waited patiently for the<br /> quiver of irresolution. It was, however, the<br /> ex-equestrienne who spoke the truth. “Yes, we<br /> want money,” she said, “and you know it,<br /> Arthur. We are paid to print these articles. If<br /> you care to pay us not to print them we will not<br /> print them. And mind you, the dance has<br /> only just begun, so that it is really worth<br /> Madame X.’s while to put a stop to the music.<br /> That is how I understand journalism.” I began<br /> to feel nervous, lest my funds should not suffice<br /> to meet her demands, but was reassured to find<br /> what small fry of blackmailers these were,<br /> and was able after some discussion to arrange<br /> for silence for a cash payment of twelve<br /> pounds and a monthly subsidy of eight pounds<br /> to be paid in weekly instalments. I was<br /> to receive no receipt. I was not to send regis-<br /> tered letters, and the payments were to be<br /> made in fifty-franc notes. All this, of course, to<br /> prevent any proof of the transaction. Notes in<br /> France, although numbered, are not payable on<br /> demand and consequently cannot be traced. I<br /> paid the twelve pounds, and then asked the<br /> blackmailer and his good lady to dinner. I was<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#584) ################################################<br /> <br /> 23O<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> anxious to study them. I found them ordinary<br /> people enough, not more corrupt than the<br /> ordinary, with average provincial French ideas<br /> on the functions and possibilities of journalism.<br /> Over the champagne the good lady told me that<br /> her husband only earned two pounds a week as<br /> editor and sole contributor to his paper, and that,<br /> of course, money had to be obtained in other<br /> ways. The blackmailer was a weak-headed man,<br /> and, after a glass or two of wine, became con-<br /> fidential and told me that he had been receiving<br /> two pounds a month from the person, whom<br /> Madame X. had named, to carry on this cam-<br /> paign. He kept his bargain with me, though<br /> now and again I received a visit from him, when<br /> he happened to be in Paris, and the call invari-<br /> ably ended in a request for a small “loan,” which<br /> I always gave. I was strictly kept, however, to<br /> my part of the bargain, and if ever by any chance<br /> the remittance was a day or two late I received a<br /> reminder. Not a letter, oh, no ! that is to say<br /> not a manuscript letter, but a message, something<br /> like this. “Friends much surprised,” in printed<br /> characters cut from a newspaper and gummed on<br /> to a sheet of paper. Once, when having been<br /> away for three days, I was three days behind<br /> hand with the remittance, the printed message<br /> ran : “The dance is about to recommence.” I<br /> subsidized these people in this way for over seven<br /> months, till Madame X. died and it was no<br /> longer necessary.<br /> The adventures of a special correspondent in a<br /> big city like Paris would afford materials for an<br /> interesting book. I was once representing at the<br /> same time a big American daily, and one of the<br /> most influential organs of the British colonies.<br /> It happened that at that time there were two<br /> rival prime donne (ought one to say prima donnas)<br /> in Paris, who hated each other with a holy hatred<br /> and were actuated by a rivalry more than pro-<br /> fessional. I knew them both and admired them<br /> both, but my position between them was as<br /> uncomfortable as that of a piece of iron between<br /> the hammer and the anvil. One day Madame A.,<br /> the American, would come bouncing into my<br /> house, speechless with indignation, to show me a<br /> cutting from some miserable colonial paper in<br /> which she had been badly criticised, and to beg<br /> me, as I was her friend, to retaliate on the<br /> evident instigatrix of “the abominable calumny ”<br /> in my colonial paper. Another day it was the<br /> colonial songstress who telegraphed for me<br /> urgently and implored my good offices in combat-<br /> ing a rumour, reflecting on the genuineness of<br /> her chevelure, or on the pitch of her voice, which<br /> had been printed in some “scurrilous organ ” in<br /> Indiana or Oklohama. It was a troubled time,<br /> and I was heartily glad when it was all over.<br /> The correspondentship to a modern American<br /> daily of a certain type is extremely distasteful to<br /> any man of good breeding and some respect for<br /> the decencies of life. One American editor once<br /> explained to me that his paper was a democratic<br /> paper (democratic in the English sense of the<br /> word), and that consequently its line was “to<br /> tom hawk the uppers.” I gathered that his wish<br /> was that I should go out largely into the best<br /> French and American society in Paris, enjoy the<br /> hospitality of my hosts, and reward it by<br /> scarifying them in his paper. My connection<br /> with that particular paper ceased because I point-<br /> blank refused to execute an “assignment” given<br /> me in writing by the editor himself. He wrote<br /> me from London that he was informed that a<br /> certain well-known American actress was about to<br /> be confined clandestinely in Paris, that I was to<br /> investigate this rumour, to collect full particulars,<br /> and to “file three thousand words (i.e., to<br /> telegraph that number of words to New York)<br /> for his Sunday edition. On another occasion it<br /> was suggested to me that it would make “a good<br /> story &#039;&#039; if I would watch Mr. John Jacob Astor as<br /> he came out of the Hotel Bristol, follow him<br /> wherever he went, note carefully what he spent<br /> and what he spent it on, and then write an article<br /> to show how a millionaire used his money. I did<br /> not carry out the idea, but some days later I had<br /> the pleasure of meeting Mr. Astor, and I told him<br /> what had been suggested, and he laughed and said<br /> that that would have been a very foolish way for<br /> a young man to spend his time. Then he added :<br /> “Well, Mr. Sherard, if you had followed me this<br /> morning you would have seen something that<br /> would have interested you. I was out two hours,<br /> and I spent one franc sixty centimes. Ten<br /> centimes I paid for this little bunch of violets,<br /> and thirty cents. for this little book of yours. I<br /> have been reading it, and it makes quite a nice<br /> tale.” It was a copy of a shilling book of mine,<br /> published by Chatto and Windus, which the<br /> dear old gentleman had bought in the Rue de<br /> Castigliome.<br /> But perhaps it is from the desire of the<br /> American editor for “personals &quot; that comes to<br /> the special correspondent in Paris the greatest<br /> amount of humiliation. He is bound to know<br /> who has come to Paris, what he has come for,<br /> and what he is doing. He is forced to loaf about<br /> the hotels, and when anybody of any importance<br /> (i.e., rich) is in Paris to endeavour to see him.<br /> The hotel people naturally endeavour to protect<br /> their customers from importunities and send the<br /> correspondent away with scant courtesy. “Don’t<br /> come bothering here, he won&#039;t see you.” Then<br /> one insists, and an insolent message is returned.<br /> It is terrible. One has to accustom oneself to<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#585) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 23 I<br /> slights and snubs, to the contempt of servants,<br /> and to one’s own loss of self-respect. One is<br /> partly a detective, partly an eavesdropper, double-<br /> faced always. To get a “good story&quot; is the only<br /> consideration. The American correspondent who<br /> iistened outside a hotel bedroom door whilst an<br /> Italian count was beating his rich American<br /> bride with one of the lathes of the bed, and sent<br /> over a vivid column and a half, was a hero<br /> amongst his fellow correspondents for weeks after.<br /> I remember along conversation with Mr. Blaine on<br /> the subject of this kind of American journalism, but<br /> he laughed and said nobody attached any impor-<br /> tance to the papers over there, and there were<br /> ample laws for the protection of individuals. He<br /> told me that he was quite certain that as we were<br /> talking there was a certain X. outside the door.<br /> “He is always there,” he said. “In fact, he<br /> took a room in this hotel in order to watch me,<br /> and whenever I have visitors he is out in the<br /> passage to try and hear what I am talking<br /> about.” As a matter of fact, as I left the ex-<br /> secretary’s apartment I came upon the person in<br /> question in the passage.<br /> ROBERT H. SHERA.R.D.<br /> P.S.—The anonymous paragraphist of the Pall<br /> Mall Gazette, who is responsible for the column<br /> of so-called Literary Notes, in a recent attack on<br /> the Author and its editor, favours me with the<br /> following notice: “And really the editor of the<br /> Author should revise his proofs. Thus he has<br /> allowed an egregious person to perpetrate the<br /> following egregiosity : ‘Three of the most promi-<br /> nent Parisienne journalists are now in Mazas<br /> prison.’ Parisienne !” To hang a personal<br /> attack on a misprint is hardly worthy of a paper<br /> of the standing of the P. M. G. It was all the<br /> more unworthy that this anonymous writer must<br /> know very well, perhaps too well, that the said<br /> egregious writer during the past ten years has<br /> given his best work to the P. M. G., that the<br /> quality of this work has often been most highly<br /> commended by the proprietors of that paper, and<br /> that it was mainly thanks to the quality of his<br /> work in that paper that he reached that pitch of<br /> egregiosity which so irritates his critic. Banter<br /> apart, it is only amongst English journalists<br /> that one finds such mauvais confréres, ready to<br /> vilify their colleague on a paper in that very<br /> paper. In France a person of that description<br /> would be scouted out of every salle de rédaction.<br /> But no French editor would allow one of his<br /> contributors to attack a man de la maison.<br /> VOL. VI.<br /> NOTES AND NEWS.<br /> THE return of MSS. smudged, scored with<br /> blue pencils, creased, and soiled, is a<br /> common cause of complaint. Here is an<br /> illustration of the practice which may be read<br /> with profit. It is extracted from the Authors’<br /> Journal of New York. The author speaks :<br /> It is a property question, you see: just as if I should send.<br /> to some merchant for goods to examine. He sends them,<br /> but they prove unsuitable. Then I will wrinkle, deface,<br /> and mark them here and there, and return them with<br /> thanks, making him pay the postage.<br /> Or, suppose I want a tenement and go to an agent. He<br /> gives me access to his houses, and as I go through them and<br /> find one after the other unsatisfactory, I knock off the<br /> plastering here and there, or break a window. Thus<br /> emphasising my opinion. Well, I should be fined. But as<br /> for my MS. I put all my time and strength into it—it is my<br /> capital—and it comes back to me ruined, and I can do<br /> nothing !<br /> There are three articles in the Authors&#039; Journal<br /> (New York) for February, which deal with the<br /> great difficulties encountered by the American<br /> author. Somehow, he does not get on. “Most<br /> authors are groping ever in the dark, with now<br /> and then a ray of light in the shape of popular or<br /> personal approval, and in the meanwhile great<br /> stretches of dulness and paralysis, so to say, like<br /> icy plateaus, in which hope seems to have finally<br /> spread her wings and sailed to other skies.”<br /> Two or three magazines, it is said, are blocking -<br /> the way against American writers. Mr. William<br /> Chisholm, however, seems to think that the reason<br /> why British novelists are more popular in America<br /> than native novelists lies in the single fact that<br /> the British novelist produces a superior article:<br /> I think one cause of the trouble with American authors<br /> is that, although movels pay best, the genius of the<br /> people is essentially political and philosophical rather than<br /> dramatic. There are no better reviews anywhere than the<br /> American, but I am compelled to say, for one, that in the<br /> line of the specifically dramatic—in novels and the like, we<br /> are still in our earlier stages.<br /> Something is lacking. The average American novel<br /> seems to die still-born, and those which are most popular<br /> do not seem to take permanent lodgment in literature. In<br /> poetry I hold that we are superior to the English and are<br /> gaining every day. But the intense realism and practical<br /> drift of the American people keeps poetry from attaining its<br /> true place in the affections of the people. They still read<br /> to be amused and entertained, and for this purpose they<br /> must have novels—there is no alternative.<br /> He tells us, in addition, that “too many people<br /> are resorting to literature as a means of liveli-<br /> hood, and too many are taking it up from a desire<br /> to be famous. It seems, indeed, an almost<br /> universal craze in good society.” Miss Margaret<br /> D D<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#586) ################################################<br /> <br /> 232<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Tee writes to the same effect, and to the same<br /> effect is the editorial article. American authors,<br /> who, before the International Copyright Act,<br /> were ruined by the production of books which<br /> cost nothing, have still to face the British author,<br /> who costs something to the publisher, but nothing<br /> like what he should cost. The sale of the book<br /> is necessarily “forced ” by the condition of<br /> simultaneous publishing; it is got for compara-<br /> tively little; the International Copyright Act<br /> came when Americans had become accustomed to<br /> books by British authors; the American position<br /> “in the opinion of a thinking world is that of a<br /> land without the world of letters.” Miss<br /> Margaret Lee says: “We can thank our short-<br /> sighted Government to-day for our wealthy<br /> publishers, enriched for generations by the fruit<br /> of English brains, and our despicable position in<br /> the opinion of the thinking world as a land without<br /> its men of letters. Americans have no sympathy<br /> with Genius in rags. Genius must wear fine<br /> raiment and be heralded in rich in order to secure<br /> attention. So our pilgrims to Parnassus, being<br /> unable to feed Genius in her poetical and literary<br /> flights, turn the gifts into channels that pro-<br /> duce an income.”<br /> The report of the Clerkenwell Public Library<br /> for 1895 is before me. These reports are always<br /> extremely interesting. They would be more<br /> valuable if they would offer us some insight into<br /> the works read. The following is the classifica-<br /> tion of 140,558 volumes issued during the year:<br /> Theology, Philosophy, Language and Litera-<br /> &amp;c. .................. I565 ture .................. I 183<br /> History, Travel, and Poetry and the Drama 1226<br /> Biography ......... II,078|Fiction and Juvenile 90,381<br /> Social Science ......... I325 Miscellaneous ......... 23,662<br /> Science and Art ...... Io, 138<br /> The whole number of books is 14,882. We<br /> should like to know under each head (I) the<br /> number of authors; (2) a list of those most often<br /> called for; also one would like to see “juvenile ”<br /> fiction by itself. Boys and girls read “grown-up &quot;<br /> books; we grown-up people do not read boys&#039;<br /> and girls’ books. For my own part I am never<br /> tired of admiring the change in our social system<br /> which places the whole of our literature in the<br /> hands of everybody for nothing.<br /> Formerly one read what one could get ; all the<br /> pocket-money was saved for books; the greatest<br /> joy in winning a prize at school was the acquisi-<br /> tion of another book; all the books in the family<br /> library—in the case I am recalling a very fair<br /> collection—were read and read over and over again.<br /> But to plunge into the ocean of literature; to<br /> reach out one&#039;s hands and take down everything<br /> —everything; not to desire any more to read the<br /> unattainable author and to get the book beyond<br /> one’s purse—this would have been a thing<br /> beyond the reach of dreams; no one could ever<br /> think it possible. Yet it is done. All the<br /> treasuries of literature are thrown open to all the<br /> world for nothing, to have and to use and to<br /> enjoy. There are, however, dangers. It may be,<br /> of course, an inestimable advantage that the<br /> treasures are there for anyone who values them<br /> and knows how to use them. The danger may<br /> be that those who use a library like this for<br /> nothing may cease to value the individual book<br /> and may not care to possess books. Perhaps; but<br /> it is the nature and one of the external signs of<br /> the true bookish boy that he will always desire to<br /> possess books; the possession of his treasure is<br /> dear to him. So that I do not think there is<br /> much danger under that head. As for the<br /> ordinary reader he could not afford to buy books<br /> if he wanted to. Now that he can read what he<br /> likes for nothing he will still less want to buy<br /> books. The enemies of the Free Library main-<br /> tain that the people only go there to read<br /> “slush.” I don’t think they do ; in the long run<br /> the taste of the people is not only wholesome but<br /> it is true. The real answer, however, to that objec-<br /> tion is much simpler; it is this: that the Library<br /> does not, or ought not, to contain any literature<br /> which can properly be described by that juicy<br /> word.<br /> WALTER BESANT.<br /> *~ 2. --&gt;<br /> LONDON.—LATE NIGHT.<br /> Chimes multitudinous tell midnight&#039;s hour,<br /> The traffic falters in its rush and roar,<br /> The pavement&#039;s throng, unflagging heretofore,<br /> Less frequent grows; the stars have ceased to cower<br /> Amid the indefinite blue, but gaining power,<br /> Now that the vast smoke-canopy no more<br /> The city veils, keep clearer vigil o&#039;er<br /> The dense domain of steeple, roof, and tower.<br /> With brimming flood the regal river flows<br /> Past swarthy banks freed from the fret and din<br /> Of craft and crane, a tide of tranced repose,<br /> Save for some spot where misery seeks to win<br /> Furtive emancipation from its throes,<br /> Or shame dissolves its vassaldom to sin.<br /> - WILLIAM TOYNBEE.<br /> *- - -<br /> MAGAZINES FOR THE BLIND.<br /> sºme<br /> \ | AGAZINES for the blind, printed in a<br /> raised type called Braille, are published<br /> by the British and Foreign Blind Asso-<br /> ciation, 33, Cambridge-square, Hyde Park, W.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#587) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 233<br /> Recreation, a magazine for blind adults, is<br /> published on the 15th of every month, its year<br /> beginning in January. The subscription is 9s.<br /> a year, postage free, for the United Kingdom,<br /> Ios. for abroad.<br /> JPlaytime, a magazine for blind children, is<br /> published on the first of every month, its year<br /> beginning in June. The subscription to Play-<br /> time is the same as that to Recreation. The<br /> subscriptions cover the cost of the printing and<br /> paper ; the metal plates being given. The<br /> publishers make no profit on the sale of the<br /> magazines.<br /> The serial running in Recreation for this year is<br /> “Cécile; a tale of the Kiffir War.” The maga-<br /> zine also contains a short tale by Mr. R. D.<br /> Blackmore. The serial tale in Playtime is “A<br /> Toy Tragedy,” by Mrs. Henry de la Pasture.<br /> The market is fortunately a small one. Recrea-<br /> tion has seventy-one subscribers, besides many<br /> numbers selling from month to month. Play-<br /> time has forty subscribers, with also many single<br /> numbers selling.<br /> The magazines are printed from metal plates.<br /> In order to get the raised effect the paper has to<br /> be made very damp; in fact reduced almost to a<br /> pulp. The plates are warehoused, and reprints<br /> taken as required. The two magazines are<br /> gradually forming a library of raised type books<br /> for the blind.<br /> I need hardly point out that the blind have few<br /> pleasures. To brighten their lives by cheerful<br /> reading is surely doing to others as we would be<br /> done by ; only, God save the mark, for I do not<br /> think any of us with good sight would wish to<br /> try the position of the blind even for a day.<br /> FLORENCE NEVILL,<br /> Editor of Recreation and Playtime.<br /> WAR (AND PEACE),<br /> AR is oftener due to moral cowardice than<br /> W W to physical courage.<br /> War is oftener born of (moral) weak-<br /> ness than bred by (mental) wisdom.<br /> War is more a matter of emotion than a<br /> matter of reason. . .<br /> Fear of ridicule oftener makes for war than<br /> love of justice.<br /> War is one of the common symptoms of the<br /> epidemic insanity of nations.<br /> “The Peace-at-any-price party’ died young,<br /> was still-born, or never conceived.<br /> Fools may make war for the sake of their<br /> reputation, while the wise must make peace for<br /> the sake of their character.<br /> History will disastrously repeat herself so long<br /> as we are unwise enough to let her. -<br /> War is oftener due to bad temper than to good<br /> judgment. -<br /> Misunderstanding is as much a friend of War<br /> as misinterpretation is a foe of religion.<br /> So long as poverty and war are assumed to be<br /> perpetual they will be perpetuated.<br /> It is well to beware of the fool in power who<br /> fancies himself a genius.<br /> So long as cowardice passes for peace, war will<br /> pass for wisdom.<br /> The imperious is as often mistaken for the<br /> imperial, as the womanish for the womanly.<br /> The virtues of warriors are often popularly<br /> credited to the evils of war.<br /> So long as hot-headedness is mistaken for<br /> warm-heartedness, the weak will wish War—to<br /> prove themselves wise.<br /> Warlike virtues are best utilised in warring<br /> with vice and with other waste. -<br /> Any fool may make eager war, but only the<br /> wise can make educative peace.<br /> So long as history remains a popular branch<br /> of mythology, war will beset human progress.<br /> It is generally far easier to make war from a<br /> private room than to make peace from a publi.<br /> platform.<br /> There are as many crimes committed in the<br /> name of honour as there are evils perpetrated in<br /> the name of freedom. -<br /> Our native planet has never been over-peopled,<br /> and never under-fed.<br /> No true moral force has ever yet failed, but its<br /> counterfeits often may.<br /> Were there a higher sense of humour in the<br /> world, there would be more wisdom, and therefore<br /> less war.<br /> Obstinacy is one of the odious offspring of<br /> obtuseness.<br /> In communities as in individuals, two chief<br /> characteristics of youth are an enviable zeal and<br /> an amiable ignorance.<br /> PHINLAY GLENELG.<br /> *— - 2–&quot;<br /> g---<br /> AN OLD WORLD OF LETTERS.<br /> HAVE before me a bundle of documents<br /> rescued, apparently, from the papers of the<br /> Dodsleys, father and son, publishers. They<br /> cover a period of about twenty years in the<br /> middle of the last century. They are fragmen-<br /> tary, but at the same time they throw a flood of<br /> light upon the material side of literature at that<br /> period. This was a time, Knight says, when the<br /> book market had become greatly extended; when<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#588) ################################################<br /> <br /> 234<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> publishers had ceased to carry books about to<br /> fairs or to hawk them at country sales; when<br /> authors were receiving 200 per cent. above the<br /> prices of the early years of the century; when<br /> the prices of books ranged from Ios. or 12s. for<br /> a quarto to 2s. 6d. or 38. for a duodecimo. It was<br /> also a time according to the same authority when<br /> “large and certain fortunes’’ were made by<br /> publishers. -<br /> The following extracts from these papers will<br /> furnish unexpected illustrations to the condition<br /> of author and publisher in the middle of the<br /> last century :<br /> I. The position of the author.<br /> It is generally believed that at this period the<br /> author simply sold his MS. to the publisher for<br /> what he could get. According to Dr. Johnson,<br /> “A man goes to a bookseller and gets what he<br /> can. We have done with patronage. In the<br /> infancy of learning we find some great man<br /> raised for it. This diffused it among others.<br /> When it becomes general an author leaves the<br /> Great and applies to the multitude.” In another<br /> place, which I cannot for the moment find, he<br /> speaks of the public having become the author&#039;s<br /> patron. Yet, as the publisher who bought the<br /> copyright was not obliged to let the author<br /> know what it was worth, the public only con-<br /> cerned the former while the latter became the<br /> servant of the bookseller instead of the servant of<br /> the great. However, it was undoubtedly a step<br /> in advance. Literature had to pass through the<br /> purgatory of servitude and dependence out of<br /> which it is only now slowly emerging.<br /> In these papers, however, we have examples of<br /> other methods. I take them in order.<br /> There lies before me, first of all, an agreement<br /> between three firms—Andrew Millar, the two<br /> Dodsleys, and William Sandby. It is a very simple<br /> agreement. It just arranges for an equal division<br /> of risk and profit. But the interesting point is<br /> that we are still—Anno Domini 1755—in the time<br /> when a gentleman thought it derogatory to his<br /> dignity to take money for any kind of work,<br /> including authors’ work. The author in this case<br /> was Sir George Lyttelton, Baronet, and the book<br /> was his well known “Life of Henry the Second.”<br /> He “gave” the three firms the “benefit” of<br /> printing and publishing the book on “certain<br /> conditions,” which do not appear. They probably<br /> related to the form and date of publication. Now<br /> it is absurd to suppose that Sir George Lyttelton<br /> knew or cared anything about the business details<br /> of publication. He would not have gone to the<br /> three firms in question offering to the combined<br /> three the copyright of his work for nothing.<br /> What he did, most certainly, was to give his<br /> copyright to one—probably Robert Dodsley, who<br /> seems to have enjoyed the largest share of<br /> confidence. Dodsley, regarding the gift of doubt-<br /> ful value, risk being then a factor of very great<br /> importance, called in two others, with whose assist-<br /> ance he embarked on a venture which ought to have<br /> paid him well. Noble authors have long since left<br /> off presenting their copyrights to publishers, and<br /> now ask for agreements. That is because copy-<br /> rights now represent, in many cases, property of a<br /> very substantial kind. We do not find Byron,<br /> who would certainly have tossed a ten pound<br /> cheque into the fire, refusing one for £5000.<br /> The next papers show that there were cases in<br /> which the author did not sell his copyright out-<br /> right, but retained some share in it. Thus, on<br /> Dec. 25, 1775, Rev. J. Duncombe asks James.<br /> Dodsley to pay Mrs. Jane Vigors or order the<br /> sum of £2 I and to place the same to her account.<br /> And in February, 1789, Ann Smith, executrix to<br /> the late Mrs. Vigors, accepts ten guineas of Mr.<br /> John Ince, in “full demands on account of the<br /> late Mrs. Vigors’ Letters.” Therefore, Mr. J.<br /> Duncombe either had an interest in works of his<br /> own or he worked regularly for James Dodsley<br /> and could draw money on demand. The former is<br /> the more likely. In the case of the executrix it is<br /> clear that the widow must have had an interest in<br /> the book. John Duncombe was a highly respectable<br /> person, Vicar of Herne, in Kent, and Six Preacher<br /> of Canterbury Cathedral. He wrote a poem<br /> called the “Feminead and Occasional Poems,”<br /> some of which are in Nichols’ “Collection ; ” he<br /> also edited various books of Letters; his wife also<br /> wrote poems. There was a William Duncombe<br /> of the generation before John, who wrote transla-<br /> tions, and another John Duncombe who wrote an<br /> account of his country house in 1739. A family<br /> of singing birds ! The late John Duncombe&#039;s<br /> account of a cricket match written in imitation of<br /> Chevy Chase is a sprightly performance.<br /> Another case of the author or compiler retain-<br /> ing an interest in his copyright is that of<br /> Pearch.<br /> At the “Globe” on Dec. 21, 1775, there were put<br /> up for auction the “following shares&#039; of<br /> “Pearch’s Poems ’’:——<br /> A Collection of Poems, “4 vols. with 170 books at .<br /> Paper and Print,” 3 s. d.<br /> One Fourth ........................ 26 O O<br /> Do. One Fourth ........................ 34 IO O<br /> Do. One Fourth ........................ 34 O O<br /> Do. One Fourth ........................ 42 IO O<br /> 3.137 o o<br /> Who bought these shares? Why was there<br /> any difference between one fourth share and<br /> another fourth share P What is the meaning of<br /> “4 vols. with 170 books at Paper and Print’ P<br /> I do not know. But on Feb. I of the following<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#589) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 235<br /> year Ann Pearch gives a receipt to Mr. Thomas<br /> Evans for the sum of £137 “in full satisfaction<br /> for the above-mentioned shares of a collection of<br /> poems in four volumes known by the name of<br /> “Pearch&#039;s Collection of Poems,’ the property of<br /> my late husband Mr. George Pearch.” Therefore,<br /> the copyright of the work had been the property<br /> of the compiler. .<br /> In July of the same year Dodsley buys the<br /> work of Thomas Evans for exactly the same sum,<br /> which is remarkable in the history of trade<br /> A letter from Robert Orme, author of the<br /> “History of Hindustan,” to Mr. Francis Wing-<br /> rave shows that some agreement in the nature of<br /> a share in profits had been entered into. He<br /> acknowledges the arrival of his account, and<br /> begs the publisher to pay “Mrs. Dixon’—a<br /> friend or relation—330. He goes on to invite<br /> Mr. Wingrave to dine with him at Ealing where<br /> he is living. The ordinary hour of dinner was<br /> then, among the better sort, about four. But<br /> Mr. Orme will arrange the dinner-hour so as to<br /> allow his visitor to get back before dark. Now<br /> at the end of February it is dark by six, and it<br /> would take an hour and a half to get from Ealing<br /> to the City, so that the dinner must have been at<br /> three. One little touch reveals a delightful<br /> wrong-headedness about Mr. Robert Orme. He<br /> wants the British Critic to be sent him, and no<br /> other magazine. Why? “Because I know one<br /> of the gentlemen concerned in the British Critic,<br /> and he is an excellent Greek scholar.” Because<br /> he knows a contributor to the magazine who is a<br /> good Greek scholar, therefore the British Critic<br /> is the best magazine out.<br /> One more case of retaining a share in the copy-<br /> right. When Mr. Adam Adamson wrote his<br /> “Dictionary of Commerce,” he retained one-<br /> sixteenth share for himself. Growing old—he<br /> was born in 1692, and this was in 1763—he sold<br /> his share to James Dodsley for £3 1 5s. The<br /> whole value of the copyright at that time was<br /> therefore estimated at £500, a very considerable<br /> sum. We must remember that in those days of<br /> a limited book market, although the law might<br /> impose a limit to copyright, there were some works<br /> which became standard, and could only be re-<br /> printed by those who had the plates, on account<br /> of the expense of composition.<br /> A very curious case is one in which the author<br /> or his representative was paid by a certain<br /> number of books. It was this. The Rev. Dr.<br /> Leland, an Irish divine of great reputation in his<br /> day, left behind him at his death a collection of<br /> sermons which were offered by his executors to<br /> James Dodsley and William Johnstone, book-<br /> sellers. They offered to publish the sermons on<br /> the following conditions: Four hundred copies<br /> of the book were to be given to the widow, with<br /> fifty more on a second edition—in full for the<br /> copyright. The accounts are preserved—I cannot<br /> understand every point in them, but it appears<br /> that some modification was made in the agree-<br /> ment. The author&#039;s rights were valued at £300,<br /> The widow received £200 in cash, and took 200<br /> copies, valued at £1 each, in lieu of the remainder.<br /> This singular arrangement was probably entered<br /> into in order that the widow might dispose of the<br /> books to the trade of Dublin and Ireland.<br /> Perhaps she saw the way to some advantage to<br /> herself by this arrangement.<br /> My readers will perhaps remember a curious<br /> passage in “Boswell” which shows the view which<br /> Johnson took on profit sharing :—<br /> Johnson loquitar : “Old Gardener,” the bookseller,<br /> employed Rolt and Smart to write a monthly miscellany called<br /> the Universal Visitor. There was a formal written contract<br /> which Allen, the printer, saw. They were bound to write<br /> nothing else. They were to have, I think, a third of the<br /> profits of this sixpenny pamphlet; and the contract was<br /> for ninety-nine years. I wish I had thought of giving this<br /> to Thurlow, in the cause about literary property. What<br /> an excellent instance would it have been of the oppression<br /> of poor authors<br /> Boswell adds a note to the effect that this<br /> extraordinary contract was incredible. The<br /> only incredible part is the term of years. No<br /> man could possibly bind another for ninety-nine<br /> years. What Gardener offered, as we understand<br /> it, was a third share on the profits of a magazine<br /> on the condition that these two men gave their<br /> whole and undivided attention to its welfare.<br /> Who would not jump at the third share of, say,<br /> the Century magazine, on such conditions P But<br /> Johnson understood nothing beyond payment<br /> done for work done, the purchaser to make what<br /> he could out of it. Although the old con-<br /> ditions have changed, some of the old notions<br /> survive. A man of letters observed to me the<br /> other day that he thought an author ought to<br /> take what the publisher chose to give him, and<br /> not to trouble about the rest<br /> In some cases another payment is promised<br /> On the appearance of a second edition. Thus,<br /> on Dec. 5, 1761, Mr. Edward Powlett agrees to<br /> furnish Mr. James Dodsley with a Catalogue<br /> Raisonné of the British Museum for a sum of five<br /> guineas; but if a second edition shall be brought<br /> out a second sum of five guineas was to be paid.<br /> Such a clause in these days would probably<br /> appear in the illusory form that, when the second<br /> thousand should be sold, a second sum of five<br /> guineas should be paid; the second thousand, of<br /> course, would never be completed.<br /> In the same way there is an agreement between<br /> Robert Dodsley and Mr. Archibald Campbell, in<br /> which the former undertakes to pay the latter<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#590) ################################################<br /> <br /> 236<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 150 guineas for a first edition of 500 copies of a<br /> poem. And if this poem went into a second<br /> edition he was to pay the author another fifty<br /> guineas. The agreement itself is very interesting<br /> and deserves to be reproduced. As for the poem,<br /> I can learn nothing about it.<br /> Memorandum.<br /> It is agreed this sixteenth day of March, 1754, betwixt<br /> Mr. Archibald Campbell, gent., on the one part, and Mr.<br /> Robert Dodsley, bookseller, on the other, as follows, viz.:<br /> The said Mr. Campbell doth agree to write an Epic Poem,<br /> in 24 books, entitled “Alcides,” the plan and near the<br /> quantity of 8 books of which he hath deposited in the<br /> hands of the said Mr. Dodsley. In consideration of which<br /> the said Mr. Dodsley hath advanced to the said Mr. Camp-<br /> bell fifteen pounds fifteen shillings. And the said Mr.<br /> Campbell doth further agree to produce to the said Mr.<br /> Dodsley once in three months at least one book of the said<br /> Poem compleat, till the whole remaining books are finisht,<br /> the said Mr. Dodsley agreeing to pay for every such book,<br /> when delivered, the sum of 5 guineas. And the said Mr.<br /> Dodsley doth further agree that when the said Poem in 24<br /> books is finisint and delivered into his hands, he will make<br /> up the sum which the said Mr. Campbell shall then have<br /> received on this account one hundred and fifty guineas.<br /> And that he will immediately print an edition of 5oo of the<br /> said Poem, and if he sells the said edition and prints the<br /> work again he will give to the said Mr. Campbell the<br /> further sum of 50 guineas, and if he print a third edition<br /> 50 guineas more. Or if the said Mr. Dodsley should print<br /> 750 of the first edition he doth in that case agree to give<br /> the said Mr. Campbell IOO guineas more on printing a<br /> second edition, and 50 more on printing a third. Which<br /> the said Mr. Campbell doth hereby agree to accept as the<br /> full consideration for all his right and property in the copy<br /> of the said Poem, as witness our hands the day and year<br /> above written. ARCH : CAMPBELL.<br /> B. DODSLEY.<br /> Let us now consider the sums then paid to<br /> authors for their copyrights outright.<br /> On the 8th of April, 1749, William Cheselden,<br /> surgeon, agrees to concede all his rights in the<br /> MS. on the Anatomy of the Human Body, with<br /> all the plates, &amp;c., to Robert Dodsley and Charles<br /> Hitch, for £2OO. The purchasers then apparently<br /> proceeded to shift some of this liability off their<br /> own shoulders by selling some of the copyright in<br /> sixteenth shares. When the book succeeded, they<br /> naturally tried to buy back the shares. Thus in<br /> 1771, the book having been then more than twenty<br /> years before the public, Dodsley gives six guineas<br /> for a sixteenth share. The copyright therefore he<br /> must have represented as worth £IOO. In 1778<br /> Dodsley buys another sixteenth share; this time<br /> giving £4 7s. for it, so that he thus estimated<br /> the copyright as worth £69 12s. We shall<br /> consider, presently, the fluctuating value of<br /> copyrights.<br /> For a bundle of original letters, never before<br /> published, written by Alexander Pope to a lady,<br /> Dodsley gave in 1769 the sum of £52 12s. 6d.—I<br /> wonder what such a collection would be worth<br /> now. And for a collection of unpublished letters<br /> by Swift the possessor obtained £37 Ios.—<br /> which does not seem a large price to pay.<br /> For a comedy by Mr. W. Johnston called “The<br /> IPlatonic Wife,” the author received £26 5s. I<br /> wonder who would give him at the present day the<br /> odd 58. for it.<br /> Translation work is always poorly paid, so that<br /> when Mr. David Creagh undertook his translation<br /> of Winckelmann on Herculaneum for ten guineas<br /> he probably got as much as he would get now,<br /> perhaps more, for the same piece of work.<br /> The commercial value of poems and translations<br /> seems out of all proportion to what would be<br /> their present value. Thus in 1752 Joseph Warton,<br /> who had in his desk three Essays on Pastoral,<br /> Didactic, and Epic Poetry;. A Life of Virgil; a<br /> translation of the Eclogues and Georgics; and<br /> notes on the AEneid—in 1896 he would have then<br /> taken, on the strength of his reputation as a<br /> scholar, on a royalty of Is. a copy (if he was a<br /> level-headed man), and would be produced at<br /> 6s. Not more than 1500 copies probably would<br /> be sold, and his share wonld be £75, while the<br /> publisher would make about £90 by the job.<br /> Dodsley gave him £22 I for the copyright.<br /> Science was already worth something. Henry<br /> Baker, the naturalist, in 1753 sold his MS. work,<br /> called “Employment for the Microscope,” for the<br /> sum of £88 11s. 6d. Probably he was paid so<br /> much a sheet, which accounts for the odd<br /> SUIDOl.<br /> Educational books, also, had begun to possess<br /> great value. Thus, while we find, as above, a<br /> collection of unpublished letters by Swift going<br /> for £37 IOS., Dodsley gave for eight twentieth<br /> shares in Lowth&#039;s English Grammar, the sum of<br /> £315, the whole copyright being valued therefore<br /> at £777 Ios.<br /> The MSS. of a popular poet recently deceased,<br /> we should expect to be valuable. Dodsley gave<br /> £300 for those of Shenstone, two years after the<br /> poet’s decease.<br /> What did the ordinary novelist receive for his,<br /> or her, work P I can only give three illustrations<br /> from the papers before me. They all belong to<br /> lady novelists, who were very active—though the<br /> fact has now become rather misty—in the latter<br /> part of the eighteenth century. The first case is<br /> that of Miss S. Minifie.<br /> This lady, on April 22, 1765, parted with<br /> the MS. of her novel called “The Histories of<br /> Lady Frances and Caroline S.” for the sum of<br /> £59. I fear that this lady writing in the present<br /> age would have had to take 350 for her rights in<br /> the three-volume novel, which would have gone<br /> the round of the libraries for nine months—then<br /> to be forgotten,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#591) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 237<br /> On May 13, in the same year, Miss (or Mrs.)<br /> Ann Eliot, less fortunate, received £39 IOS. for<br /> her MS. novel called “Indiana Danby.” A lady<br /> of greater literary pretensions than either S.<br /> Minifie or Ann Eliot was Frances Brooke, née<br /> Moore. She was married to a clergyman who<br /> held the post of chaplain at Quebec, whither she<br /> accompanied her husband. On their return she<br /> became one of the earliest of the literary women—<br /> I know not if she lived by her pen, probably not;<br /> but she wrote continuously and was actually, if<br /> not nominally, a professional writer. She wrote<br /> two novels, at least. For one of these, “Tady<br /> Julia Mandeville,” she received a sum of £IOO.<br /> I have before me among these documents a letter<br /> from her, addressed to her publisher. It is<br /> exactly the kind of letter which one expects from<br /> the literary profession. She has been dis-<br /> appointed, in fact, of a remittance. Literary<br /> folk are always being disappointed of a remit-<br /> tance.<br /> N. Oakendon, 25th Aug. 1770.<br /> Dear Sir, I wrote to you a few days ago to tell you I<br /> might probably be obliged to draw on you for £2O. It has<br /> happened as I was afraid it would. I am disappointed of a<br /> remittance I expected from the country. I have therefore<br /> drawn in favour of the Rev. Mr. Parry or Order at thirty days<br /> after date, and you will oblige me by accepting the Bill,<br /> which I hereby acknowledge to be on account of the<br /> translation of the (Memoirs) of the Marquis de St. Forlaix.<br /> I expect to hear from you to-morrow in answer to the other<br /> particulars in my last. -<br /> I am, dear Sir, your most obedient servant,<br /> FR. BROOK.E.<br /> The rest of the 2nd volume will go to-morrow.<br /> The bill is inclosed among the papers. It is<br /> drawn on Mr. James Dodsley, who writes after<br /> Mrs. Brooke&#039;s signature “accepted, J. D.” It is<br /> indorsed by Roger Parry and by three other<br /> names, to whom it was passed before being taken<br /> up by Dodsley. The tone and wording of the<br /> letter; the lady&#039;s familiarity with the business of<br /> a thirty days&#039; draft; indicate clearly the profession<br /> of letters, not the occasional indulgence in literary<br /> pursuits.<br /> Let us next turn to the relations of pub-<br /> lishers among themselves. We have seen that<br /> risks were divided and sub-divided. This led to<br /> a good deal of buying and selling among them-<br /> selves of copyrights and shares of copyrights.<br /> These sales were conducted by auctions at the<br /> Queen&#039;s Head Tavern and the Globe, the persons<br /> present, it is understood, being only those belong-<br /> ing to the trade. Sometimes the amounts realised<br /> were so small that one is astonished to find the<br /> things put up for sale at all.<br /> On Jan. 13, 1746-7, at an auction held at the<br /> Queen&#039;s Head Tavern, Robert Dodsley bought<br /> the following “copies” and “shares of copies.”<br /> One guinea was the sum he paid for the first lot;<br /> two guineas for the second :—<br /> “Life of the Black Prince.” The whole.<br /> “The Levee,” a farce. Two-thirds.<br /> “Levin&#039;s Reports.” Three parts in two volumes. An<br /> eighth.<br /> “Levin&#039;s Entries.” An eighth.<br /> “Law of Bastardy.” The whole.<br /> “Letters from a Country Whig.”<br /> author of “The Caveat.” The whole.<br /> “Letters of the Ancients.” A tenth.<br /> Machiavelli’s “Works.” Folio. Mrs. Ward’s share.<br /> Misson’s “Voyage to Italy.” 4 vols. octavo, 147 in<br /> IOOO.<br /> “Mechanism of Birds.” 4o.<br /> “Memoirs of Savoy.”<br /> “Mercurius Politicus.”<br /> Two parts. By the<br /> I47 in IOOO,<br /> I47 in IOOO.<br /> Octavo, one sixth.<br /> The second lot was as follows:<br /> Marshall’s “Penitential Discipline. One half.<br /> 3) “Defence of the Constitution.” Ditto.<br /> 22 “Sermons on the Queen.” Ditto.<br /> 32 “Sermons at Blandel’s Funeral.” Ditto.<br /> 22 “Letter to a Clergyman about Oaths.” Ditto.<br /> 2 3 “St Cyprian.” Ditto.<br /> 33 “Non Danger from Popery.” Two-thirds.<br /> Nelson’s “Abridgment.” 3 vols. folio. One-eighteenth.<br /> 22 “Rights of the Clergy.” Two-thirds.<br /> 22 “Reports in Chancery.” One-sixth.<br /> Sir Isaac Newton’s “Chronology.” A ninth.<br /> “Systema Mundi.” A ninth.<br /> 23 55 39 “Elogium.” A ninth.<br /> “Nicholl on the Pulse.” Two-thirds.<br /> “Newborough&#039;s Copies&quot; (Mr. Osborne&#039;s share), consisting<br /> of thirty articles.<br /> The sum of three guineas purchased the copy-<br /> right, or a part of the copyright, of all these<br /> works It is amazing. At first I thought that<br /> the word “copies&quot; meant single copies of the<br /> book; though it is difficnlt to understand book-<br /> selling when a single copy has half-a-dozen<br /> owners. That it was copyright is proved by the<br /> share being in two cases I 47 in a thousand.<br /> Now most of these books appear to have been<br /> old books: Nelson died in 1720; Marshall, pre-<br /> sumably the Dean of Windsor, in 1730; Misson<br /> was translated in 1698; Newton died in 1727.<br /> The sale then was something like the sale of<br /> remainder stock, the purchaser taking over his<br /> share of the remainder stock.<br /> The way in which these different shares wele<br /> worked is shown by an agreement between Jacob<br /> Tonson and Robert Dodsley It is dated Dec. 30,<br /> I752.<br /> The agreement is concerned with a translation of<br /> Caesar’s “Commentaries &quot; and his “Discourse on<br /> the Art of War,” by one Mr. Duncan. The<br /> translator was to be paid by Dodsley, while<br /> Tonson for his share was to furnish the plates<br /> used for Clarke&#039;s edition of Caesar and to pay for<br /> the necessary alterations—a clause which makes<br /> one feel that the learned Duncan in his new and<br /> original translation would be made to stick pretty<br /> 32 25 32<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#592) ################################################<br /> <br /> 238<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> closely to the learned Clarke. Then the two<br /> parties to the agreement were to go halves in<br /> cost of printing and in receipts—each was to take<br /> 200 copies to begin with, and then forty more, and<br /> so on until all were gone. Sixteen years later, in<br /> 1765, Mr. Longman bought an eighteenth part of<br /> the copyright for £1 10s. And in 1771 another<br /> eighth was bought by James Dodsley for £2 2s.<br /> An instance of the fluctuating value of copy-<br /> rights is afforded by two or three entries concern-<br /> ing a book called “The Child&#039;s Plaything.” On<br /> Dec. 15, 1767, James Dodsley bought two twenty-<br /> fourth shares of this book, one share for £3 15s.<br /> and the other for £4 Ios., each being put up to<br /> auction separately. That is to say, the copyright<br /> of the book, which meant what remained of former<br /> issues and what might be expected to be made<br /> by future issues, at £99.<br /> twenty-fourth share was sold for £2 11s. The<br /> copyright was then worth £6 1 4s. In 1773, four<br /> guineas were paid for a twelfth share—the copy-<br /> right of the whole was therefore worth £50. On<br /> June 5, 1783, sixteen years later, one twenty-<br /> fourth share was sold for half a guinea; the<br /> value of the copyright having gone down to<br /> 312 12s. On May 25, 1784, one twelfth share<br /> was sold for £1 16s., so that the value of the<br /> copyright had gone up. At these auctions of<br /> copyrights there must have been a good deal of<br /> speculation. One remarks, however, that people<br /> were not so quick to forget a book as they have<br /> since become ; a book must be really remarkable<br /> to be remembered in these days after seventeen<br /> years or more.<br /> - The material before us is not sufficient to<br /> ascertain the cost of printing.<br /> Here are, however, two printed bills.<br /> I. Printed for Mr. John Nourse by William 3 s. d.<br /> Stenham “Gil Blas,” in French, 2 vols., 37%<br /> * sheets. No. IOOO, at £I IOS. .............. ..., 56 5 O<br /> March 3, 1770, Knight (“Shadows of the<br /> Booksellers”) is responsible for the following:<br /> 2. State of the account of “Gibbon&#039;s Roman Empire.”<br /> Third edition, 1st vol. No. IOOO. April 30, 1777.<br /> Printing 90 sheets at £1 6s. with notes at the £ s. d.<br /> - bottom of the page......... ........... ........ I 17 O O<br /> 18o reams of paper at 19s. ........................ 171 o o<br /> Paid the corrector extra care ..................... 5 5 O<br /> Advertisements and other incidental expenses 16 15 O<br /> *A 3IO O O<br /> 39 s. d<br /> IOOO books at 16s. .................. 8oo O O<br /> . Deduct as above ..................... 31 O O O<br /> Profits on this edition ...... 490 O O<br /> When sold. - - S<br /> Mr. Gibbon&#039;s two-thirds is ........................ 326 I3 §<br /> 6<br /> Messrs. Stenhan and Cadell&#039;s................. • . . . . . 163<br /> 490 O O<br /> In February, 1771, a<br /> Newspapers were already worth something in<br /> the year 1747. In that year Mr. Robert Dodsley<br /> gave Mr. Richard Nutt the sum of £150 for a<br /> fifteenth share in “a newspaper called The<br /> London Evening Post”—the whole of which was<br /> therefore valued at £2250. It seems little, as<br /> newspapers go, nowadays. -<br /> Books were sent about the country by waggon.<br /> On Nov. 7, 1758, Mr. Sackville Parker—was it<br /> Professor Sackville Parker P-writes from Oxford<br /> to Mr. Nourse, bookseller, at the Sign of the<br /> Tamb, against St. Catherine-street, Strand, ask-<br /> ing for certain books; they were to be sent to him<br /> by Hibbits&#039;s waggon. If he writes for them on<br /> Monday, he might perhaps expect them on the<br /> Saturday.<br /> The following interesting document is a minute<br /> of the meeting held at the Chapter Coffee House<br /> on Jan. 22, 1745, when four publishers agreed to<br /> take upon themselves and to share the risk and<br /> the profit on the production of a new magazine:<br /> Chapter Coffee House, Jan. 22, 1745.<br /> Messrs. Longman, Hitch, Dodsley, and Rivington.<br /> Mr. Dodsley produced an agreement between him and Dr.<br /> Mark Akinside, signed by both parties, ye purport of<br /> which was that Dr. Akinside had engag’d to prepare &amp;<br /> have ready for ye press once a fortnight, one Essay, when-<br /> ever necessary, for carrying on a Work to be called ye<br /> Musaeum, and also to prepare and have ready for ye Press<br /> Once a fortnight an account of ye most considerable books<br /> in English, Latin, French, or Italian which have been lately<br /> published, and which Mr. Dodsley shall furnish—&amp; ye<br /> said account of books shall be so much in quantity as along<br /> with ye Essays above mentioned may fill a sheet &amp; half in<br /> small pica whenever so much is necessary for ye carrying<br /> on ye said Design. Dr. Akinside engages to supervise ye<br /> whole, and to correct ye proofs ef his own part on con-<br /> dition that Mr. Dodsley shall pay to Dr. Akinside fifty<br /> pounds on or before ye 27th September. It is further agreed<br /> that so long as Mr. Dodsley thinks proper to continue ye<br /> paper, and so long as Dr. Akinside consents to manage it,<br /> the terms above mentioned shall remain in force, &amp; not less<br /> than a Hundred pounds per annum be offer&#039;d by Mr. Dodsley,<br /> nor more insisted on by Dr. Akinside. -<br /> Mr. Dodsley also reported that he had seen Mr. Camp-<br /> bell, who had agreed to write one sheet of historical<br /> occurrences for ye said work, but could not yet fix ye terms<br /> he should have for ye same. - -<br /> It was also agreed that Messrs. Longman, Hitch, and<br /> |Rivington should be partners with Mr. Dodsley in the said<br /> pamphlet, &amp; that ye same be carried on at ye joint expense<br /> of ye said four persons, who shall be equal shares in profit<br /> and loss that may arise by ye sale thereof, &amp; that no other<br /> partner be adımitted into ye said work.<br /> And it is further agreed that, as Mr. Dodsley has apply&#039;d<br /> to several Gentlemen for Essays, poems &amp; other pieces for<br /> this work, that ye Copyright of all such Essays, poems &amp;<br /> other pieces shall remain to Mr. Dodsley excepting such as<br /> are wrote by Dr. Akinside, which are to be ye property of ye<br /> 4 Persons concern’d in this said Musaeum, as shall also ye<br /> Historical Occurrences. - -<br /> In witness whereof the parties above mentioned have sett<br /> their hands the day &amp; date above mentioned.<br /> THO. LONGMAN &amp; Co. R. DoDSLEY. w&quot;<br /> CHARLES HITCH. JoHN RIVINGTON &amp; Co.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#593) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 239<br /> We will conclude these extracts with a letter<br /> written by an author to his pmblisher on the pro-<br /> duction of a second edition—not that the letter<br /> illustrates anything, but because it has a pleasant<br /> old world flavour. The author, observe, points<br /> out that he ineans to have his say in the advertise-<br /> ment of the book.<br /> SIR,--I left the three sheets of the work at Mr. Hamilton’s.<br /> I did not see Mr. Hamilton himself, but I acquainted his<br /> overseer what the alterations are which are to be made in<br /> the plan of it. He told me Mr. H. would probably see<br /> you on Sunday in order to settle the plan, &amp;c. The<br /> quantity of matter I observe, as far as I have gone, has<br /> been more than double what it was before ; which edition<br /> will, I calculate, fully supply the vacant columns and blank<br /> spaces, which there is now no occasion for, and the book will<br /> be about the same size as it now is, exclusive of the index,<br /> which will be about three sheets more I suppose. The size<br /> of the page I hope you will think with me will be best in<br /> octavo. The paper, you will excuse me if I just observe to<br /> you, was not in the last edition good enough. On looking<br /> over some letters I have, I find some complaints on that<br /> head, which I am sure you will put it out of their power to<br /> make in this edition.<br /> You mentioned that you should pay £30 at the time of<br /> my delivery of the first sheets; I should therefore be<br /> obliged to you for it if you will let it be sent to Mr. Symons’,<br /> merchant, Princes-street, Lothbury, who will give you a<br /> receipt for me.<br /> Before you advertise the book, I shall be glad if you will<br /> hear from me again—as I shall give you a few hints which<br /> will be necessary to be observed.<br /> I am Sir, your most humble servant,<br /> JELINGER SYMONs.<br /> I hope to receive a proof sheet in a few days, and that I<br /> shall be able to furnish two sheets a week.<br /> What do we learn from these papers?<br /> In the first we learn what a very small and<br /> uncertain thing the demand for books—especially<br /> new books—was a hundred and fifty years ago.<br /> We see the publishers venturing into the market<br /> by clinging together; they divide even a little<br /> book into eight, sixteen, twenty shares; they<br /> hold auctions constantly at which they put up<br /> for sale these shares, trying to get into their<br /> own hands those which are profitable and<br /> getting rid of those which look<br /> fall in value. Sometimes they have auctions<br /> of copyrights of which a round dozen are not<br /> worth more than a guinea. When a book of<br /> undoubted historical value is given to a publisher<br /> by its author, he calls in two or three of his<br /> fellows and they join together in the risk. They<br /> buy a collection of letters by Pope for £50, and<br /> one by Swift for £37. Everything is little ;<br /> everything connected with the business shows<br /> that the market was very limited; that it was<br /> uncertain; that the risk in producing almost any<br /> book was very real.<br /> A very narrow market. Yes: but then its<br /> narrow limits acted in an unexpected way; for if<br /> a book got into one house and was talked about<br /> likely to<br /> it got into all. “My book,” says Gibbon, “is on<br /> every table.”<br /> As for discounts: thirteen as twelve; or reduc-<br /> tions for a large subseription, we read nothing.<br /> When we consider the authors’ side we find that<br /> they regarded the commercial side of their pro-<br /> fession to mean simply that they were to sell their<br /> work to the bookseller for as much as they could<br /> get. Hence the use of the word “generosity’;<br /> hence, when men began to live by writing, the<br /> bending back and the outstretched hand which<br /> have done so much to ennoble and to dignify the<br /> profession of literature. The selling of books was<br /> regarded by the writer as a kind of gamble, or<br /> speculation. As for keeping a share in his own<br /> property, he did not know that it was property.<br /> Even in the case of Johnson with the Dictionary,<br /> it never so much as occurred to him that he was<br /> creating a noble property in which he ought to<br /> retain a share, and that a large share. It may<br /> be urged that it was a period in which, as we<br /> have seen, every new book was brought out as a<br /> risk to the venturer. Yet, what does Charles<br /> Enight, who knew the subject better than anyone<br /> before him, or since, say of this very period?<br /> “’Twas, in many respects, the golden age for<br /> publishers, when large and certain fortunes were<br /> made; when there was not a great deal of<br /> gambling spirit in the business.” “Large and<br /> certain fortunes ’’ Then what about these<br /> risks P. The word “large” is not to be accepted<br /> in its present sense, and the word “certain &quot;<br /> means only that by dividing risk and so mini-<br /> mising possible loss, the publishers avoided<br /> dangers while they lost the chance of great coups.<br /> W. B.<br /> *<br /> LITERATURE IN THE PERIODICALS,<br /> WITHOUT PREJUDICE [about Authors and Publishers].<br /> I. Zangwill. Pall Mall Magazine for March.<br /> THE NEw POET LAUREATE. John Dennis. Leisure<br /> How&#039; for March.<br /> THE BRITISH MUSEUM : The Departments. Sir E.<br /> Maunde Thompson, K.C.B. Leisure Howr for March.<br /> THE TREATMENT OF MEDICINE IN FICTION. Caroline<br /> W. Latimer, M.D. New Science Review for January.<br /> IMAGINATION. Arthur Lovell. New Science Review for<br /> January.<br /> CRITICISM As THEFT. Professor William Knight.<br /> Nineteenth Century for February.<br /> PEREDA, THE SPANISH NovKLIST. Hannah Lynch. Con-<br /> temporary Review for February.<br /> THE EvoluTION OF EDITORs. Leslie Stephen. National<br /> Review for February.<br /> ENDURING CHARACTERISTICS OF MACAULAY. T. Brad-<br /> field. Westminster Review for February.<br /> AUTHORITY IN LITERARY TASTE. Speaker for Feb. 22.<br /> CANADIAN CoPYRIGHT. Speaker for Feb. I.<br /> THE BIOGRAPHER. Speaker for Feb. 8.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#594) ################################################<br /> <br /> 24O<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> POPULAR WRITERS AND PRESS CRITICS.<br /> Review for Feb. 8.<br /> AN EvKNING WITH MALLARME.<br /> for Feb. 22.<br /> AN AUTHOR&#039;s ComPLAINT. Letters from J. W. D. and<br /> George Redway. Athenaewm for Feb. I.<br /> DANGER SIGALS IN NovKLS. Nation for Jan. 23.<br /> AN UNPUBLISHED LETTER OF THOMAS PAINE.<br /> for Feb. 6.<br /> THE REAL PETER PARLBY. Bookseller for Feb. 7.<br /> THE PUBLISHERs&#039; AssocIATION. Bookseller for Feb. 7.<br /> THE Associate:D BookSELLERs. Bookseller for Feb. 7.<br /> NOTABLE REVIEws.<br /> Satwrday<br /> Z. Z. Literary World<br /> Nation<br /> Of Walter Pater’s “Miscellaneous Studies.” Campbell<br /> Dodgson. Academy for Feb. 8.<br /> Of Thomas Hardy’s “Jude the Obscure.” Saturday<br /> Review for Feb. 8. -<br /> Of Professor Saintsbury’s “Literature of the Nineteenth<br /> Century.” Times for Feb. 14.<br /> Of J. M. Robertson’s “Buckle<br /> Athenæum for Feb. 22.<br /> Of Mr. Gladstone’s edition of Butler.<br /> Feb. 22.<br /> Of D. J. O’Donoghue&#039;s Life of William Carleton.<br /> Chronicle for Feb. 22.<br /> Of Miss Rossetti&#039;s “New Poems.”<br /> Feb. 22.<br /> Mr. Zangwill discourses at good length on the<br /> relation of author and publisher. The methods<br /> of the Trade Union are only partially applicable<br /> to the author, but even the possible has not yet<br /> been done. “There is nothing but a registered<br /> disorganisation. What the publishers are really<br /> afraid of is not a society but a man”—the agent.<br /> Publishers may rave as they will, but authors have every<br /> right to employ agents to save them from the unpleasant<br /> task of chaffering and of speaking highly of themselves.<br /> And it is the author who pays the agent, not the publishers,<br /> their whinings notwithstanding. The agent may indeed<br /> squeeze out larger sums than publishers like to disgorge—<br /> but how can he obtain more than the market value P<br /> Political economy is dead against the possibility.<br /> As for the right of the author to reckon his<br /> expenses of research, equally with the publisher<br /> reckoning his office expenses, in the cost of<br /> production, it is not only an ethical fallacy but a<br /> politico-economical one, “because the economical<br /> question is only concerned with the distribution<br /> of the work, and the money or the heart&#039;s blood<br /> that went to make it has nothing to do with the<br /> question, while the publisher&#039;s office expenses are<br /> of the essence of the question.” He excuses the<br /> publisher making successful books pay for un-<br /> successful; and allows him the right to capture<br /> the bulk of the profits of the author&#039;s first books,<br /> because they largely supply the author with his<br /> public—“but when a popular author brings a<br /> publisher a book it is he who improves the<br /> publisher&#039;s distributing agency.” Mr. Zangwill<br /> at the same time strikes at the root of the<br /> publisher&#039;s existence by prophecying that he will<br /> become more and more the mere distributor, if<br /> indeed he be not eliminated by a mechanical<br /> and His Critics.”<br /> Speaker for<br /> Daily<br /> Saturday Review for<br /> organisation. “The popular author needs only a<br /> central store to supply the trade with his printed<br /> writings, the cost of production of which is<br /> covered by the first day&#039;s sales.”<br /> Writing upon “An Author&#039;s Complaint” in<br /> the Athenæum, “J. W. D.” says that similar<br /> cases have come under his notice, and “in every<br /> instance where a bookseller has ticketed my books<br /> above the published price, it has immediately<br /> been rectified when his attention has been called<br /> it.” He thinks simple ignorance, therefore, the<br /> cause. Mr. Redway sends to the same journal<br /> opinions he has received upon his letter in favour<br /> of abolishing the net system of book-selling<br /> (summarised in this column last month). The<br /> Associated Booksellers have been conferring on<br /> this subject at their annual meeting, but with no<br /> definite end. One species of argument used was<br /> that the attainment of an adequate profit was the<br /> real matter, the precise method of reaching it<br /> being comparatively immaterial. At the Pub-<br /> lishers’ Association to frame rules, Mr. Frederick<br /> Macmillan said he entirely refused to believe in<br /> the hostility between authors and publishers often<br /> alluded to in the Press. The interests of the two,<br /> he continued, must always be inseparable. With<br /> regard to the booksellers, the saying was equally<br /> true, and the newly-formed Publishers’ Associa-<br /> tion would try to release them from the thraldom<br /> of excessive discounts.<br /> On the question of Canadian Copyright the<br /> Speaker is pleased that the position taken up by<br /> the Colonial Office, that legislation on copyright<br /> was beyond the province of the Dominion Parlia-<br /> ment, has now apparently been dropped. But it<br /> has never been able to see that the loss of what<br /> may be called automatic copyright in Canada is a<br /> very serious matter to British authors. “The<br /> English-speaking people of Canada number<br /> perhaps three millions, and are chiefly farmers<br /> with little time, money, or inclination for buying<br /> books.” Our contemporary thinks that :—<br /> If by using Canadian pirate publishers as a lever, we<br /> could force the United States into the league of civilised<br /> nations which have assented to the Berne Convention, the<br /> game might be worth playing.<br /> |Because, while the writers of established<br /> reputation draw rich revenues from the United<br /> States, the poorer man and the beginner are<br /> robbed as brazenly as ever. The article also<br /> impresses the necessity of careful consideration of<br /> the Canadian authors’ rights in other countries,<br /> because—French or English—he can never hope<br /> to make a large income out of his own people.<br /> Moreover—<br /> The only protection which is of any real use to the writer<br /> must be a world protection, and that world protection can<br /> only be secured by Canada assenting to the rule of inter-<br /> national equality, which was decreed at Berne.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#595) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE<br /> 24. I<br /> A UTHOR.<br /> Discussing Professor Courthope&#039;s inaugural<br /> lecture in the Chair of Poetry at Oxford, as to<br /> what tribunal society can create to pronounce<br /> effectively on questions of literary taste, the<br /> Speaker does not agree with the Professor&#039;s<br /> objections to an English Academy on the French<br /> model—“officialism ‘’ not being an English fail-<br /> ing, while “true originality” would be the<br /> strongest title to admission to the ranks of such<br /> Academy. Nevertheless, it concedes that, so long<br /> as the school of English literature runs on the<br /> lines of scholarship in its widest sense, it may at<br /> least form a genuine school of English culture,<br /> and help to educate the public mind as to the<br /> requirements of a literary style.<br /> The letter by Thomas Paine which Mr. Moncure<br /> D. Conway sends to the Nation, was written from<br /> Paris in January, 1797, to Colonel Fellows, book-<br /> seller in New York, with whom the writer dis-<br /> cussed arrangements about publishing his books.<br /> We extract this brief long-ago glimpse of Paine&#039;s<br /> view and experience in this way:-<br /> You ask me by your letter to Mr. Caritat for a list of<br /> several works in order to publish a collection of them.<br /> This is an undertaking I have always reserved for myself.<br /> It not only belongs to me of right, but nobody but myself<br /> can do it; and as every author is accountable (at least in<br /> reputation) for his works, he only is the person to do it.<br /> &amp; tº I have sustained so much loss by disinterested-<br /> ness and inattention to money matters and by accidents,<br /> that I am obliged to look closer to my affairs than I have<br /> done.<br /> Lately Mr. Andrew Lang entered his protest<br /> against so-called “scissors-and-paste ’’ criticism ;<br /> now Professor Knight finds fault with modern<br /> methods. He is alarmed for the risk that the<br /> professional critic, undertaking too much work,<br /> may review many books without reading them,<br /> and that unless he is somehow discovered and<br /> just sentence passed upon him, he will often<br /> return a biassed verdict on the literature that<br /> passes through his hands. All injustice is theft,<br /> he says; and he makes the rather striking point<br /> that papers which publish extracts from a book<br /> or a magazine defraud the public—besides, of<br /> course, taking from the author and hurting the<br /> publisher—because the public is deprived of the<br /> liberty of knowing in its integrity what some of<br /> the ablest writers of the time have had to say.<br /> The assumption is that the public believes it is<br /> getting the “integrity” with the , extracts.<br /> Throughout the article runs a note of welcome<br /> to the just critic who can be severe, as we are<br /> suffering from a vast amount of trivial production<br /> —“we have a modern literary swarmery, as we<br /> have a modern social proletariat.” The Pro-<br /> fessor admits that the function of the modern<br /> critic is singularly ill-defined. He chiefly wants<br /> full knowledge, judicial impartiality, and readi-<br /> ness to appreciate what is new if it be a genuine<br /> development of latent tendencies.<br /> The article on “Medicine in Fiction ” is in the<br /> nature of a protest against the “vague, false,<br /> and impossible statements that are scattered<br /> broadcast by almost every novelist.” The sug-<br /> gestion—which may be ironieal—is made that<br /> the sources of correct information should be<br /> “occasionally consulted; ” also that good taste<br /> should be displayed. George Eliot&#039;s works are<br /> held up admiringly for their correct treatment of<br /> such cases. The writer, however, advises the<br /> avoidancee of medical subjects altogether as<br /> themes for novels. The Nation says that the<br /> “danger-signal—i.e., the indication of the subject<br /> treated in certain novels—should be placed on<br /> the cover instead of in the preface, to be truly<br /> effective; and that the change from the old<br /> custom under which English fiction might be left<br /> to free publishing and reading, may signify a<br /> gain for art, but certainly means “a loss to our<br /> comfort, to our traditions, to our manners.”<br /> *-*.<br /> BOOK TALK,<br /> appearance of a new magazine entitled<br /> Sisters,under the editorship of Mrs.<br /> Elizabeth Hooper, and published by S. W.<br /> Partridge and Co. Its first number appeared in<br /> December. It is devoted to the interests of<br /> women in their social rights, although it is not by<br /> any means in sympathy with the New Woman.<br /> It has for its main object the mutual help, com-<br /> fort, and advancement, and the founding of free<br /> homes for indigent and invalid gentlewomen.<br /> Among its popular features, a new and original<br /> recitation by Mrs. Albert S. Bradshaw appears<br /> every month, and an instructive page on the art of<br /> elocution.<br /> Messrs. Jarrold have just issued a new illus-<br /> trated edition of “Old Caleb’s Will,” by Frances<br /> Armstrong. Price 38. 6d.<br /> Miss Jean Middlemass will shortly run a serial<br /> called “The Case of David Lisle,” through<br /> the National Press Agency Syndicate of News-<br /> papers.<br /> The second edition of Mr. Mackenzie Bell&#039;s<br /> “Spring&#039;s Immortality and other Poems ” being<br /> sold out, the publishers, Messrs. Ward, Lock,<br /> and Bowden, are about to issue a third edition in<br /> which the author has made some revisions, parti-<br /> cularly in the poem entitled “The Taking of the<br /> Flag”<br /> \ W YE have hitherto neglected to notice an<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#596) ################################################<br /> <br /> 242<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> The lecture at the Imperial Institute, by Mr.<br /> James Baker, author of “John Westacott,” &amp;c.,<br /> was an undoubted success. The subject of the<br /> lecture, “Egypt of To-day,” is always interest-<br /> ing, and the lecturer&#039;s treatment elicited frequent<br /> applause. The views, of which over sixty were<br /> shown, were from snap shots taken by Mr. Baker;<br /> they represented the natives in religious cere-<br /> monies, groups around the temples and tombs,<br /> Scenes on the Nile and in the native houses,<br /> prisons and schools.<br /> Lord Monkswell has written a novel, which<br /> will be published by Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co.<br /> under the title of “ Kate Grenville.”<br /> “The Romance of Rahere,” by Edward<br /> Hardingham. (Elliot Stock.) — The poems in<br /> this book are presumably by one who now makes<br /> his first appearance in public. The poem which<br /> gives its title to the volume is about 150 pages<br /> in length; the other twelve are nearly all of good<br /> length. In these days of tiny volumes it is<br /> pleasing to have one poet not afraid of a<br /> sustained flight. Let Mr. Hardingham speak<br /> for himself in the following:<br /> PERDIDI DIEM | Nigh a baker&#039;s shop<br /> A man stood wistful——in his arms a child<br /> Asleep of weariness. Alas! beguiled<br /> By pleasant converse with a friend, to stop<br /> I thought not, but passed by—Perdidi diem<br /> Perdidi diem After, at my meal,<br /> My pets about me jealous each of each,<br /> A weary face, more eloquent than speech,<br /> Rose up, Egyptian guest. I could but feel<br /> The sting of thoughtlessness—Perdidi diem<br /> Perdidi diem “Evermore the poor<br /> Ye shall have with you.” Thus the Lord of all.<br /> Ah, God, how oft they look, they sigh, they call!<br /> We pass them careless by, or close the door.<br /> Forgive me, Lord, for oft—Perdidi diem<br /> Perdidi diem : Down the village street<br /> A-dust with summer heat, and broader road,<br /> Self-judged and self-condemned, I eager strode ;<br /> A mile, then two, and three, yet could not greet<br /> Again the wanderer pair—Perdidi diem<br /> Perdidi diem | Sorrowful at heart<br /> Returning home, I vowed no more for shame<br /> Ill felt, or pride, or selfish ease, the claim<br /> Of outcast to repel, or hunger smart<br /> Of poverty to quicken, lest one day<br /> The God alike of rich and poor should say.<br /> Tu perdidisti diem, servant Mine.<br /> Non perdidisti diem, dost thou lift<br /> A wormling out the path of hurrying men;<br /> Dost save a moth from flame; the guiltless wren<br /> Release from snare, or straying beetle shift<br /> Back to its burrow ; but at close of day<br /> Canst peaceful sleep to dream thy Lord doth say,<br /> Non perdidisti diem, servant Mine !<br /> “The Exiles: a Romance of Life.” By Marcus<br /> S. C. Rickards. (London: George Bell and Sons.)<br /> This is a single poem told in about a hundred<br /> and fifty pages with songs and lyrics interspersed.<br /> Read, for instance, the following:—<br /> GOLD at the peep of dawn,<br /> Waxing to noon,<br /> Then by slow stealth withdrawn;<br /> Gray afternoon,<br /> Weiling a watery sun,<br /> Herald of rain begun,<br /> Weeping till Night hath won<br /> Her silver moon.<br /> Gold in the soft spring-time,<br /> Deepening to splendour<br /> Of the gay summer-prime,<br /> Till autumn tender<br /> Lose her tints, tears, and sighs,<br /> In gray despairing skies,<br /> Ere in cold silvery guise<br /> Calm winter end her.<br /> Gold in the curls that tell<br /> Childhood’s bright story—<br /> Oft lovelier mid the spell<br /> Of Youth’s full glory—<br /> Fading with Hope&#039;s fair gleam,<br /> Gray as the wept-for dream,<br /> Till silvery quiet beam<br /> In locks all hoary.<br /> Silver at dawn of Love,<br /> Cold, clear, disdaining.<br /> Then gray around, above—<br /> Sigh, gust, and raining.<br /> Ere the sun stream in gold,<br /> Deepening till all behold<br /> Love, that ne&#039;er waxes old,<br /> And knows no waning.<br /> Mrs. Hodgson Burnett has completed a new<br /> novel of the time of Queen Anne, called “A Lady<br /> of Quality,” and Messrs. Warne will publish it<br /> immediately.<br /> Mr. E. F. Benson is engaged upon a romance<br /> laid in Greece during the War of Independence.<br /> The author of “Dodo’’ was recently sojourning<br /> in Greece, in connection with the operations of the<br /> British School of Archaeology.<br /> Mr. Allen Upward calls his new novel “A<br /> Crown of Straw,” which will relate to the late<br /> king of Bavaria. It will be published by Messrs.<br /> Chatto and Windus.<br /> Some months ago we announced “The Herb<br /> Moon,” by “John Oliver Hobbes.” It is now<br /> stated that the heroine of this story, which is to<br /> be published shortly, is of “a noble type of<br /> womanhood;’ and, moreover, that the author<br /> has now abandoned stories of the type of her<br /> “The Gods,” “Some Mortals,” and “Lord<br /> Wickenham.”<br /> The third volume of Mr. Herbert Spencer&#039;s<br /> “Principles of Sociology” may be expected by<br /> the summer, and in it will be included his brief<br /> work on “Ecclesiastical Institutions.”<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#597) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 243<br /> Mr. Lecky has written an introduction to “A<br /> Life Spent for Ireland: Leaves from the Diary of<br /> W. J. O’Neill Daunt.”<br /> Mr. Clark Russell’s novel, in three volumes,<br /> “The Tale of the Ten,” and Mr. Crockett&#039;s<br /> “Cleg Kelly,” will both be published immediately.<br /> Distinctive interest attaches to the forthcoming<br /> poem by Mr. Robert Buchanan (which will<br /> appear immediately), from the fact that the<br /> author is also the publisher. This attitude will<br /> be explained in a pamphlet by Mr. Buchanan,<br /> who calls the ordinary publisher “a barnacle on<br /> the bottom of the good ship Literature, yet pre-<br /> suming to criticise the quality of the cargo in the<br /> hold.” In the same way he will himself deal<br /> direct with the bookseller upon all other works he<br /> may publish in the future. The title of the poem<br /> is “TheDevil&#039;s Case: a Bank Holiday Interlude.”<br /> Mr. John Stafford is a new writer who will<br /> appear with a volume of stories, entitled “Doris<br /> and I,” to be published by Messrs. Chatto.<br /> For Mr. William Archer’s “Theatrical World<br /> of 1895,” to appear soon, Mr. Pinero has written<br /> a prefatory letter, mainly reminiscent of his early<br /> days at Edinburgh, while Mr. H. G. Hibbert<br /> supplies a synopsis of playbills.<br /> Mdme. Stepniak is preparing a biography of<br /> her late husband, the well-known Russian<br /> agitator. The Russian section of it will be<br /> edited by Prince Kropotkin. Chapters on<br /> Stepniak as a critic, Stepniak as a political<br /> writer, and Stepniak in Italy, will be contributed<br /> respectively by Professor York Powell, Mr.<br /> Edward Garnett, and Malatesta, the Italian<br /> anarchist. A Russian romance has, by the way,<br /> just been completed by Mr. William Le Queux,<br /> entitled “The Nihilist Spy: Being the Strange<br /> Adventures of Anton Prehzneff.” Messrs. Ward,<br /> Lock, and Bowden will publish the story.<br /> The postman poet, Mr. James D. Hosken, has<br /> written a tragedy in three acts about “Christo-<br /> pher Marlowe,” which is its title; also a harle-<br /> uinade in doggerel called “Belphegor.” They<br /> will be published together in one volume by<br /> Messrs. Henry and Co. very soon.<br /> Should health attend him, Mr. Justin M*Carthy<br /> contemplates renewed literary activity now that<br /> he has given up the duties of leadership in the<br /> Irish Parliamentary Party. He has in prospect,<br /> for instance, the completion of his “History of<br /> Our Own Times” by bringing it down to the<br /> present day, a memoir of the Pope, a three-<br /> volume novel, and a collection of short stories.<br /> Add to these his own Reminiscences, and the list<br /> seems richly promising.<br /> The autobiography of Mary Anderson will be<br /> ready at Messrs. Osgood, McIlvaine&#039;s, in a few<br /> days&#039; time. Next month the same house will<br /> issue the second portion of the Barras memoirs.<br /> In the course of the spring season they will also<br /> publish a work by Professor Garner, of “the<br /> language of the monkey tribe’” fame, giving his<br /> experiences during his late visit to West Africa.<br /> The Professor spent four months in an iron cage<br /> in the forest of the French Congo, with only the<br /> companionship of his subjects of study, the wild<br /> beasts.<br /> Mr. Arthur Waugh supplies notes and an intro-<br /> duction to a new edition of Johnson’s “Lives of<br /> the Poets,” which Messrs. Kegan Paul have in<br /> the press. It will consist of six volumes,<br /> published monthly, and there will be thirty<br /> portraits in it of the chief poets. Mr. Le<br /> Gallienne has edited for Mr. Lane a reprint of<br /> “The Compleat Angler,” from the 1676 edition.<br /> Two hundred drawings by Mr. Edmund H. New<br /> will be given throughout the twelve parts, issue<br /> of which begins now. Another work to be<br /> published by Mr. Lane is “The Feasts of<br /> Autolycus: The Diary of a Greedy Woman,”<br /> being articles on cookery by Mrs. Pennell,<br /> which have been published in the Pall Mall<br /> Gazette.<br /> Mr. F. Marchmont, a London secondhand book-<br /> seller, is compiling a “Handbook of Anonymous<br /> Literature,” which, while not pretending to be<br /> comprehensive in scope, will index about 2000<br /> works.<br /> 2<br /> “Hans Breitmann’’ is about to issue, through<br /> Messrs. Chatto and Windus, a book on the some-<br /> what quaint topic of “mending and repairing.”<br /> He has gone conscientiously about it by experi-<br /> menting in particular cases and discussing the<br /> latest technological works, and he knows no book<br /> in any language which covers the same ground<br /> as it will.<br /> The new editor of the Edinburgh Review is<br /> the Hon. Arthur Elliot, brother to the Earl of<br /> Minto, and sometime Member of Parliament for<br /> the county of Roxburgh. February witnessed<br /> the sudden departure (owing to differences with<br /> the proprietor) from the editorial chair of the<br /> Pall Mall Gazette of Mr. Cust, M.P., who has<br /> been succeeded temporarily by Sir Douglas<br /> Straight until, as it is understood, an American<br /> editor appears. Mr. E. T. Cook has succeeded<br /> Sir John Robinson in the editorship of the Daily<br /> News; and his assistant, Mr. J. A. Spender, now<br /> follows him as editor of the Westminster Gazette.<br /> Mr. Murray has in his possession letters and<br /> other documents written by and relating to<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#598) ################################################<br /> <br /> 244<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Byron, including the poet’s own continuation of<br /> “Don Juan,” and other fragments, with the aid<br /> of which he is about to prepare a final and com-<br /> plete edition. r -<br /> Miss Florence Marryat&#039;s new story is con-<br /> cerned with Spiritualism, and the title is “The<br /> Strange Transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs.”<br /> Messrs. Hutchinson, who will publish this book<br /> soon, have also in hand a novel by Miss Marie<br /> Corelli, entitled “The Mighty Atom.”<br /> New stories by Mr. Frankfort Moore, “In<br /> Our Hours of Ease;” Mr. Morley Roberts, “The<br /> Great Jester: being some Jests of Fate; ” and<br /> Mr. Percy Russell, “A Cumberland Tragedy,”<br /> are announced by Messrs. Mentz, Kenner, and<br /> Gelberg for early publication.<br /> Mr. Gabriel Setoun calls his next novel “Robert<br /> Urquhart.” It will come from Messrs. Bliss,<br /> Sands, and Foster, who are also issuing “A<br /> Willage Drama,” a new story by “W. Schallen-<br /> berger,” the pseudonymic author of “Green<br /> Tea.”<br /> The most important publication during<br /> February was Slatin Pasha&#039;s book, “Fire and<br /> Sword in the Soudan: a Personal Narrative of<br /> Fighting and Serving the Dervishes, 1879-95<br /> (Arnold). The iniquities and cruelties of the<br /> Mahdi&#039;s rule are graphically set forth in a work<br /> which, if ever one was, will be acknowledged to<br /> have been dearly bought by its writer. Of purely<br /> literary interest, Professor Saintsbury’s “History<br /> of Nineteenth Century Literature&quot; (Macmillan)<br /> was notable. The period, says the writer, need<br /> fear no comparison in poetry. “In prose fiction<br /> it stands alone.” “In “making’—prose or verse<br /> —no time leaves record of performance more dis-<br /> tinguished or more various.”<br /> Mr. R. D. Blackmore has a volume of four<br /> short stories coming out presently, Messrs.<br /> Sampson Low being the publishers. His new<br /> long story, “Dariel: a Romance of Surrey,” will<br /> appear first in Blackwood’s Magazine.<br /> The biography of the late Frederick Engels,<br /> which his executor, Mr. E. Bernstein, is preparing,<br /> will be published under the title “Frederic Engels,<br /> the Founder of Scientific Socialism : His Work<br /> and his Associations.”<br /> From a list drawn up by the Publishers&#039;<br /> Weekly of America, it appears that during 1895<br /> there were published in America. 3396 books by<br /> American authors and 2073 by English authors.<br /> In fiction, however, the proportion was 827<br /> English to 287 American; while in poetry, bio-<br /> graphy, and travel English books were also more<br /> numerous. In works of history, theology, law,<br /> and medicine, the balance is distinctly on the<br /> American side; while in books on sport and<br /> amusement the Transatlantic reading public evi-<br /> dently divide their favour equally.<br /> An uncommon kind of story, vide the pub-<br /> lishers&#039; announcement, is shortly to be published<br /> by a lady writer through Messrs. Hutchinson.<br /> The heroine of “In a Silent World” is a deaf<br /> and dumb girl, and the tale, says the authoress in<br /> her preface, “seeks to depict the introspection<br /> of a soul pent up, prison-like, between the walls<br /> of a great affliction, whose only mode of express-<br /> ing the emotions is by the pen.” -<br /> Mr. H. D. Traill&#039;s biography of Sir John<br /> Franklin will be published during the spring by<br /> Mr. Murray.<br /> A catalogue of Mr. Whistler&#039;s lithographs is<br /> being compiled, with descriptive matter, by Mr.<br /> T. R. Way for the guidance of collectors and<br /> connoisseurs. The edition will consist of only 125<br /> copies, at IOS. 6d. each, and there will be as<br /> frontispiece a portrait of Mr. Whistler by himself,<br /> in stump lithography. Messrs. Bell and Sons<br /> will publish the list.<br /> “English in American Universities.” (Boston,<br /> U.S.A.: D. C. Heath and Co.) Here are twenty<br /> accounts of the English courses in representative<br /> American colleges, each written by a professor<br /> and, with two exceptions, reprinted from the Dial.<br /> In an introduction to the book, Mr. W. M.<br /> Payne, of that journal, discusses the shortcomings<br /> of their higher instruction in English, but remarks<br /> that, however far it may be from the fulfilment of<br /> its whole ambition, it is eager in its outlook for<br /> higher things.<br /> Two new series of works of fiction are<br /> announced, namely, “The Leisure Library,” to<br /> be begun by Messrs. Hutchinson with a volume<br /> entitled “The Second Opportunity of Mr. Staple-<br /> hurst,” from the pen of Mr. W. Pett Ridge;<br /> and “The Yellow Library,” which follows on the<br /> wind-up of the “Pseudonym &quot; series of Mr.<br /> Fisher Unwin, and will open with a volume from<br /> Canon Jessopp.<br /> At the Frere book-sale the famous Paston<br /> Letters were bought over for the British Museum.<br /> A copy of the rare Kilmarnock edition of Burns<br /> brought 3121—a record price for it—at Messrs.<br /> Sotheby&#039;s on the 21st ult.; and first editions of<br /> Dickens’s “Pickwick’’ and “Tale of Two Cities,”<br /> in the original numbers, sold for £13 5s. and<br /> £10 5s., respectively. Of Scott, “Guy Man-<br /> nering,” first edition, was bought for £7 7s.,<br /> “The Antiquary&quot; for £3 5s.; “Rob Roy,” 25,<br /> and the first and second series of “Tales of my<br /> Landlord,” 3916.	https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/287/1896-03-02-The-Author-6-10.pdf	publications, The Author
286	https://historysoa.com/items/show/286	The Author, Vol. 06 Issue 09 (February 1896)	<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.+06+Issue+09+%28February+1896%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 Issue 09 (February 1896)</a>			<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</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>	1896-02-01-The-Author-6-9					197–220																		<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=6">6</a>											<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1896-02-01">1896-02-01</a>							9			18960201	O be El u t b or,<br /> (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors.<br /> Monthly.)<br /> C O N DU C T ED BY W. A. L T E R B E S A. N. T.<br /> VoI. VI.—No. 9.]<br /> FEBRUARY 1, 1896.<br /> [PRICE SIXPENCE.<br /> For the Opinions eaſpressed in papers that are<br /> signed or initialled the Authors alone are<br /> Tesponsible. None of the papers or para-<br /> graphs must be taken as eaſpressing the<br /> collective opinions of the committee winless<br /> they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br /> Thring, Sec.<br /> *~ --&gt;<br /> 4- ºr -e.<br /> HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all<br /> remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and<br /> requests that all members not receiving an answer to<br /> important communications within two days will write to him<br /> without delay. All remittances showld be crossed Union<br /> Bank of London, Chamcery-lame, or be sent by registered<br /> letter only.<br /> Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on<br /> all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub-<br /> jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are<br /> returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS.<br /> *- a 2–2<br /> - * ~~<br /> WARNINGS AND ADWICE.<br /> I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.-It is not generally<br /> understood that the author, as the vendor, has the<br /> absolute right of drafting the agreement upon<br /> whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out.<br /> Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In<br /> every form of business, this among others, the right of<br /> drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or<br /> has the control of the property.<br /> 2. SERIAL RIGHTs.—In selling Serial Rights remember<br /> that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that<br /> is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you<br /> object to this, insert a clause to that effect.<br /> 3. STAMP You R AGREEMENTs. – Readers are most<br /> URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements<br /> immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected<br /> for two weeks, a fine of £10 must be paid before the agree-<br /> ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every<br /> case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter<br /> which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The<br /> author may be assured that the other party to the agree-<br /> ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society,<br /> to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of<br /> members stamped for them at mo expense to themselves<br /> except the cost of the stamp.<br /> 4. AscERTAIN what A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES TO<br /> Both sides BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an<br /> arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi-<br /> ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he<br /> reserved for himself.<br /> 5. LITERARY AGENTs.-Be very careful. You cannot be<br /> too careful as to the person whom yow appoint as your<br /> agent. Remember that you place your property almost un-<br /> reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting<br /> the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience<br /> of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone.<br /> 6. CosT OF PRODUCTION.——Never sign any agreement of<br /> which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part,<br /> until you have proved the figures.<br /> 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.–Never enter into any cor-<br /> respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad-<br /> vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced<br /> friends or by this Society.<br /> 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever,<br /> bind yourself down for future work to anyone.<br /> 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or<br /> responsibility whatever without advice.<br /> Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a M.S. has been re-<br /> fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises<br /> they may put forward, for the production of the work.<br /> II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American<br /> rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any<br /> agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the<br /> publisher, unless for a substantial consideration.<br /> 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper,<br /> either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright,<br /> without advice.<br /> I3. ADVERTISEMENTS. — Reep some control over the<br /> advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in<br /> the agreement.<br /> I4. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any<br /> other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy,<br /> charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with<br /> business men. Be yourself a business man.<br /> Society’s Offices:–<br /> 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN&#039;s INN FIELDs.<br /> *-- -*<br /> e-- * ~ *<br /> HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br /> I. VERY member has a right to ask 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 /> business or the administration of his property. If the advice<br /> sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member<br /> has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the<br /> case is such that Counsel&#039;s opinion is desirable, the Com-<br /> mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this<br /> without any cost to the member.<br /> 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br /> and publisher&#039;s agreements do not generally fall within the<br /> Y 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#552) ################################################<br /> <br /> 198<br /> TIE AUTHOR.<br /> experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br /> to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually<br /> engaged upon such questions for us.<br /> 3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past<br /> accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in<br /> order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree-<br /> ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively<br /> so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any<br /> agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor-<br /> mation thus obtained may prove invaluable.<br /> 4. If the examination of your previous business trans-<br /> actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should<br /> take advice as to a change of publishers.<br /> 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro-<br /> posed document to the Society for examination.<br /> 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in<br /> the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish-<br /> ing firm in the country.<br /> 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you<br /> are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are<br /> reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing<br /> the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen-<br /> dence of the writer.<br /> 8. Send to the Editor of the Author notes of everything<br /> important to literature that you may hear or meet with.<br /> 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of<br /> members’ agreements and their preservation in a fireproof<br /> safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con-<br /> ſidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who<br /> will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:—(1)<br /> To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To<br /> stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon<br /> them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments<br /> due according to agreements.<br /> er-- * ~ *<br /> THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE,<br /> . . . EMBERS 8, re informed .<br /> 1. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate takes charge of<br /> the business of members of the Society. That it<br /> submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree-<br /> ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene-<br /> rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business<br /> details.<br /> 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured<br /> will be forwarded upon detailed application.<br /> 3. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate works only for those<br /> members of the Society whose work possesses a market<br /> value. - -<br /> 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations<br /> whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia-<br /> tions are placed exclusively in its hands, and that all<br /> communications relating thereto are referred to it.<br /> 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by<br /> appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days&#039;<br /> notice should be given.<br /> 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi-<br /> cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent<br /> to defray postage. - -<br /> 7. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate does not invite MSS. .<br /> without previous correspondence ; does not hold itself<br /> responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that<br /> in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray<br /> postage.<br /> 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for<br /> lectures by some of the leading members of the Society;<br /> that it has a “Transfer Department’’ for the sale and<br /> purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register<br /> of Wants and Wanted” is open. Members are invited to<br /> communicate their requirements to the Manager.<br /> There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services<br /> will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It<br /> is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the<br /> Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in<br /> the Syndicate.<br /> NOTICES.<br /> HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the<br /> Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br /> of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very<br /> heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br /> many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br /> 6s. 6d. subscription for the year. -<br /> The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and<br /> communications on all subjects connected with literature<br /> from members and others. Nothing can do more good to<br /> the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive,<br /> and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this<br /> work send their names and the special subjects on which<br /> they are willing to write P r<br /> Communications for the Author should reach the Editor<br /> not later than the 21st of each month.<br /> All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether<br /> members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate<br /> to the Editor any points connected with their work which<br /> it would be advisable in the general interest to publish.<br /> Members and others who wish their MSS. read are<br /> requested not to send them to the Office without previously<br /> communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable<br /> despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in<br /> which they are received. It must also be distinctly under-.<br /> stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances,<br /> undertake the publication of MSS.<br /> The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at<br /> 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary<br /> for information, rules of admission, &amp;c.<br /> Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br /> have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do<br /> this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker&#039;s<br /> order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the<br /> trouble of sending out a reminder. -<br /> Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br /> warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a<br /> most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding<br /> for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they<br /> would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five<br /> years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest<br /> or dishonest ? Of course they would not. Why then<br /> hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them-<br /> selves into literary bondage for three or five years P<br /> Those who possess the “Cost of Production * are<br /> requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15<br /> per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble<br /> of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the<br /> pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding<br /> is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be<br /> added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands<br /> at £9 48. The figures in our book are as near the exact<br /> truth as can be procured; but a printer&#039;s, or a binder&#039;s,<br /> bill is so elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be<br /> arrived at. -<br /> Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br /> in the “Cost of Production&#039; for advertising. Of course, we<br /> have not included any sums which may be charged for<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#553) ################################################<br /> <br /> TIE AUTHOR.<br /> 199<br /> inserting advertisements in the publisher&#039;s own magazines,<br /> or in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too<br /> often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from<br /> sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket,<br /> by inserting any number of advertisements in his own<br /> magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are<br /> who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those<br /> who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it.<br /> *- a<br /> r- *<br /> FROM THE COMMITTEE,<br /> HE Committee beg to remind members that the Sub-<br /> scription for the year is due on January the First.<br /> The most convenient form of payment is by order<br /> on a Bank. This method saves the trouble of remembering.<br /> The Secretary will in future send reminders to members<br /> who are in arrear in February.<br /> The Author will not be sent to members in arrear after<br /> the month of March.<br /> At the end of the year the three retiring members of the<br /> committee, Sir W. Martin Conway, Mr. Arthur àBeckett,<br /> and the Hon. John Collier submitted their names for re-<br /> election and were duly re-elected members of the committee.<br /> At the meeting of Jan. 27th the committee proceeded to<br /> elect a chairman in the room of Sir W. Martin Conway,<br /> whose year of office expired on Dec. 31st, 1895. Mr. H. Rider-<br /> Haggard was unanimously elected chairman.<br /> G. H. THRING, Secretary.<br /> &gt;<br /> c:<br /> THE ADDRESS TO AMERICAN AUTHORS,<br /> HIS address was published in the January<br /> number of the Author. It appeared in a<br /> great many papers, both of this country<br /> and the United States, on the morning of<br /> Dec. 25. It was sent out for signature to a list<br /> of English men and women of letters, not neces-<br /> sarily members of the Society.<br /> At a meeting of the Executive Committee, held<br /> on Jan. Io, 1896, the following resolution was<br /> passed :—<br /> “The Committee of Management of the Society<br /> of Authors, having investigated the circumstances<br /> under which the address to American authors<br /> and its covering letter were issued from the<br /> Society’s offices, have unanimously found that the<br /> address expressly purports to proceed from its<br /> signatories alone; that it was neither printed nor<br /> circulated at the expense of the Society’s funds;<br /> and that the use of the Society&#039;s letter-paper in<br /> soliciting signatures was unauthorised by them.<br /> The Committee, while entertaining all friendly<br /> feelings possible towards their American brethren,<br /> are of opinion that action on international ques-<br /> tions does not fall within the scope of their cor-<br /> porate powers.”<br /> This resolution dissociated the Address from<br /> the Society. That is to say, it was within the<br /> powers of the Committee, had they chosen, to<br /> adopt the Chairman’s action, and to make it their<br /> own. Since they did not do so, the address was<br /> sent out by Sir Martin Conway.<br /> After this resolution was sent round there<br /> appeared several letters in the papers. To these<br /> letters Sir Martin Conway replied by a letter to<br /> the Times on the 21st. The following is that<br /> part of his letter which refers to the address:–<br /> “I was asked on Saturday, Tec. 21, whether I<br /> would permit the use of the Authors’ Society<br /> organisation for the purpose of procuring signa-<br /> tures to a friendly address to American authors.<br /> I replied affirmatively, with the reservation that<br /> the address must not be sent out as from the<br /> Society, nor at the Society’s expense. A draft<br /> address was sent to me that night. I returned it<br /> the same night, saying that it was too long and<br /> went into too many details. I added that all we<br /> wanted was something brief and friendly. Here<br /> ends my knowledge.”<br /> The statement in the Author that the address<br /> had been sent out by the Society was passed by<br /> inadvertence. .<br /> The introductory paragraph which appeared in<br /> some papers was not a part of the address. There<br /> was no such paragraph when it was given to the<br /> secretary. -<br /> The number of authors who responded to the<br /> invitation and signed the address is 500.<br /> W. B<br /> -*<br /> -*_ºr ºr º ar-<br /> LITERARY PROPERTY.<br /> I.—MR. HALL CAINE’s REPORT ON CANADA<br /> AND THE COPYRIGHT QUESTION.<br /> After his mission as delegate of the SOCIETY OF AUTHORS<br /> to the Dominion Government.<br /> Delivered at the rooms of the Royal Medical Society,<br /> 2c, Hanover-square, Monday, Jan. 27, at 4.30 p.m.<br /> COPYRIGHT AN IMPERIAL QUESTION.<br /> T a moment when the air is full of wars and<br /> rumours of wars, it may appear untimely<br /> and almost presumptuous that English<br /> authors should intrude upon each other and upon<br /> the public a subject so limited in its class interest<br /> as the Canadian copyright question. But, in truth,<br /> this subject which concerns ourselves so closely is<br /> very heavily charged with Imperial issues. There<br /> is nothing in the Venezuela trouble, and certainly<br /> nothing in the trouble in the Transvaal, which<br /> is more liable to breed serious international<br /> and colonial dispute. Tet me explain. The<br /> Canadian Constitution took shape in the British<br /> North America Act of 1867. By that Act Canada.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#554) ################################################<br /> <br /> 2OO<br /> TIIE AUTHOR.<br /> secured legislative independence, subject to a veto<br /> to be exercised by the Imperial Government.<br /> During these thirty years the Imperial veto has<br /> been practically a nullity. Like the veto of the<br /> British Sovereign over British legislation, it is<br /> never exercised. Competent judges are heard to<br /> say that let Canada do what she will the colonial<br /> office will not interpose. Canadian statesmen<br /> appear to have regarded the Imperial veto as a<br /> thing not to be reckoned with. They think of it<br /> in that light in this instance, and demand legisla-<br /> tive freedom. If the veto were exercised it is<br /> probable that they would ask for the reconstruc-<br /> tion of the Act of 1867. If the Imperial sanction<br /> of their demands were merely withheld they might<br /> (after the proper lapse of tin:e) call upon their<br /> Governor-General to promulgate the legislation<br /> of Canada. The Governor-General would then<br /> be compelled either to obey his constitutional<br /> advisers, the Premier and Cabinet of Canada, or<br /> to go home. There is no instance on record, so<br /> far as I know, in which the Imperial Government<br /> has advised the Governor-General to resist the<br /> will of the Canadian ministry. The Imperial<br /> veto would be like the Crown veto, a force con-<br /> stitutionally divested of its power. But what<br /> would be the result P. We should begin to ask<br /> ourselves whether a dependency which never<br /> brings us any revenue, which involves us in military<br /> and naval responsibilities, gives us no commercial<br /> advantages, and disregards our will on Imperial<br /> questions, is a dependency worth having.<br /> Such is Canada&#039;s power, and such the power of<br /> this copyright question over our Colonial relations,<br /> but its power over our foreign relations is no less<br /> serious. In 1891 America passed a Copyright<br /> Act, giving copyright to the subjects of all nations<br /> which gave reciprocal advantages to Americans.<br /> The President asked our Foreign Secretary if the<br /> British Empire granted such reciprocal advan-<br /> tages, and our Secretary replied that it did.<br /> Thereupon the President made a proclamation<br /> that there was copyright in the United States for<br /> all subjects of the British Crown. But if Canada<br /> were to enact a copyright law which Americans,<br /> rightly or wrongly, thought injurious to American<br /> interests, is it not likely, is it not certain, that<br /> they would demand the taking down of that<br /> proclamation ? I know it is said that it is to the<br /> interests of America to preserve her copyright<br /> arrangement with Great Britain. It is to the<br /> interest of her good and true men to preserve that<br /> copyright arrangement ; but no traveller in<br /> America can fail to see that besides the legitimate<br /> publishing trade in copyright books there is a<br /> vast and most active illegitimate trade in non-<br /> Copyright books. The American Copyright Act<br /> was wrested after the most zealous effort, and<br /> by the narrowest majority, out of the American<br /> sense of fair-play, against the machinations of<br /> a powerful class of unfair traders. That<br /> class has not grown less since 1891. It<br /> consists of a multitude of printers who would<br /> eagerly clutch at any hopeful chance of tearing<br /> down the President&#039;s proclamation at any cost to<br /> honest trade. And if it were torn down, if we<br /> lost American copyright, as a result of Canadian<br /> legislation, the quarrel would be England&#039;s<br /> quarrel first and only Canada&#039;s quarrel after-<br /> wards. -<br /> This much by way of explaining why we who<br /> are authors have asked public opinion to help us<br /> to escape from a legislative deadlock. Every<br /> stitch we make now will save nine later on. If<br /> we can settle this dispute with Canada on terms<br /> which are anything like satisfactory—satisfactory<br /> to ourselves, to the signatories to the Berne Con-<br /> vention, and to America—we may fairly claim<br /> the sympathy of the English people in removing<br /> a probable and even imminent danger of colonial<br /> or international quarrel.<br /> THE CASE FOR, ENGLISH ALTHORS.<br /> You will see that I regard Canadian copyright<br /> as an Imperial question in its ultimate issues, but<br /> in its immediate bearings it is of course a domestic<br /> and even a trade question. Our chief objections<br /> to the Canadian Act of 1889 were, first, that it<br /> was opposed to the principle of copyright by<br /> allowing that the publication of a book might be<br /> outside its author&#039;s control; next, that it required<br /> the multiplication of places of manufacture and<br /> so limited literary activity; next, that it fostered<br /> a scheme of license which seemed to us to be little<br /> better than legalised piracy, and paved the way<br /> for the ruin of the trade of bookselling; and,<br /> finally, that it offered temptations to dishonest<br /> traders from all parts of the world to make<br /> Canada, the ground for invading the copyright<br /> territories of other countries. Such was our case<br /> against Canada, and you know what we did to<br /> support it. With the co-operation of the Copy-<br /> right Association and the London Chamber of<br /> Commerce we petitioned the Colonial Office to<br /> exercise its Imperial veto. The results were what<br /> we, as students of history, should, perhaps, have<br /> foreseen. Our Colonial Office tried to make peace<br /> between Canada and ourselves. It sent for a<br /> representative of the Canadian Government, and<br /> he came to London last summer. It sent for Mr.<br /> Daldy as the representative of English publishers,<br /> and when the Society of Authors authorised me<br /> to act for it, the Colonial Office also sent for your<br /> representative. After hearing the case for every<br /> party, it proceeded to frame a number of modifi-<br /> cations of the Canadian Act of 1889. It was a<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#555) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 2O I<br /> well-meant and indeed an able effort. There<br /> were three several documents, but I have not<br /> submitted any of them to the Society. I knew<br /> they would not do. They were ingenious but not<br /> very practical. Yet it was with these suggested<br /> modifications in my pocket that I went to Canada.<br /> T had got my own plan of compromise, which I<br /> had formulated in a letter to Mr. Chamberlain.<br /> He had given me a letter to the Governor-General,<br /> and the chiefs of the Colonial Office had told me<br /> in effect to convince Canada and then come back<br /> to them.<br /> THE CASE FOR, CANADA — THE CONSTITUTIONAL<br /> QUESTION.<br /> You know, Sir, that time and again Canada.<br /> has told us that in this matter, as in nearly every<br /> other that concerns the relations of England to<br /> the Dominion, we have not understood Canada&#039;s<br /> case. On going to Canada. I made it my first<br /> duty to see this question from the Canadian point<br /> of view, and I must frankly tell you that I had not<br /> been many days there before I realised that there<br /> was much truth in Canada&#039;s complaint. I went<br /> to Montreal, searched Canadian newspapers for<br /> months and perhaps years, visited printers, book-<br /> sellers, authors, and men in other walks of life,<br /> and came face to face with many startling facts.<br /> The first of them was this, that notwithstanding<br /> reams of writing, both there and here, Canadian<br /> copyright was a subject of which the Canadian<br /> people knew next to nothing at all. More,<br /> Canadian copyright was a subject for which the<br /> Canadian people cared nothing at all. What<br /> Canada, did know of and care for was the consti-<br /> tutional question of whether Canada should enact<br /> what law she pleased, or whether England should<br /> interpose to prevent her. This, and not the<br /> disputes of English authors and Canadian pub-<br /> lishers, was what had made a five years&#039; outcry<br /> in Canada; this, and not a desire to denounce the<br /> Derne Convention, had produoed that marvel-<br /> lous unanimity in which, as Sir Charles H. Tupper<br /> has truly said, both parties and every member of<br /> Parliament had voted for the Act of 1889, and<br /> had continued to that hour to support it.<br /> CAN AIDA 7)69?&quot;S^{S AMERICA.<br /> Such was my first lesson in Canada&#039;s case.<br /> The second was a more severe but no less salu-<br /> tary lesson. It chanced that on my arrival at<br /> New York I had been the guest of my friend and<br /> American publisher, Mr. W. W. Appleton. It<br /> also chanced that Mr. Appleton was chairman of<br /> the Publishers’ Copyright League of America.<br /> Again it chanced that I became unwell, and went<br /> with Mr. Appleton to Buzzard&#039;s Bay to recruit,<br /> and once again it chanced that my host&#039;s neigh-<br /> bour was Mr. Cleveland, and that I sometimes<br /> met the President while out fishing on the bay or<br /> drinking tea indoors of an afternoon. Finally it<br /> was known that Mr. Goldwin Smith had done me<br /> the honour to invite me to make his house my<br /> home in Toronto. A result of this series of.<br /> circumstances was that immediately on setting<br /> foot in Canada. I was met by an alarming and<br /> certainly plausible charge of having dallied in<br /> the United States to hold conferences with<br /> American publishers, of having visited American<br /> Ministers to intimidate Canadian Ministers, and<br /> of having cast in my lot with the avowel cham-<br /> pions of annexation, thus insulting the Govern-<br /> ment I had been sent by my brother and sister<br /> authors to conciliate, and outraging the classes<br /> whose interests I had come to investigate.<br /> Although this accusation did not convict me of<br /> nondiplomatic conduct, it opened my eyes to a<br /> great secret of the Canadian copyright agitation,<br /> by showing me that the agitation, which seemed<br /> to be merely a class dispute, came out of the<br /> national spirit absolutely, that it was a clear<br /> legacy of the old trouble with America, which<br /> found expression long ago on Queenston Heights<br /> and more recently on the Behring Sea. It also<br /> showed me, what was very helpful, that no<br /> appreciation of the Canadian view could be satis-<br /> factory that did not take account of Canada&#039;s<br /> relation to the United States in the trade and<br /> industry of book publishing. Following that<br /> trace I found much to make me sympathise with<br /> the Canadians, and something to explain their<br /> policy where it did not justify it. During the<br /> period of general piracy in America before 1891<br /> Canadian publishers, like some English publishers,<br /> had retaliated wrong for wrong. If American pub-<br /> lishers appropriated “David Copperfield,” English<br /> publishers appropriated “Uncle Tom&#039;s Cabin,”<br /> and Canadian publishers appropriated “Ben<br /> Hur.” But there was this difference, from the<br /> American point of view, between the appropria-<br /> tion by English and by Canadian publishers.<br /> The English appropriation being made from the<br /> other side of an ocean only affected the authors,<br /> and they were then (as they are now) an ineffectual<br /> if rather vocal race; but the Canadian appropria-<br /> tion, being made merely on the other side of a<br /> boundary not marked off by nature, affected the<br /> publishers as well, and they are a race less given<br /> to clamour and more capable of reprisals. It was<br /> a bad, mad game of grab on both sides, English<br /> copyright books pirated in the United States<br /> went into Canada, and American copyright books<br /> printed in Canada went into the United States.<br /> Canada made a show of taxing the stolen English<br /> books in the interests of English authors;<br /> America only taxed the stolen American books in<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#556) ################################################<br /> <br /> 2O2<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> the Interests of American revenue. Then came<br /> the American Act of 1891, and Canada went out,<br /> as they say, at the thin edge of the wedge.<br /> American copyright books being easily copy-<br /> righted in England, became thereby copyright<br /> in Canada also. English non-copyright books<br /> might still be appropriated in America, but in<br /> Canada, they continued to be protected. The<br /> Act of 1891 had left half the game of grab to the<br /> American pirate, but not one scrimpy handful of<br /> it to his Canadian brother. Perhaps this does not<br /> command your sympathy for Canada, but there<br /> are other disqualifications which will do so.<br /> When the good and true publishers in America<br /> at length and with noble effort put to rout the<br /> unfair traders of their own country, they also stole<br /> a march on the good and true publishers of<br /> Canada. Partly from distrust of Canadian pub-<br /> lishers, partly from a settled conviction of the<br /> American publishing mind that New York is the<br /> natural centre of book distribution for the entire<br /> American continent, the American publishers<br /> began to ask English authors to give them the<br /> Dominion of Canada into their bargains. The<br /> authors gave it. When I was charged with this<br /> in Canada. I answered that neither were we to<br /> blame, nor were the American publishers. The<br /> American publishers came to our doors in<br /> London, the Canadian publishers were always<br /> three thousand miles away; the American pub-<br /> lishers were many, the Canadian publishers were<br /> few ; the American publishers had great con-<br /> stituences and could give us good terms; the<br /> Canadian publishers had small constituences and<br /> could promise us little or nothing. But all the<br /> same Canada suffered, and the Canadian publish-<br /> ing interest visibly declined, with the passing of<br /> the American Act of 1891. Therefore it is the<br /> truth when Canada tells us that its publishing<br /> trade, both legitimate and illegitimate, has for<br /> the past five years been the victim of a policy of<br /> extermination. It is the truth when Canada.<br /> says that whatever the justice of the Act of<br /> 1891, Canada as a book publishing country<br /> has paid heavily for the advantage to British<br /> authors.<br /> No doubt the ultimate truth is, as the<br /> American publishers say, that Canada suffers<br /> from the disadvantage of the smallness of its<br /> area as a reading country. Canada is not a<br /> literary but a political expression. From the<br /> point of the English author Canada is almost<br /> limited to the province of Ontario. When we speak<br /> of the five million readers of Canada, we include<br /> some two millions of French who do not read<br /> English. Of the remaining three millions a<br /> great part do not read new books. They read the<br /> American magazines, two or three good magazines<br /> of their own, and their own excellent newspapers.<br /> And taken as a whole Canada, as a book publish-<br /> ing country, has suffered by the accident that<br /> while living under the shadow of English<br /> Imperial Copyright she has at the same time<br /> been made the scapegoat (perhaps the inevitable<br /> scapegoat) of American copyright law.<br /> CANADA TOO MUCH GOVERNIED.<br /> I had to learn a third lesson, Sir, before I was<br /> long in Canada, and it was that Canada in this<br /> matter of copyright, as in some other matters,<br /> was ridiculously over-governed. Whether it is<br /> true or not that there is too much governing<br /> going on in Canada, it is the fact that there is too<br /> much copyright law in operation there. Every<br /> author knows that when a publisher in Ilondon<br /> makes a contract with him for a book he asks for<br /> the sole and exclusive right to publish it in the<br /> United Kingdom. That is as it should be, but<br /> although Canada has its own copyright law, the<br /> sole and exclusive right to publish in Canada is<br /> more than any Canadian publisher can demand.<br /> When I reached Canada I found three copyright<br /> editions of “Trilby’’ on the bookstalls and three<br /> of “Marcella,” the American edition, the ordinary<br /> English edition, and the special Colonial edition.<br /> What possible chance was there for a Canadian<br /> edition without these could be expelled ! Some-<br /> times a Canadian publisher makes an effort to<br /> live even under the shadow of English and<br /> American copyright. The Methodist Book Com-<br /> pany of Toronto bought the Canadian copyright<br /> of Mr. Crockett’s “Raiders,” and published an<br /> edition at a dollar and a half. But presently<br /> there came the colonial edition from England at<br /> fifty cents, and the Canadian book at a dollar and<br /> a half was ruined. The Canadian publisher had<br /> purchased a territory which he could not hold.<br /> Why? Because Canadian law was living under<br /> the shadow of British copyright.<br /> ATTITUT) E OF THE CAN AIDIAN MINISTERS.<br /> Such then were the lessons I learned in Canada,<br /> but they did not at all convince me that the<br /> Canadian Copyright Act of 1889 was a cure for<br /> the evils of the Canadian publishing trade, or<br /> the difficulties of Canada&#039;s position in relation to<br /> England and to America. The more I thought<br /> of that Act the more sure I became that while of<br /> incalculable danger to us it was no good at all to<br /> Canadians. Going up to Ottawa I saw first the<br /> Prime Minister, Sir Mackenzie Bowell, and tackling<br /> him at once as an old printer, I urged that the<br /> Act was no good to the printing interest. He<br /> agreed, and he introduced me to the Minister of<br /> Justice, Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper. Sir Charles<br /> is a stout and able upholder of Canada&#039;s right to<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#557) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 2O3<br /> rule herself, and I told him at once that I was not<br /> come to question her right to do so, but only to<br /> urge that she should not legislate to our injury<br /> and her own. Then I called together the interest-<br /> ing group of men of letters at the Capital and<br /> showed them that the Act would put them into<br /> a position of isolation among the authors of<br /> the world. Finally, I did my best to con-<br /> vince the booksellers that a scheme of unlimited<br /> licensing would in ten years&#039; time exterminate<br /> the trade in books. I found the Premier and<br /> Sir Charles H. Tupper entirely sympathetic,<br /> fair, and openminded. They promised that<br /> the Act of 1889 should not be brought for-<br /> ward again, and they urged me to go on to<br /> Toronto, make my peace with the interested<br /> classes there, and then return with a concerted<br /> scheme to Ottawa.<br /> THE INTERESTED CIASSES IN CANADA.<br /> When I got to Toronto the Canadian pub-<br /> lishers and Copyright Association were waiting<br /> to receive me. It was not altogether with pleasant<br /> feelings that I entered the room at the hotel<br /> which they had engaged for our meeting. I<br /> remembered that in this very house, not long<br /> before, I had christened them a gang of rogues<br /> and pirates. It did not remove my uneasiness<br /> when they began by telling me that, owing to my<br /> behaviour in the United States, they had passed<br /> a resolution that they should not consult with<br /> me. “Very well, gentlemen,” I said, “in that<br /> case I will go home, but I leave you to decide for<br /> yourselves if it is good policy to send me back<br /> unheard.” To tell you the truth, I found my<br /> so-called pirates and rogues very good fellows<br /> indeed; very companionable, with a good deal to<br /> say for themselves, and capable of saying it in a<br /> highly efficient way. Next day, they rescinded<br /> the resolution not to meet me, on the ground that<br /> an English author appeared to be a reasonable<br /> being after all. We had some long and trying<br /> discussions after that, and I wish to tell you that<br /> the interested classes in Canada met me as your<br /> representative in a temperate spirit. . . By this<br /> time I had developed thc scheme which I had<br /> given to Mr. Chamberlain, and I propounded it,<br /> not as a legislator for English authors, not pro-<br /> mising that you would agree to it, but only as<br /> your representative, delegated to do his best to<br /> enable Canada and England to escape from a<br /> legislative deadlock. You know what the<br /> scheme is. It was founded on a recognition<br /> of the geographical position of Canada along<br /> the edge of a vast nation which had passed<br /> a protective Copyright Act, and was not<br /> a party to the Berne Convention. . Therefore<br /> it was an approximation in principle to the<br /> WOL. VI,<br /> American Copyright Act of 1891. But the same<br /> law can only be just in different countries where<br /> the conditions are the same. Obviously the con-<br /> ditions of the United States with a population of<br /> sixty-five millions and a great publishing industry<br /> were not the same as those of Canada, with a<br /> population of five millions and a publishing<br /> industry almost annihilated. So the compromise<br /> gave authors more liberal terms, more time to<br /> publish, and an almost unbroken control. The<br /> Canadian publishers took some days to consider<br /> the plan, and finally they gave a general assent<br /> to the principle.<br /> - THE COMPEROMISE.<br /> I went on to New York, met Mr. Daldy on his<br /> arrival as the representative of the English Copy-<br /> right Association, obtained his amiable consent,<br /> sympathy, and co-operation, and then returned to<br /> Toronto to draft a bill embodying the principle<br /> of the compromise. The general operation of that<br /> draft bill may easily be stated. It would put<br /> Canada on fair terms of competition with the<br /> |United States, enable her to publish the books<br /> for which she could find a profitable market, and<br /> leave all other books whatsoever under the opera-<br /> tion of the Imperial Act. A few days later we<br /> submitted this draft bill to the Dominion Ministers<br /> at a conference held in Ottawa. The Government<br /> did not undertake to accept it, but we were led<br /> to believe that in drawing up the measure which<br /> they had now decided to substitute for the<br /> abandoned Act of 1889 they would gladly use as<br /> much of our draft as in the exercise of their larger<br /> responsibility to the Canadian public they thought<br /> good and wise.<br /> Thus on leaving Canada after my three months’<br /> anxious work there I left it with a great send-off<br /> of hope and expectation. I could not disguise it<br /> from myself that I had gone on a hostile errand,<br /> but Canada had received me, as your delegate, in<br /> a spirit of fair-play and sympathy. Ministers,<br /> the Press, and the interested classes alike had<br /> shown plainly that they had no wish to injure<br /> English authors, and that if we could show them<br /> a way to be true to Canada in the fierce competi-<br /> tion with a powerful neighbour they would try to<br /> be not only just to us but generous.<br /> ATTITUIDE OF AMERICA.<br /> There was still America to reckon with. The<br /> gravity of the Canadian copyright claims lay not<br /> so much in what we were to lose in Canada, for<br /> the real Canadian book market is still a thing of<br /> the future; not so much in the possible injury to<br /> the Berne Convention, for much as we prize its<br /> principle as the ultimate charter of our craft, its<br /> practical value is not great; but in the effect on<br /> the American Copyright Act of 1891, which has<br /> Z<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#558) ################################################<br /> <br /> 2O4<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> increased the earnings of many authors by 20 or<br /> 30 per cent, and of a few by 80 and a IOO. I felt<br /> that my work would not be complete until I was<br /> in a position to return to my brother and sister<br /> authors in England with the assurance that if<br /> Canada adopted the compromise which we had<br /> proposed their market in the United States would<br /> no longer be imperilled. Therefore on our way<br /> home through New York Mr. Daldy joined with<br /> me in asking the two Copyright Associations of<br /> America to say if the proposed measure removed<br /> the objections which they had urged so strongly<br /> against the Act of 1889. The answer was gene-<br /> rous, prompt, and satisfactory. Through Mr.<br /> Putnam, representing the Publishers&#039; League,<br /> and Mr. Underwood Johnson, representing the<br /> Authors’ Association, we received resolutions of<br /> congratulations and general approval.<br /> MORE RECENT DEVELOPMENTs.<br /> We brought the Draft Act back to the Colonial<br /> Office, and Mr. Chamberlain expressed his gratifi-<br /> cation at the prospect of an amicable adjust-<br /> ment of what threatened to be an awkward<br /> question. Parliamentary counsel has revised it<br /> with great insight and wisdom, and it has been<br /> returned to Ottawa. Since our return to England,<br /> however, there has arisen in Canada, a ministerial<br /> crisis of some gravity, involving two changes of<br /> importance to our interests. Dr. Montague has<br /> become Minister of Agriculture (the official who<br /> has charge of copyright), and he is a man of<br /> much literary culture, in whose hands the interests<br /> of authors will, I trust, be safe. But Sir Charles<br /> H. Tupper, who has spent great energy on the<br /> copyright question, has resigned his position as<br /> Minister of Justice. He promises, however, that<br /> he will give all the help he can to authors&#039; inte-<br /> rests consistent with the just claims of Canada.<br /> I might perhaps tell you more if this were a<br /> private meeting of the executive committee, but<br /> it may be enough to say that we can fairly wait<br /> for the new Copyright Bill that is now being<br /> drafted by Mr. Newcombe, the Canadian Deputy<br /> Minister of Justice, with the assurance that it will<br /> embody the substance of our claim. Meantime,<br /> after five years&#039; fruitless agitation, I think we may<br /> congratulate ourselves on some results. We have<br /> secured the abandonment of the Act of 1889, we<br /> have shown Canada a way to protect herself and<br /> yet hold on to the Berne Convention, and enable<br /> us to retain the substantial advantages of<br /> American copyright, we have come to terms of<br /> peace and goodwill with the interested classes in<br /> the dominion, and above all we have held fast<br /> to the great principle that an author has an<br /> inalienable right to the property he creates in<br /> books, * †<br /> ENGLAND AND HER, COLONIES.<br /> I have a last word to my brother and sister<br /> authors, and it is a serious one. If this compro-<br /> mise makes certain concessions to Canada, and it<br /> does, let us remember that Canada has claims<br /> upon us. She is an important section of our<br /> empire, and will inevitably play a great part in<br /> our future. We who are men and women of<br /> letters in England are only a little handful of<br /> people, and it is a grievous responsibility to ask<br /> England to exercise on our behalf her Imperial<br /> veto against a colonial kingdom. If we had to<br /> do so again, and England listened to us, the<br /> speedy result would be a re-adjusting of the<br /> British North America Act of 1867. When I<br /> met Mr. Goldwin Smith in Toronto he said he<br /> was all for one copyright for the whole empire,<br /> and for appealing to the Privy Council. One<br /> copyright for the whole empire will be our watch-<br /> word, too, the morning after America abandons<br /> her manufacturing clause and joins the Berne<br /> Convention. But for the present I beg respect-<br /> fully to answer Mr. Goldwin Smith out of his own<br /> mouth that it is a fallacy to be shunned, especially<br /> when the horoscope of Canada is being cast to<br /> treat the empire in a lump, to take it for granted<br /> that the destiny of all its parts must be the same,<br /> and to forget that Canada is under the disadvan-<br /> tage alongside the United States of falling under<br /> British copyright law. After travelling in our<br /> colonies I am no believer in the Imperial veto,<br /> and it is no terror to me that the veto is fast<br /> becoming a nullity. If Canada were to do what<br /> she liked within herself, even if she chose to<br /> indulge in civil war, I am by no means sure that<br /> it would be necessary for us, three thousand miles<br /> away and without special knowledge of her<br /> difficulties, to interpose. In short, I am convinced<br /> that the strength of our dependencies, as well as<br /> England&#039;s strength in them, will be in the measure<br /> of their self-control. I think they should be<br /> encouraged in habits of self-reliance and in a<br /> sense of responsibility. And if you ask me what<br /> is to be the good of dependencies which do not<br /> undertake to obey us, I say it should consist in<br /> the bond of blood, in allegiance to our flag and in<br /> the hope (which Mr. Chamberlain&#039;s wise circular<br /> encourages) of calling into existence an inter-<br /> colonial trade.<br /> CANADA AND ENGLAND.<br /> But I have a word to Canadian legislators also,<br /> if they will permit me, and their fair reception of<br /> your representative leads me to believe that per-<br /> haps they may. If we have solved this copyright<br /> question solely as a Canada-American question<br /> (which it is in the main), we have recognised at<br /> the same time that it is only one of the dangers<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#559) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 2O5<br /> that lie between two countries whose geographical<br /> relations may be the cause of many dangers. It<br /> is hard to conceive of a just war between England<br /> and the United States. But if anything will<br /> ever make a war between England and America,<br /> or encourage a war otherwise made, it will be the<br /> friction of our great Dominion and the States<br /> alongside of it. An Englishman cannot cross the<br /> Niagara river without realising to his great pain<br /> that the fire that burnt so fiercely on Queenston<br /> Heights smoulders still on both sides of that<br /> turbulent water. The United States will never<br /> annex Canada politically until she has annihilated<br /> the Canadians, and hence the connection of<br /> Canada with England lays on Great Britain a<br /> heavy responsibility. Nowhere else in our<br /> Dominions, so far as I can see, are the burdens<br /> and perils of our empire so great. The more<br /> reason, therefore, that the relations between<br /> England and Canada should always be of the<br /> closest. Canadian loyalty to England is deep<br /> and strong, but there should never be a moment<br /> when England&#039;s good feeling towards Canada<br /> ought to be strained; there should never be a<br /> moment when Englishmen ought to feel that the<br /> dependency which involves them in grave military<br /> and diplomatic responsibilities and exposes them<br /> to misunderstanding with a great and friendly<br /> family of the Anglo-Saxon race, is unmindful of<br /> the wish and welfare of the mother country;<br /> there should never be a moment when Canada<br /> any more than England should forget there ought<br /> to be a community of interests in “all our<br /> glorious empire round and round.”<br /> II.--THE AMERICAN COPYRIGHT ACT.<br /> Mr. Moncure Conway said that, as a repre-<br /> sentative of the only purely literary guild in<br /> America—the American Authors’ Guild, founded<br /> four years ago, incorporated one year ago,<br /> numbering some 300 members—he desired to<br /> make a brief statement. While feeling admira-<br /> tion for the tact and ability with which Mr.<br /> Hall Caine had fulfilled his mission, he<br /> felt that in his narrative certain things were<br /> passed over, perhaps through feelings of delicacy<br /> towards America, and which might properly<br /> come from an American. And he (Mr. Conway)<br /> would take this opportunity of saying that, from<br /> long intimacy with this country, he knew that he<br /> was speaking in a land in which America had not<br /> one single enemy. The chief thing he had to say<br /> was, that the American Copyright Act of 1891,<br /> carried by aid of English authors, who were<br /> represented as hungering for it, carried with<br /> huzzas, was really the most disastrous blow to<br /> American literature ever passed into law; it for<br /> the first time legalised literary piracy in America.<br /> All books by new authors unable to secure simul-<br /> taneous publication in America, or unless for<br /> any pittance a publisher may throw them, and by<br /> authors who cannot afford to print and publish<br /> editions there entirely at their own expense, all<br /> such books are by the Act made lawful prey.<br /> American authors are thus brought into com-<br /> petition with an increasing mass of legally<br /> pirated literature. Some, though comparatively<br /> few, protested at the time against this wrong, but<br /> the heaviness of it has been increasingly felt<br /> since by authors. In this Canadian arrange-<br /> ment there will be compromises, and when they<br /> are being made he hoped it would be remembered<br /> that American authors ought to be consulted as<br /> well as the publishers.<br /> *- As. --&gt;º<br /> = ~~<br /> NEW YORK LETTER,<br /> New York, Jan. I I, 1896.<br /> HE American book trade has had an un-<br /> usually successful Christmas season, in<br /> spite of all the rumours of war with our<br /> kin across the sea, and in spite also of the sudden<br /> confusion wrought in the money market by these<br /> rumours. That the sober sense of the two great<br /> peoples who speak the English language would<br /> come to the rescue sooner or later and put an<br /> end to violent talk, everybody knew who under-<br /> stood the real feelings of the inhabitants of Great<br /> Britain and the United States. The address of<br /> certain British men of letters to the American<br /> people was telegraphed heré at once; and it has<br /> been well received. The Chicago Dial declares<br /> that this manly and brotherly appeal cannot<br /> “fail of being a great influence for good in any<br /> future emergency threatening the peaceful rela-<br /> tions of the two countries.” The New York<br /> Nation says that the letter is “but an echo of<br /> Tennyson&#039;s message, an expression of the real<br /> continuity of life that still binds this country to<br /> England, and a conviction that our best civil life<br /> and ideals are due to ‘that deep chord which<br /> Hampden smote.’”<br /> And yet for a while the crisis was serious; and<br /> even now no one can see just how a way out of<br /> the difficulty is to be found. It is well for the<br /> British people to understand that the feeling in<br /> the United States in regard to the increase.of the<br /> holding anywhere in America, North or South, of<br /> any European power, is quite as strong as the<br /> feeling in Great Britain in regard to the taking<br /> of Constantinople by Russia. Whether or not<br /> this was the original Monroe doctrine is a mere<br /> academic question of no real importance; it may<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#560) ################################################<br /> <br /> 2O6<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> be called the Cleveland doctrine or anything else;<br /> it is none the less a fact to be reckoned with.<br /> Whether or not Great Britain is trying to extend<br /> her boundaries in South America is a question<br /> which only an impartial tribunal can decide; and<br /> that is why all the American friends of England<br /> regret so sincerely that Her Majesty’s Govern-<br /> ment has refused to leave the matter to arbitra-<br /> tlOll.<br /> It may seem to some that this is not a subject<br /> for discussion in the pages of the Author; but we<br /> who hold that literature is among the most powerful<br /> forces which mould the opinions of a free people,<br /> must avail ourselves of every opportunity to bring<br /> about a heartier understanding between the<br /> writers of the two great branches of the English-<br /> speaking race. And this is particularly a time<br /> for plain speaking. I offer no apology, therefore,<br /> for considering further two of the sentences in<br /> the appeal of the British authors to the American<br /> people. One of these declares that “there is no<br /> anti-American feeling among Englishmen.” I<br /> hope this sentence is true; but if it be true why<br /> was it necessary for Mr. William Archer to write<br /> his eloquent appeal to the British Press “not to<br /> embitter American feeling by untimely<br /> and unseemly taunts and gibes?”<br /> The second sentence I have to quote follows<br /> the first : “It is impossible that there can be any<br /> anti-English feeling among Americans.” I wish<br /> this sentence were true; but I know it is not.<br /> There is anti-English feeling among Americans,<br /> not among all, of course, but among most. It is<br /> proper that the English should know this and<br /> understand its causes, for it would do much<br /> toward the future peace of the world if this anti-<br /> English feeling of Americans could be changed<br /> by a removal of its causes. Some of these causes<br /> can be removed, and that is why I write this letter<br /> to the Author.<br /> “Why is it,” asked Colonel Higginson in a<br /> recent temperate essay on “Anglomania and<br /> Anglophobia,” “why is it that if no sane<br /> American could soberly contemplate the prospect<br /> of a war with any nation on earth, there is no<br /> question that a war with England would be more<br /> popular than any other in almost all parts of the<br /> United States?” Undoubtedly there are many<br /> causes. “There are the long traditions of the<br /> Revolutionary War and the War of 1812; and<br /> the instinctive dislike toward England of Repub-<br /> lican protectionists and of Irish-American Demo-<br /> crats.” The long traditions of the Revolutionary<br /> War and of the War of 1812 have a weight few<br /> Englishmen suspect, for those wars were not<br /> fought on British soil but on American. They<br /> took shape, for example, in the training given to<br /> the late Townsend Harris, whose biography has<br /> just been issued in London by Messrs. Sampson<br /> Low and Co., and who opened Japan to the<br /> world: he was brought up by his grandmother<br /> to “fear God, tell the truth, and hate the<br /> British,” for her house had been burnt over her<br /> head by British soldiers. But these are hostile<br /> traditions, which will die away in time; and so<br /> also will the other causes Colonel Higginson<br /> mentions, although these latter will go very<br /> slowly, I am afraid.<br /> The fourth reason Colonel Higginson gives for<br /> this anti-English feeling in America is the keen<br /> recollection of the British attitude towards the<br /> United States all through the Civil War. What a<br /> broad-minded and patriotic American thought and<br /> felt at that time is preserved for all time in that<br /> most vigorous of the “Biglow Papers ” called<br /> “Jonathau to John.” “Add to this,” says Colonel<br /> IHigginson, “the long series of insults so in-<br /> genously brought by ”—certain newspapers—“all<br /> studiously working to detach, to destroy, all<br /> English sympathy in the minds of that literary<br /> class in America which should be in case of need<br /> most friendly to England. It is impossible to<br /> estimate how much this mean literary antagonism<br /> has done to furnish fuel for the so-called Jingo<br /> side in a world where the gospel of turning the<br /> other cheek to the smiter is yet imperfectly<br /> established.”<br /> Now here is a cause of American anti-English<br /> feeling which it is in the power of English men<br /> of letters to remove. Here is where Colonel<br /> Higginson is at one with Mr. Archer. Here is a<br /> way in which the writers of Great Britain can<br /> show the friendly feeling which they protested in<br /> their recent appeal to the American people. Here<br /> is a state of affairs which can be remedied at last,<br /> and which is in as great need of remedy now as<br /> it was in 1819 when Washington Irving—than<br /> whom no American was fonder of England—<br /> wrote in the very first number of the Sketch Book<br /> an appeal to “English Writers on America” that<br /> they refrain from their brutal abuse of the United<br /> States. I wish that the Author could find room<br /> in its columns to reprint the whole of this sensible<br /> and kindly essay of Irving&#039;s, an essay of which<br /> Mr. Archer&#039;s letter was an unconscious echo.<br /> Irving himself felt so sharply on the subject that<br /> he refused to write for the Quarterly Review<br /> because it had so abundantly vilified America,<br /> and he refused this proffered literary work when<br /> he was in great need of money.<br /> Manners have mended in both countries since<br /> Irving&#039;s day, when the Quarterly Review vied<br /> with Blackwood’s Magazine in blackguardly abuse<br /> of their opponents in politics and literature; and<br /> with the improvement in politeness the language<br /> used in British journals in discussing American<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#561) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE<br /> 2O7<br /> A UTHOR.<br /> subjects is now more choice than it was then, yet<br /> it still leaves much to be desired. Of course<br /> there is not a little vulgar abuse of Great Britain<br /> in some of the inferior newspapers of the United<br /> States ; there is far too much of it. But the<br /> better the newspaper in America is, the higher its<br /> standard of taste, the more courteous it is in its<br /> treatment of England and of English authors.<br /> Not in the Nation, not in the Dial, not even in<br /> the Critic, has any British man of letters found<br /> himself held up to ridicule because he was an<br /> Englishman. On the other hand what has been<br /> the treatment of American authors by the<br /> English press P. How often have American<br /> writers been sneered at in London reviews of<br /> high standing, because they were guilty of the<br /> crime of being Americans ?<br /> Why, to take a personal example, I could<br /> name one of the most accomplished of London<br /> journalists who writes about Mr. Howells with a<br /> careless insolence he would be ashamed to show<br /> toward M. Bourget. No American journalist of<br /> a position at all equivalent to this writer&#039;s is guilty<br /> of gibes and taunts like his. Gibes and taunts<br /> there are enough in American newspapers, but<br /> they are not written by gentlemen and scholars.<br /> Perhaps another example will make my meaning<br /> plainer still. As it happens, two American<br /> authors of high rank have written books about<br /> England, and one British author of high rank has<br /> written a book about America. But compare the<br /> tone of Emerson’s “English Traits” and of<br /> Hawthorne’s “Our Old Home” with the tone of<br /> Dickens’ “American Notes.” No finer tribute<br /> to the best qualities of another people has ever<br /> been written than Emerson’s ; and the very title<br /> of Hawthorne&#039;s work reveals his feeling toward<br /> England. What a contrast between the delicacy<br /> and the distinction of these two books and the<br /> underbred manner of Dickens ! Probably the<br /> matter of his book is accurate enough ; very<br /> likely he was far nearer to the truth than we<br /> were willing to admit. But what of that P Con-<br /> sidering the welcome Dickens had received in<br /> the United States, “American Notes &#039;&#039; was a<br /> book no gentleman would have thought of<br /> publishing.<br /> Mr. Archer very sensibly pointed that the com-<br /> munity of language which exists between the<br /> United States and Great Britain, and which we<br /> rely on as “the strongest of bonds between us, is,<br /> from another point of view, a source of danger,”<br /> since it enables each people to understand what<br /> the other may say against it. And he suggests<br /> that we Americans are very sensitive. We were,<br /> no doubt ; and we are still, although in a far<br /> less degree; and our skin is toughening yearly.<br /> Whether or not we are not as sensitive as you<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> are is an open question, which need not be dis-<br /> cussed. It is best for both sides to remember<br /> always that the courtesy of the debate is binding,<br /> and that personalities do not help the public<br /> business. In the speech which Lowell made at<br /> the first dinner of the Incorporated Society of<br /> Authors he said, you may remember, that “we<br /> Americans have sometimes been charged with<br /> being a little too sensitive ; but perhaps a little<br /> indulgence may be due to those who always have<br /> their faults told to them, and the reference to<br /> whose virtues perhaps is somewhat conveyed in a<br /> foot-note in small print. I think that both<br /> countries have a sufficiently good opinion of<br /> themselves to have a fairly good one of each<br /> Other.”<br /> X. Y. Z.<br /> *—- - --&gt;<br /> e-<br /> NOTES FROM PARIS.<br /> &amp; C HE man who lives without folly,” de la<br /> Rochefoucauld said it, “is not so wise as<br /> he imagines himself.” I wonder how<br /> much harm the mischievous old cynic did by<br /> printing this maxim. It must have served as an<br /> excuse and a palliation for folly, and worse than<br /> folly in thousands of cases. Possibly, probably,<br /> it consoled poor Paul Verlaine on many an occa-<br /> sion. Writers have an immense responsibility.<br /> How few of them realise it.<br /> I have written of Verlaine elsewhere. I cannot<br /> boast a great acquaintance with him, for I avoided<br /> his company rather than sought it. By the time<br /> when I first met him I had learned this wisdom<br /> of life, that it is a good thing always to avoid<br /> painful impressions. I believe that these leave<br /> on the mind cicatrices, if not bleeding wounds,<br /> the effect of which is felt all through life. I<br /> remember holding forth on this subject, by the<br /> side of the guillotine, one night in Paris, to a<br /> fresh young American who had come for the<br /> awful spectacle of a capital execution. He was<br /> very excited, and showed keen interest. I told<br /> him he would regret it. The memory of the<br /> hideous thing would haunt him, coming to him in<br /> happy quiet moments to disturb, to appal. He<br /> laughed at me then ; but since he has written to<br /> me. “You were quite right,” he said. “I wish<br /> I had never seen that horrid thing. It comes<br /> upon me at the strangest times and always makcs<br /> me miserable.” In the same way, I now always<br /> avoid painful books. One has a burden of sorrow<br /> ample enough to bear, without adding to it the<br /> woes of imaginary people. I do wish now that I<br /> had never made the acquaintance of little Dom-<br /> bey, or of the child in “Misunderstood,” or of<br /> the hundred and one pale pain-drawn phantoms<br /> A. A.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#562) ################################################<br /> <br /> 208<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> who haunt me. The other day—it was a glorious<br /> sunshine day—I was walking amidst most<br /> beautiful surroundings, and should have been<br /> happy if only to be living and moving then and<br /> there. A heavy feeling of oppression, however,<br /> weighed upon me. “What is it?” I at last<br /> asked myself, “that is so distressing me. Is it<br /> debt? No. Is it remorse for anything P Not<br /> at present. What then P” Suddenly I remem-<br /> bered. It was poor Tess. A dull feeling of<br /> sorrow, the ache of the old wound which Hardy<br /> had inflicted on me when I read his book, and<br /> was so sorry for la Durbeyfield. It was not till<br /> I had impressed upon myself that Tess, after all,<br /> had never really lived, that I was able to shake off<br /> the feeling of depression that haunted me.<br /> Léon Daudet is a most energetic young man.<br /> It seems but yesterday that he was telling me,<br /> over a dejeuner in Brown&#039;s Hotel in Piccadilly,<br /> of his intention of writing a book describing an<br /> imaginary journey by William Shakespeare in the<br /> North of Europe. The book has now been<br /> written and is out, and, like all Léon Daudet&#039;s<br /> books, is “bien €toffé.” Téon Daudet differs<br /> from most young French littérateurs in this<br /> respect; he does not only speak of his books, he<br /> writes them. There are so many “young masters ”<br /> who, in the words of Balzac, “spend their lives<br /> in talking themselves,” i.e., without working.<br /> Young Daudet seems to be taking after Zola, and<br /> to have adopted the latter&#039;s plan of doing so<br /> much work a day. It is a wonderful system,<br /> but unfortunately not one that agrees with the<br /> constitutions of most writers.<br /> Three of the most prominent contemporary<br /> Parisienne journalists are now in Mazas prison,<br /> under the infamous charge of blackmailing, their<br /> victim in this case having been the unfortunate<br /> young millionaire, Max Lebaudy. There seems<br /> to be little doubt that they did obtain money<br /> from the young man, but whether any jury will<br /> convict them, seeing that the party, alleged to<br /> have injured, is now dead, is an open question.<br /> The exposure will not greatly affect the reputa-<br /> tion of French journalism in France. Every<br /> Frenchman knows that a newspaper in France is<br /> regarded by its proprietor as a tool for money-<br /> making, in any and every way. Even some of<br /> the most prosperous papers accept subsidies,<br /> which an English journalist would consider<br /> dishonourable. Ut rea, ut grea. The working<br /> journalist in France is so miserably underpaid<br /> that he is often forced to do a bit of extortion on<br /> his own. His editor knows this, expects it,<br /> speculates upon it. Certain well-known papers<br /> live on blackmail and extortion in one form or<br /> another. There are subsidies from the railway<br /> companies, in return for which the paper keeps<br /> silence as to serious accidents on the lines, as to<br /> gross violation of duty towards the public. There<br /> is the annual cheque from Monte Carlo. But<br /> domestic scandal is the richest gold mine, and<br /> there is one paper in Paris which pays a large<br /> dividend extracted from this source alone. This<br /> is the paper which broke up the home of the late<br /> William Huntingdon and broke his heart. In<br /> operations of this kind the journalist works in con-<br /> junction with waiters at the supper-houses, with<br /> chamber-maids and so on. He has spies every-<br /> where. He has a tariff for all kinds of services.<br /> Information is worth so much ; a compromising<br /> letter so much. I remember a certain person who<br /> used to come to a café I frequented, who was<br /> pointed out to me as a very clever man, who<br /> made a thousand a year by directing black-<br /> mailing enterprises. One day he came into the<br /> café radiant but disfigured. He had a black<br /> eye, a swollen nose, and his lip was badly cut.<br /> But he exulted, and ordered champagne in<br /> gallons. I was afterwards told that he had that<br /> day received eighteen thousand francs from a<br /> husband for certain letters written by a foolish<br /> wife. The husband had paid the money, but had<br /> also given the man “what for,” and had helped<br /> him down stairs. Little did the blackmailer care.<br /> He was the hero of the evening. Eighteen<br /> thousand francs, you know, are not to be found<br /> in a mule&#039;s hoof, as the saying is in France. I<br /> subsequently learned a good deal about this<br /> man&#039;s methods. Not being fortunate enough to<br /> own an influential organ of his own, he was<br /> forced to share profits with such newspapers as<br /> would allow him to use their columns for his<br /> purposes. This is how he would proceed.<br /> Having heard from one of his spies, a waiter,<br /> say, at one of the restaurants which keep open<br /> all night, that some lady, in a foolish moment,<br /> had supped there with someone who was not her<br /> husband, he would begin operations by causing<br /> to be inserted in one of the newspapers a para-<br /> graph somewhat as follows: “A little bird<br /> whispers to me that two nights ago a fair lady,<br /> &amp;c., &amp;c. I understand that the initial of her<br /> Christian name is M. Who can she be P And<br /> what does her husband, poor fellow, think of it?”<br /> And so on. The lady would then be approached.<br /> As a rule, however innocent her freak might have<br /> been, she would pay what was demanded. If not,<br /> a second paragraph, giving a much closer descrip-<br /> tion, would be printed, with the threat that full<br /> particulars and details would shortly be forth-<br /> coming. This sort of thing is constantly being<br /> done. Even the demi-mondaines are laid under<br /> tribute. Everybody knows these things and<br /> nobody cares. De Lesseps entertained me one<br /> afternoon for a couple of hours with stories of<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#563) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 2O9<br /> the attempts made to extract money from him<br /> and from his wife. The most infamous stories<br /> were printed about Madame de Lesseps, that<br /> model of womanly virtues. She has often told<br /> me of them, and we have laughed heartily. One<br /> gets indifferent in the end, and it is because of<br /> that feeling that these abuses flourish in France.<br /> I remember seeing a Parisian editor pocket<br /> 3OOO francs, payment for the insertion of a most<br /> scurrilous libel. It only struck me afterwards<br /> that the man deserved to be kicked. Still there<br /> is some excuse for the journalists. They are<br /> underpaid and poor, and yet are forced to mix in<br /> the best society, to dress well, to go everywhere,<br /> to entertain, to spend largely.<br /> I was amused the other day in reading the<br /> appendix to “The Wandering Heir&quot; to find that<br /> most of what I recently said in reference to the<br /> blacklegs of our profession had already been<br /> said, and much more eloquently, by Charles<br /> Reade.<br /> The Rev. Stopford Brooke is still at Grasmere,<br /> confined to his room. He has been ailing since<br /> October, but is now much better, and is able to<br /> write for some hours every day.<br /> S. R. Crockett writes me that he expects to be<br /> in London towards the end of February, He will<br /> spend a week or two in town and will then go to<br /> Holland for a few weeks. He is working as hard<br /> a.S €Wel’.<br /> A young American artist, named Ralph Goddard,<br /> has settled down in Paris and is engaged in<br /> modelling the portraits of our leading writers, for<br /> casting in the form of bronze medallions. Mr.<br /> Goddard has already completed a set of twelve<br /> medallions of the best-known English and<br /> American authors. He is very enthusiastic over<br /> his work.<br /> Mr. Edward H. Cooper, a popular member of<br /> the Authors&#039; Club, is now staying in Paris and is<br /> working hard at a novel on the turf, which<br /> promises to be a book of very great interest.<br /> Mr. Cooper spent several weeks at Newmarket<br /> studying his subject, and collected quantities of<br /> notes to work upon.<br /> I am afraid that our three friends of the<br /> Authors’ Club, who went out to Ashanti with the<br /> expedition as “special correspondents,” must have<br /> been rather disappointed with the course of<br /> events, or rather, want of events, out there.<br /> Still they have shown their pluck, and are a<br /> credit to our club. And peace is the preferable<br /> thing.<br /> ROBERT H. SHERARD.<br /> &gt;<br /> º<br /> NOTES AND NEWS,<br /> R. HALL CAINE’S admirable address<br /> on his Canadian mission will be found in<br /> another place. Rumours of wars and<br /> the upsetting of Ministries have put the copyright<br /> question in the background, but it is hoped that,<br /> when the subject is taken up again, it will be at<br /> the point where Mr. Hall Caine left it.<br /> In answer to one or two recent objections that<br /> the Author might be made a paying property, the<br /> objectors must be reminded of the purpose for<br /> which the Author was started and is continued. It<br /> is not a review or a general magazine; it does not<br /> invite contributions of the ordinary kind; it is<br /> not in any sense a rival to the Athenæum or the<br /> Bookman ; it is a paper whose object is, like that<br /> of the Society, nothing but the maintenance and<br /> defence of literary property; it points out what is<br /> meant by royalties; what are the tricks sometimes<br /> practised in profit-sharing agreements; what<br /> clauses in agreements mean or may mean—for<br /> instance, two or three months ago it pointed out<br /> the danger of signing an agreement which gave a<br /> publisher the right of charging against a book as<br /> much as he pleased, by advertising it in his own<br /> Organs, for which, of course, he paid nothing. It<br /> opens its columns for suggestive experiences, for<br /> everything to do with the literary life. But these<br /> things can hardly be made interesting to the<br /> general public. Probably the paper has attained<br /> nearly as large a circulation as it will ever reach.<br /> Two thousand copies are printed; about 14OO are<br /> sent to members; about 500 more—I do not<br /> vouch for the exact figures—are subscribed by<br /> the public. And in the end not many copies<br /> I&#039;êIYla,IIl OWeI’.<br /> There is one way in which the Author may be<br /> made to pay. It is sent to every member free.<br /> But the choice is left open to the member to<br /> remit to the secretary the yearly subscription of<br /> 6s. 6d. If only half the members did so the<br /> Author would more than pay its way.<br /> The formation of a Publishers’ Society should<br /> be hailed as a step which has long been<br /> wanted. There are many outstanding grievances<br /> which can only be amended by fair and open<br /> discussion. There are many cases brought to<br /> our notice which should be referred to the Society<br /> of Publishers. The knowledge that such cases<br /> would be referred to the committee of that body<br /> would make such of its members as have hitherto<br /> played tricks with impunity hesitate. It may<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#564) ################################################<br /> <br /> 2 IO<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> become possible at length to arrive at a plan of<br /> publishing which may be recognised by men of<br /> honour on both sides as fair and reasonable. I<br /> do not think that our side will be found backward<br /> in advancing an end so eminently desirable.<br /> One will, perhaps, be able to speak of the subject<br /> with greater fulness in following numbers.<br /> In another column will be found a statement<br /> of facts connected with the Address to American<br /> Authors. Speaking as one who strongly approved<br /> of the Chairman’s action, it is very satisfactory to<br /> learn that the response amounted to 500 signa-<br /> tures—that is to say, to more than one-third of<br /> those to whom it was sent. To persuade 500<br /> authors to joint action is extremely creditable.<br /> That some writers would disapprove of any<br /> address at all was foreseen ; that some would<br /> disapprove of the form and style was also<br /> inevitable; and that the appearance or sugges-<br /> tion of any difference in opinion would be<br /> hailed as a chance of making an attack upon<br /> the Society was also inevitable.<br /> In point of fact those who received the address<br /> were simply invited to sign it if they approved;<br /> if they did not approve, then not to sign. That<br /> the invitation was sent out on the Society&#039;s<br /> paper against what now appear to have been<br /> the Chairman’s orders may perhaps be ex-<br /> plained by the circumstances of the time —<br /> being Christmas week—with the secretary absent<br /> for four days.<br /> Our New York correspondent, it will be seen,<br /> speaks highly of the effect which the address<br /> produced in the States. This was expected. Not<br /> one single word of adverse criticism to the style or<br /> the sentiments of the paper has come over, to my<br /> knowledge. I thought at the time, and I still<br /> think, that the address as amended from the first<br /> rough draft was admirably calculated for its<br /> purpose. My own name and that of another<br /> writer have been freely tossed about by our<br /> friends the critics. We have kept silence because<br /> there was nothing to say except that, whatever<br /> part we took in the matter, we should, under<br /> similar circumstances, act in exactly the same<br /> manner again; that we are both perfectly satisfied<br /> with that part; and that we think the action of<br /> the Chairman was wise, generous, and opportune.<br /> And so, I believe, think the five hundred who<br /> followed his lead.<br /> Private letters from America entirely confirm<br /> this view. Here, for instance, are some lines<br /> which came with a private letter, expressing the<br /> pleasure which the address gave the writer:—<br /> LET US HAVE PEACE.<br /> Flash the words under the wave,<br /> Let us have peace.<br /> What though the impotent rave *<br /> Let us have peace<br /> Leave it for barbarous hordes<br /> To brandish their sabres and swords,<br /> Ours but the weapons of words,<br /> Yet words way condemn or may save.<br /> Straight from the heart and the brain,<br /> Ring out the anthem of peace<br /> PENS of the island and main,<br /> Flash out the written word, PEACE<br /> Dipped in your heart&#039;s blood, still write,<br /> Till nations shall stand in their might,<br /> And brothers with brothers unite<br /> To banish this spectre of Pain<br /> Johnstown, N.Y., Jan. 8, 1896. J. OLIVER SMITH.<br /> The attacks upon the literary agent have been<br /> renewed in various magazines. I wonder if the<br /> writers think they can abolish the literary agent<br /> by abusing him. Here, for instance, are three<br /> reasons absolutely unanswerable to show why he<br /> will continue and flourish so long as his clients<br /> have confidence in his integrity and ability. (I.)<br /> He has been proved to be extremely useful to<br /> writers whose works mean literary property.<br /> (2.) It is to most of such writers the greatest<br /> relief to have the commercial side of their work<br /> taken off their hands. (3.) All writers will con-<br /> tinue, whatever the papers may say about the<br /> agents, to exercise their undoubted right of<br /> managing their own affairs in their own way.<br /> In other words, no one has the slightest right<br /> to interfere, whatever way a man chooses for the<br /> conduct of his own business.<br /> A free library has been started at Nuneaton,<br /> George Eliot&#039;s birthplace. It is proposed to set<br /> apart one room for the preservation of the MSS.<br /> and letters and relics of George Eliot. Should<br /> there not also be a collection of all her works,<br /> including the article which she wrote for the<br /> Westminster Review º&#039; These could all be re-<br /> covered, I suppose, by the help of the editor&#039;s<br /> papers and accounts. WALTER BESANT.<br /> *- A -º<br /> * * *<br /> FEUILLETON.<br /> AN OBJECT LEsson.<br /> THINK it may become a man&#039;s duty to<br /> present himself as an object-lesson — an<br /> awful example. I am a peculiarly atrocious<br /> example, of fifteen years&#039; standing. I append my<br /> balance-sheet in illustration of the statement.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#565) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 2 I I<br /> I began to write in 1880. I was an under-<br /> graduate member of a venerable University at<br /> that time—Christminster, in fact. I wrote plays.<br /> Shortly afterwards I came into a little money and<br /> removed to London. My dramatic work was<br /> freely rejected. One acting manager, indeed,<br /> spoke of trying to get a lever de rideau put on<br /> for me; I went to see him—I was young, and I<br /> omitted to sketch out 1.is own share in the finan-<br /> cial dealings. That piece was not played. I<br /> thought the systematic rejection might be due to<br /> my handwriting ; so I had my three plays very<br /> beautifully printed and bound. Two of them<br /> were quite short, and the cost was about £36.<br /> They yet await representation. -<br /> Then I determined to give a matinée. I<br /> engaged a secretary, and we wrote to one or two<br /> leading actors, and drew up a form of invitation<br /> to the Press. One of the leading actors came to<br /> See me. He sat upon my play, and I in turn<br /> repressed the secretary and the matinée. Then I<br /> thought I, ought to qualify as a playwright by<br /> going on the stage. I did go round the provinces<br /> for about two years; and have come to the con-<br /> clusion that this sort of anxious qualifying is<br /> almost invariably a mistake.<br /> After this I went to Paris. Then I went to<br /> live in the country. Here that temptation<br /> assailed me which has completed me as an awful<br /> example. I felt that I could write a novel. I<br /> wrote it—it was a Cornish story—and I hit upon a<br /> capital title for it. It did not seem worth while<br /> to sit and wait for its recurrent rejection, so I<br /> sent it round as a novel that I would publish at<br /> my own cost. On these terms it was accepted.<br /> My own solicitors drew up the agreement, and I<br /> paid £60. The novel appeared in due course.<br /> The publishers went bankrupt in due course. I<br /> was out of pocket. But the Athenæum said a<br /> good word for the booklet, the Daily Telegraph<br /> gave it a little breeze aft, and the Morning Post<br /> —O unexpected friend —spoke of it with enthu-<br /> siasm. A thousand copies were sold—in five years.<br /> I bought the last shop-worn examples myself.<br /> Those Press notices (there were some nice<br /> Scotch and Irish ones as well; though I must<br /> admit one reviewer called me not only mad, but a<br /> woman), more than outweighed the cheque to<br /> debit. And I tried the drama again. I failed<br /> again. Not, however, from the aesthetic point of<br /> view, for I had the good fortune to meet Miss<br /> Alma Murray, and she allowed me to see and<br /> touch a lock of Shelley&#039;s hair.<br /> I concluded that I would write another novel.<br /> It cost me eighteen months&#039; hard labour and an<br /> illness. Two publishers rejected it; the third<br /> accepted it. He offered me £30 for the copy-<br /> right, or a royalty of 2s. 6d. per copy. I chose<br /> the latter, and signed the publisher&#039;s form of<br /> agreement. After many months the book was<br /> published. Again many months and I received<br /> £8. Soon afterwards the publisher allowed his<br /> business entity to fail and be reconstituted. This<br /> time the Saturday Review complimented me; so<br /> did the Scotsman. I thought I had a start. Of<br /> course I got nothing more for the book. I<br /> believe it still has a small sale, but I have no<br /> claim on it. The publisher parted with it as a<br /> “remainder.”<br /> I wrote another novel, and nobody would<br /> have it at any price. I suppose that was<br /> just; for it did not clearly make for righteous-<br /> ness. Then came a morning when I awoke to<br /> find myself not famous, but ruined. The thing<br /> was not half done, it was rounded and complete.<br /> Of course everybody but myself saw that it was<br /> entirely my own fault. I could not see that, and<br /> do not; but then this only shows my density. Some<br /> men would have blown their brains out. But it<br /> is an uncanny manoeuvre at best—I did contem-<br /> plate it. And though I can understand a single<br /> man justifying it to himself, I do not see how a<br /> married man with a couple of lads could come at<br /> the justification. More especially if his wife is<br /> his best friend, and has even so failed in the<br /> obvious duty of woman as to refuse to stifle her<br /> regard for her husband with the baby, when<br /> invited to do so. I took the less easy course,<br /> and learned shorthand and typewriting, and<br /> furbished up the languages I had learned for<br /> pleasure for business weapons. England being<br /> the land of stanch relations, nearly all my ac-<br /> quaintances and the large majority of my friends<br /> dropped me at this time.<br /> When I had duly prepared myself to enter the<br /> writhing mass of those competing at the foot of the<br /> ladder, I found I was still a failure. I was thirty<br /> years of age, and I had no business references or<br /> experiences; so I could not get employment, and<br /> there really seemed nothing for it but a retreat to<br /> the quiet of the cemetery or the society of the<br /> workhouse. I was sitting one day in a cheap<br /> eating-house, contemplating this dismal alter-<br /> native, when a Spaniard of my acquaintance came<br /> in, hurried up to me, and, with tears in his eyes,<br /> told me he had found me work, and wrung my<br /> hand. The friends of my adversity have been a<br /> Spaniard and a Scotchman. It was hard work,<br /> and began at the rate of £96 per annum. I had<br /> not only to write shorthand and work the<br /> Remington, but translate French of all sorts,<br /> German of all sorts, Spanish and Portuguese of<br /> all, sorts; interpret French evidence in court;<br /> stumble through Danish, Swedish and Norwegian<br /> letters, and typewrite Italian. My hours were<br /> from nine in the morning to six nominal (this<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#566) ################################################<br /> <br /> 2 I 2<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> means seven) in the evening. But it was not the<br /> workhouse, nor was it the cemetery. And I was<br /> earning my living at last. Besides, I was to have<br /> all the Bank holidays except one, I had very<br /> seldom to work on Sunday, and—after the first<br /> year—I was to have a fortnight in the autumn<br /> away from work. Soon I was “raised” to £120<br /> a year; then I was actually offered £150, if I<br /> would sign a “stringent contract” for three<br /> years. For certain reasons not here to be dis-<br /> cussed, the life I then endured was so exactly like<br /> what I imagine the life in hell to be that I refused<br /> this opportunity, raised my shorthand to 140<br /> words a minute, and strove to get a foothold in<br /> journalism.<br /> In this I failed again. Then, by a singular fluke,<br /> I became secretary to a well-known man of letters,<br /> since dead. He was alternately brusque and kindly;<br /> he had seen a great deal of life and plenty of<br /> fighting, and it seemed to me that he was far more<br /> interesting than the popular romances which he<br /> dictated to me. I got 35s. a week, plenteous<br /> leisure, and a number of wrinkles from him.<br /> Then I became a ghost. This subterranean<br /> passage in my life cannot be opened up to mortal<br /> eyes, for obvious reasons. I found that when I<br /> wrote a book, lock, stock, and barrel, and another<br /> man put his name on it, it was worth over £300<br /> (this money was actually paid), and when<br /> difficulties arose, and it became known—long<br /> after the book&#039;s acceptance—that my ghostly<br /> name ought to figure on the title-page, this same<br /> book was returned by an important syndicate to<br /> the first purchaser as a thing worthless. And<br /> yet this very syndicate had read it and valued it as<br /> above—when the other name was there. I cannot<br /> help thinking that there is good material for<br /> reflection in this, if one could only get at the<br /> right point of view.<br /> Next I tried collaboration. I collaborated with<br /> a man who, I was told, “sold well.” I had seen<br /> more than a column of big type given to a work<br /> by him in a leading London daily. We wrote<br /> three stories together, and they satisfied my ex-<br /> perienced collaborator. But my particular Nemesis<br /> was not tired of following me—had not sat down<br /> to rest for a time even. Those three stories are<br /> still for sale.<br /> Balance-sheet of fifteen years’ literary work:<br /> T)R. 38 CR. 39<br /> Printing three plays ... 36 | A story in Timsley&#039;s<br /> Cost of publishing one Magazine, Dec., 1888 o<br /> novel..................... 6O | From a 2-vol. novel...... 8<br /> A “Ghost” story sold<br /> for £60 ; actually re-<br /> ceived .................. 25<br /> 96 33<br /> Net result, 363 loss.<br /> You suppose I am cured P No. “As flies to<br /> wanton boys are * authors “to the gods.” I still<br /> have manuscript going the rounds. But may<br /> others profit by me !<br /> “MR. BROOMIELAw.”<br /> *—s<br /> LITERATURE IN THE PERIODICALS.<br /> BookMAKING. L. Simons. To-Morrow for January.<br /> AN AUTHOR’s CoMPLAINT. George Redway. Athenæum.<br /> for Jan. 18.<br /> ADVERTISEMENT As A GENTLE ART.<br /> National Review for January.<br /> AUTHORS AND Politics. Speaker for Jan. 18.<br /> RELICS OF THE BRONTiš FAMILY. Herbert E. Wroot.<br /> Good Words for February.<br /> THE POETRY OF EMILY BRONTiš.<br /> Atalanta for February. &#039;<br /> THE YOUNG MAN WHO WANTS TO WIRITE.<br /> Kernahan. Young Man for January and February.<br /> THE Gosph.I. Accord ING TO THE NovKLISTS. I.-<br /> CHARLEs DICKENs. W. J. Dawson. Young Man for<br /> February.<br /> RoBERT Louis STEvºNson AND EDINBURGH. Francis<br /> Watt. Art Jowrmal for February.<br /> THE READING ROOM AND IRON LIBRARY OF THE<br /> BRITISH MUSEUM. A. W. Jarvis. Pall Mall Magazine<br /> for February.<br /> PARALYZERS OF STYLE.<br /> cott&#039;s Magazine for February.<br /> THE ADVANTAGE OF FICTION. M. G. Tuttiett (Max-<br /> well Gray). Nineteenth Century for January.<br /> THE PARSON IN ENGLISH LITERATURE.<br /> Review of Reviews for January.<br /> An Editor.<br /> Florence Glover.<br /> Coulson<br /> Frederic M. Bird. Lippin-<br /> Religious<br /> LANCASHIRE NOVELISTs’ SERIES. III. — WILLIAM<br /> HARRISON AINsworth. Edmund Mercer. Manchester<br /> Quarterly for January.<br /> THE “CONCEIT * IN LITERATURE. Thomas New-<br /> bigging. Manchester Quarterly for January.<br /> ACCRETIONS TO THE TROY-MYTH AFTER HOMER.<br /> Wm. Crauston Lawton. Poet-Lore (Boston) for January.<br /> HAUNTS OF THE POETs. II.--THE SCOTTISH HIGH-<br /> LANDS AND SCOTT. Benjamin Taylor, F.R.G.S. Atalanta<br /> for January.<br /> LoRD DE TABLY : A PortRAIT. Edmund Gosse. Com-<br /> temporary Review for January.<br /> SHAKESPEARE AT ELSMORE. Jón Stefánson. Com-<br /> temporary Review for January. -<br /> RECoLLECTIONS OF THOMAS CARLYLE. Blackwood&#039;s<br /> Magazine for January.<br /> How AMERICAN HISTORY Is WRITTEN. Blackwood&#039;s<br /> Magazine for January.<br /> THE ANTI-MARRIAGE LEAGUE.<br /> wood’s Magazine for January.<br /> WoRDsworth’s “PARSON SYMPson.”<br /> January.<br /> HOW I BECAME A NOVELIST.<br /> for January. -<br /> ONE OF HAWTHORNE’s UNPRINTED NOTEBOOKS.<br /> Nathaniel Hawthorne. Atlantic Monthly for January.<br /> WAs GEORGE ELIOT A HyPoCRITE P Julien Gordon.<br /> Cosmopolitan for January.<br /> MATTHEw ARNOLD’s LETTERs. Herbert Woodfield Paul.<br /> Forwm for January.<br /> LIVING CRITICs.<br /> Hugh Walker.<br /> Mrs. Oliphant. Black-<br /> Temple Bar for<br /> Edna Lyall. Good Words<br /> IV.-MR. R. H. HuTTON. . Professor<br /> Bookman for January.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#567) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 2 I 3<br /> THE Book SALES OF 1895. J. H. Slater. Athenæum<br /> for Jan. 4 and II.<br /> THE OLD NURSE IN FICTION. Spectator for Jan. 4.<br /> PoETRY AND THE BARBARIANs. Satwrday Review for<br /> Jan. 4.<br /> CRITICISM AND IDEALs.<br /> JAMESON’s RIDE.<br /> Times for Jan. I I.<br /> THE POET LAUREATE’s RIDE. Andrew Lang. Morming<br /> for Jan. I5.<br /> ABOUT PAUL VERLAIN.E. Daily Chronicle for Jan. I4.<br /> Boys AND THEIR Books. Westminster Gazette for Jan. 17.<br /> THE ETHICS OF MR. Sw1NBURNE’s PoETRY. Satwrday<br /> Review for Jan. 25.<br /> CRITICISM AND THE CRITIC.<br /> January.<br /> Speaker for Jan. 4.<br /> First Poem by new Poet-Laureate.<br /> Selwyn Image. Savoy for<br /> NOTABLE REVIEWS.<br /> Of Professor Sully’s “Studies of Childhood. Athenæum.<br /> for Jan. 4.<br /> Of James Russell Lowell’s “Last Poems.”<br /> for Jan. 4.<br /> Of Purcell’s “Life of Cardinal Manning.” Athenæwm for<br /> Jan. 18, Times for Jan. Io and 13, Daily Chronicle for<br /> Jan. Io.<br /> Of Recent French Novels (Works by Jules Case, Georges<br /> Ohnet, Edouard Rod, and Alphonse Daudet.) Blackwood&#039;s<br /> Magazine for January.<br /> $<br /> Athenæum.<br /> $: $ #:<br /> In the new little monthly review, To-morrow,<br /> Mr. L. Simons discusses the whole subject of<br /> bookmaking, and tries to point the way to a<br /> better state of things. He holds the balance<br /> between author and publisher. “The accusation<br /> of ‘greediness’ (he says) brought against some<br /> modern authors, as certainly holds good against<br /> some publishers.” The publisher may wish to<br /> give an author or an artist a push, but in the<br /> end he will have to look at financial results,<br /> and—<br /> The successful author has no doubt to pay for his still<br /> struggling colleague, and if he refuses to do so the end of<br /> the latter has come. If to-morrow the Society of Authors<br /> were to become a huge co-operative publishing establish-<br /> ment, would the case stand differently P<br /> Mr. Simons deplores the literary agent&#039;s func-<br /> tion—of dealing with literature as though he<br /> were selling bread and cheese ; and he instances<br /> the arrangement between M. Zola and his pub-<br /> lisher as a lucid example of an author taking his<br /> work as a profession in the best sense of the<br /> word. But if the publisher&#039;s share be largest at<br /> the beginning when he has full risk, and the<br /> author&#039;s largest when the public buy him in<br /> appreciable numbers — that system, roughly,<br /> thinks Mr. Simons, would meet the cases; and<br /> he concludes thus:—<br /> The moment to turn “bookmaking ” into a profession<br /> again, helping it out of the trade groove into which it has<br /> fallen, has never been more opportune. The English pub-<br /> lishers, who have been undermining each other by a compe-<br /> tition such as would have been thought entirely unworthy<br /> of their position by their foreign colleagues, are at last<br /> going to unite. It will probably be the task of this new union<br /> to come to an understanding with the Authors’ Society and<br /> fix the rate of royalties to be paid to authors for various<br /> class of works, according to the sales. Then the author<br /> will find his reward in the number sold and therefore in his<br /> popularity ; there will be no more bargaining or under-<br /> mining ; the author will simply choose the publisher in<br /> whose integrity, taste, and “push ’’ he will have most con-<br /> fidence, and the competition between publishers will once<br /> more become a matter of “fair sport.”<br /> A novelist—Miss King—stated recently in the<br /> Athenæum that her book, price 3 s. 6d., was being<br /> sold by the booksellers as if it were published at<br /> 6s., its outward appearance probably inducing<br /> them to ask the higher price. On this complaint<br /> is based Mr. Redway’s article, which is a plea for<br /> the abolition of the discount system. (Though<br /> Mr. Alfred Wilson writes, in the same journal on<br /> the 25th ult, doubting whether Miss King&#039;s<br /> novel, while being ticketed at 4s. 6d., was sold at<br /> that). “If it can be demonstrated that the<br /> public will as readily pay 4s. 6d., or 3s. 6d., or<br /> 2s. 8d. for a volume, it is clear,” says Mr. Redway,<br /> “that the 3s. 6d. ‘net’ book, for example, may as<br /> well be advertised at 6s. and retailed at 4s. 6d.,<br /> since publisher and author will thus obtain an<br /> extra shilling per copy from the public.” He<br /> prefers the German system of book distribution:<br /> With us the bookseller, under the “net” system,<br /> is merely an agent; under the “discount &quot;<br /> system, merely a speculator. Therefore—<br /> In England the chances of success of an unknown author<br /> become fainter every year : if he write a book of a popular<br /> character its fate must depend upon whether the handful of<br /> “discount&#039; booksellers, and the largest libraries and rail-<br /> way bookstalls, have anything more important on hand, at .<br /> the moment than the launching of his book.<br /> On the multiplication of book shops depends<br /> the future of literature as a branch of commerce,<br /> and the discount system is “strangling English<br /> literature &#039;’; so, asks the writer, Who will bell the<br /> cat P for the abolition of discounts and the<br /> bringing to pass of the following conditions:<br /> Booksellers might become as common as tobacconists if<br /> the old rates of profit on single copies were in vogue. The<br /> bookseller&#039;s shop might become an exhibition of the newest<br /> and best books, irrespective of their immediate popularity.<br /> An army of professional students of catalogues would arise,<br /> who could afford to make full use of parcel post and<br /> telegraph office, with the result that the bookbuying public,<br /> even in the remotest part of the kingdom, might be as well<br /> served with new books as with postage stamps.<br /> The National Review paper is an attack on the<br /> existence of the literary agent. What a delightful<br /> trade (exclaims the writer) and how charmingly<br /> inexpensive | The writer believes that to the<br /> literary agent we are indebted for the flood of<br /> rubbish in the reading world just now, and<br /> for many other things.<br /> “Individuality is the one interesting, real<br /> thing in the universe,” says Mr. Selwyn Image,<br /> who suggests a journal in which critics would<br /> have a free hand entirely, with the one proviso of<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#568) ################################################<br /> <br /> 214<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> blanching the libel court. The critic would write<br /> in the first person and in the style his humour<br /> smiled upon at the moment; he would sign his<br /> article always, but would be free to change his<br /> signature as the occasion prompted him. For,<br /> says Mr. Image—<br /> If a man is worth listening to at all (and when one can<br /> get at him I expect there breathes not a soul but is),<br /> let us hear what he thinks and feels, what he likes and<br /> hates, and let us hear it his own way. For the attainment<br /> of this end the tyranny of the editorial “we” is fatal; but<br /> fatal, too, is the antithesis that on every occasion a man<br /> should write over his own signature, or over a signature<br /> known to be his.<br /> The literary tastes of schoolboys are strikingly<br /> illustrated in the Westminster Gazette article.<br /> Taking the lists from four public school libraries,<br /> here is our summary of the foremost results in<br /> the aggregate :-<br /> Henty, 307 times taken out in the course of several<br /> terms; Ainsworth, 276; Haggard, 259; Marryat, 221 ;<br /> Jules Werne, 220; Ballantyne, 217 ; “Q.,” 199; James<br /> Grant, 185. Scott gets only I Io, Stevenson, 84. Clarke<br /> Russell, Dickens, Kingston, Hume Nisbet, Blackmore,<br /> Manville Fenn, Whyte Melville, Conan Doyle, R. Boldre-<br /> wood, and Mr. Kipling have been taken over Ioo times.<br /> *—<br /> z-- ~~~<br /> BOOK TALK.<br /> D&quot; CONAN DOYLE&#039;S series of stories of<br /> adventure which has been running in the<br /> Strand Magazine, entitled “The Exploits<br /> of Brigadier Gerard,” will be published in book<br /> form this month. He has recently finished a new<br /> story of the Regency period, called “Rodney&#039;s<br /> Stone,” which also will appear serially.<br /> A novel which is to contain lessons for women<br /> who try to live their own lives is “The Things<br /> That Matter,” by Mr. Francis Gribble, which<br /> Messrs. A. D. Innes and Co. will publish.<br /> Mr. R. D. Blackmore has written a romance of<br /> Surrey life entitled “Darill,” which will appear<br /> in Blackwood’s Magazine.<br /> Mr. Crockett’s “Cleg Kelly,” which appeared<br /> in Cornhill, will be published in book form soon,<br /> and his new work, which is a Galloway story<br /> called “The Grey Man,” will follow in the<br /> autumn.<br /> Mr. George Moore is getting near a finish with<br /> his new novel, but some months will elapse yet<br /> before it appears. The title is “Evelyn Innes,”<br /> and the theme of the book the struggle between<br /> the spiritual and the sensual life.<br /> After a long and dangerous illness, Miss<br /> Eleanor Studder has returned to literary work<br /> with an article running through Notes and<br /> out in book form soon.<br /> Queries on the Saxon Yule. A story from her<br /> pen is in the hands of Messrs. Nelson to be<br /> produced as soon as their arrangements permit.<br /> Mr. Frederic Breton has written a novel laid<br /> in the Western Highlands of Scotland, entitled<br /> “The Trespasses of Two.” It will be published by<br /> Messrs. Hutchinson and Co. They also announce<br /> “A Provincial Lady,” by Mrs. Harcourt William-<br /> SOI).<br /> Mr. Clive Holland is the author of “A Lure<br /> of Fame,” a novel to be published by Mr. George<br /> Redway. -<br /> Mr. Quiller Couch is about to publish a volume<br /> of essays which he has named “Adventures in<br /> Criticism.” “Ia,” a Cornish story, which ap-<br /> peared in Yule Tide at Christmas, will also be<br /> Messrs. Cassell and Co.<br /> are his publishers.<br /> Mr. Frankfort Moore is so well up to date as<br /> to publish a short story about Ashanti. It is<br /> called “Dr. Kumahdi of Ashantee,” and will<br /> appear in Messrs. Constable’s Acme Series, for<br /> which also Sir Robert Peel has written a tale.<br /> “Rita&quot; has written a story entitled “Joan and<br /> Mrs. Carr,” which Messrs. T. W. White and Co.<br /> have in the press. “A Riverside Romance,” by<br /> Mrs. Edward Kennard, and “A Fight with Fate,”<br /> by Mrs. Alexander, are also coming soon from<br /> Messrs. White.<br /> “A Foreigner : an Anglo-German Study,” is<br /> the title of a book by E. Gerard (Madame de<br /> Laszowska) which Messrs. Blackwood and Sons<br /> are about to publish.<br /> The first mountaineering book of the year is<br /> likely to be “The Japanese Alps,” by the Rev.<br /> Walter Weston. While residing at Kobe as<br /> British chaplain, Mr. Weston, who is a member<br /> of the Alpine Club, explored what he calls the<br /> “unfamiliar” mountain regions of Central Japan.<br /> This book is the result. It will be profusely<br /> illustrated from the author&#039;s photographs. Mr.<br /> Murray is the publisher. -<br /> The extraordinary title “The Most Gorgeous<br /> Lady Blessington’ has been given to a biography<br /> of the famous Countess which Mr. J. Fitzgerald<br /> Molloy has prepared and Messrs. Downey will<br /> issue. There will be letters in it by Tom<br /> Moore, Lord Lytton, Disraeli, Dickens, Galt, and<br /> others. Messrs. Downey have also in hand a<br /> story by Colonel Davis, entitled “Three Men and<br /> a God.”<br /> The two-volume work “Democracy and Liberty,”<br /> by Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, M.P., is in the press of<br /> Messrs. Longmans, who have also in preparation<br /> the late Professor Froude&#039;s Lectures on the<br /> Council of Trent; “The Astronomy of Milton&#039;s<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#569) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 2 I 5<br /> Paradise Lost,” by Thomas N. Orchard, M.D.;<br /> and “East and West: Reprinted Articles,” by<br /> Sir Edwin Arnold, K.C.I.E.<br /> Professor Brander Matthews contributes a<br /> volume on “Bookbindings Old and New &#039;&#039; to the<br /> well-known Ex-Libris Series published by Messrs.<br /> George Bell and Sons. The work is to be illus-<br /> trated with examples of the most skilful binding,<br /> and its letterpress will deal with the subject<br /> from the days of Grolier to those of Cobden<br /> Sanderson.<br /> At a book sale at Sotheby’s a few days ago<br /> Shakespeare’s “Poems,” 1640, the first collected<br /> edition, but with defective portrait and four<br /> leaves missing, brought 32 I ; a copy of the<br /> fourth folio edition of Shakespeare, 1685, want-<br /> ing a portrait, 345; and Milton’s “Paradise<br /> Lost,” 1667, first edition, with the first title-page,<br /> £90,<br /> The Duke of Argyll has been at work, off and<br /> on, for fifteen years upon his book “The Philo-<br /> sophy of Belief,” which Mr. Murray will have<br /> ready shortly. The same house expects to issue<br /> the first portion of Gibbon’s unpublished works<br /> —autobiographies, journals, and correspondence<br /> —edited by the Earl of Sheffield, about Easter.<br /> Mr. Percy Hemingway&#039;s book of verse, entitled<br /> “The Happy Wanderer, and other Poems,” will<br /> be issued by Mr. Elkin Mathews this month.<br /> This publisher has also a volume in preparation<br /> by Mr. Vincent Sullivan, which will have a<br /> frontispiece done by Mr. Selwyn Image.<br /> Mr. F. G. Edwards has written a “History of<br /> Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah&#039;” (this year, by the way,<br /> is the jubilee of the first performance of the<br /> oratorio, which took place at Birmingham<br /> Festival) in which there will be new matter<br /> gathered from unpublished letters of the com-<br /> poser and his contemporaries. The work will be<br /> published at an early date by Messrs. Novello,<br /> Ewer, and Co.<br /> Penny standard works are not alone Mr.<br /> Stead&#039;s field now, for Messrs. George Newnes<br /> Limited have begun a series of which the first<br /> was Goldsmith’s “Vicar of Wakefield.” Messrs.<br /> Jarrold and Sons also publish good “ penny<br /> populars.” Mr. Swinburne&#039;s lyric, too, “A<br /> Word for the Navy,” published nine years ago at<br /> 5s, is now in slightly revised form appearing in<br /> an edition of Ic,OOO copies at one penny each.<br /> A cyclopædia of architecture in Italy, Greece,<br /> and the Levant is being edited by Mr. W. P.<br /> Longfellow, and will be published soon by Mr.<br /> |Fisher Unwin.<br /> The most important of January&#039;s moderate<br /> output of books were “The Life of Cardinal<br /> Manning,” by Edmund Sheridan Purcell (Mac-<br /> millan)—which has been received with extra-<br /> ordinarily diverse feelings; “The Life of William<br /> Carleton,” the Irish novelist, continued from the<br /> point where the autobiography breaks off, by<br /> David J. O&#039;Donoghue (Downey and Co.); and<br /> “New Poems by Christina Rossetti,” edited by<br /> William Michael Rossetti (Macmillan). Mr.<br /> Gladstone&#039;s edition of Bishop Butler&#039;s works<br /> (Clarendon Press) should also be named.<br /> New light on Burns&#039;s career, particularly his<br /> residence in Irvine, his notion of migrating to<br /> America, and his relations with Elizabeth Paton<br /> and Mary Campbell, is to be supplied by Mr. Wm.<br /> Wallace in his edition of the biography by Dr.<br /> Chambers to be published soon by Messrs. W.<br /> and R. Chambers.<br /> The second edition of Mr. Ernest Hart&#039;s<br /> work, “Hypnotism, Mesmerism, and the New<br /> Witchcraft,” will have new chapters on “The<br /> Eternal Gullible,” and a note on “The Hypnotism<br /> of Trilby.”<br /> The works of the well-known American writer<br /> Mr. John Burroughs are about to appear in<br /> a Riverside Edition in nine volumes, illustrated<br /> with portraits. Messrs. J. M. Dent and Co.<br /> are the English publishers. The same house<br /> announces an edition of Marryat, edited by Mr.<br /> R. B. Johnson, and illustrated with etchings, for<br /> publication in the early spring. Messrs. Rout-<br /> ledge are also publishing a complete edition of<br /> Marryat, in monthly volumes, edited by Mr.<br /> W. L. Courtney.<br /> What is said to be by far the largest Greek<br /> papyrus known—mamely, “The Revenue Laws of<br /> Ptolemy Philadelphus,” in the Bodleian Library—<br /> has been translated, with commentary and appen-<br /> dices, by Mr. B. P. Grenfell, and will be published<br /> shortly at the Clarendon Press. Professor<br /> Mahaffy writes an introduction, and the volume<br /> will be accompanied by a portfolio containing<br /> thirteen facsimiles.<br /> Mr. E. F. Knight, who acted for the Times in<br /> the recent Madagascar Campaign, is issuing a<br /> book about it through Messrs. Longmans, Green,<br /> and Co., entitled “Madagascar in War Time :<br /> The Experiences of a Special Correspondent with<br /> the Hovas during the French Invasion of 1895.”<br /> A new edition of the late Mr. Stevenson&#039;s<br /> “Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh” (originally<br /> published eighteen years ago, and now out of print)<br /> will be ready this month. The illustrations are<br /> entirely new, consisting of eight copper plates,<br /> four of which are etchings, and over fifty other<br /> engravings in tint and line. Mr. T. Hamilton<br /> Crawford, Royal Scottish Water Colour Society,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#570) ################################################<br /> <br /> 2 16<br /> TIIE AUTIIOIR.<br /> has done the work. Messrs. Seeley and Co. are<br /> the publishers.<br /> Stevenson’s “Songs of Travel” are being pre-<br /> pared for issue by Messrs. Chatto and Windus,<br /> apart from the volume in the Edinburgh Edition<br /> containing them. The supplementary series of<br /> the Edinburgh Editionwill number seven volumes.<br /> Mr. Edwin Lester Arnold’s recently published<br /> book, “The Story of Ulla,” has done something<br /> to prove collected short stories are not always<br /> unpopular. A second edition is already being<br /> prepared by Messrs. Longmans.<br /> Mr. Bloundelle-Burton’s new novel, “In the<br /> Day of Adversity,” having now finished its<br /> serial course in London and Australia, will be<br /> published immediately. It will be produced in<br /> volume form in London and New York simulta-<br /> neously—by Messrs. Methuen and Co. here, and<br /> by Messrs. Appleton and Co. in the latter city.<br /> The period is that of Louis Quatorze—which has<br /> been a special study of Mr. Bloundelle-Burton for<br /> many years—and the events connected with the<br /> burning of the French fleet at La Hogue form a<br /> portion of the incidents dealt with. l<br /> “A Sextet of Singers” (The Roxburghe Press).<br /> In this little volume of eighty-three pages we<br /> sample the graceful, sympathetic verse of half a<br /> dozen writers whom—one and all—we could<br /> profitably listen to oftener and at greater length.<br /> They are George Barlow, J. A. Blaikie, “Paganus.”<br /> (L. Cranmer-Byng), Vincent O&#039;Sullivan, Walter<br /> Herries Pollock, and Sidney R. Thompson. As<br /> illustrating the spirit of poetic feeling that may<br /> be said to animate the whole sextet, the following<br /> stanzas from “Once More,” by Mr. Barlow, will<br /> Serve : .<br /> Once more, with skies above her<br /> Of endless perfect air,<br /> With sunlit leaves to love her<br /> And whisper, “Thou art fair;”<br /> Once more—and statelier, surer,<br /> When summer&#039;s hymn was done—<br /> From woman’s mouth came purer<br /> The anthems of the sun :<br /> Once more, in honeyed metre<br /> That charmed grief to repose,<br /> From woman’s lips came sweeter<br /> The lyrics of the rose.<br /> Each says: “Though hearts preceding<br /> Were broken one by one,<br /> Yet follow we Love&#039;s leading<br /> As hope pursues the sun.<br /> A thousand shipwrecks follow<br /> The North wind’s course, maybe :<br /> Does one fierce shipwreck hollow<br /> One slight gulf in the sea P<br /> Nay! all the sea is smiling,<br /> As if no ship were slain;<br /> The blue waves are beguiling<br /> The white sails forth again.”<br /> A new novel, entitled “In Oban Town,” by<br /> Mr. C. McKellar, author of “Greece: her Hopes<br /> and Troubles,” “A Jersey Witch,” &amp;c., will shortly<br /> be issued by Mr. Alexander Gardner, Paisley.<br /> H.R.? [.. the Duke of Sparta, Crown Prince of<br /> Greece, has accepted a copy of Mr. McKellar&#039;s<br /> work on Greece in very gracious terms.<br /> “Thoughts for Book Lovers,” compiled by<br /> Harry S. Lumsden. (Aberdeen : Lewis Smith<br /> and Son. Is. 6d.) A virtuous-looking brochure,<br /> in which a useful collection is made of what well-<br /> known writers have said upon the value of books,<br /> and how they should be read. As an assistant in<br /> a public library, Mr. Lumsden has had oppor-<br /> tunity of noticing the diverse ideas among readers<br /> as to which way most pleasure and profit lie, and<br /> he thus seeks to guide them.<br /> “Goethe&#039;s Faust.” The First Part. With a<br /> Literal Translation and Notes for Students. By<br /> Beta. (David Nutt. 3s. 6d.) The translator<br /> justifies the publication of another translation of<br /> Faust be:ause much indispensable light has been<br /> thrown on many passages since Hayward&#039;s<br /> admirable work was written. In this well-<br /> executed crib for beginners, therefore, Beta<br /> supplies the latest interpretations, following<br /> Sabatier&#039;s text generally, and giving new notes<br /> to aid students. The lengthy record of errata<br /> which prefaces the book will doubtless be<br /> removed in a second edition, which must come<br /> quickly.<br /> “The Commandment with Promise.” By the<br /> Hon. Gertrude Boscawen. (Elliot Stock.) This<br /> is a handsome book with a gracefully written<br /> story for children; its lesson—obedience.<br /> “Drifting through Dreamland.” By T. E.<br /> Ruston. (Elliot Stock.) There is great flexibility<br /> in the choice of the subjects treated in this<br /> volume of verse. They range from “The Worst<br /> Boy in the School” and “The Fighting Parson’’<br /> to “Via Vitae&quot; and “The Gate of Heaven.”<br /> The author&#039;s insight appears well in “Via Vitae &#039;’<br /> among the longer poems; but for simplicity and<br /> direct feeling, this, from “A Love Song,” the<br /> last piece in these 154 pages, is best :<br /> There are many finer ladies,<br /> But they ’re not so fine to me;<br /> You are all that I could wish for—-<br /> You are all you ought to be.<br /> Just a woman, brave and tender,<br /> Quick to aid and quick to love :<br /> Made for earth, yet nearest heaven—<br /> One who works, yet points above.<br /> “Divers Ditties.” By Alec. McMillan, M.A.,<br /> Bengal Civil Service (Retired). (Archd. Con-<br /> stable and Co.) Anglo-Indians will be most<br /> interested in this book, as nearly all the verses in<br /> it deal with that life. But there are some adap-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#571) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 217<br /> tations of English poems, and, moreover, Mr.<br /> McMillan has a largely human touch, so home<br /> readers can enjoy his verse as well. There is a<br /> pleasant swing in “Anundorum Borooah” and<br /> “The Road to Pepityapore”; and sometimes the<br /> writer takes to homely Scots—presumably, like<br /> Mr. Crockett, for his stomach’s sake. Here is an<br /> example of Mr. McMillan&#039;s song:<br /> In the stately repose of a ripe womanhood,<br /> With the grace of a goddess of Hellas she stood,<br /> And the glory of summers a score,<br /> Fronting the sun that to setting was nigh,<br /> All under the shade of a tamarind high,<br /> On the road to Pepityapore.<br /> “Spring&#039;s Immortality, and Other Poems.”<br /> By Mackenzie Bell. (Ward, Lock, and Bowden.<br /> 3.s. 6d.) This is a second edition of Mr. Bell&#039;s<br /> volume, so warmly received when it first came out<br /> for its delicate feeling and thoughtful workman-<br /> ship. The author has made some revisions, and<br /> prefixed a poem addressed to Mr. Edmund<br /> Clarence Stedman.<br /> “The Story of an Old Oak Tree.” By C.<br /> Thorpe Fancourt. (London: Elliot Stock.)<br /> The tree relates its own experiences with a little<br /> boy and some birds and squirrels. Tried on a<br /> little girl, the result showed that the little book is<br /> able to please. -<br /> “Tales told by the Fireside.” By the Rev.<br /> Charles D. Bell, D.D., Canon of Carlisle. (Elliot<br /> Stock.) Canon Bell, whose poems are well<br /> known, appears in a new line—that of a story-<br /> teller. The book contains seven stories. They are<br /> all stories concerning one family. The author&#039;s<br /> new departure will be welcomed by many friends.<br /> “Sung by Six.” (R. Aickin and Co. Limited,<br /> Belfast.) This is a pretty little volume of verse,<br /> nicely printed and bound, with a very dainty<br /> frontispiece. The Six are Messieurs—or Mesdames<br /> —S. K. Cowan, J. H. Cousins, W. M. Knox, L. J.<br /> McQuilland, W. T. Anderson, and J. J. Pender.<br /> This is presumably the first appearance of these<br /> poets in public. Now, on the mere possibility<br /> that only one of them arrives at worldly fame,<br /> how valuable will this work become in after years!<br /> Have we not, by the way, already heard this<br /> tune : It occurs in the first page we open.<br /> Half the light and the love and the laughter,<br /> Half the fruit and the fulness of earth,<br /> Have sunk in the gloom that hereafter<br /> Will make mute all life&#039;s music and mirth.<br /> “Our Household Insects,” by E. A. Butler.<br /> This is a volume of Longman&#039;s Silver Library.<br /> It is rather a gruesome book, with its pictures<br /> of fleas and parasites, and bloodsuckers, but it<br /> } as the great merit of doing well what it pro-<br /> fesses to do.<br /> Astronomy, Prehistoric Man,<br /> Another addition to the Silver Library is the<br /> book of “Leisure Readings,” by Edward Clodd,<br /> Andrew Wilson, Thomas Foster, A. C. Ranyard,<br /> and Richard Proctor. The book first appeared<br /> in 1882. It contains a collection of papers on<br /> Illusions, and<br /> Ethnology. The last paper — that on “The<br /> Mystery of Edwin Drood”—hath a belated air.<br /> Not many people now care much about “The<br /> Mystery of Edwin Drood.”<br /> Rider Haggard’s “Montezuma&#039;s Daughter&quot;<br /> and Mr. Andrew Lang&#039;s “Cock Lane and<br /> Common Sense” have also been added to the<br /> Silver Library.<br /> “Suggestions for the Promotion of Unity in<br /> Christendom,” by George Edward Turner (Elliot<br /> Stock), is a book which recommends itself, by its<br /> title, to those who believe that such unity is<br /> possible.<br /> *– ~ *<br /> - - -<br /> CORRESPONDENCE,<br /> I.—AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS,<br /> S an Associate of the Authors’ Society for<br /> the past three years, I have followed<br /> with attention and admiration your un-<br /> swerving insistence on the rights of authors<br /> vis-à-vis publishers. I do not presume to<br /> suppose that any point of view in the contro-<br /> versy should occur to one with little expe-<br /> rience in literature and agreements which has<br /> not for years been fully weighed by you, nor to<br /> offer suggestions for publication. When there is<br /> a definite and philanthropic object to attain, every-<br /> one agrees that it is necessary to adopt a definite<br /> strategy of attack, and to remain silent perhaps<br /> on those points of view which do not tell directly<br /> in favour of the contention. I jot down some<br /> thoughts suggested by this first month&#039;s number<br /> of the new year, rather as a silent indorsement of<br /> an unknown member in recognition of the immense<br /> patience and persistence of the Society in the<br /> struggling authors’ behalf.<br /> The January number, as do most numbers,<br /> raises passim most of the grounds which rouse<br /> the Society&#039;s indignation. They are, cursorily,<br /> secret or unwarranted charges (office expenses,<br /> cost of advertisements, &amp;c.); “publishers&#039;<br /> services,” exaggerated importance of ; “remunera-<br /> tion,” impropriety and misleading use of the word<br /> for the earnings which “belong to the creator; ”<br /> binding oneself for a term of years; the literary<br /> agent; unjust percentage of profits taken by<br /> publisher in return for “risk,” &amp;c. The basis of<br /> discussion, and the fighting tone tactically<br /> adopted by the Society, may be gathered from<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#572) ################################################<br /> <br /> 2:18<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> such sentences as these : “We speak of agree-<br /> ments between two honourable men, both of<br /> whom desire nothing more than is fair, and both<br /> of whom would scorn the dirty tricks of secret<br /> profits and lying returns.” “Let us set forth<br /> the conditions as dispassionately as possible&quot;<br /> (recognition of the animosity that has long<br /> formed part of the controversy on one side at<br /> least). “What are the publishers’ services?<br /> What does he actually do for the book P. The<br /> requisite knowledge is equally possessed by his<br /> clerks.” “Literary property belongs to the<br /> creator, not to the middleman” (the word “re-<br /> muneration ” therefore inapplicable—almost an<br /> insult). “The following magnificent offer was<br /> recently made by a publisher of no small note.<br /> If he relied on the ignorance of the<br /> author, he was within his wrongs.”<br /> This insistance, indignation, exposure, must be<br /> viewed by authors, with gratitude; it is a battle<br /> stubbornly fought for them on astute and recog-<br /> mised controversial principles. And the basis of<br /> operations, the fortress on which the attack<br /> rests, is one, the only one, which must exact, and<br /> obtains, the sympathy and support of civilised<br /> society. The recognition of this basis is the<br /> groundwork of these remarks. What is it, then P<br /> The basis of the authors’ claims is nothing<br /> Tmore or less than morality—Christian morality;<br /> it insists that both parties should be actuated by<br /> fairness, honesty, and honour. It insists on the<br /> rights of the author to the profits on his own<br /> work. This is a distinct assertion of the modern<br /> social doctrine; in barbarous times the greater<br /> portion of humanity were slaves, and had no<br /> other rights, either in law or morality, than those<br /> they could claim by force.<br /> In this century, and this country, it seems<br /> ridiculous even to go down to this. What other<br /> principle is ever employed in anything than<br /> the fundamental doctrine of individual liberty P<br /> Well, it seems a flagrant paradox to express,<br /> but the common experience of life points to the<br /> fact that in business, might, and might alone, is<br /> still, as it always has been, the only individual<br /> right. The only difference to barbarism is<br /> that sword and targe are replaced by fraud and<br /> cunning, or tact, patience, self-reliance, and the<br /> strong will. In business a man&#039;s only practical<br /> Tight is the profit that he can get; and literature,<br /> from the point of view of the Society, is a<br /> |business.<br /> To exemplify this, before making deductions,<br /> let us look round. Authors are not the only<br /> creators; there are altists, mechanical inventors,<br /> business men. Every man who aspires to rise is<br /> a creator; a speculator, a shopkeeper, can only<br /> grow rich by the ideas of his brain, which are<br /> creations.<br /> Let us take inventors. How does the<br /> world treat them in the matter of rights? They<br /> sell their patents for what they can get, and there<br /> is no morality yet discovered which can adjust<br /> their claims on the principle of even half profits<br /> in the result. Stevenson&#039;s invention was worth,<br /> roughly, a hundred millions. Would anyone think<br /> of giving it him if he came to life again P. The<br /> highest justice that civilisation has yet conceived<br /> is a lump of bronze, and that posthumous.<br /> There is therefore no practical existent morality<br /> which can justify, by precedent, a claim to a<br /> given share in the profits of a man&#039;s work. It is<br /> an accepted worldly maxim that the capitalist<br /> takes the lion&#039;s share, and the inventor just what<br /> he can get, with no reference to the value of his<br /> patent. A new tie-clip, as a rule, brings more<br /> profit than a steam-engine; a gaudy design on<br /> a tin plate than the invention of porcelain ; a<br /> bread pill than the discovery of the circulation of<br /> the blood.<br /> From a business point of view, then, the author<br /> has no ground to consider himself exceptionally<br /> ill-used, or immorally treated; no right to brand<br /> the publisher with extortion, or complain of his<br /> fraud. To be honourably treated is the excep-<br /> tion; to be cheated, the universal rule. The<br /> point of view that you have seemed, very properly,<br /> to hold in the background is that the publisher<br /> does not really stand to the author in the relation<br /> of agent, middleman, but simply of capitalist to<br /> patentee. I invent a pill—call it a book. Who<br /> asked me to—who wants it P. If I choose that line<br /> of aspiration, or livelihood, instead of opening a<br /> pin-shop, it is my misfortune, or my choice; I have<br /> got to work it on exactly the same moral prin-<br /> ciples as obtain in any other line of speculation.<br /> I have either got to swallow my pill myself, or to<br /> sell it to the capitalist for what he will give, in<br /> order that he can make an innocent and long-<br /> suffering world swallow it for my benefit; and<br /> I get the additional unearned increment of<br /> kudos, by having my name stamped on every<br /> bolus.<br /> But, if we have not the right to appeal to<br /> practical morality, we most certainly retain the<br /> inalienable prerogative of members of an en-<br /> lightened civilisation to put in the foreground<br /> with all the clamour of the world a sentimental<br /> morality which forms the theory of Christian<br /> ethics. It is hypocritical, it is true; but it is<br /> the universal custom in politics, advertisement,<br /> finance. When did we ever prosecute a filibuster-<br /> ing war without flaunting this moral indignation<br /> in the van P. These controversial tactics are there-<br /> fore just as much justified as our wrongs are the<br /> natural outcome of business “morality.”<br /> Let us, then, by all means continue to appeal<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#573) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOIR.<br /> 2 IQ<br /> to a sense of moral equity as the basis of our<br /> claims for the pecuniary recognition of our work;<br /> but let us at the same time acknowledge clearly<br /> to ourselves that we are not adjusting some cruel<br /> and exceptional wrong, but simply “striking for<br /> higher wages” like any other trades union. In<br /> practical fairness, based on the moral fairness of<br /> our ideal, let us wage the war with no fictitious<br /> resentment against the publisher, but simply with<br /> a doggedly good-humoured determination to sweat<br /> him as much as we can, just as until we formed<br /> our union he used to sweat us. In practice, we<br /> can no more regard him as our mere agent or<br /> middleman than the labourer can regard the<br /> capitalist as existing only to put his labour on<br /> the market. It is a trite maxim, but none the<br /> less true, that if there were fewer publishers<br /> there would be fewer authors; for the rank and<br /> file, he provides labour and keeps in work many<br /> of us who without him would find our calling<br /> gone. And it is difficult to assert that the world<br /> would be much the worse off for our loss, any<br /> more than it would if the patent-pill works were<br /> closed. We can therefore only expect the market<br /> wages. As for actual cheating, it is disgusting;<br /> but are not many handicraftsmen cheated by con-<br /> cealing the true value of their work?<br /> Despite the superior dignity of letters, if we<br /> carry out our social doctrine of equality to its<br /> conclusion we are bound to hold our trade, from<br /> a business point of view, on the same level with<br /> all other efforts of man; the majority of us are<br /> mechanical workers for money, and our sublimest<br /> flights of art for art’s sake may be paralleled by<br /> the bricklayer&#039;s dainty dalliance with the trowel.<br /> We must, then, adopt the mechanic&#039;s principle in<br /> fighting for higher wages, and that is simply<br /> trades unions and the strike. We have formed<br /> the union : the logical outcome must be a strike.<br /> Can we strike?<br /> Even here we are in just the same position as<br /> tea-shop maids, labourers, shipbuilders, engineers<br /> ——perhaps a trifle better, since, after all, ours is<br /> almost the smallest trade in point of numbers,<br /> and it is easy to identify each of the hands. In<br /> a lock-out there will always be many of us inclined<br /> to play blackleg for our bread and butter, and<br /> that, as elsewhere, can only be provided against by<br /> a strike fund to support us for a year. And if<br /> we require 381 a week to the labourers&#039; IOS., we<br /> have many wealthy members.<br /> But if our union were ever really to come to<br /> pronounced action, it could do it with far less<br /> loss and suffering than that incurred by poorer<br /> guilds ; and we have two lines of action—separate<br /> or joint. Let us suppose that the Society has<br /> drawn up an instrument guaranteeing, as far as<br /> humanly possible, the minutest rights of authors,<br /> and abolishing every imaginable form of fraud,<br /> extortion, and slavery, and that it only remains<br /> to force it on all present and future publishers<br /> with every conceivable safeguard—-how are they<br /> to be compelled to accept it?<br /> It could be done by from twenty to fifty of our<br /> most popular writers alone, while the small fry<br /> went on picking up crumbs. If these twenty or<br /> fifty authors were to bind themselves to submit<br /> no works for five years to any publisher who<br /> refused the declaration of rights, making allow-<br /> ance for the large number of juniors who could<br /> easily be persuaded to follow the Society&#039;s<br /> advice under their example, in two years sufficient<br /> of the leading houses would have given way to<br /> provide work for all the genuine talent of the<br /> country; and the rest would follow suit or fail.<br /> Or, it could be done by the same twenty to<br /> fifty successful authors subscribing the funds to<br /> start an immense publishing concern of their<br /> own. With 32O,OOO capital guaranteed, and the<br /> scheme definitely set on foot, a thousand smaller<br /> authors would be found to support it with annual<br /> subscriptions or saleable manuscripts with pay<br /> temporarily deferred. -<br /> Or, as a combination of these two schemes, a<br /> smaller publishing house might be started which<br /> would find work for any “marketable ’’ author<br /> who would agree to boycott reprehensible firms.<br /> Even if there was no more to be gained than the<br /> comfort of dealing with honourable men, there is<br /> Surely sufficient esprit de corps to make such a<br /> business pay, and that means to make it a serious<br /> competitor in the publishing world. And the<br /> declared competition of a single reputable firm<br /> on the lines of fairness and audits against<br /> extortion and fraud is sufficient to set the ball<br /> rolling which will make literature the finest pro-<br /> fession in the world.<br /> One last word on this oft-made suggestion of<br /> authors uniting to publish their own works, and<br /> one that has probably struck many as at least<br /> most interesting. That is, that now or never is<br /> the time; and that the now means the establish-<br /> ment of one of the most flourishing and paying<br /> businesses that has ever sprung into being. The<br /> Society of Authors has, perhaps unpremeditatedly,<br /> worked up public opinion and literary esprit de<br /> corps to just that ripe pitch whose natural and<br /> permissible outcome is a great mercantile under-<br /> taking. The whole body of young authors, the<br /> literary world of the next generation, has been<br /> alarmed, disturbed, and perplexed by ideas of<br /> their wrongs which, by business morality, are<br /> simply the universal struggle for life, the common<br /> lot of all ambitions. They have been made to<br /> think that they are being defrauded by no matter<br /> how generous an agreement; they have been<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#574) ################################################<br /> <br /> 22O<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> taught to look to the Society as their sole refuge<br /> from starvation or sweating. And the majority<br /> of established writers are already, by the generous<br /> impulses of the art, committed to the support of<br /> the league. The union of half a dozen leaders<br /> of literature would probably find the capital to<br /> start a publishing house, already advertised as<br /> no other house has ever been, to which every<br /> young author, necessarily including the few<br /> geniuses of the next generation, would flock.<br /> Surely with the support of a few leaders, and the<br /> ick of new genius (which, even more than<br /> established names, makes the fortune of existing<br /> houses), the new firm would have excellent pro-<br /> spects of success.<br /> But only now—during the next few years.<br /> It has not taken the Society ten years to<br /> accomplish the splendid results already felt ; in<br /> another ten years it will, by its persistent and<br /> irresistible momentum, have completed the<br /> revolution — pacifically. That is its aim ; and<br /> it will have achieved it nobly and simply, by<br /> a theoretical appeal to the principles of human<br /> justice.<br /> But it will have lost the opportunity of making<br /> authors complete arbiters of their own success.<br /> C. W. MASON.<br /> 59, Oaklands-road, Cricklewood.<br /> II.-FREE FROM LIABILITY.<br /> I have been much interested in the report, on<br /> page 184 of the January number of the Author,<br /> of a case tried in the courts respecting the return<br /> of a MS., in which it was held that the editor&#039;s<br /> “notice” freed him from liability, even though<br /> he failed to show that he had “used his best<br /> endeavours” to return it.<br /> In this case the author got back his MS.<br /> But suppose it had been lost or destroyed—what<br /> then P Can any person divest himself of his<br /> legal obligations to his fellow-subjects merely<br /> by announcing that he does not intend to observe<br /> them P. It used to be held that he could ; but<br /> that view is not held now. Railway companies,<br /> by a bye-law, used to mulct a passenger who had<br /> lost his ticket by making him pay over again, merely<br /> to save the trouble of verifying his statement;<br /> but that bye-law has been upset. It used to be<br /> held lawful to shoot a dog, even though a valuable<br /> animal, if found trespassing, provided a notice to<br /> that effect was publicly exhibited; but that view, I<br /> believe, is no longer held. I have seen a printed<br /> notice, dating from last century, that “Any person<br /> found trespassing in this plantation will be<br /> shot /* That notice might have been held good in<br /> law then ; could it be pleaded in answer to an<br /> indictment for murder now P<br /> In 1891, I sent a short tale to the editor of a<br /> certain sporting paper, which prints every week a<br /> notice that MS. sent without invitation will not<br /> be returned. I was not aware of this notice when<br /> I sent the MS. It can be easily understood that<br /> the MSS. usually submitted to a paper of that<br /> class would possess only a passing interest; if not<br /> used at once, they would become worthless. But<br /> my MS. was a tale, suitable for other papers as<br /> well as this spºrting journal; it was neatly typed<br /> and bound in pamphlet form, and the typewriting<br /> cost me 6s. to 8s. Hearing nothing of the MS.<br /> after several months, and getting no reply to my<br /> letters inclosing stamps, I applied to Mr. Squire<br /> Sprigge, then secretary of the Authors’ Society;<br /> and he, after some correspondence with the<br /> sporting paper, informed me that the editor denied<br /> all liability, in consequence of his notice. I<br /> sustained, therefore, a pecuniary loss of 6s. to 8s.<br /> Had the editor the right to do this P I think not.<br /> He must have seen at a glance that the MS. had<br /> cost money to type it, and that its non-return<br /> meant a pecuniary loss to the author. Had he the<br /> right to destroy my property, according to an<br /> arbitrary rule which he had made himself?<br /> Seeing that the MS. was of some value (I mean<br /> in a pecuniary sense), he might have put it aside<br /> on a shelf and waited till it was called for. But<br /> he made away with it instead, apparently to save<br /> the trouble of posting it. I sent him stamps for<br /> that purpose.<br /> Now, the question is this: Does any person, no<br /> matter who, editor or not, with notice or without<br /> it, possess the legal right to make away with my<br /> property merely to suit his own convenience P I<br /> fancy not. Only that I was living at a distance<br /> from London at the time, I would have tested<br /> the matter by a summons, and demanded either<br /> the return of the MS. or compensation for the<br /> loss sustained. But I have yet a year or two for<br /> consideration of the matter before my claim is<br /> barred by lapse of time.<br /> Perhaps some of our legal friends will enlighten<br /> us on the subject.<br /> III.-LESS THE ExCHANGE.<br /> When a writer is living abroad, is it customary<br /> for the publisher when sending him a cheque<br /> from London to stop the difference in the<br /> exchange, or ought not the author to have the<br /> advantage of living in a country where the<br /> exchange is high P For years I have always<br /> received cheques with the sum agreed upon intact,<br /> but the other day I had one with the deduction<br /> of the exchange carefully made, accompanied by<br /> a form of receipt on which the full sum was<br /> written. I should like to hear what is con-<br /> sidered fair in this matter. A MEMBER.	https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/286/1896-02-01-The-Author-6-9.pdf	publications, The Author
285	https://historysoa.com/items/show/285	The Author, Vol. 06 Issue 08 (January 1896)	<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.+06+Issue+08+%28January+1896%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 Issue 08 (January 1896)</a>			<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</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>	1896-01-01-The-Author-6-8					173–196																		<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=6">6</a>											<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1896-01-01">1896-01-01</a>							8			18960101	C be El u t b or,<br /> (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors.<br /> Monthly.)<br /> C O N DU C T E D BY W.A. L T E R B E S A. N. T.<br /> VoI. VI.-No. 8.]<br /> JANUARY 1, 1896.<br /> [PRICE SIXPENCE.<br /> For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are<br /> signed or initialled the Authors alone are<br /> responsible. None of the papers or para-<br /> graphs must be taken as eaſpressing the<br /> collective opinions of the committee unless<br /> they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br /> Thring, Sec.<br /> *- ~ *-*<br /> **<br /> HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all<br /> remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and<br /> requests that all members not receiving an answer to<br /> important communications within two days will write to him<br /> without delay. All remittances should be crossed Union<br /> Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered<br /> letter only.<br /> Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on<br /> all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub-<br /> jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are<br /> returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS.<br /> *~ * *<br /> e-- * -—s<br /> WARNINGS AND ADVICE.<br /> I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT. It is not generally<br /> understood that the author, as the vendor, has the<br /> absolute right of drafting the agreement upon<br /> whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out.<br /> Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In<br /> every form of business, this among others, the right of<br /> drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or<br /> has the control of the property.<br /> 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.–In selling Serial Rights remember<br /> that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that<br /> is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you<br /> object to this, insert a clause to that effect.<br /> 3. STAMP You R AGREEMENTs. – Readers are most<br /> URGENTLY warmed not to neglect stamping their agreements<br /> immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected<br /> for two weeks, a fine of £Io must be paid before the agree-<br /> ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every<br /> case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter<br /> which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The<br /> author may be assured that the other party to the agree-<br /> ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society,<br /> to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of<br /> members stamped for them at no ea pense to themselves<br /> eaccept the cost of the stamp. .<br /> 4. AscERTAIN whAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES TO<br /> Both SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an<br /> arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi-<br /> ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> *<br /> refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he<br /> reserved for himself.<br /> 5. LITERARY AGENTS.-Be very careful. You cannot be<br /> too careful as to the person whom you appoint as your<br /> agent. Remember that you place your property almost un-<br /> reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting<br /> the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience<br /> of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone.<br /> 6. CoST OF PRODUCTION.——Never sign any agreement of<br /> which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part,<br /> until you have proved the figures.<br /> 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.–Never enter into any cor-<br /> respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad-<br /> vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced<br /> friends or by this Society.<br /> 8. FUTURE Work.--Never, on any account whatever,<br /> bind yourself down for future work to anyone.<br /> 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or<br /> responsibility whatever without advice.<br /> Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a MS. has been re-<br /> fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises<br /> they may put forward, for the production of the work.<br /> II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American<br /> rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any<br /> agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the<br /> publisher, unless for a substantial consideration.<br /> 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper,<br /> either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright,<br /> without advice.<br /> 13. ADVERTISEMENTs. –- Keep some control over the<br /> advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in<br /> the agreement.<br /> I4. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any<br /> other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy,<br /> charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with<br /> business men. Be yourself a business man.<br /> Society’s Offices :-<br /> 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN&#039;s INN FIELDs.<br /> *~ 2. ~&quot;<br /> a- - -<br /> HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br /> I. WERY member has a right to ask 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 /> business or the administration of his property. If the advice<br /> sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member<br /> has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the<br /> case is such that Counsel’s opinion is desirable, the Com-<br /> mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this<br /> without any cost to the member.<br /> 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br /> and publisher’s agreements do not generally fall within the<br /> T 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#528) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 74<br /> THE AUTHOR,<br /> experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br /> to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually<br /> engaged upon such questions for us. -<br /> 3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past<br /> accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in<br /> order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree-<br /> ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively<br /> so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any<br /> agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor-<br /> mation thus obtained may prove invaluable.<br /> 4. If the examination of your previous business trans-<br /> actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should<br /> take advice as to a change of publishers.<br /> 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro-<br /> posed document to the Society for examination.<br /> 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in<br /> the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish-<br /> ing firm in the country.<br /> 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you<br /> are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are<br /> reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing<br /> the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen-<br /> dence of the writer.<br /> 8. Send to the Editor of the Awthor notes of everything<br /> important to literature that you may hear or meet with.<br /> 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of<br /> members’ agreements and their preservation in a fireproof<br /> safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con-<br /> fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who<br /> will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:—(1)<br /> To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To<br /> stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon<br /> them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments<br /> due according to agreements.<br /> *- a 2-seº<br /> ** * *—s<br /> THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE.<br /> EMBERS are informed :<br /> 1. That the Authors’ Syndicate takes charge of<br /> the business of members of the Society. That it<br /> submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree-<br /> ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene-<br /> rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business<br /> details.<br /> 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured<br /> will be forwarded upon detailed application.<br /> 3. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate works only for those<br /> members of the Society whose work possesses a market<br /> value.<br /> 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations<br /> whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia-<br /> tions are placed ea clusively in its hands, and that all<br /> communications relating thereto are referred to it.<br /> 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by<br /> appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days’<br /> notice should be given.<br /> 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi-<br /> cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent<br /> to defray postage.<br /> 7. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate does not invite MSS.<br /> without previous correspondence; does not hold itself<br /> responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that<br /> in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray<br /> postage.<br /> &amp;<br /> 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for<br /> lectures by some of the leading members of the Society;<br /> that it has a “Transfer Department&#039; for the sale and<br /> purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register<br /> of Wants and Wanted &#039;&#039; is open. Members are invited to<br /> communicate their requirements to the Manager.<br /> There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services<br /> will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It<br /> is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the<br /> Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in<br /> the Syndicate.<br /> -**<br /> NOTICES.<br /> HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the<br /> Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br /> of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very<br /> heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br /> many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br /> 6s. 6d. subscription for the year.<br /> The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and<br /> communications on all subjects connected with literature<br /> from members and others. Nothing can do more good to<br /> the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive,<br /> and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this<br /> work send their names and the special subjects on which<br /> they are willing to write P<br /> Communications for the Author should reach the Editor<br /> not later than the 21st of each month.<br /> All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether<br /> members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate<br /> to the Editor any points connected with their work which<br /> it would be advisable in the general interest to publish.<br /> Members and others who wish their MSS. read are<br /> requested not to send them to the Office without previously<br /> communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable<br /> despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in<br /> which they are received. It must also be distinctly under-<br /> stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances,<br /> undertake the publication of MSS.<br /> The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at<br /> 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary<br /> for information, rules of admission, &amp;c.<br /> Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br /> have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do<br /> this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker&#039;s<br /> order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the<br /> trouble of sending out a reminder.<br /> Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br /> warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a<br /> most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding<br /> for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they<br /> would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five<br /> years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest<br /> or dishonest ? Of course they would not. Why then<br /> hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them-<br /> selves into literary bondage for three or five years P<br /> Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are<br /> requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15<br /> per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble<br /> of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the<br /> pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding<br /> is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be<br /> added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands<br /> at £9 4s. The figures in our book are as near the exact<br /> truth as can be procured; but a printer&#039;s, or a binder&#039;s,<br /> bill is so elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be<br /> arrived at.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#529) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I 75<br /> Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br /> in the “Cost of Production ” for advertising. Of course, we<br /> have not included any sums which may be charged for<br /> inserting advertisements in the publisher&#039;s own magazines,<br /> or in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too<br /> often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from<br /> sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket,<br /> by inserting any number of advertisements in his own<br /> magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are<br /> who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those<br /> who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it.<br /> *-ºs- a -º<br /> r-- - -—s<br /> FROM THE COMMITTEE,<br /> HE Committee beg to remind members that the Sub-<br /> scription for the year is due on January the First.<br /> The most convenient form of payment is by order<br /> on a Bank. This method saves the trouble of remembering.<br /> The Secretary will in future send reminders to members<br /> who are in arrear in February.<br /> The Author will not be sent to members in arrear after<br /> the month of March.<br /> G. H. THRING, Secretary.<br /> *... ak =s*<br /> Q- * *<br /> ADDRESS OF ENGLISH TO AMERICAN<br /> MEN AND WOMEN OF LETTERS,<br /> WHE following Address has been sent out by<br /> the Society of Authors for signature. As<br /> soon as possible it will be forwarded to<br /> the United States. Its importance will rest<br /> entirely on the weight of the names appended:<br /> it is earnestly hoped that all those men and<br /> women of English blood who have made them-<br /> selves respected by their writings across the<br /> Atlantic will sign the paper:—<br /> “At this crisis in the history of the Anglo-<br /> Saxon race, when two paths lie before us, and on<br /> the choice between them depends the future of<br /> that race, it seems to be the plain duty of us who<br /> sign this paper, being followers of literature in<br /> Great Britain, to address upon the subject of<br /> that choice you who follow literature in the<br /> |United States. -<br /> “There are two paths before us. One leads us<br /> we know not whither, but in the end through<br /> war with all its accompaniments of carnage, un-<br /> speakable suffering, limitless destruction, and<br /> hideous desolation to the inevitable sequel of<br /> hatred and bitterness and the disruption of our<br /> race. It is this path which we ask you to join<br /> with us in an effort to make impossible. The<br /> present is neither the time nor the place, nor are<br /> we the persons to deal with the crisis on its<br /> technical issues, but it should not be difficult for<br /> any of us as men and women of reading and<br /> imagination, not liable to be carried away by<br /> political passion, to understand the general bear-<br /> ings of the case on both sides. We, on our part,<br /> are prepared to understand that the United<br /> States, as the greatest nation in America, looks<br /> with proper jealousy on the extension of Euro-<br /> pean powers of influence and territory on the<br /> American continent. And you, on your part,<br /> will not fail to realise that European Powers in<br /> general, and Great Britain in particular, have<br /> never made any effort to enlarge their dominions<br /> on your continent at any time within the past<br /> hundred years. e<br /> “But it is not on grounds of political equity<br /> that we now address you. We are united to you<br /> by many ties, and the first and closest of our ties<br /> is the bond of blood. We are proud of the<br /> United States. There is nothing in our history<br /> that has earned us more glory than the conquest<br /> of the vast American continent by the Anglo-<br /> Saxon race. When our pride is humbled by the<br /> report of some things which you do better than<br /> ourselves, it is also lifted up by the consciousness<br /> that you are our kith and kin. We see very<br /> much of you, and you see much of us. During<br /> the last quarter of a century the influx of<br /> American visitors to these shores has been very<br /> great, while every year sends more and yet more<br /> of our people across the Atlantic. There is<br /> hardly a household in this country without its<br /> American relations, its American friends, without<br /> its sons and daughters settled in America; and<br /> everywhere in England the American people are<br /> settled in our midst. Our public men go to you<br /> for the inspiration of your youthful nation, and<br /> you receive them with boundless hospitality.<br /> Your public men come to us for the interest of<br /> our ancient institutions, and we welcome them as<br /> our brethren. There is no anti-American feeling<br /> among Englishmen, and it is impossible that there<br /> can be any anti-English feeling among Americans.<br /> For two such nations, then, to take up arms<br /> against each other would be civil war, not differing<br /> from your calamitous struggle of thirty years<br /> ago, except that the cause would be immeasurably<br /> less human, less tragic, and less inevitable.<br /> “There is another tie that unites our nations,<br /> and more especially unites those of us who sign<br /> this paper and you who receive it—the tie of<br /> literature. Party problems may solve or exhaust<br /> themselves, burning questions may burn them-<br /> selves out, but the literature which a great race,<br /> divided into two nations, holds as a joint<br /> inheritance will live on after the fever of political<br /> strife has passed away. But though it will live<br /> it may also suffer, and from nothing can a people<br /> take such injury to its moral nature as from the<br /> wounds and scars of its literature; if war should<br /> occur between England and America, English<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#530) ################################################<br /> <br /> 176<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> literature would be dishonoured and disfigured<br /> for a century to come. The patriotic songs, the<br /> histories of victory and defeat, the records of<br /> humiliation and disgrace, the stories of burning<br /> wrong and unavenged insult, these would be<br /> branded deep into the hearts of our peoples, they<br /> would so express themselves in poems and novels<br /> and plays as to make it impossible for any of us<br /> who had lived through such a fratricidal war to<br /> take up again the former love and friendship.<br /> “For the united Anglo-Saxon race that owns<br /> the great names of Cromwell and Washington;<br /> of Lincoln and Nelson; of Gordon and Grant ;<br /> of Shakespeare and Milton ; there is, we trust,<br /> such a future as no other race has yet had in the<br /> history of the world—a future that will be built<br /> on a confederation of Sovereign States, living in<br /> the strength of the same liberties. We ask you<br /> to join us in helping to protect that future.<br /> Poets and creators, scholars and philosophers,<br /> men and women of imagination and of vision, we<br /> call upon you in the exercise of your far-reaching<br /> influence to save our literature from dishonour<br /> and our race from lasting injury.”<br /> *... * *<br /> MR, HALL CAINE&#039;S MISSION.<br /> I.—CANADIAN RECEPTION.<br /> T is gratifying to record that Canada has<br /> herself been the first to acknowledge the<br /> work of our ambassador. On the night<br /> before Mr. Hall Caine left Ottawa, he was enter-<br /> tained at a dinner, which was first conceived of as<br /> a tribute to him as a man of letters, and ended<br /> by being in all senses a ministerial farewell.<br /> Nearly all the Ministers of the Dominion Govern-<br /> ment were present, and the Minister of Justice,<br /> Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper, was in the chair.<br /> In proposing the toast of the evening he said that<br /> his presence side by side with the guest would be<br /> a sufficient answer to the reports so industriously<br /> circulated that the question of Canadian copy-<br /> right had made them public and personal enemies.<br /> All the world knew Mr. Hall Caine as a novelist,<br /> but since his arrival in Canada, he had established<br /> for himself another reputation—that of a great<br /> diplomatist. He used the word advisedly and<br /> with a proper sense of responsibility. Mr.<br /> Caine had conducted difficult and delicate<br /> negotiations with a tact which had awakened the<br /> admiration of his colleagues, and brought to what<br /> appeared to be a settlement, amid the applause of<br /> nearly all the parties concerned, a question which<br /> had for years been a cause of difference between<br /> the Dominion and the old country. Amongst<br /> the other speakers were Mr. Foster, Minister of<br /> Finance, and Mr. Daly, Minister of the Interior.<br /> II.-FROM MR. R.IDOUT.<br /> Toronto, Nov. 18, 1895.<br /> I now inclose a copy of a resolution passed by<br /> The Ontario Society of Artists which has been<br /> forwarded to the Minister of Justice, Ottawa. I<br /> also inclose you a copy of the resolution passed by<br /> the Canadian Institute, on Nov. 16 last, which has<br /> also been forwarded to the Minister of Justice,<br /> Ottawa.<br /> The Canadian Institute is an old and well-<br /> known institute, and representative of Canadian<br /> art, literature, and science. The resolution from<br /> this institute will no doubt have weight with the<br /> Government. As an old member of this Canadian<br /> Institute, I succeeded in getting the resolution<br /> passed. It would be well if a petition were also<br /> presented. Mr. Hall Caine mentioned to me that<br /> such a one was going to be passed round for<br /> signature. I have not seen it yet.<br /> JOHN G. RIDOUT.<br /> III.—THE ONTARIO SOCIETY OF ARTISTs.<br /> Toronto, November 14, 1895.<br /> At the monthly meeting of our Society held<br /> on Tuesday last the following resolution was<br /> adopted:—<br /> “That this Society is of opinion that the<br /> Canadian Copyright Act of 1889, now before the<br /> English Government for ratification, is detri-<br /> mental to the interests of artists in Canada, and<br /> would much regret the withdrawal of Canada<br /> from the International Copyright Convention.”<br /> ROBT. F. GAGEN.<br /> IV.--THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE.<br /> At a meeting of this Association, held on<br /> Saturday, Nov. 16, 1895, a resolution was passed<br /> that the Canadian Government be memorialised<br /> to remain within the Berne Convention.<br /> W.—FROM MR. GoLDw1N SMITH.<br /> To the Editor of the Times.<br /> Sir, Thanks to the eloquence of Mr. Hall<br /> Caine, who spoke admirably well, and to his<br /> diplomacy combined with that of Mr. Daldy, it<br /> appears that we have arrived at a settlement of<br /> the copyright question; though I do not myself<br /> believe that any settlement will prove in the end<br /> satisfactory except that of a uniform copyright<br /> for the whole Empire. Our retail booksellers are<br /> still in arms against the article of the agreement<br /> interfering with the importation of editions<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#531) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE<br /> A UTHOIP. 177<br /> printed in England. They have reason for their<br /> protest. The Canadian High Commissioner says<br /> that no nation except Great Britain treats her<br /> colonies as foreign countries. Can he name any<br /> colonies except those of Great Britain which treat<br /> their mother country as a commercial enemy and<br /> protect themselves against her products?<br /> A wider question, however, and one affecting<br /> the entire constitution of the Empire, has been<br /> raised by this dispute. The British North<br /> America Act reserves to the Imperial Govern-<br /> ment a veto to be exercised in the general inte-<br /> rests of the Empire on all Canadian legislation.<br /> The Act is barely thirty years old, so that its<br /> provisions can hardly have lost their force. Yet<br /> our Minister of Justice, Sir C. Hibbert Tupper,<br /> said the other evening at a public dinner in<br /> Toronto that “the advisers of Her Majesty<br /> would not now dare to disallow the Acts of the<br /> Federal Legislature (of Canada) as had been done<br /> before.” The Imperial veto, in other words, is to<br /> be treated as a practical nullity. Canada asserts<br /> her legislative independence; in insisting on her<br /> right of withdrawing from the Berne Convention<br /> she asserts her diplomatic independence also. If<br /> Sir C. Hibbert Tupper&#039;s reading of the Imperial<br /> Constitution is right, the Parliament and the<br /> Parliamentary Ministry of Great Britain are<br /> merely local, like those of Canada or any other<br /> colony; and nothing is Imperial but a Crown<br /> constitutionally divested of its power. To the<br /> Imperial country no distinction is left except that<br /> of her sole responsibility for Imperial defence.<br /> This theory of the Imperial Constitution has, in<br /> fact, been almost formally advanced in the course<br /> of the copyright discussion. Are you prepared<br /> to accept it? It is time that your minds should<br /> be made up, as this controversy, from which,<br /> perhaps, we have not yet wholly emerged, shows.<br /> —Yours faithfully, GOLDw1N SMITH.<br /> Toronto, Dec. 2.<br /> WI.-CANADIAN COPYRIGHT.<br /> A SHORT Account (from the point of the English<br /> author) of the DRAFT ACT agreed upon by<br /> the Canadian Copyright Association, the<br /> Canadian Publishers’ Association, the Cana-<br /> dian Press Association, on the One part, and<br /> Mr. Hall Caine, representing the English<br /> Society of Authors, on the other part, and<br /> submitted by them to the Dominion Ministers<br /> at the Copyright Conference held at Ottawa,<br /> Monday, Nov. 25, 1895.<br /> I. That when an English author is about to<br /> publish a book simultaneously in England and a<br /> foreign country he shall enter its name and<br /> deposit a copy of it at Ottawa, or (by payment of<br /> a higher fee) at the Canadian High Commis-<br /> sioner’s Office in London.<br /> 2. That by this registration he shall undertake<br /> to print and publish that book in Canada within<br /> sixty days, or, if he can show cause for delay,<br /> within ninety days, of its first publication.<br /> 3. That printing in Canada shall mean the<br /> printing from plates made elsewhere.<br /> 4. That if an author has not published simul-<br /> taneously in England and in a foreign country<br /> (that is to say, if he has lost his American copy-<br /> right) his copyright in Canada shall remain as at<br /> present (under English law) until his book has<br /> been published without copyright and authority<br /> in, say, America. Then it shall be within the<br /> right of a publisher in Canada to apply to the<br /> Minister for a licence to publish it in the<br /> Dominion.<br /> 5. Or if an author has not fulfilled his under-<br /> taking to publish in Canada within the time<br /> prescribed it shall be within the right of a<br /> publisher in Canada to apply for a licence.<br /> 6. But before the license can be granted by the<br /> Minister the author must be informed of the<br /> application and given his choice of accepting it or<br /> of publishing for himself within sixty days.<br /> 7. Publishing for himself means publishing in<br /> his own name, in the name of his agent, of his<br /> English publisher, or of his foreign publisher.<br /> 8. If he should elect to accept the application<br /> for a licence he must receive at least Io per cent.<br /> On a book published at not less than 25 cents,<br /> with not fewer than 500 copies to an edition, his<br /> royalty must be paid in advance, and there must<br /> be only one licence granted for one book.<br /> 9. An author who is about to publish a serial<br /> story in England and in a foreign country (say<br /> America) may protect it during the time of its<br /> publication in parts by entering its name, a<br /> general description of its length and character,<br /> and his own name, &amp;c., at Ottawa or (by payment<br /> of a higher fee) at London.<br /> Io. That if he does not do this, or if he does<br /> not publish in a foreign country (say America)<br /> and his serial is stolen there, the proprietors of<br /> any number of Canadian newspapers may apply<br /> to Ministers for a licence to print it.<br /> II. The author may stop them from doing so<br /> by undertaking to arrange for the publication<br /> in Canada within sixty days.<br /> I2. Or he may accept the applications, and in<br /> that case they must bring him small payments of<br /> twenty-five dollars from newspapers published in<br /> towns of under one hundred thousand inhabi-<br /> tants, and fifty dollars from newspapers published<br /> in towns of over one hundred thousand.<br /> 13. There are various penalties for violation of<br /> copyright, &amp;c.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#532) ################################################<br /> <br /> 178<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 14. The rights enjoyed by English authors<br /> are to be enjoyed by American authors and by<br /> the authors of every country having a copyright<br /> treaty with England.<br /> WII.-LETTER FROM MR. HALL CAINE TO THE<br /> -- TIMEs.<br /> Sir, With the knowledge and goodwill of Sir<br /> Charles Hibbert Tupper, the Minister of Justice<br /> at Ottawa, and with the consent and sympathy of<br /> the Canadian Copyright Association and the<br /> Publishers’ Association of Toronto, I wish to<br /> make a general explanation of the draft Bill<br /> which authors and publishers recommended to<br /> the Dominion Government yesterday as a basis<br /> for any fresh legislation on Canadian copyright<br /> which in the exercise of their judgment they may,<br /> perhaps, submit to the Canadian Parliament.<br /> The object of making this draft Bill public at the<br /> present moment is to afford to English authors,<br /> publishers, and owners of copyrights a proper<br /> and timely opportunity, before the Dominion<br /> ministers have attempted to give shape to new<br /> legislation, of saying if they foresee any serious<br /> disadvantages in the operation of a Canadian<br /> Copyright Act which should be founded on these<br /> lines:—<br /> SYNOPSIS OF DEAFT ACT.<br /> I. Any citizen of any country which grants copyright to<br /> British subjects may secure copyright in Canada for forty-<br /> two years.<br /> 2. The Act is not retroactive.<br /> 3. Any work hereafter issued that may have copyright<br /> under this Act shall have copyright in Canada without<br /> printing in Canada, subject to certain restrictions in the<br /> case of a book.<br /> 4. Any such work, and any work first produced in<br /> Canada, may secure exclusive copyright in Canada.<br /> 5. Every book published in a foreign country, simultane-<br /> ously with its publication in the British Dominions, must be<br /> registered simultaneously at Ottawa. If the book is pub-<br /> lished in the country of origin only, the owner may register<br /> at Ottawa at any time until a licence has been applied for.<br /> If a book is to be or is first published in Canada, it must be<br /> registered on or before day of publication.<br /> 6. Three copies of every copyrighted book or work,<br /> printed or produced in Canada, must be delivered at<br /> Ottawa.<br /> 7. From the day of registration importation must cease,<br /> except as to two copies which any person may import, and<br /> except as to copies of the book printed and published for<br /> circulation in the United Kingdom, which may be imported<br /> for sixty days, when the Canadian edition is to be ready.”<br /> 8. Application to print a book under licence, stating the<br /> proposed retail price, may be made to the Department :<br /> (a) When the book is registered at Ottawa and is not<br /> produced in Canada, within sixty days; or,<br /> (b) When the book is published in the country of origin<br /> only, and is published or announced for publication, with-<br /> out, copyright, in a foreign country.<br /> (c) When the book is published simultaneously in the<br /> * See P.S. to this letter.<br /> British Dominions and in a foreign country, or vice versa,<br /> but not registered or published simultaneously in Canada.<br /> 9. The registration mentioned above may be made at<br /> Ottawa ; or, for the convenience of authors abroad, it may<br /> be made at the office of the High Commissioner of Canada<br /> at London, provided the author pays the cost of cabling the<br /> fact of registration to Ottawa.<br /> I9. This registration involves an undertaking to print and<br /> publish an edition of the book in Canada within the sixty<br /> days following.<br /> THE AUTHOR GIVEN A SECOND CHANCE TO SECURE;<br /> COPYRIGHT.<br /> II. It will be seen that the author has already been given<br /> one opportunity to secure exclusive copyright in Canada.<br /> He is now given a second opportunity as follows:<br /> I2. On receipt of the application for a licence, the Minister<br /> is to telegraph or cable particulars to the publisher of the<br /> book in the country of origin, offering the choice of two<br /> plans, as follows:—<br /> (a) The copyright owner may accept the application, in<br /> which case the licence will issue forthwith ; or,<br /> (b) He may refuse the application and decide to retain<br /> the copyright himself, in which case he must register<br /> within seven days of the notice from the Minister, and<br /> must produce the book in Canada within the sixty days<br /> following. -<br /> 13. Should no answer be received by the Minister within<br /> seven days, the licence is to issue. All licences are to be<br /> given on certain conditions, as follows:<br /> I4. The applicant to agree to publish without alteration<br /> or abridgment, to pay the author a royalty of Io per cent.<br /> on the retail price, which royalty is in no case to be less<br /> than 23 cents, on each copy, and to pay the royalty on<br /> editions of 500 copies at a time, each copy of each edition to<br /> be stamped by the Department of Inland Revenue before<br /> being in any way disposed of.<br /> I5. The licence may be cancelled should a new edition<br /> with material alterations or additions be produced in the<br /> country of origin. The author is entitled to copyright on<br /> the new edition as though it were a new book. Should the<br /> author not register the new edition, the licence shall revert<br /> to the original licensee.<br /> I6. Importation ceases in the case of application for<br /> licence, the same as in the case of registration for copyright.<br /> 17. A copyright book going out of print must be reprinted<br /> within sixty days, otherwise a licence may be issued.<br /> 18. Books to be published under licence are to be printed<br /> within thirty days after issue of licence.<br /> 19. The Minister may, for cause, allow an extension of<br /> thirty days beyond any term specified as that in which a book<br /> must be printed in Canada.<br /> SERIAL COPYRIGHT.<br /> 2O. The author has the right to arrange for exclusive<br /> serial publication in Canada. Also by registration at<br /> Ottawa, he may protect his serial while it is in course of<br /> publication in any country.<br /> 21. Should he fail to do so, application for a licence to<br /> publish serially under licence may be made. Here, again,<br /> the author is given a second opportunity to retain exclusive<br /> eopyright, as follows:—<br /> 22. On receipt of the application for a serial licence the<br /> Minister is to telegraph or cable particulars to the publisher<br /> of the paper publishing the work in the country of issue,<br /> offering the choice of two plans, as follows:—<br /> (1) He may accept the application, in which case the<br /> licence issues forthwith ; or,<br /> (2) He may refuse the application, and decide to arrange<br /> for serial publication himself, in which case he must<br /> register within seven days of the notice from the Minister,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#533) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I 79<br /> and arrange for serial publication of the work within sixty<br /> days.<br /> 23. Should no answer be received by the Minister within<br /> seven days the licence issues forthwith, on conditions as<br /> follows:<br /> 24. The publisher agrees to publish the work in full.<br /> 25. The licence conveys exclusive right for the city, town,<br /> or village for which issued.<br /> 26. The licensee is to pay fifty dollars for papers in<br /> cities of Ioo,ooo population or over, and twenty-five dollars<br /> for cities, &amp;c., of less than IOO,OOO.<br /> 27. Thereafter, a licence is to be issued to all applicants<br /> on above conditions without further cabling.<br /> 28. Every registration for copyright or serial copyright<br /> and for every application for licence is to be published once<br /> in Canada Gazetle.<br /> 29. This serial licence gives no other right to print aud<br /> publish the work in any other form whatever.<br /> I now submit this draft Bill, with respectful<br /> homage, for the consideration of the Secretary of<br /> State for the Colonies, of Sir William Martin<br /> Conway and the Society of Authors, and of<br /> English publishers. It is a Bill to which the<br /> Canadian Copyright Association and other<br /> interested classes in Canada pledge themselves,<br /> and it is a basis on which, I have the best reason<br /> to think, fresh legislation might, perhaps, be<br /> framed, agreeably to the wish of the Canadian<br /> Government. I shall not traverse the points at<br /> which it seems to me better for English authors<br /> than the proposed Act of 1889, or attempt to<br /> show the particulars in which the interested<br /> parties in Canada have made concessions to our<br /> claims. Neither shall I discuss the constitutional<br /> question of Canada&#039;s rights to legislate so as to<br /> cover the interests of English authors, or yet<br /> touch the vexed problem of manufacture as a<br /> limitation of the principle of copyright. But I<br /> will try to indicate the operation of an Act which,<br /> in the wisdom of the Dominion Government,<br /> might, perhaps, be based on these general lines:—<br /> I. Such an Act would be limited in its opera-<br /> tion to the works of the popular authors. This<br /> would meet one of the objections of Mr. Goldwin<br /> Smith to the clause requiring that a book should<br /> be printed in the Dominion.<br /> 2. If a book would not pay to print and pub-<br /> lish in Canada, it would not therefore fail of copy-<br /> right there. The original edition could go into<br /> the Dominion, as at present, during the whole<br /> term of its copyright in the country of its origin.<br /> This would meet the case described in the valu-<br /> able letter of Mr. Herbert Spencer.<br /> 3. Though a new writer might lose his copy-<br /> right in America by failing to comply with the<br /> American Copyright Act, he would not therefore<br /> lose his copyright in Canada, where he would<br /> hold it absolutely until the end of his term. This<br /> would meet the painful case of such young<br /> writers as Miss Beatrice Harraden.<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> 4. Such an Act would not exclude from Canada<br /> the English book which had been copyrighted in<br /> the United States, but never registered or licensed<br /> in the Dominion, but it would exclude the<br /> American reprint of a book which had been<br /> registered or licensed, and it would also exclude<br /> the English colonial reprint, which was meant to<br /> meet a condition that is gone—the condition of<br /> general piracy in the United States—and would<br /> then be useless and mischievous; and it would<br /> also exclude the English edition after the pub-<br /> lication of the Canadian edition.<br /> 5. Our understanding with the United States<br /> would not be endangered, because American<br /> authors would enjoy the same privileges and be<br /> under the same obligations as English authors.<br /> 6. Such an Act would not imperil the great<br /> advantages to English authors of American copy-<br /> right, because it would put it within the author&#039;s<br /> control (both under the condition of registration<br /> and under the condition of license) to see that<br /> his American market could not be injured in<br /> Canada.<br /> 7. Such an Act should not be inconsistent with<br /> the spirit of the Berne Convention. As the<br /> excellent report of the departmental representa-<br /> tives (1892) very properly says: “The Conven-<br /> tion merely stipulates that foreign copyright<br /> owners are to be entitled to the same rights and<br /> privileges as British copyright owners, and if the<br /> rights of British copyright owners are cut down<br /> by such licences, foreign copyright owners are not<br /> entitled to complain of their rights being cut<br /> down to a similar extent.<br /> 8. Such an Act ought to enable the Dominion<br /> Government to withdraw its application to<br /> denounce the Berne Convention, and so to remove<br /> the danger under which Canadian authors now<br /> stand of being put into a position of isolation.<br /> 9. The interposition of a Government depart-<br /> ment (the Department of Agriculture) in the pub-<br /> lishing industry of Canada—now perplexed by<br /> the uncertainties of the Foreign Reprints Act,<br /> and threatened with the intricacies of the pro-<br /> posed legislation of 1889—would be confined to<br /> a single and simple transaction, which would<br /> probably be the less frequent form of arrange-<br /> ment.<br /> In conclusion I venture to counsel my brother<br /> authors not to inquire too curiously into the<br /> constitutional question involved in Canada&#039;s<br /> demand to legislate for herself, and I promise<br /> them, after yesterday&#039;s public conference with the<br /> Premier, Sir Mackenzie Bowell, and the Minister<br /> of Justice, Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper, as well<br /> as with the representatives of the publishing,<br /> printing, and bookselling industries throughout<br /> the Dominion, that Canada is at this moment in<br /> TJ<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#534) ################################################<br /> <br /> 18O<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> the mood to deal with us, if we are conciliatory<br /> and reasonable, not only justly, but generously.<br /> In the last word I desire to make acknowledg-<br /> ment of the valuable assistance of Mr. F. R.<br /> Daldy. I must not charge him with any re-<br /> sponsibility for the principle of this Bill, which<br /> must be laid to my own account entirely; but I<br /> should be very wanting in gratitude if I did not<br /> say how much I owe to his special knowledge of<br /> copyright law and to his warm sympathy and<br /> untiring help. Mr. Daldy is to remain some days<br /> longer in Ottawa, and he will, I am sure, obtain<br /> some further concessions on points of detail.—<br /> Yours very truly, HALL CAINE.<br /> Ottawa, Nov. 26.<br /> P.S.—Since writing the foregoing Mr. Daldy<br /> and I have heard from the Dominion Ministers<br /> that they cannot propose to exclude any English<br /> book except the colonial edition after publication<br /> of the Canadian edition. The exclusion of the<br /> English edition was a concession made by me<br /> to secure certain of the authors’ rights. To-night<br /> (Tuesday) the Canadian Copyright Association<br /> writes asking me if I would agree to the with-<br /> drawal of the prohibition on English editions. I<br /> have answered that I would agree. Therefore,<br /> this clause of the foregoing draft may, I think,<br /> be read as abandoned. HALL CAINE.<br /> Dec. 5, 1895.<br /> VIII.-CANADIAN COPYRIGHT IIEGISLATION.<br /> Canadian copyright legislation has been ad-<br /> vanced by another not unimportant stage. The<br /> draft Act which Mr. Hall Caine brought back to<br /> England as the basis of compromise which had<br /> been submitted to the Dominion Government has<br /> been reported upon by the home authorities and<br /> revised by Parliamentary counsel, and will pro-<br /> bably be returned to Ottawa at an early date.<br /> It is understood that the revision consists in the<br /> main of technical changes which are intended to<br /> bring the Act into harmony with the terms of<br /> Imperial legislation, and that it removes the<br /> prohibition on books lawfully printed and pub-<br /> lished for general circulation in countries of the<br /> Berne Copyright Union.<br /> This change will no doubt meet the only objec-<br /> tion urged against the Bill in Canada on behalf of<br /> Canadian readers and retail booksellers, and it is<br /> therefore not unlikely that the Minister of Justice<br /> will put the Act in hand before the dissolution of<br /> the Dominion Parliament in the spring. In that<br /> event it seems probable that there will be no<br /> further opposition in this country. — Times,<br /> Dec. 23, 1895.<br /> changes.<br /> EDUCATIONAL BOOKS.<br /> T a meeting of the committee of manage-<br /> ment held on Monday, Dec. 9, a sub-com-<br /> mittee was appointed to investigate and<br /> to report upon the question of the publishing of<br /> educational works. The sub-committee will be<br /> extremely obliged if members of the Society will<br /> interest themselves in this important work and<br /> forward to the secretary their own experience, or<br /> that of their friends, with the accounts and the<br /> agreements. It is understood that no cases will<br /> be published with names unless by permission of<br /> the authors concerned.<br /> The following, for instance, is the experience of<br /> one writer of educational books:—<br /> “For my first book I agreed with my publisher<br /> to receive a royalty of Io per cent., to begin after<br /> the first thousand were sold. This book has done<br /> extremely well—so well that I think the publishers<br /> ought to have gone beyond the agreement and<br /> paid me royalties as from the beginning. I have<br /> done two other books for the same publishers on<br /> Io per cent. from the beginning; the work was<br /> of a kind which necessitated considerable sums of<br /> umoney spent in copying books and other pay-<br /> ments, amounting to about £50 in all. This<br /> money has been paid by me, not by the publishers.<br /> I do not know what proportion of profit has<br /> been taken by the publishers and what has gone<br /> to me.<br /> “I next made arrangements with a general<br /> editor of a certain firm to edit a book for which I<br /> was to receive a certain sum—quite a small sum.<br /> I worked at this for nearly a year, and had done<br /> about half the work, when the general editor<br /> resigned, and his place was taken by another man<br /> who refused to accept the work on which his pre-<br /> decessor had engaged me, and which I had already.<br /> half finished. I have done another book for an<br /> educational series for which I am receiving a .<br /> royalty of 7% per cent. on the published price.<br /> With regard to this book, I made it a condition<br /> when I contributed it to the series that it should<br /> be planned in a certain manner.<br /> “Thris was agreed to, and I spent a year&#039;s hard<br /> work upon it. This summer, however, without<br /> any warning to me, the publishers have issued in<br /> the same series an “alternative’ book to my own.<br /> It is a work closely modelled on mine with certain<br /> I should like to ask whether there<br /> ought not to be some protection for contributors<br /> to an educational series against the introduction<br /> of ‘alternative&#039; volumes embodying, as far as<br /> may be convenient, the fruits of their labour.”<br /> This case illustrates the need for the inquiry of<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#535) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 181<br /> the newly appointed sub-committee. The royal-<br /> ties are simply sweating. As for the introduction<br /> of an “alternative” volume, this extraordinary<br /> statement demands further investigation.<br /> * * ==s*<br /> r----,<br /> OFFICE EXPENSES.<br /> HE question whether a publisher is entitled<br /> to charge for office expenses is growing<br /> larger and more important. In fact, the<br /> relations between author and publisher cannot be<br /> discussed, to say nothing of being settled, until<br /> this question has been thoroughly thrashed out.<br /> Every honest man is agreed that there must be<br /> no secret charge of any kind; that to spend £80<br /> and to tell the author in the accounts that £IOO<br /> has been spent is—but it is quite unnecessary to<br /> say here what that is.<br /> We wish to speak of agreements and terms of<br /> partnership between two honourable men, both of<br /> whom desire nothing more than is fair, and both<br /> of whom would scorn the dirty tricks of Secret<br /> profits and lying returns.<br /> Let us set forth the conditions of the question<br /> as fairly and as dispassionately as possible.<br /> We will here consider only that kind of book<br /> which carries with it no risk. By this we mean a<br /> book which is certain to pay for the actual cost of<br /> production with some margin, great or small; a<br /> book of which the publisher knows that he can<br /> dispose of a certain minimum which will at<br /> least clear his liability, and which he hopes will<br /> greatly exceed that sum. In every branch of<br /> literature there are a great many authors whose<br /> books fall under this head—books without risk.<br /> Of course we cannot admit that kind of risk<br /> incurred when a publisher, for the sake of saving<br /> a little on the cost of production, issues a much<br /> larger edition than he can depend upon selling.<br /> Thus, if a writer has recently written a book which<br /> has gone through an edition of 2000, the publisher<br /> would not be justified in complaining of the risk<br /> he had undertaken if he were to begin with an<br /> edition of 4OOO.<br /> Let us, as usual, deal with our customary<br /> example, the 6s. book; not necessarily a novel.<br /> There are three methods of publishing : that<br /> of purchase, which is perhaps the best of all if<br /> the author obtains the proper price : of profit-<br /> sharing, also very good if the author gets his<br /> proper share : of royalties, which is very good if<br /> the author gets a proper royalty.<br /> Now, when any one of these methods is dis-<br /> cussed, the publisher, too often, objects, generally<br /> putting the two together, the cost of advertise-<br /> ment, and his enormous office expenses.<br /> As regards the former, that forms part of the<br /> cost of production, and is only mentioned here<br /> because it is sometimes lumped together with office<br /> expenses in the desire to pass the latter because<br /> the former cannot well be disputed. One word re-<br /> garding the cost of advertising. It is as well<br /> to remind the reader what it means. Thus the<br /> expenditure of £10 on advertising means:<br /> On the first thousand copies an addi-<br /> tion of .................................... 2#d.<br /> On the first two thousand ............... Iłd.<br /> On the first three thousand ............ #d.<br /> Of the first ten thousand 9-d.<br /> to the cost of every volume. .<br /> So that if £30 is spent on advertising a book<br /> which has a sale of Io,000, the cost of production<br /> is increased by #d. for every volume. Of course<br /> this does not include advertising in a publisher&#039;s<br /> own newspapers or exchanges, either open or<br /> concealed.<br /> Let us return to the clause for charging office<br /> expenses.<br /> It is a new thing. Formerly a publisher<br /> agreed, if he thought a book likely to succeed, to<br /> take the risk and give his services in considera-<br /> tion of half, or one-third, of the profits. The<br /> word “profits” was understood to mean the<br /> difference between the gross receipts and the<br /> money spent on production. This point is estab-<br /> lished by Charles Knight, who gives the accounts<br /> of Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall,” on a profit-sharing<br /> agreement (see p. 183). Knight wrote fifty years<br /> ago, but he calls attention to the tampering with<br /> accounts which had then become too common a<br /> practice.<br /> The point, however, is this: that a hundred<br /> years ago a profit-sharing agreement in which the<br /> publisher gave his risk and his services in return<br /> for an agreed share of profits did not allow him,<br /> nor was it ever thought of, to deduct his office<br /> expenses, and then begin to share. The bargain<br /> was that in return for his share he should take<br /> the risk and give his services. Now his services<br /> meant then, and they mean now, the use of the<br /> whole of his machinery.<br /> We have here eliminated the question of risk.<br /> That is to say, we are considering only that class<br /> of books, now become very large, in the produc-<br /> tion of which there is no risk,<br /> The services of the publisher remain; and for<br /> these services he must be remunerated on such a<br /> scale as will pay him a fair margin over and above<br /> his office expenses.<br /> What are these services P. That is the question<br /> on which depends the adjustment of the relations<br /> between author and publisher. What does the<br /> publisher actually do for the book? His own<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#536) ################################################<br /> <br /> 182<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> personal work lies first in giving the machinery<br /> of his office and clerks whereby the book can get<br /> printed, and bound, and distributed, and the<br /> accounts collected. All this is pure routine, and<br /> is the daily work of clerks, accountants and<br /> travellers. There is not the least mystery or<br /> difficulty about it. Knowledge there must be,<br /> viz., as to the proper charges for printing, binding<br /> and paper; but knowledge that the clerks and<br /> accountants may possess as much as the principal.<br /> There is, next, the decision as to the best number<br /> to start with, a difficulty easily met in the case of<br /> the book we are considering—a book that carries<br /> no risk. Then comes the amount of expense that<br /> the book will “bear” in advertising—a point<br /> as to which all publishers differ in practice.<br /> One does not desire in the least to undervalue the<br /> personal work done for the book by the publisher;<br /> but can anyone find any other contribution to the<br /> success of the book P. In other words, what does<br /> a publisher do for a book whose production carries<br /> no risk, more than has been stated above P -<br /> Yet for doing this simple routine work by the<br /> hands of his clerks some publishers claim the<br /> right of charging first for office expenses, and<br /> then actually going halves—if not worse—with<br /> the owner and creator of the property<br /> On what grounds can this claim be allowed P<br /> Do other people—agents — stewards — trades-<br /> men—ever make such a claim P What would be<br /> thought of a rent collector—a solicitor—a land<br /> agent—a house agent--demanding first a deduc-<br /> tion for the Office expenses, and, next, half what is<br /> left for himself? The thing would be monstrous.<br /> In all work done for other people, of whatever<br /> kind, the office expenses must be met by the man<br /> who does the work. It is his affair. He has got<br /> to make his own machinery; to buy his own tools.<br /> The doctor does not charge for the carriage in<br /> which he drives about: the solicitor does not charge<br /> for the clerks who do his writing: the barrister<br /> does not charge for his rent and his clerks; on<br /> the contrary, the charges of all these men are<br /> uniform, and on the same scale, whether there<br /> are few clerks or many. There cannot, in fact,<br /> be named any kind of trade or profession, except<br /> that of publishing, in which it is pretended that<br /> the shop or the office is charged for separately.<br /> That there must be a first charge on the shop-<br /> keeper&#039;s returns for rent and servants is obvious;<br /> and there must be a margin, otherwise the shop-<br /> keeper could not live.<br /> Some time ago an interesting interview with a<br /> publisher, already referred to in these columns,<br /> appeared in the New Budget. This publisher,<br /> speaking of a popular six shilling novel, lamented<br /> bitterly that the author got eighteenpence a copy,<br /> but that he himself, after deducting the cost of<br /> production, the advertisements, and his office<br /> eapenses, only made sevenpence a copy. Only<br /> sevenpence Poor man. It was a very popular<br /> book. It sold a great many thousands. If it<br /> sold 40,000 copies this publisher received, there-<br /> fore, no more than £1 166 in three months for<br /> doing—what? We have seen above all that he<br /> did. His figures, besides, require auditing.<br /> Since, however, it is desired to decide upon a fair<br /> adjustment with the publisher, one which shall<br /> include office expenses and leave a proper margin,<br /> there are two or three other things necessary to<br /> be considered. Thus, we must ascertain what are<br /> office expenses, and what proportion they bear to<br /> each book. In order to do this it would be<br /> necessary to have access to the publisher&#039;s books<br /> —all his books—a thing not easy to get. Yet<br /> without these books it is impossible to arrive at<br /> any answer.<br /> The expenses include rent, taxes, readers, clerks,<br /> servants, fire and lighting, travellers, stationery,<br /> and all the ordinary expenses of an office. In the<br /> case of the new publisher, with his two rooms<br /> and his two boys and no traveller, these expenses<br /> are not, of course, considerable; a few hundreds<br /> a year would cover them.<br /> In the case of a great house they are,<br /> naturally, very large indeed. One is quite willing<br /> to admit the fact. The question is, first, how<br /> much are they, year by year, on an average as<br /> shown by the books P. Next, what are the average<br /> sales, year by year, of all the firm’s publications,<br /> as shown by the books?<br /> For instance, the publisher above referred to<br /> calculated the office expenses on each volume at<br /> something like 50l., i.e., the share of office expenses<br /> on that one successful book would be—putting the<br /> circulation at 40,000—3833 for three months<br /> If one book out of all those in his list cost £833<br /> for three months to distribute, how terrible must<br /> be his office expenses taken as a whole and divided<br /> among all the books The figures are the pub-<br /> lisher&#039;s own—not ours. But does this include<br /> the advertising P Yes: but the sum of £100,<br /> which is enormous, spent in advertising would<br /> not mean so much as three farthings a volume.<br /> However, let us take a more reasonable view of<br /> things. We will suppose that the sum of £3000<br /> covers all office expenses. There are houses<br /> where, no doubt, this sum would not nearly cover<br /> expenses; there are also smaller ones where this<br /> sum is not nearly reached. We may fairly con-<br /> sider that one volume may be taken with another.<br /> That is to say, there is as much trouble and work<br /> over the distribution of a half-crown volume as<br /> over a half-guinea, volume. So that if, for in-<br /> stance, the whole sales of the year amount to<br /> 24O,OOO volumes, we have to divide the office<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#537) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 183<br /> expenses by this number of volumes in order to<br /> arrive at the share of each.<br /> Now £3000 divided by 240,000 gives the sum of<br /> 3d. for each volume, i.e. if 3 s. 6d. be the trade price<br /> of the volume, 7 per cent. On the gross receipts<br /> will be wanted for office copies. But these figures<br /> are purely imaginary. Nor can any general<br /> percentage be arrived at, because the pro-<br /> portion must vary with the business done by any<br /> house.<br /> The next consideration is very important. It<br /> is this. If the office expenses of the publisher<br /> are to be charged, those of the author must<br /> also be charged as well. Now, the office expenses<br /> of the author are sometimes very heavy indeed.<br /> A case was recorded in these pages some time ago<br /> in which an author who wrote a small book for a<br /> sum of £1oo found it necessary to make three<br /> journeys at a cost of £35 in order to verify<br /> certain points. Were not these office expenses?<br /> Then there is the rent of his study; the payment<br /> of the typewriter; that of the occasional or regular<br /> shorthand writer; the cost of fire and lights; the<br /> share of servant’s work; paper; books bought<br /> —often an extremely heavy outlay; sometimes<br /> research and copying to be done and paid for.<br /> Are not those things as much office expenses as<br /> the publisher&#039;s office P Of course they are.<br /> Think what they mean. The rent of the study<br /> can hardly be placed at less than £30; the type-<br /> writer takes perhaps &amp; IO; the shorthand writer<br /> may perhaps be had for part of the time at, say,<br /> IOS. a week, or say only £20 a year; books, paper,<br /> and other things easily rise into another £2O a<br /> year. His office expenses, therefore, amount to<br /> £8o a year, say £80 for the one book.<br /> We are sometimes told that office expenses<br /> mean Io per cent. of the gross receipts: we are<br /> not informed how that figure has been arrived at.<br /> Let it pass, however. Now, IO per cent. On a 6s.<br /> book means Io per cent. On 3.s. 6d., or 4+d. If a<br /> writer of whose book 3000 copies are sold received<br /> the same allowance he would still be a loser,<br /> because he would only receive £52 IOS. for his<br /> office expenses. In other words, if a writer is to<br /> receive Io per cent. on the returns for his office<br /> expenses, he must have a sale of 4600 before his<br /> office expenses for one year are paid.<br /> To sum up. First of all, a claim for office<br /> expenses is a new thing invented of late years.<br /> (2) The publisher&#039;s services, for which alone,<br /> in a book without risk, he can claim anything,<br /> mean the use of his office, which can no more<br /> be considered separately, in such a book as<br /> we are considering, than it is when dealing<br /> with a solicitor, a doctor, a barrister, a printer,<br /> a carrier, a rent collector, an agent, or one who<br /> does any kind of work for any other man. The<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> publisher and his office are one. (3) If the pub-<br /> lisher&#039;s office expenses are to be charged to his<br /> account separately, so must the author&#039;s. (4) The<br /> real office expenses, together with the average<br /> number of volumes sold, cannot be arrived at<br /> without examination of the books, and no charge<br /> can be allowed in any kind of account or bill<br /> which cannot be audited and verified.<br /> Two methods are possible. The first is for both<br /> author and publisher to take a percentage—the<br /> same—on the receipts, or on the cost of production,<br /> for office expenses, and then to proceed with the<br /> division. Of course this is the same thing as<br /> taking no notice of them—the old plan. The<br /> other method is for the author to have nothing to<br /> do with the publisher&#039;s office expenses at all, but<br /> to give him a royalty as remuneration for his<br /> services which shall include office expenses with<br /> a fair margin for himself.<br /> *-- ~ --&quot;<br /> e- * *—s<br /> A HUNDRED YEARS AGO,<br /> HE following extract, taken from Knight&#039;s<br /> “Shadow of the Old Bookseller,” shows<br /> what was meant a hundred years ago by<br /> a profit-sharing agreement — two-thirds of the<br /> profits to go to the author and one-third to the<br /> publisher; the actual cost of production to be<br /> taken from the gross returns; the publisher&#039;s<br /> remuneration or share to include his services, i.e.,<br /> his office, clerks, and general machinery. What<br /> else, indeed, could the publisher of Gibbon’s<br /> “Decline and Fall ” do for the book P<br /> “State of the account of Mr. Gibbon’s “Roman Empire.”<br /> Third edition. Ist vol. No. IOOO. April 3°,1777.<br /> S.<br /> Printing 80 sheets at £1 6s. with notes at the<br /> bottom of the paper ...... ........... ........ I 17 o o<br /> 180 reams of paper at 19s. ........................ I7 I O O<br /> Paid the corrector extra care ..................... 5 5 O<br /> Advertisements and incidental expenses ......... I6 I5 o<br /> 3IO O O<br /> 3 S. d.<br /> IOOO books at 16s. .................. 8OO o o<br /> Deduct as above ..................... 3IO O O<br /> Profits on the edition......... 490 O O<br /> Mr. Gibbon&#039;s two-thirds is ........................ 326 I3 4<br /> Messrs. Strahan and Cadell&#039;s........... * . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 6 8<br /> 490 O O<br /> I should be unwilling to raise any invidious<br /> comparisons between the publishers of the<br /> eighteenth and those of the nineteenth century;<br /> but, if I am not mistaken, the ordinary profits<br /> would—say twenty-five years ago — have been<br /> taken upon a different principle, and the account<br /> X<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#538) ################################################<br /> <br /> 184<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> would have assumed something like the follow-<br /> ing shape:<br /> Hypothetical account, wbom the half profit system, of a<br /> book which cost £31o.<br /> 3 s. d.<br /> 1000 at 16s. ............................................. 8oo o o<br /> Less IO per cent. for publisher ..................... 8o o o<br /> 720 o o<br /> Deduct as above ............... 3IO O O<br /> 4IO O O<br /> Half share to author ............... 2O5 O O<br /> Half share to publisher, with<br /> £80 commission .................. 205 o o&#039;<br /> By “five and twenty years ago.” Knight<br /> clearly means his own time of writing, which was<br /> about thirty years ago, when cookery applied to<br /> publishers&#039; accounts was already one of the Fine<br /> Arts. Let us give another hypothetical case<br /> showing a modern account not worse than has been<br /> found in certain cases brought to the Society<br /> within the last ten years. Of course the pro-<br /> cess of Cookery was not shown in the account<br /> rendered.<br /> True Cost. Charge.<br /> 48 S. d. 48 S. d.<br /> Printing.............................. II 7 O O I28 I 4 O<br /> Paper................................. I71 o o 188 2 O<br /> Corrections ..................... ... .5 S O IO IO O<br /> Advertisements..................... 16 15 O Y<br /> Do. in publisher&#039;s own organ ... 33 5 o y so O O<br /> Postage, &amp;c. ........................ 5 O O<br /> 382 6 o<br /> Profit on editions .................. 3IQ 4 IO<br /> 701 Io Io<br /> Receipts.<br /> IOOO books at 16s., 13 as 12 ... 738 9 o<br /> Less 5 per cent, for bad debts... 36 18 5<br /> 7OI IO Io<br /> Half profit to author ................................. I59 I2 5<br /> 39 to publisher.............................. } each.<br /> True profit to publisher, 22.41 18s. 5d. So that<br /> in a “half-profit” system the publisher would<br /> get by these figures 382 6s. more than his<br /> partner.<br /> THE RETURN OF MISS.<br /> CASE was tried before one of the City<br /> Courts last month, which presents a<br /> point of some interest. It has not been<br /> reported, so far as we know, in any paper, and<br /> the statement of the case as presented here is<br /> that of the plaintiff only. In the absence of<br /> documentary proofs, or a Press report, let it stand<br /> as a hypothetical case only. - – t<br /> The plaintiff stated that a certain editor of a<br /> weekly paper—not the proprietor—invited him to<br /> send in contributions, adding that he could not<br /> give him the order unconditionally, as he was not<br /> the proprietor, but stating that he would arrange<br /> for their acceptance. -<br /> The plaintiff thereupon sent in three separate<br /> contributions. The papers were sent in on<br /> July 8, Aug. 13, and Aug. 24. Then nothing<br /> more was heard about the contributions. The<br /> plaintiff called and wrote repeatedly. Nobody<br /> was ever at home, and no reply came to the letters.<br /> He sent in an account and asked for payment.<br /> No reply. He then brought an action for the<br /> amount. The defence was that the customary<br /> paragraph concerning MSS., which appears weekly<br /> in the paper, released the defendants from any<br /> liability. This was the paragraph:<br /> NOTICE TO CONTRIBUTORS.<br /> The editor will not guarantee the return of any MSS. sent<br /> in on approval, but he will use his best endeavours where<br /> stamps are forwarded for the purpose.<br /> The judge agreed with this view, but asked<br /> why the MS. was not returned in accordance<br /> with this paragraph. The defendants said that<br /> they had the MS. in the court. The judge ordered<br /> the MS. to be handed over and dismissed the<br /> Ca,Sé.<br /> The plaintiff, therefore, got his M.S. at the<br /> cost of IOS. and a wasted morning.<br /> The point to observe is that the editor, or<br /> proprietor, who inserts such a notice is clearly<br /> within his right, even when the MS. has been<br /> invited to be sent in on approval. The contri-<br /> butor who accepts such an invitation must protect<br /> himself, therefore, beforehand, by getting an<br /> assurance from the editor, in writing, that his<br /> MS. will be returned if it is not acceepted. Of<br /> course, the conduct of an editor who invites a<br /> contribution and then spitefully refuses to return<br /> it, under cover of such a “notice,” needs no<br /> comment.<br /> *– ~ -º<br /> g- - -<br /> NEW YORK LETTER,<br /> New York, Dec. 14, 1895.<br /> R. HALL CAINE will have reached your<br /> shores long before this letter leaves New<br /> York, and he will be able to report in<br /> person the success of his mission to Canada.<br /> The most of the authors and the publishers with<br /> whom I have chanced to talk about the new<br /> Canadian bill do not approve of it. They are in<br /> favour of leaving things as things are now. The<br /> authors for the most part care very little about<br /> the matter, for the Canadian market is not large,<br /> and it seems to prefer British books to American.<br /> The publishers feel very keenly on the subject, as<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#539) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 185<br /> they have reason to fear that the Canadian<br /> re-printer is already making arrangements to<br /> pour into the Western States, through the post-<br /> office, a mass of books copyright in the United<br /> States.<br /> One would think that the Canadians who do<br /> most of their trading with us would not be in<br /> favour of anything likely to tighten the restric-<br /> tions which already interfere with the liberty of<br /> commerce between the two countries. It must be<br /> remembered always that Canada, although the<br /> nearest neighbour of the United States, is not<br /> very friendly to us. This unfriendliness is due<br /> in part to an inheritance of hate brought into<br /> the Dominion by the exiled loyalists who had to<br /> leave the United States after the Revolutionary<br /> War. And the element in the Canadian people<br /> free from this unfriendliness, the element most in<br /> sympathy with the life and the ideals of the<br /> people of the United States, is not large, and is<br /> never likely to be, since the Canadian who likes<br /> the United States is prone to immigrate here. I<br /> heard the other day that there are now more<br /> native Canadians residing in the United States<br /> than there are native Canadians residing in<br /> Canada. The temptation must always be very<br /> great to the strong and the energetic to go to the<br /> place where they can better themselves, and there-<br /> fore to abandon a native land which is bleak, and<br /> infertile, and heavily in debt.<br /> But this has nothing to do with Mr. Hall<br /> Caine&#039;s experiences here, or with the pleasant im-<br /> pressions he left behind him. The Aldine Club,<br /> composed chiefly of members of the publishing<br /> trade, gave him a dinner. He spoke one evening<br /> last month before the Nineteenth Century Club<br /> on the “Moral Responsibility in the Novel and<br /> the Drama,” having a manuscript before him but<br /> using it only occasionally. He illuminated his<br /> discourse with two or three Manx anecdotes,<br /> capitally told; and he illustrated his assertion<br /> that this present century is far and away the most<br /> romantic and interesting of any yet known to<br /> mankind, by an American anecdote of a telegraph<br /> operator, narrated with knowledge and sympathy<br /> and point. Another British author, Mr. Gilbert<br /> Parker—if he is to be called a British author, in<br /> spite of the fact that he was born in Quebec, I<br /> believe—has been spending the autumn months<br /> in New York. He was married last week to a<br /> young lady of this city, Miss Wantine; and the<br /> happy couple propose settling in London next<br /> month, I understand. Yet a third British author<br /> is here, “John Oliver Hobbes,” and here I am<br /> even more in doubt as to the nationality since<br /> Mrs. Craigie was born in the United States, but<br /> brought up and married in England. Mrs.<br /> Craigie is being much entertained and frequently<br /> interviewed by all sorts of newspapers. She has<br /> arrived here in time to be present at the first<br /> performance of her little play, “Journeys End in<br /> Lovers Meeting,” by Miss Ellen Terry at Abbey&#039;s<br /> Theatre this week.<br /> The performances of Miss Terry and of Sir<br /> Henry Irving and of the London Lyceum Com-<br /> pany have been attended as faithfully as they<br /> always are here in New York. At the request of<br /> the Shakespeare Society of Columbia College,<br /> Sir Henry delivered a lecture on the “Character<br /> of Macbeth,” before some thousand or so of the<br /> officers and students of the University. It was a<br /> brilliant gathering which Sir Henry addressed in<br /> the lofty and beautiful library of Columbia, from<br /> which the tables had been removed, and on the<br /> bookcases of which many of the younger students<br /> had perched themselves picturesquely. And Sir<br /> Henry’s lecture was worthy of the occasion. Of<br /> course it was to some extent an explanation of<br /> that reading of the character which the actor<br /> follows in his own performances of Macbeth.<br /> The address was beautifully delivered and it was<br /> most cordially received.<br /> As I have seen more than one reference in the<br /> pages of the Author to the New York society<br /> called the “Uncut Leaves,” at the meetings of<br /> which authors read their imprinted writings to<br /> appreciative audiences, it may be of interest to<br /> record here that Mr. L. J. B. Lincoln, the origi-<br /> nator of the scheme, has issued his circular for<br /> the winter of 1895-6. Readings for the fifth<br /> season will be held at Sherry&#039;s Rooms on Satur-<br /> day evenings, Nov, 23, Dec. 2 I, Jan. 25, Feb. 29,<br /> March 28, and April 25. In response to many<br /> requests, an afternoon series will be held at<br /> Sherry&#039;s on Tuesdays, Dec. 17, Jan. 7, Feb. I I,<br /> March IO, April 7 and 28, at 3.30. At these<br /> meetings prominent actors, whose presence would<br /> be impossible at the evening meetings, will take<br /> part, as well as authors. The subscription for<br /> either the evening or afternoon course will be ten<br /> dollars, admitting two persons to each reading.<br /> For both courses the subscription will be seven-<br /> teen dollars for two persons. An initiation fee<br /> of five dollars will be required from new members<br /> for the evening readings. It is to be recorded<br /> that the authors who read are always well paid<br /> for this labour.<br /> The London Spectator not long ago, in noticing<br /> the fact that Macmillan and Co. had become the<br /> British agents of the Century Magazine, expressed<br /> the hope that they would soon abandon the so-<br /> called American spelling. Of course this was<br /> written in ignorance of the fact that the London<br /> agents of the Century, of Harper&#039;s Magazine,<br /> and of Scribner&#039;s Magazine have nothing what-<br /> ever to do with the management of authose<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#540) ################################################<br /> <br /> I86<br /> THE AUTHOI8.<br /> magazines; their sole function is to sell a certain<br /> number of copies consigned to them. These<br /> three magazines are edited here in New York and<br /> for American readers with but little thought for<br /> the British reader, since the circulation in Great<br /> Britain of any one of the three is probably not<br /> one-fifth of its total circulation. And the habit<br /> of advertising in magazines is not so far developed<br /> in Great Britain as it is in the United States;<br /> the Century and Harper&#039;s appear here frequently<br /> with more than one hundred pages of advertise-<br /> ments all carefully classified. Obviously it is<br /> on the American reader and on the American<br /> advertiser that the American magazine must<br /> rely; the circulation it may gain in England it is<br /> glad to have, for these sales in Tondon are so<br /> arranged as to be almost clear profit with little or<br /> no risk in most cases.<br /> So far from their being any probability that the<br /> American people as a whole will give up their<br /> simplifications of English orthography, any keen<br /> observer can see that the simplifying movement is<br /> steadily advancing. The latest symptom of this is<br /> the organisation of the “Orthografic Union,” the<br /> object of which is to secure the simplification of<br /> English orthography. The president of this new<br /> society is Mr. Benjamin E. Smith, the managing<br /> editor of the “Century Dictionary;” and among<br /> the vice-presidents are Francis J. Child, Professor<br /> of English in Harvard University; Thomas R.<br /> Tounsbury, Professor of English in Yale Univer-<br /> sity; Francis A. March, Professor of English in<br /> Lafayette College; Brander Matthews, Professor<br /> of Literature in Columbia College; William R.<br /> Harper, President of the University of Chicago;<br /> Alexander Melville Bell, Thomas Wentworth<br /> Higginson, William Dean Howells, Edward<br /> Eggleston, Andrew D. White, formerly President<br /> of Cornell University.<br /> The Orthografic Union has issued a circular<br /> calling for further advance in spelling reform.<br /> As this is a subject in which all authors are<br /> interested I append the modifications the society<br /> suggest :<br /> The Orthografic Union aims to organise effort for the<br /> adoption and persistent use of uniform improvements in<br /> English spelling. In the first series of improvements, con-<br /> sisting of the three classes given below, are introduced only<br /> such changes as there is reason to believe a considerable<br /> number of eminent authors, editors, and publishers are<br /> ready to unite in using.<br /> The first and second classes of improvements selected,<br /> and most of the words in the third class, have been recom-<br /> mended by the Philological Society of England, the<br /> American Philological Association, and the Modern Lan-<br /> guage Association of America, and are recognised in the<br /> columns of “A Standard Dictionary,” and in lists given<br /> in “The Century” and “Webster&#039;s International * dic-<br /> tionaries.<br /> The Orthografic Union recommends the following improve-<br /> ments for immediate use in books, journals, commercial and<br /> private correspondence, &amp;c. :<br /> Class I. Final ed pronounced as t : after a short vowel or<br /> diphthong, spell simply t, and simplify preceding double<br /> consonants, as : blest, exprest, past, backt, lookt, wisht,<br /> slipt, patcht, toucht.<br /> Class 2. Silent final e : in words ending in -íde, -íle,<br /> -íne, -īte, mme, -tte, and -gue, omit the e and preceding<br /> silent letters, when the change will not suggest another<br /> quality for a preceding letter, as : chlorid, fertil,<br /> glycerin, definit, definitly, gram, program, quartet, catalog,<br /> dialog.<br /> Class 3. Special cases: (a) Miscellaneous words: spell<br /> according to the simpler forms given in the columns of<br /> “Webster&#039;s International,” “The Century,” “A Stan-<br /> dard,” or other good dictionary, as: ax, theater, mold,<br /> rime, maneuver, hemorrhage, esophagus; (b) Chemical<br /> terms: as recommended by the American Association for<br /> the Advancement of Science, and “A Standard Dic-<br /> tionary,” and as largely used in the text of “The Century<br /> Dictionary,” as : bromin, bromid, sulfur ; (c) Names of<br /> places and peoples: as recommended by the Royal Geo-<br /> graphical Society, or the United States Board of Geographic<br /> Names, and given in “The Century Cyclopedia of Names’<br /> and “A Standard Dictionary,” as: Bering, Korea, Fiji.<br /> X. Y. Z.<br /> *- - -º<br /> * w -<br /> NOTES FROM PARIS.<br /> TV.HE election of an Academician to fill the<br /> fauteuil vacated by the death of Alexandre<br /> Dumas will take place at the French<br /> Academy in May, when Pasteur&#039;s fauteuil will<br /> also be filled. At the next elections, which will be<br /> held directly after the reception of M. Jules Le-<br /> maître, the fauteuils of MM. de Lesseps and<br /> Camille Doucet will be balloted for. For the de<br /> Lesseps fauteuil there are now five candidates<br /> (not including Zola, the perpetual candidate).<br /> These are Francis Charmes, Desjardins, Barboux,<br /> Jean Aicard, and Anatole France. The fauteuil<br /> will go to one of the two last named. My opinion<br /> is that Anatole France will be elected. Camille<br /> Doucet&#039;s fauteuil will be filled either by Emile<br /> Deschanel or the Marquis Costa de Beauregard,<br /> One is inclined to think that the latter will be the<br /> successful candidate, as the Dukes (le parti des<br /> Ducs) will probably give the preference and their<br /> votes to the grand seigneur. The Marquis has<br /> also substantial claims as a man of letters, his<br /> “Un Homme d’Autrefois” having been “crowned.”<br /> by the French Academy. Deschanel, however,<br /> has a large following, and it is possible that the<br /> election will have to be postponed for want of an<br /> absolute majority. The most interesting election<br /> will be the one to fill the fauteuil Dumas, the<br /> candidates being Henri Becque, Jean Richepin,<br /> and, of course, Emile Zola. I should back Henri<br /> Becque, for his “Les Blasphèmes’ are against<br /> Richepin, and Zola has not, I think, any chance, in<br /> spite of the campaign in his favour in the<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#541) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 187<br /> principal papers. I see that Daudet is mentioned<br /> as a candidate also. He has told me that he is<br /> no candidate, and that he never will be one, and I<br /> believe him.<br /> Whenever I am asked, as I often am, in Paris<br /> about les jeunes in English literature, I invari-<br /> ably tell my questioner that the author who,<br /> in my opinion, is most worthy of attention<br /> amongst the newer men is Morley Roberts.<br /> Roberts, I explain, has not so far attained the<br /> great popular success which should certainly be<br /> his, in consideration of his wide—almost universal<br /> —knowledge of the world and life, of men and<br /> places, his fine unique style, and a profundity of<br /> human sympathy which puts him on a level with<br /> men who on this score alone are eminently suc-<br /> cessful in the commercial sense of the word. I<br /> have recommended his “Question of Instinct” to<br /> the translators. It is a book which would be<br /> better understood—and therefore more appre-<br /> ciated—in Paris than in London, and I shall be<br /> curious to watch its reception. There are also<br /> many of his short stories which would be very<br /> popular in France. I do not think his “Western<br /> Avernus&quot; would meet with much sympathy in<br /> Paris. “Qu&#039;allait-il faire dans cette galère.”<br /> would be the general remark. The French do not<br /> travel, and do not believe in travelling stories.<br /> “A beau mentir,” &amp;c. They do not sympathise<br /> with travellers&#039; woes. “Let us have no meander-<br /> ing,” they say with the old lady in “David Copper-<br /> field.”<br /> I hear on very good authority that since the<br /> death of Victor Hugo the receipts from his works<br /> have totalled up to close upon seven and a half<br /> millions of francs (£30,000). I agree with the<br /> editor of La Plume that under these circum-<br /> stances it is rather strange that the £2OOO<br /> necessary to complete the sum required for his<br /> statue are not forthcoming.<br /> required, only £6000 have been collected during<br /> the ten years which have elapsed since his<br /> death.<br /> At a recent sitting of the Académie de<br /> Médecine, two doctors, MM. Cazal and Catrin,<br /> declared very emphatically that the risk of con-<br /> tagion by the use of books which have been in<br /> the hands of persons suffering from infectious<br /> diseases is a very great one, and they described a<br /> number of experiments by which they had estab-<br /> lished the truth of this statement. One is glad<br /> to hear that the risk is greatly enhanced in the<br /> case of those objectionable persons who moisten<br /> their fingers in order to turn over the leaves.<br /> They recommend that any book which may be<br /> suspected should be baked for disinfection in an<br /> oven. The best advice, Ithink, to give under these<br /> circumstances is never to borrow books, but for<br /> Of the £8000<br /> each man and woman to buy his or her own<br /> copy. Authors can only benefit by MM. Cazal<br /> and Catrin&#039;s communiqué to the Academy of<br /> Medicine.<br /> I heard a French man of letters express the<br /> opinion that much of the Anglophobia which has<br /> recently manifested itself in America may be the<br /> effect of the mass of Napoleonic literature, almost<br /> entirely of a pronounced Anglophobic nature,<br /> which has recently been circulated in the States.<br /> I should not be surprised to find that this opinion<br /> could be largely corroborated.<br /> The Figaro has resumed its weekly column of<br /> literary gossip, which is now published in the<br /> Wednesday issue. It is, however, no longer<br /> edited by M. Jules Huret, who has taken over the<br /> daily column of theatrical gossip, known as<br /> “Courrier des Théâtres.”<br /> The famous Journal des Débats no longer<br /> appears as a morning paper, the recently founded<br /> evening edition alone appearing. It is to be<br /> hoped that it may fill a real want in Paris—that<br /> of a good evening paper containing news. Such<br /> a paper does not exist in Paris at present. My<br /> opinion is that in the future it will be the evening<br /> paper which will have the largest chance of great<br /> success. In Paris most people get up late—at an<br /> hour when the morning papers are already out<br /> of date. The Débats continues to be the One<br /> paper to which one looks for sound and useful<br /> literary criticism.<br /> M. Jean Aicard’s translation of “Othello” has<br /> been received a l&#039;unanimité by the Comité de<br /> Lecture of the Comédie Française, and the play<br /> will be eventually staged there. It has never been<br /> performed in its entirety, though portions of it<br /> have been played, with Mounet-Sully as Othello<br /> and Sarah Bernhardt as Desdemona.<br /> Sarah Bernhardt is making good progress with<br /> her Memoirs. She is said to be receiving the<br /> most brilliant offers from syndicates for their<br /> publication in serial form.<br /> Emile Zola&#039;s libretto for M. Bruneau&#039;s new<br /> opera “Messidor” is not, as has been stated, based<br /> on the author&#039;s novel “La Terre,” but is an<br /> entirely original work. M. Bruneau hopes to<br /> finish his music in time for the production of the<br /> opera, next autumn.<br /> M. Jean Ajalbert has discovered a new poet, a<br /> new Mistral—the Mistral of Auvergne. This is<br /> interesting, as Auvergne of all countries is the<br /> least likely nurse of any poetic child. The new<br /> Mistral, whose personality and work are attract-<br /> ing great attention in literary Paris at present, is<br /> a wine-seller, Arsène Vermenouze by name, who<br /> lives at Aurillac. His volume of poems, written<br /> in the ugly Auvergnat patois, which is familiar<br /> to Parisians as the language of the coal-men and<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#542) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 88<br /> THE AUTHOR,<br /> hawkers of roasted chestnuts in the capital, is<br /> called “Flour de Brousso’ (Gallicé, “Fleur de<br /> Bruyère”). Says Jean Ajalbert: “Lamartine wrote<br /> of Mistral that he had made of Provence a book.<br /> Toutes proportions gardées, Vermenouze has<br /> made of Auvergne a book also.” The question<br /> is, Was Auvergne worth making into a book P. It<br /> is a terribly ugly, uninteresting country. Apropos<br /> of the publication of a very interesting “History<br /> of the French Novel during the 19th Century &quot;<br /> (“Le Roman en France pendant le XIX&#039; Siècle,”<br /> par Eug. Gilbert) by Plon, it is to be noted<br /> that, with the exception of a few writers like<br /> Zola and Daudet, literary men in France are<br /> generally expressing the opinion that as a<br /> vehicle of thought the novel is quite “played<br /> out ’” — archiusé is the expression generally<br /> used. Quite so; and high time it is (pace<br /> Zola) that the novel with a purpose should<br /> be played out. Mr. Gilbert&#039;s book, by the<br /> way, merits attention by students of French<br /> literature. I should like to see it translated into<br /> French.<br /> I receive quite a number of letters with refer-<br /> ence to my remarks on the blackleg genus. I<br /> am glad to find that in more senses than one these<br /> remarks seemed to have touched the spot. I<br /> do not want, however, to say anything more on<br /> the subject. A country has only the literary<br /> blacklegs which it deserves, and, if English<br /> people like to tolerate these farceurs, tant pis<br /> pour eua.<br /> It is always interesting to hear what an author<br /> considers the best scene in his book, and accord-<br /> ingly I was interested to hear from Nordau that<br /> in his opinion the best touch in his “Comedy of<br /> Sentiment” was where the hero finds out that<br /> Paula, who has come to Dresden “to be sepa-<br /> rated from him again only by death,” as she<br /> says, had supplied herself with a return ticket,<br /> for use in case her blandishments proved<br /> unavailing. By the way, speaking of return<br /> tickets, I never take one without a shiver as<br /> I remember how Mme. Fenayron, conducting<br /> Aubert to the house at Pecq, took for herself<br /> a return ticket, but for the intended victim a<br /> single only. He was not to return, nor did<br /> he. This horrible detail was proved at the trial,<br /> and went far to establish the premeditation of<br /> the crime.<br /> R. H. SHERARD.<br /> - - -<br /> Fºx&#039;s rºse—<br /> NOTES AND NEWS,<br /> R. HALL CAINE has returned. It is<br /> premature to congratulate ourselves upon<br /> the success of his mission until the<br /> question has been brought before the Canadian<br /> Parliament and decided. But it is not premature<br /> to congratulate ourselves upon the masterly ability<br /> displayed by Mr. Hall Caine in the whole conduct<br /> of his negotiations. Any blunder might have<br /> been followed by consequences the most disastrous<br /> to literature. The Canadian susceptibilities have<br /> been respected: their claims have not been dis-<br /> puted: a way has been found: and the goodwill<br /> of Canada has been apparently secured. These<br /> are the services of Mr. Hall Caine. Let us hope<br /> that the welcome with which he is to be received<br /> will be worthy of the occasion.<br /> I wrote the above from the communications and<br /> letters which have appeared in the papers during<br /> the last three months. Since this paragraph was<br /> set up in type, I have had no opportunity of<br /> hearing from Mr. Hall Caine&#039;s own lips an<br /> account of the whole mission. It is a story<br /> which must be told by himself at his own time<br /> and in his own way. Meantime it may be per-<br /> mitted to say in this place that the words used<br /> above are not strong enough to express my own<br /> sense of his work. The difficulties which existed<br /> have not been understood here; the conflicting<br /> interests have not been studied. Not only the<br /> goodwill of the Canadians has been secured, but<br /> that of the Americans. Especially admirable<br /> has been the manner in which Mr. Hall Caine<br /> was received by the Canadians. Last, but not<br /> least, Mr. Chamberlain has addressed a letter to<br /> Mr. Caine, recognising amply the value of his<br /> services and the skill of his diplomacy.<br /> It is proposed that Mr. Hall Caine will address<br /> a general meeting of this Society some time this<br /> month. He remains in town for some weeks on<br /> business connected with his mission.<br /> It ought I think to be generally known that<br /> Mr. Hall Caine has most generously given to the<br /> Society three months and more of very hard and<br /> trying work; he has also given to the Society the<br /> whole of the expenses incurred in this long<br /> journey. With these munificent gifts in our<br /> mind we shall not be so ready to accuse men of<br /> letters as selfishly pursuing their own interests<br /> alone. Two objects were in view : the first was<br /> to save the American Copyright Act of 1891;<br /> the second was to show the world that men and<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#543) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 189<br /> women of letters have seriously united for the<br /> defence of their own affairs, and are competent to<br /> defend them. From my own point of view I do<br /> not know which is the more important of these<br /> two objects.<br /> It is now two or three months since I cut a<br /> paragraph out of a certain newspaper for com-<br /> ment in these pages. I put it aside, however, so<br /> that my remarks might not be taken either as an<br /> attack upon any publisher, or as an attack upon<br /> any author. Now that the subject has been<br /> partly forgotten, one may speak. Let us put the<br /> case in general terms. The paragraph made the<br /> following assertions:<br /> (I.) That should a successful author offer the<br /> administration of his property on the terms of a<br /> royalty of 2s. On a six-shilling book, it would be<br /> necessary for the publisher to sell 30,000 copies<br /> before getting any profit at all for himself.<br /> Now, the cost of such a book, including adver-<br /> tisements, does not, under ordinary circum-<br /> stances, amount to more than Is. The average<br /> price paid by the trade may be taken as 3s. 6d.-<br /> though it is really more. The profit to the pub-<br /> lisher therefore would be 6d. a volume; or, on<br /> 3O,OOO copies, the profit would amount to £750.<br /> Does anybody in his senses believe that it would<br /> cost £750 to distribute, by the ordinary machinery,<br /> 3O,OOO volumes and to collect the accounts P But<br /> just observe what a very simple little sum in<br /> arithmetic it requires to knock over this loose and<br /> misleading assertion.<br /> (2.) The paragraph says, further, that at all<br /> events the novelist in question “has not much<br /> to complain of in regard to the remuneration of<br /> novelists.” How much longer will it take to<br /> make people understand that literary property<br /> belongs to the creator, not to the middleman?<br /> A successful writer creates a property; it is his<br /> own property; he may sell it or do what he likes<br /> with it ; but it is his own property. In the case<br /> before us the writer says, “If you like to ad-<br /> minister my property for me on the terms of<br /> paying me 2s. for every volume you sell, you shall<br /> have it. If not, somebody else shall have it.<br /> But understand that it is my property. When<br /> I take that royalty I am taking my own property;<br /> I am not remunerated. I am receiving my rents,<br /> of which you are the steward.”<br /> Some day, I suppose, we shall get these<br /> simple and elementary facts recognised and acted<br /> upon.<br /> I am informed, by one who knows of one case<br /> at least, that an attempt is still being made to<br /> induce an author to sign contracts to publish with<br /> one firm only for a term of years. It is difficult to<br /> believe that anyone can be so incredibly foolish.<br /> What? In the face of all the dangers and the<br /> tricks exposed—of secret profits, of charges for<br /> advertisements got for nothing, of one-sided<br /> agreements, of broken agreements—a miserable<br /> author is to bind himself to the man who has the<br /> power to commit these acts P He is to give that<br /> man a free hand to do what he likes with his<br /> victim for a term of years. Was anything ever<br /> proposed more monstrous P Consider a parallel<br /> case: does the medical man dare to bind his<br /> patient to remain with him, whether he treats<br /> him skilfully or not ? Does the solicitor P Does<br /> any professional man P Nay—does any employer<br /> of labour make his hands bind themselves for a<br /> term of years ? But it is difficult to believe that<br /> any author can be so incredibly foolish after all<br /> the light that we have poured upon the methods<br /> of publishing. Perhaps, however, one way might<br /> be found out of such a contract.<br /> A second paper on the Literary Hack and his<br /> work has appeared in the Forum. It is extremely<br /> interesting, but I fail to see where the Literary<br /> Hack comes in. Does he exist in this country P<br /> If so, I do not know him. A Literary Hack—as I<br /> understand it—is a person who executes literary<br /> jobs of any kind without regard to his own<br /> convictions, if he has any ; or to his own<br /> fitness; or to his own special knowledge. He is<br /> a man who, being a Conservative, writes leaders<br /> for a Radical paper; or, being a Radical, writes<br /> leaders for a Conservative paper. He is a man<br /> who makes and compiles books to order on any<br /> subject, being equally ready to produce a<br /> dictionary of the English language, or an account<br /> of Polynesia. The bookmaker to order at so<br /> much the job is very nearly extinct. One hears<br /> of him from time to time, but he has grown<br /> very scarce. The old-fashioned hack, who wrote up<br /> a party to order, simply no longer exists. He is<br /> as dead as a door nail. The Conservatives can find<br /> plenty of Conservative papers; the Liberals can<br /> find plenty of Liberal papers; while there are<br /> hundreds of men who write for the newspapers<br /> on topics not connected with politics, so that they<br /> need not concern, themselves as to the opinions of<br /> the journals for which they write.<br /> A cutting from the British and Colonial<br /> Printer has been sent me. It contains an appeal<br /> based on practical figures for a shilling edition of<br /> a popular book. The writer argues that a<br /> shilling, not a sixpenny, edition is wanted at the<br /> present time. For sixpence we cannot get such a<br /> book as we should like to put upon our shelves;<br /> but a book can now be produced by the new pro-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#544) ################################################<br /> <br /> 190<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> cesses, well printed and well bound, at so small a<br /> price as to render a shilling quite a practicable<br /> price to put upon a volume. The writer supposes<br /> a book of 240 pages printed upon a “think-<br /> handling twopenny” paper. The cost would be,<br /> he says, as follows:<br /> Ioo,000 Edition. £<br /> Linotype composition at 2% per IOOO—say– 20<br /> Paper Ilb. per copy at 2d. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 850<br /> Machining and folding... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75<br /> Pulp corrugated cases ...... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I IO<br /> Making up and casing ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22O<br /> Incidentals...’................... 50<br /> 31325<br /> Which comes to less than 3}d. a copy. In<br /> other words, if the retail price of the book be 8d.<br /> and the booksellers allow no discount, the value<br /> of the author&#039;s estate as represented in this book<br /> may be taken at 4:#d. a copy, out of which he will<br /> have to remunerate his publisher, if he have one.<br /> Or, to look at it another way, he must sell 40,000<br /> copies before he clears his expenses. The remain-<br /> ing 60,000 would be clear profit.<br /> But how to get at the people who are to<br /> buy books in this wholesale manner? How to<br /> persuade them, if they can be persuaded, to take<br /> a hundred thousand P. The present machinery<br /> is, as everybody can understand, antiquated<br /> and unequal to the task. The booksellers’ shops<br /> must add to their machinery the house-to-house<br /> retail vendor. This, in fact, is the only way of<br /> bringing books within the reach of the people.<br /> Shops cannot do it; advertisements cannot<br /> do it; the last thing in the paper read by the<br /> common people is the column of book adver-<br /> tisements; books must be brought to the very<br /> door. That this method will be adopted by the<br /> trade before very long it is not difficult to<br /> prophecy. The book-selling of the future will<br /> be largely carried on by the house-to-house<br /> vendor. One only hopes that those who take up<br /> this method will provide really good literature,<br /> such as our public libraries are now teaching the<br /> people to demand.<br /> The following magnificent offer was recently<br /> made by a firm of publishers of no small note.<br /> It illustrates the necessity of knowing above all<br /> things the cost of production.<br /> They offered to bring out the book at 3s. 6d.<br /> The first 500 copies were to go to the publisher.<br /> The author would then receive 5 per cent. royalty.&quot;<br /> After the first IOOO copies the author was to<br /> receive Io per cent. ; after that I 2% per cent.<br /> How does this work out P<br /> The first edition would be probably of 2000 at<br /> a cost of (say) 3IOO.<br /> of the Forties and the Fifties.<br /> Results of first edition of 2000 copies:—<br /> Sale of 2000 at Say 2s. ............... £2OO<br /> Cost IOO<br /> Profit ............ 3 Ioo<br /> Of which the author receives... 322 7s. 6d.<br /> And the publisher . . . . . . . . . . . 377 12s. 6d.<br /> If another edition of 2000 goes off the whole<br /> profit will be about £130, of which the publisher<br /> will take £86 5s. and the author £43 158.<br /> Did the publisher explain what proportion of<br /> profit he proposed to take P If so, he was within<br /> his rights. If he relied on the ignorance of the<br /> author, he was within his wrongs.<br /> The risk actually incurred was the difference<br /> between the first six months’ subscription and<br /> the cost of production, which would have to be<br /> paid six months after publication. In order to<br /> meet this bill there must be sold about a thousand<br /> copies. How great was that risk P Probably<br /> not much, since the book had been so well re-<br /> ported on by the reader as to be taken without<br /> hesitation.<br /> The death of George Augustus Sala has called<br /> forth a notice in every newspaper in this and<br /> perhaps in all other English-speaking countries.<br /> He had come to be regarded as the representative<br /> journalist. Certainly there was no one like him<br /> as a correspondent, or as a writer of those social<br /> articles in which he showed so marvellous a grasp<br /> of facts and such an endless command of anecdote.<br /> He was a member of the Society from the begin-<br /> ning, one of the honorary members who were<br /> elected at the outset as vice-presidents. He took<br /> no active part in our proceedings, but was present<br /> at one or two of our dinners. He delighted in<br /> the gathering together of men and women<br /> engaged in the literary life, but I think he never<br /> understood the serious side of the Society. He<br /> belonged to the old Bohemian school, with whom<br /> a publisher was regarded as the natural enemy,<br /> who would certainly screw the most work out of<br /> an author for the least pay, and whom it was<br /> laudable to scathe with epigrams. That there<br /> was any practical way of having one&#039;s property<br /> administered with equity, or that a writer&#039;s work<br /> was his property, never occurred to the Bohemian<br /> The school of<br /> which Sala was the last surviving representative<br /> has been well described by Vizetelly in his Recollec-<br /> tions. -<br /> The literary contest invented by the New<br /> Pork Herald has been decided. Prizes were<br /> offered for the best novels, the best “novelette,”<br /> the best short story, and the best epic poem.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#545) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE<br /> I9 I<br /> A UTH () I.<br /> There were sent in eleven hundred novels,<br /> a thousand novelettes, between two and three<br /> thousand short stories, and nearly a thou-<br /> sand poems—all epic P Imagine a thousand<br /> new epic poems all sprung upon a bewildered<br /> world at the same moment—a thousand Miltons,<br /> inglorious as yet, but not mute It is pleasing<br /> to note that the prizes, with one exception, were<br /> carried off by professional writers. The first<br /> prize for novels of £2000 fell to Julian Haw-<br /> thorn : the second, of £400, to the Rev. W. C.<br /> Blakeman, before this event unknown : the third,<br /> of £200, to Edith Carpenter, said to be known in<br /> America. For the novelette the only prize of<br /> £600 was awarded to Miss Molly Seawell, already<br /> well known : for the short story, the only prize of<br /> £4OO was given to Mr. Edgar Fawcett, also well<br /> known. The epic, or “Abraham Lincoln,” fell to<br /> an unknown pseudonym. WALTER BEs ANT.<br /> a-sº<br /> - * *-<br /> THE AUTHORS&#039; JOURNAL,<br /> HE December number of the New York<br /> Authors’ Journal lies before me. The<br /> number contains two or three papers of<br /> advice to literary candidates—advice for the<br /> most part of the obvious kind—but then there<br /> are plenty of people who always want directions<br /> of the most obvious kind, so that it is not pro-<br /> bably advice thrown away. There is a full<br /> account of the literary competition invited and<br /> carried out by the New York Herald. A meet-<br /> ing of the Authors’ Guild is reported. They<br /> elected twenty-three members; they received a<br /> letter setting forth a “case” against certain<br /> publishers; and they ended the meeting with<br /> recitations and speeches. There is a paper on<br /> “Public, Taste in Literature,” and another by<br /> Mr. Hall Caine, probably the paper referred to in<br /> our New York Letter, on the “Moral Responsi-<br /> bility of Novelists.” There is a paper on the<br /> “Editor&#039;s Point of View”—very good; there is<br /> the complaint of the contributor that the editor<br /> will not explain why a paper is rejected. The<br /> Contributor never can understand that an editor<br /> simply has not the time to become a critic; he can<br /> only Say Yes or No. We have the same com-<br /> plaints here. There is an article on writing<br /> advertisements which in America has become one<br /> of the fine arts. There are notes and replies,<br /> and paragraphs and poetry. Altogether it is a<br /> pleasant and agreeable journal, useful to its<br /> readers. We might with advantage borrow some<br /> of its features.<br /> Its advertisement columns present one feature,<br /> at least, which is absent from ours. It is this:<br /> while it is everywhere and well known and<br /> notorious that the American editor is more pelted<br /> with MSS. than even the London editor, it seems<br /> to pay the American writer to advertise himself<br /> and to offer his work for sale. Here, it is true,<br /> we see occasionally an advertisement offering a<br /> novel for sale, but no one ever heard that any<br /> response was received. For instance, here are<br /> two or three advertisements cut out of two<br /> columns :<br /> EGIN 1896 with bright, confidential “Ed. Copy.” It<br /> pays. Politics to suit. Booklet and “points&#039; sent<br /> editors and publishers only. G. T. HAMMOND, Newport,<br /> R. I.<br /> WRITE one act Curtain Raisers, between two thousand<br /> and three thousand words. Also short stories for<br /> children. Glad to receive orders. AMY D’ARCY WET-<br /> MORE, 859, Park Ave., Baltimore, Md.<br /> WRITE verse, humorous and sentimental. Would do<br /> Valentines or adv’g verse. Nothing makes so effective<br /> an ad. Also write short stories, sketches, &amp;c. Would<br /> conduct a column of book and magazine reviews. Editors<br /> send me copies of papers containing your prize competition<br /> offers. BYRON HOWARD, Esperance, N. Y.<br /> TORIES for Little Boys and Girls. I write good stories<br /> for children. MSS. submitted on application. A. D. B.,<br /> Box 25, care AUTHORS’ Journ AL.<br /> These are practical and to the point. Yet one<br /> would rather not advertise one&#039;s own work or one’s<br /> own literary powers in a newspaper. The third<br /> advertisement, that of Mr. Byron Howard, makes<br /> one long to see more of his work, his sentimental<br /> verse, for example.<br /> sº- * *<br /> LITERATURE IN THE PERIODICALS,<br /> FREEDOM IN SPELLING. Leading article in Times for<br /> Dec. 17.<br /> MATTHEw ARNOLD. Right Hon. John Morley. Nine-<br /> teenth Centwry for December.<br /> THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS.<br /> teenth Centwry for December.<br /> THE LITERARY AGENT. Sir Walter Besant. Nineteenth,<br /> Centwry for December.<br /> Sir W. M. Conway. Nine-<br /> TJNTO THIS LAST. Frederic Harrison. Nineteenth<br /> Centwry for December. *<br /> GUSTAVE FLAUBERT. Ernest Newman. Fortnightly<br /> Review for December.<br /> LIVING CRITICS. III. : MR. LESLIE STEPHEN. J. Ash-<br /> croft Noble. Bookman for December.<br /> OLD EDINBURGH AND THE “EVERGREEN.” W. Brant-<br /> ford. Bookman for December.<br /> MR. WILLIAM MORRIS.<br /> December.<br /> PUBLISHERS AND THE ASSOCIATED BOOKSELLERS.<br /> Bookseller for December.<br /> MR. HALL CAINE. Interview on return from America.<br /> Daily Chronicle for Dec. 12.<br /> CoPYRIGHT IN CANADA AND MR. GOLDw IN SMITH.<br /> Letter by Sir Charles Tupper. Satwrday Review for Dec. 7.<br /> Interview. Bookselling for<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#546) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 92<br /> THE AUTII O/º.<br /> CoPYRIGHT AND THE IMPERIAL Constitution. Letter<br /> by Mr. Goldwin Smith. Times for Dec. 13.<br /> CANADA AND THE CoPYRIGHT. Draft of Bill. Letter<br /> by Mr. Hall Caine in Times for Dec. 7.<br /> THE CARLYLE CENTENARY. Frederic Harrison. Daily<br /> Chronicle for Dec. 7.<br /> A REMINISCENCE OF CARLYLE. (Interview in 1873).<br /> J. C. C. Saturday Review for Nov. 30. -<br /> HILL TOPPERY. Speaker for Nov. 30.<br /> p.&quot;: LATEST SCOTCH For AY. New York Nation for<br /> ec. 5.<br /> PRESENT-DAY SCOTTISH NovKLISTs.<br /> Weekly Swn for Dec. I.<br /> William Wallace.<br /> NOTABLE REVIEWs.<br /> Of “Matthew Arnold’s Letters.”<br /> Saturday Review for Dec. 7.<br /> Of Björnson&#039;s New Play, “Over AEvne.” Daily Chronicle<br /> for Dec. I I. -<br /> Professor Dowden.<br /> #: #: §: 3%<br /> Replies to Mr. Laurie&#039;s paper of the previous<br /> month are made separately in the December<br /> Nineteenth Century by Sir W. M. Conway and<br /> Sir Walter Besant. The Society of Authors<br /> exists and prospers because it supplies a demand<br /> and does work that needs to be done, says Sir<br /> Wm. Conway. The charge of its destroying the<br /> old friendship between authors and publishers he<br /> denies, because once the publication of a book is<br /> agreed upon author and publisher become part-<br /> ners. “The Society has merely enabled the<br /> author to negotiate this partnership with a full<br /> knowledge of what it is that is bargained for.”<br /> As to newly successful authors binding them-<br /> selves ahead to over production, they bind them-<br /> selves not with the Society, not with agents, but<br /> with publishers. The question of prices paid by<br /> publishers is one of ordinary bargain and economy.<br /> The other reply defends the literary agent.<br /> The Society, he says, found the facts and figures<br /> of publishing, but literary men have not the time<br /> and in few cases the business faculty for treating<br /> personally with publishers. Therefore the agent,<br /> with special knowledge, acts for them; and the<br /> ill-advised publisher who dares to protest against<br /> meeting him stands self-condemned, because his<br /> only reason must be the desire to overreach the<br /> author when the agent is not present to defend<br /> him. Further, the agent is required for looking<br /> after publication rights in the various countries,<br /> translation rights, and the rights of dramatisa-<br /> tion.<br /> Some interesting correspondence has been<br /> appearing in the Times on the subject of Spelling.<br /> Professor Earle and Dr. Abbott argue for greater<br /> freedom in the matter. Mr. Horace Hart, printer<br /> to the University of Oxford, and Mr. Randall, of<br /> the Association of Correctors of the Press, plead<br /> for uniformity, the former remarking upon the<br /> innumerable applications from printers at home<br /> and abroad for his set of rules recently drawn up<br /> for the spelling of doubtful words. “Language<br /> is a product of life,” writes Professor Earle,<br /> “and if not exactly a living thing it certainly<br /> shares the incidents of life. Of these incidents<br /> none is more pervading than abhorrence of<br /> fixity.” In its articles on the letters the Times<br /> says most people will be convinced of the reason-<br /> ableness of what may be called constitutional<br /> freedom in spelling, while in a private letter<br /> latitude is permissible without inconvenience.<br /> An author must be consistent in spelling if his<br /> pages are not to be unsightly and perplexing.<br /> The article thus concludes:—<br /> Woltaire, who derided the orthography of the French<br /> books of his time as ridiculous—adding that English<br /> orthography was still more absurd—described the ideal<br /> system when he said: “Writing is the painting of the<br /> voice ; the closer the resemblance the better the picture.”<br /> Unfortunately the perfect likeness is not attainable; and it<br /> is found more convenient to agree upon a conventional<br /> representation than to circulate a multitude of bad copies<br /> unlike each other.<br /> The Bookseller agrees that there can be no<br /> two opinions about the desirability of forming a<br /> Publishers’ Association, but is not satisfied with<br /> the non possumus attitude taken up at the<br /> publishers’ meeting towards the booksellers.<br /> Our contemporary thinks the “paramount neces-<br /> sity in these matters of a combined and consistent<br /> policy, such as exists in Germany, was not<br /> sufficiently recognised.”<br /> The Nation article deals with the “sudden and<br /> great popularity&quot; of the Scotch story writers,<br /> finding the explanation merely in the love of<br /> constant change in the novel-consuming public.<br /> “We observe,” it says, “that the canniest of<br /> them are themselves persuaded that their day of<br /> grace may soon be written away, and are thriftily<br /> gathering together every available bit of plunder<br /> before being compelled to retire to their fast-<br /> nesses beyond the border.” Mr. Wallace&#039;s<br /> article, comparing Scotch novelists of the day,<br /> places Mrs. Oliphant first, though he would<br /> have done so more outright had she written<br /> but a fifth of what she has written and made<br /> that fifth perfect. Even as things are, he gives<br /> “Firsteen&quot; first place among recent Scottish<br /> novels. -<br /> A statement made by the way in Mr. Morley&#039;s<br /> paper is worth noting in these days of biographies<br /> of everybody. “There are probably not six<br /> Englishmen over fifty now living,” he said,<br /> “whose lives need to be written, or should be<br /> written.” This relative to the prohibition of a<br /> biography by Arnold, who was not, says Mr.<br /> Morley, a great correspondent beyond his own<br /> family. He was one of the most occupied men<br /> of his time. “He was not the least of an egotist,<br /> in the common, ugly, and odious sense of that<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#547) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE<br /> I 93<br /> A UTHOI8.<br /> terrible word”; unselfish, he had not a spark of<br /> envy or jealousy, and he took the deepest and<br /> most active interest in the well-being of his<br /> country and countrymen.<br /> In a comprehensive paper on Flaubert, Mr.<br /> Ernest Newman says that with the knowledge of<br /> the nervous malady from which he suffered we<br /> have the key to his life and art. His philosophy<br /> was not pessimism or cynicism ; he keeps his<br /> characters and their motives in the ideal atmo-<br /> sphere of art, and never allows that personal note<br /> of contempt and bitterness to be heard that<br /> sounds so frequently in the work of Maupassant.<br /> As to his method:—<br /> Where a novelist keeps himself so sedulously in the back-<br /> ground as Flaubert does, it requires all the more assiduity<br /> on the part of the reader to combine the multiform portions<br /> of the picture. An imartistic novelist like George Eliot,<br /> who is continually obtruding herself among her characters,<br /> may annoy us by the obvious clumsiness of her method, but<br /> she at least saves every man the trouble of being his own<br /> artist.<br /> *-<br /> - * ~<br /> BOOK TALK.<br /> HE name of Mr. F. Marion Crawford’s latest<br /> novelty is “Taquisira.” It will appear<br /> serially in the Queen, beginning this<br /> month.<br /> The Hon. Frederick Moncrieff has written a<br /> Scottish romance of the time of James VI.,<br /> entitled “The X Jewel,” which Messrs. Black-<br /> wood and Sons will issue immediately.<br /> Mr. G. W. Appleton, author of “The Co-<br /> respondent,” has written another novel entitled<br /> “A Philanthropist at Bay,” which Messrs. Downey<br /> and Co. will publish.<br /> Miss Beatrice Harraden has gone back to<br /> California, and in the course of the year she<br /> will write a series of short stories of Califor-<br /> nian life. A novel from her on English topics<br /> will, however, appear earlier—probably in the<br /> Spring.<br /> Mr. A. H. Norway has written a “History of<br /> the Post-Office Packet Service, 1793-1815,” which<br /> Messrs. Macmillan will issue in a few days—a<br /> somewhat romantic subject, and one not much<br /> remembered about in these days. The post-office<br /> kept a fleet of fifty to sixty armed ships for a<br /> century and a half, the principal station being at<br /> Falmouth, where, from 1688 to 1823 there were<br /> packets solely under post-office control. Much<br /> stiff fighting was done by them too—in the<br /> three years 1812-15 no fewer than thirty-two<br /> actions with American privateers were engaged<br /> in by the Falmouth packets. Mr. Norway has<br /> had access to official records in preparing the<br /> work.<br /> A volume of reminiscences by Mr. Charles<br /> Bertram, prestidigitateur, will be published at an<br /> early date by Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein and<br /> Co., with illustrations by Mr. Phil May, Mr.<br /> Cour rold, and others. The title will be “Isn’t<br /> it Wonderful ? A History of Magic and<br /> Mystery.”<br /> Mr. Robert W. Chambers has written another<br /> story of Paris life, this time selecting the period<br /> a quarter of a century ago, when the city was in<br /> the hands of the Communists. The title is “The<br /> Red Republic,” and Messrs. Putnam&#039;s Sons will<br /> issue the work very soon.<br /> Mr. Egerton Clairmonte, husband of “George<br /> Egerton,” is the author of a volume which<br /> Mr. Fisher Unwin is about to publish, entitled<br /> “The Africander: a Plain Story of South<br /> Africa.”<br /> Louis Stevenson’s work “Fables&#039; will be<br /> published on an early day by Messrs. Longmans,<br /> Green, and Co.<br /> A dictionary of the musical artists, authors,<br /> and composers of Great Britain and the Colonies<br /> is being prepared for issue to subscribers by Mr.<br /> J. D. Brown (Librarian, Clerkenwell Public<br /> Library) and Mr. Stephen S. Stratton, under<br /> the title “British Musical Biography.” Mr.<br /> Brown invites information as to any of the<br /> above professions likely to have escaped his<br /> notice, so that the work may be as complete as<br /> possible.<br /> The “Life and Letters of George John<br /> Romanes, M.A., LL.D.,” is in preparation by<br /> Mrs. Romanes for issue by Messrs. Longmans, ,<br /> but will not be ready for some time. There will<br /> be a portrait and other illustrations.<br /> Mr. T. L. Southgate read a paper before the<br /> Musical Association on the Ioth ult., on “The<br /> Treatment of Music by Novelists.” He gave<br /> instances from the works of many leading<br /> authors to show the ignorance they displayed of<br /> IllllS1C. -<br /> In a paragraph report of the lecture the Times<br /> said it lost much of the weight which might have<br /> been attached to it because nearly the whole of<br /> Mr. Southgate&#039;s examples were those in which<br /> ignorance played the chief part, while “there<br /> exist very many instances of equally great<br /> blunders perpetrated by professed musicians;”<br /> and, furthermore, “after all is said and and done,<br /> the errors of novelists in regard to music are<br /> perhaps not greater than those of musicians as a<br /> class with regard to other arts.”<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#548) ################################################<br /> <br /> 194<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Mr. Ernest A. Gardner, formerly Director of<br /> the British School of Archæology at Athens, is<br /> engaged on a two-volume “Handbook of Greek<br /> Sculpture,” in which he distinguishes the diffe-<br /> rent schools and periods, and selects typical<br /> examples to show the development of each. The<br /> first volume will appear this month, and the<br /> second some time later.<br /> Mr. Thomas March is writing a “History of<br /> the Paris Commune of 1871,” which Messrs.<br /> Swan Sonnenschein will issue this month, with<br /> two maps of the city at that period.<br /> Mr. Thomas MacKnight, an Irish editor, has<br /> prepared two volumes of reminiscences and ex-<br /> periences, which will be published under the title<br /> “Ulster As It Is,” by Messrs. Macmillan.<br /> Miss Kingsley, who made a daring and remark-<br /> able journey through West Africa, some months<br /> ago, has submitted her diaries to a London pub-<br /> lisher, and the work will probably be ready in the<br /> spring. It will be illustrated with the author&#039;s<br /> sketches and photographs.<br /> Mr. Standish O&#039;Grady has written an Irish<br /> romance of the reign of Elizabeth, which is to be<br /> issued by Messrs. Downey, probably under the<br /> title “Ulrick Ready.” He will present the last<br /> stand of the Irish chieftans from the Irish point<br /> of view, in contradistinction to Froude&#039;s “Chiefs<br /> of Dunboy” from the British.<br /> Mr. Stead is launching a series of “Penny<br /> Novelists” on the same lines as his “Penny<br /> Poets,” which has proved a very popular<br /> enterprise. The idea of the novel series is to<br /> counteract or abolish the “penny dreadful”<br /> type of boys’ literature. A better beginning<br /> could not be made than with Mr. Rider Haggard’s<br /> * She.”<br /> The Commonwealth is a new monthly maga-<br /> zine, at threepence, edited by Canon Scott<br /> Holland. Messrs. Innes and Co. have transferred<br /> the Minster magazine to the Artistic Publishing<br /> Company, who are going to introduce new<br /> features into it.<br /> An adaptation of Mr. Anthony Hope&#039;s<br /> “Prisoner of Zenda,” which has successfully<br /> appeared in New York, will be produced at the<br /> St. James&#039;s Theatre early this year. Another<br /> dramatised adaptation to be given in London<br /> soon will be by Mr. Joseph Hatton, of his recent<br /> novel “When Greek Meets Greek.”<br /> The members of the Savage Club, men of<br /> letters and artists, are contributing to a volume<br /> of “Savage Club Papers,” to be issued in the<br /> spring, under the editorship of Mr. J. E. Muddock.<br /> Messrs. Hutchinson and Co. are the publishers.<br /> A Burns Exhibition of MS., pictures, and<br /> other relics, and also portraits and pictures of<br /> the people and places who figure in his works,<br /> will be held in Glasgow in celebration of the<br /> centenary of the poet&#039;s death. Lord Rosebery is<br /> hon. president of the Exhibition, and Sir James<br /> Bell (Lord Provost) president, while the other<br /> office-bearers and patrons include many of the<br /> foremost literary people of the day.<br /> Mr. James Baker will lecture at the Imperial<br /> Institute, on Feb. 3, on “Egypt of to-day; Her<br /> People and their Country.” He was up the Nile<br /> as special correspondent last winter, and will<br /> illustrate his lecture with over sixty photographs,<br /> taken by himself, of the natives and their religious<br /> ceremonies, &amp;c. He takes the chair at the<br /> Author&#039;s Club, at the first dinner of the New<br /> Year, on Jan. 6.<br /> Mr. Horace Cox will publish early in January<br /> a new novel, in one volume, entitled “Hather-<br /> sage: A Tale of North Derbyshire,” by Charles<br /> Edmund Hall, author of “An Ancient Ances-<br /> tor,” &amp;c.<br /> Two new volumes of verse are announced for<br /> immediate publication by Mr. Elliot Stock, viz.,<br /> “Urania, and other Astronomical Poems,” by<br /> Samuel Jefferson,” and “Meetings and Partings,”<br /> by E. C. Ricketts.<br /> Mr. Gladstone is writing a series of articles for<br /> the North American Review on “The Future<br /> State and the Condition of Man In It,” the<br /> first appearing this month, also a series on<br /> Bishop Butler for Good Words, beginning in<br /> February.<br /> A Library Edition of Mr. George Meredith’s<br /> novels is being arranged for, its issue to begin,<br /> probably, in the summer.<br /> At a sale of rare books held by Messrs. Sotheby,<br /> Wilkinson, and Hodge, the “Album ” of Giacomo<br /> Lauri at Rome, 1608-29, continued and extended<br /> by Anne Le Febvre in 1687-88, and com-<br /> prising letters and signatures from many of<br /> the most eminent persons of the time, brought<br /> ten guineas; “Rime di Antichi Autori Toscani,”<br /> Venice, 1532, Lord Byron&#039;s copy, with his<br /> autography on the title and the date 1820,<br /> £6 Ios.; and a fine copy of the first edition of<br /> Chapman’s translation of Homer&#039;s Odyssey, 1614,<br /> 3II IOS. -<br /> Mr. W. M. Noble has investigated the material<br /> concerning how the county of Huntingdon pre-<br /> pared to meet the 1588 invasion, and a volume by<br /> him on the subject will shortly be published by<br /> Mr. Elliot Stock under the title “Huntingdon-<br /> shire and the Spanish Armada.”<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#549) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I95<br /> The most important books of December were<br /> the first volume of “Literary Anecdotes of the<br /> Nineteenth Century,” edited by Dr. Robertson<br /> Nicoll and Mr. Thomas J. Wise (Hodder and<br /> Stoughton); Mr. John Davidson’s second series<br /> of “Fleet-street Eclogues &#039;&#039; (John Lane); Dean<br /> Stanley’s “Letters and Verses,” edited by Mr.<br /> R. E. Prothero (John Murray); and “Ironclads<br /> In Action,” by H. W. Wilson (Sampson<br /> Low).<br /> In one of his letters Dean Stanley gives this<br /> impression of Renan, whom he met at Paris<br /> with Turgeniev : “He showed a curious mix-<br /> ture of interest and want of interest ; had<br /> not been to Damascus because there were<br /> no monuments there ; was disappointed in<br /> Jerusalem, because there were so few monu-<br /> ments; had made every effort, with special<br /> recommendations, to enter the mosque, but found<br /> it totally impracticable unless by storming the<br /> town.”<br /> In the list of articles quoted in “Literature<br /> and the Periodicals” of last month’s Author,<br /> a valuable paper by Miss Alice M. Christie<br /> on Sir Philip Sidney’s “Defence of Poetry”<br /> was omitted. It appeared in the October<br /> and the November numbers of the Monthly<br /> JPacket.<br /> Mrs. Marshall’s last historical story The<br /> Master of the Musicians, was published by<br /> Messrs. Seeley in November. The White King’s<br /> Daughter, by the same author, published by<br /> Messrs. Seeley in May, has reached its 30OO, and<br /> is included in the Tauchnitz edition, making the<br /> twentieth volume of Mrs. Marshall’s works<br /> which have appeared in that series. Many of<br /> Mrs. Marshall’s books are translated into<br /> German and French.<br /> Mrs. Rentoul Esler&#039;s new book, just issued by<br /> Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston, and Co., is<br /> entitled “Mid Green Pastures.” In an exhaus-<br /> tive and literary review of this book The<br /> National Observer says: “Of all living writers<br /> Mrs. Esler is probably the nearest we now have<br /> to the author of “Cranford.”<br /> Whatever else may go out of fashion, detective<br /> literature does not seem on the wane. According<br /> to a recent return of the output of vernacular<br /> literature in India several of the well-known Dick<br /> Donovan&#039;s volumes have been translated for the<br /> benefit of “Tamil-speaking Christians.” The<br /> detective story seems to be as popular in India<br /> as it is in this country; but we believe that Mr.<br /> Donovan is the first author of this class of litera-<br /> ture who has ever had the honour of being trans-<br /> lated into Tamil.<br /> Messrs. Hutchinson and Co. have just issued<br /> Dick Donovan&#039;s entertaining romance of “Eugene<br /> Vidocq.” The story deals with the life and adven-<br /> tures of that extraordinary character, who was<br /> in turn soldier, thief, spy, detective, and lecturer.<br /> Reviewing the book the other day the Glasgow<br /> Herald said: “None of Dick Donovan’s rivals<br /> in this class of literature have yet outstripped<br /> him.”<br /> Early in January Chatto and Windus will<br /> issue yet another Dick Donovan volume entitled<br /> “The Mystery of Jamaica Terrace.”<br /> * * *<br /> CORRESPONDENCE.<br /> I.—NOTES AND Common-PLACE Books.<br /> &amp; &amp; O One except students ever did make<br /> notes or keep common-place books, and<br /> these do so still.” True, yet your<br /> paragraph shows that your own “common-place<br /> book” is not a book at all, and how can it<br /> be in these days P. To get the book and turn<br /> the pages requires too much time. And then<br /> the A pages, the M’s, the S&#039;s get filled up<br /> too soon, while O and K are still nearly empty.<br /> Besides there are so many newspaper cuttings<br /> in these days. So for notes we catch up the<br /> nearest half-sheet of paper, and for the disposal<br /> of notes and cuttings we devise a suitable recep-<br /> tacle. Your own plan is a good one, loose sheets<br /> of paper put into brown paper envelopes. Mine<br /> is different and may be useful as an alternative.<br /> At a shopfitter&#039;s I bought a frame of boxes such<br /> as is used by grocers for their teas or iron-<br /> mongers for brass nails and tin tacks. * With five<br /> rows and six in a row, it is convenient to make<br /> the vowels lead the files, and then everything is<br /> easily found. Four boxes are still available for<br /> special notes. The compositor&#039;s arrangement<br /> would not do for the student, and I think the<br /> plan below is even better that that of the poste<br /> Testante.<br /> <br /> |A | p q ºd<br /> E | F | g | H TT<br /> I || | | K-Ti, TM Nº<br /> O | P | Q || R. S T<br /> U | V | W X | Y Z<br /> GEO. ST. CLAIR.<br /> Cardiff, Dec. 11, 1895.<br /> • - - - -º-º-º-º- .<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#550) ################################################<br /> <br /> 196<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> II.-PROVISIONAL CoPYRIGHT REGISTRATION.<br /> The idea contained in this letter is due to the<br /> suggestion of Mr. George Haven Putnam, men-<br /> tioned in the article “The Working of the Copy-<br /> right Law,” on p. 6 of the Author of June, 1894.<br /> Mr. Putnam&#039;s suggestion is to the effect that the<br /> title of a work may be registered, and copyright<br /> in it be thereby acquired for a period of six<br /> months from the date of registration ; and that,<br /> if by or before the expiration of that period,<br /> the work be completed, copyright for it shall<br /> date from the day on which the title was regis-<br /> tered.<br /> This is an excellent suggestion, and one with<br /> which I entirely agree. It is the equivalent in<br /> the literary sphere to provisional protection for<br /> an invention or discovery under the patent law.<br /> In that, by filing a provisional specification<br /> describing the invention in general terms, and<br /> then, within a limited time thereafter, filing a<br /> complete specification describing it in detail, the<br /> patent is obtained from the date of the provisional<br /> specification.<br /> My proposal is to draw this parallel still closer,<br /> and to extend this proposed provisional protection<br /> to something more than the title. However useful<br /> and valuable a title may be, it is useless without<br /> the work, and one may protect the former by the<br /> simple process of not communicating it to any<br /> one. My proposal deals with a more practical<br /> question of publishing, where, besides the title,<br /> the style and arrangement of the work is fixed<br /> upon; where, by the mature of the case, one is<br /> bound to disclose them; and where, therefore,<br /> one cannot protect them by the simple process of<br /> silence.<br /> In the case of the proposed publication of some<br /> periodical which, though printed matter, cannot<br /> truly be classed as literature, a work in which<br /> composition does not enter into the question—as,<br /> for instance, a time-table or other work of refer-<br /> ence, in which the arrangement is the most im-<br /> portant point, more important even than the title.<br /> In such a case, where the outlay of capital has<br /> to be considered, it may be desired to ascertain,<br /> before going to much expense, what prospect<br /> there is of the venture’s meeting with success ;<br /> and, therefore, it may be necessary to issue, Con-<br /> siderably in advance of the first serial number of<br /> the proposed publication, a specimen number<br /> thereof, with a view to ascertaining what support<br /> can be obtained for it.<br /> The arrangement and design of such a work<br /> cannot be protected under the Patents, Designs,<br /> and Trade Marks Act, and, though one might<br /> register it under the existing Copyright Law, one<br /> would have secured copyright only for the speci-<br /> men number, and not either for the title or<br /> arrangement of the actual publication at all.<br /> That comes because, under the existing law,<br /> registration at the Copyright Office affords no<br /> protection until the actual work is published. In<br /> such a case as this, the contents of the specimen<br /> would be bound to be old or fictitious, as it would<br /> be impossible to insert the matter that number one<br /> of the proposed publication would contain, for the<br /> simple reason that it would not be ascertainable<br /> so long in advance, besides which there is no copy-<br /> right in it.<br /> This, then, is what might happen under the<br /> existing law, that, as copyrighting the specimen<br /> afforded no protection to the actual work, anyone<br /> else (perhaps more favourably placed) having<br /> seen the specimen, might arrange to issue No. 1<br /> of such a publication before the date announced<br /> by the person issuing the former ; and there<br /> would be nothing whatever to prevent his adopt-<br /> ing the title and arrangement, and securing<br /> copyright for them both to the exclusion of the<br /> person with whom they originated.<br /> What I propose is, that there should be pro-<br /> visional protection for such a specimen number,<br /> Securing copyright in the title and arrangement,<br /> for a period of, say six or twelve months from the<br /> date of registration ; and that, if No. 1 of the<br /> actual publication be not issued before or by the<br /> expiration of that time anyone else should be at<br /> liberty to make use of either or both of the ideas,<br /> but no one be able to obtain copyright in either<br /> of them. It would not be necessary, as with<br /> provisionally protected inventions, to demand a.<br /> second fee, as no second description would be<br /> filed.<br /> It is suggested in Lord Monkswell&#039;s Bill that<br /> the Copyright Registration Office might be com-<br /> bined with the Registry of Designs and Trade<br /> Marks; as designs and trade marks are under<br /> the same administration as patents for inventions,<br /> perhaps they may all, eventually, come under the<br /> same control, and, as each deals but with a<br /> different way of expressing ideas, there is nothing<br /> unreasonable in this.<br /> It is stated at the end of the article above re-<br /> ferred to that provisional protection of a title is<br /> provided for in this Bill. I have read it through<br /> carefully, and, having failed to find any reference<br /> to it, shall be glad to be informed which clause<br /> covers that point. This seems to me to be the<br /> the only omission from an otherwise perfect Bill.<br /> HUBERT HAEs.	https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/285/1896-01-01-The-Author-6-8.pdf	publications, The Author
284	https://historysoa.com/items/show/284	The Author, Vol. 06 Issue 07 (December 1895)	<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.+06+Issue+07+%28December+1895%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 Issue 07 (December 1895)</a>			<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</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>	1895-12-02-The-Author-6-7					149–172																		<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=6">6</a>											<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1895-12-02">1895-12-02</a>							7			18951202	C be El u t b or,<br /> (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors.<br /> Monthly.)<br /> C O N DU C T E D BY W.A. L T E R B E S.A. N. T.<br /> VoI. VI.-No. 7.]<br /> DECEMBER. 2, 1895.<br /> [PRICE SIXPENCE.<br /> For the Opinions eaſpressed in papers that are<br /> signed or initialled the Authors alone are<br /> Tesponsible. None of the papers or para-<br /> graphs must be taken as earpressing the<br /> collective opinions of the committee unless<br /> they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br /> Thring, Sec.<br /> *-- * ~ *<br /> º- ºr *-*.<br /> HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all<br /> remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and<br /> requests that all members not receiving an answer to<br /> important communications within two days will write to him<br /> without delay. All remittances should be crossed Union<br /> Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered<br /> letter only.<br /> Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on<br /> all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub-<br /> jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are<br /> returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS.<br /> *~ * ~ *<br /> WARNINGS AND ADWICE,<br /> I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.-It is not generally<br /> understood that the author, as the vendor, has the<br /> absolute right of drafting the agreement upon<br /> whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out.<br /> Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In<br /> every form of business, this among others, the right of<br /> drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or<br /> has the control of the property.<br /> 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.—In selling Serial Rights remember<br /> that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that<br /> is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you<br /> object to this, insert a clause to that effect.<br /> 3. STAMP. YoUR, AGREEMENTs. – Readers are most<br /> URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements<br /> immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected<br /> for two weeks, a fine of £1 o must be paid before the agree-<br /> ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every<br /> case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter<br /> which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The<br /> author may be assured that the other party to the agree-<br /> ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society,<br /> to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of<br /> members stamped for them at no ea pense to themselves<br /> eacept the cost of the stamp. - -<br /> 4. AscERTAIN WHAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES TO<br /> BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an<br /> arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi-<br /> ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party<br /> WOL, WI.<br /> rights.<br /> refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he<br /> reserved for himself.<br /> 5. LITERARY AGENTS.—Be very careful. You cannot be<br /> too careful as to the person whom you appoint as your<br /> agent. Remember that you place your property almost un-<br /> reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting<br /> the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience<br /> of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alome.<br /> 6. COST OF PRODUCTION.——Never sign any agreement of<br /> which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part,<br /> until you have proved the figures.<br /> 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.—Never enter into any cor-<br /> respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad-<br /> vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced<br /> friends or by this Society.<br /> 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever,<br /> bind yourself down for future work to anyone.<br /> 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or<br /> responsibility whatever without advice.<br /> Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a MS. has been re-<br /> fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises<br /> they may put forward, for the production of the work.<br /> II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American<br /> Reep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any<br /> agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the<br /> publisher, unless for a substantial consideration.<br /> 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper,<br /> either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright,<br /> without advice.<br /> I3. ADVERTISEMENTS. — Keep some control over the<br /> advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in<br /> the agreement.<br /> I4. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any<br /> other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy,<br /> charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with<br /> business men. Be yourself a business man.<br /> Society’s Offices :—<br /> 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN&#039;s INN FIELDs.<br /> *—- - -*<br /> •- * ~<br /> HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br /> I. VERY member has a right to ask 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 /> business or the administration of his property. If the advice<br /> Sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member<br /> has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the<br /> case is such that Counsel&#039;s opinion is desirable, the Com-<br /> mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this<br /> without any cost to the member.<br /> 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br /> and publisher&#039;s agreements do not generally fall within the<br /> Q 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#504) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 50<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br /> to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually<br /> engaged upon such questions for us.<br /> 3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past<br /> accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in<br /> order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree-<br /> ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively<br /> so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any<br /> agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor-<br /> mation thus obtained may prove invaluable.<br /> 4. If the examination of your previous business trans-<br /> actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should<br /> take advice as to a change of publishers.<br /> 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro-<br /> posed document to the Society for examination.<br /> 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in<br /> the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish-<br /> ing firm in the country.<br /> 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you<br /> are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are<br /> reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing<br /> the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen-<br /> dence of the writer.<br /> 8. Send to the Editor of the Awthor notes of everything<br /> important to literature that you may hear or meet with.<br /> 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of<br /> members&#039; agreements and their preservation in a fireproof<br /> safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con-<br /> ſidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who<br /> will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:—(1)<br /> To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To<br /> stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon<br /> them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments<br /> due according to agreements.<br /> == * *-sº<br /> THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE,<br /> EMBERS are informed :<br /> I. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate takes charge of<br /> the business of members of the Society. That it<br /> submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree-<br /> ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene-<br /> rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business<br /> details.<br /> 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured<br /> will be forwarded upon detailed application.<br /> 3. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate works only for those<br /> members of the Society whose work possesses a market<br /> value.<br /> 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations<br /> whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia-<br /> tions are placed ea clusively in its hands, and that all<br /> communications relating thereto are referred to it.<br /> 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by<br /> appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days&#039;<br /> notice should be given.<br /> 6. That overy attempt is made to deal with all communi-<br /> cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent<br /> to defray postage.<br /> 7. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate does not invite MSS.<br /> without previous correspondence; does not hold itself<br /> responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that<br /> in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray<br /> postage.<br /> 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for<br /> lectures by some of the leading members of the Society;<br /> that it has a “Transfer Department&#039; for the sale and<br /> purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register<br /> of Wants and Wanted &#039;&#039; is open. Members are invited to<br /> communicate their requirements to the Manager.<br /> There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services<br /> will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It<br /> is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the<br /> Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in<br /> the Syndicate.<br /> sº- a 2-4°<br /> r-- - --a<br /> NOTICES.<br /> HE Editor of the Awthor begs to remind members of the<br /> Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br /> of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very<br /> heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br /> many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br /> 6s. 6d. subscription for the year.<br /> The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and<br /> communications on all subjects connected with literature<br /> from members and others. Nothing can do more good to<br /> the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive,<br /> and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this<br /> work send their names and the special subjects on which<br /> they are willing to write P<br /> Communications for the Author should reach the Editor<br /> not later than the 21st of each month.<br /> All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether<br /> members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate<br /> to the Editor any points connected with their work which<br /> it would be advisable in the general interest to publish.<br /> Members and others who wish their MSS. read are<br /> requested not to send them to the Office without previously<br /> communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable<br /> despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in<br /> which they are received. It must also be distinctly under-<br /> stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances,<br /> undertake the publication of MSS.<br /> The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at<br /> 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary<br /> for information, rules of admission, &amp;c.<br /> Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br /> have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do<br /> this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker&#039;s<br /> order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the<br /> trouble of sending out a reminder.<br /> Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br /> warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a<br /> most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding<br /> for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they<br /> would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five<br /> years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest<br /> or dishonest? Of course they would not. Why then<br /> hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them-<br /> selves into literary bondage for three or five years P<br /> Those who possess the “Cost of Production * are<br /> requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15<br /> per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble<br /> of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the<br /> pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding<br /> is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be<br /> added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands<br /> at £948. The figures in our book are as near the exact<br /> truth as can be procured; but a printer&#039;s, or a binder’s,<br /> bill is so elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be<br /> arrived at.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#505) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I5 I<br /> Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br /> in the “Cost of Production” for advertising. Of course, we<br /> have not included any sums which may be charged for<br /> inserting advertisements in the publisher&#039;s own magazines,<br /> or in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too<br /> often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from<br /> sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket,<br /> by inserting any number of advertisements in his own<br /> magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are<br /> who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those<br /> who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it.<br /> &gt;<br /> c;<br /> FROM THE COMMITTEE,<br /> HE Secretary has in hand the preparation of clauses to<br /> meet the various points necessary for an agreement in<br /> any of the ordinary methods of publishing. He will be<br /> obliged for any suggestions on the subject from members of<br /> the Society.<br /> Dr. Jurisconsult Ernst Lange, of Zurich, has prepared and<br /> presented to the Committee a paper on the “Contracts of<br /> Publishing ” in Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Switzer-<br /> land. It has been resolved to print this pamphlet uniform<br /> with the “Cost of Production.” The best thanks of the<br /> Committee have been passed to Dr. Lange for this gift.<br /> A somewhat interesting case has been before the Com-<br /> mittee. It would have been more interesting had it been<br /> settled in a court of law by a friendly action. The case is<br /> one in which an author’s MS. was accidentally burned<br /> while in charge of a publishing firm. Of course this<br /> accident entails upon the author a great deal of labour.<br /> How far are the publishers liable in such a case ? Did they<br /> take reasonable precautions in the matter P The case has<br /> been settled, one hopes to the satisfaction of both parties.<br /> Dut still the question of what constitutes reasonable precau-<br /> tions remains open.<br /> G. H. THRING, Secretary.<br /> =&gt; 0 erº<br /> LITERARY PROPERTY.<br /> T.—CANADIAN COPYRIGHT.<br /> Ottawa, Nov. 25.<br /> HE long-pending controversy on the copy-<br /> T right question was brought a long way on<br /> the road to a conclusion to-day by the<br /> adoption of a basis of agreement which was<br /> accepted by Mr. Hall Caine and Mr. Daldy for<br /> the British authors and publishers, by the<br /> Canadian Copyright Association, and by the<br /> Dominion Government. This satisfactory result<br /> is due almost entirely to the efforts of Mr. Hall<br /> Caine, who, in the face of the strongest opposition<br /> on this side, has largely succeeded, since he<br /> arrived in the Dominion, in removing the objec-<br /> tions of the Canadian publishers to any inter-<br /> ference with the Act of 1889, and has more or<br /> less secured their assent to an amended Bill.<br /> Mr. Hall Caine and Mr. Daldy, together with<br /> the representatives of the Canadian publishing<br /> houses, the Copyright Association, and the Press<br /> Association, held a conference to-day with Sir<br /> C. H. Tupper, Mr. Ouimet, and the sub-com-<br /> mittee of the Privy Council appointed to meet<br /> them. Mr. Hall Caine recited the negotiations<br /> which have taken place during the past few weeks<br /> and submitted a draft Bill for the consideration<br /> of the Government. It was, he said, in the<br /> nature of a compromise, and, like most com-<br /> promises, did not covereverything that both parties<br /> might desire, but it was the best that could be<br /> arrived at in the circumstances, and he thought<br /> he could say that they would all be well satisfied<br /> to see its general principles carried into effect.<br /> Speaking for the body which he represented, he<br /> fully believed that an Act framed on the lines of<br /> this measure would be acceptable to British<br /> authors.<br /> Mr. Hall Caine continued:<br /> “By this Bill the time within which a copyright<br /> holder can publish in Canada and so secure an<br /> absolute and untrammelled copyright is extended<br /> from thirty to sixty days, with a possible exten-<br /> sion of thirty days more at the discretion of the<br /> authorities. Also, by this agreement, the licence<br /> to be granted for the production of a book that<br /> has not fulfilled the conditions of Canadian<br /> copyright law is limited to one licence, and this<br /> single licence is only to be issued with the copy-<br /> right holder’s knowledge or sanction. Further,<br /> the copyright holder who has an independent<br /> chance of securing copyright for himself within a<br /> period of sixty days is to be allowed a second<br /> chance of securing it after it has been challenged<br /> and before it can be disposed of by licence ;<br /> and, finally, the royalties of the author are to be<br /> secured to him by a regulation of the revenue to<br /> stamp an edition of a book on the issue of a<br /> licence.<br /> “This is the ground of the draft Bill which the<br /> Canadian Copyright Association has joined with<br /> Mr. Daldy and myself in recommending to your<br /> Ministers, and on its general principle I have to<br /> say, first, about Canadian authors, that a Bill<br /> framed on these lines will not put them into a<br /> position of isolation among the authors of the<br /> world, and next, about the authors of Englan 1<br /> and America and of all the countries having a<br /> copyright treaty with England, that it will secure<br /> to authors the control of their property, and put<br /> them all alike on an equal footing, and therefore<br /> it will not, I think, disturb the operation of the<br /> Berne Convention, so far as Canada is concerned,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#506) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 52<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> authors.<br /> or the understanding between Great Britain and<br /> the United States. The Bill is recommended to<br /> the Government with all modesty of intention,<br /> and with the certainty that they will use so much<br /> of it as they consider wise and good.”<br /> In conclusion, Mr. Hall Caine bore testimony<br /> to the spirit of conciliation and fair dealing with<br /> which Mr. Daldy and himself had been received<br /> in Canada, both by the Government and by the<br /> classes interested in the law of copyright.<br /> Mr. Ross Robertson, president of the Copy-<br /> right Association, followed. He said he believed<br /> that the conclusions reached dealt fairly and<br /> honourably with all parties interested, whether<br /> British, Canadian, or foreign, whether author or<br /> publisher. There had been concessions on both<br /> sides. He did not claim that the Canadian Copy-<br /> right Association had got all that they wanted,<br /> or that they were entitled to. The body which<br /> he represented could not be accused of being<br /> unreasonable, and in saying that he did not pre-<br /> tend that Mr. Hall Caine had not shown every<br /> inclination to meet their views so far as he could<br /> without endangering the interests of British<br /> The draft Bill would not be satisfac-<br /> tory to the extremists on both sides, but that<br /> might be regarded as a proof of its fairness.<br /> Mr. L. W. Shannon, president of the Canadian<br /> Press Association, spoke in support of the<br /> Illea,SUll’é.<br /> Mr. Daldy expressed himself satisfied with the<br /> general principles of the proposed measures.<br /> Considerable discussion followed regarding the<br /> details of the amended Bill, and the question of<br /> the importation of colonial editions of British<br /> copyright works was raised and was discussed at<br /> length by a number of the booksellers present.<br /> The conference lasted two hours, and at its close<br /> the Ministers announced that they would lay the<br /> representations of the delegates before the Govern-<br /> ment, and that a decision would be reached at an<br /> early date. * .<br /> Mr. Daldy, in the course of conversation with<br /> me to-night, said that the principal objection<br /> which he sees in the copyright measure as at<br /> present arranged is the proposal to prevent the<br /> importation into Canada of copyright books law-<br /> fully printed in British dominions. He thinks,<br /> however, that this can be arranged. — Times,<br /> Nov. 26. -<br /> II.-ADDREss BY MIR. HALL CAINE.<br /> The following verbatim report of Mr. Hall<br /> Caine&#039;s speech at the dinner given to him by the<br /> publishers and booksellers of Toronto has been<br /> forwarded to us by a Canadian friend :<br /> “The thing that has struck me most since I<br /> came to this continent is the loyalty of Canada.<br /> Your loyalty may not be deeper, but it is more<br /> vocal than ours in England. If I had to find a<br /> reason for your devotion to the Crown, I think I<br /> should ask myself if it did not come largely of<br /> your independent position as a self-governing<br /> Dominion. Some light is thrown on this matter<br /> for me by my knowledge of my own little island<br /> home, the Isle of Man. We are a passionately<br /> loyal people there, and we are a little self-<br /> governing nation. If we were to be merged into<br /> a county of England, I should not like to answer<br /> for the life of our loyalty. So, perhaps, with<br /> Canada. The best way to preserve her loyalty is<br /> to preserve her independent rights. Long may<br /> her independence last ! Long may it be before<br /> there can be any serious talk of another con-<br /> dition<br /> I. But though you are independent of the old<br /> country, you have your ties and obligations to<br /> her. You are in the position of the son of a<br /> father who has many sons. There was no room<br /> for them and for their children under the parent<br /> roof. There was neither chance of life nor like-<br /> lihood of peace. So the son goes out and marries<br /> himself, perhaps, to the strange woman. But<br /> because he lives under another roof he does not<br /> cease to be his father&#039;s son. He bears his father&#039;s<br /> name. He carries his father&#039;s blood. If he does<br /> wrong, the shame will be his father&#039;s no less than<br /> his. If right, the glory will be his father&#039;s too.<br /> He cannot dissociate himself from his father.<br /> And though he is fully able to look after his own<br /> affairs, there are things in which he looks to his<br /> father. He allows his father to give pledges for<br /> him, always reserving the power of withdrawing<br /> from them where they seem to him unwise. He<br /> does not withdraw from them if he can avoid<br /> doing so, even when they are not altogether to<br /> his taste. So Canada. She has her relations<br /> with England, and through England with the<br /> rest of the world. England enters into treaties<br /> or arrangements in her name and on her behalf.<br /> She will keep these treaties if she can. They are<br /> intended for the benefit of the whole family, and<br /> if they press a little hard here or there, she will<br /> still try to observe them, because of the bond of<br /> blood and of name, and because of the deep call<br /> of patriotism.<br /> 2. The bonds between Canada and England are<br /> many. There is the bond of the finest navy in<br /> the world, which you share with England; the<br /> finest army in the world, the finest diplomatic<br /> service in the world, the purest and justest<br /> jurisprudence in the world, building up the most<br /> free freedom in the world. But there is another<br /> bond between Canada and England, a less palp-<br /> able but no less less real bond—may, a bond<br /> more real, more constantly present at your<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#507) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I 53<br /> nearths and homes, the bond of intellectual<br /> brotherhood. Our literature is your literature.<br /> It does not come to you through a veil as the<br /> literature of France does, as the literature of<br /> Germany does. It comes to you in your mother<br /> tongue, in the words you learned from your cradle.<br /> And the great masters of our literature are your<br /> brethren. You are bound to remember that<br /> Shakespeare was an Englishman, tha&#039;, Milton<br /> was an Englishman, and that the lesset masters<br /> of later days, who come even closer than these,<br /> Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Charles Reade<br /> —that these were your kith and kin. This is<br /> your inheritance—a great inheritance. You are not<br /> going tobarter it away for any advantage of pounds,<br /> shillings, and pence. And just as you are proud<br /> of the literary giants of the past, so you want to<br /> be proud of the good men of the present. You<br /> want to hold on to them, to help them, to<br /> encourage them to increase in numbers and in<br /> strength, and to build up the conditions of life<br /> that will foster their growth and prosperity.<br /> 3. Now, gentlemen, the first condition of growth<br /> and prosperity to the man of letters is security in<br /> the exercise of his calling, and in the right he<br /> holds to the results of his labours. He must sit<br /> in his own house at ease ; he must be in no fear<br /> of bombardment; he must know that for his own<br /> good and the good of all who set store by his<br /> skill, he can work at his own anvil, with the<br /> assurance that the laws of his country will keep<br /> the peace around him. The man of letters has<br /> not always been able to do this. The history of<br /> legislation on copyright is a miserable story of<br /> the struggle of the man who writes a book, to<br /> hold and protect it after it has been written. It<br /> is not so very long ago that the laws of modern<br /> nations (whatever may have been the case with<br /> ancient nations) recognised no rights of the<br /> author in the book he had produced. And when<br /> those rights were at length recognised, the period<br /> in which the writer of a book could control it<br /> was no more than seven years. It has taken<br /> nearly two hundred years to increase that term in<br /> England, from seven to forty-two, and only one<br /> country in the world (so far as I know) has yet<br /> made the author&#039;s right perpetual. It is only<br /> within recent times that literature has come to be<br /> regarded from the pecuniary view. For many<br /> ages the author was the one labourer in the world<br /> who was not considered worthy of his hire. And,<br /> meanwhile, the progress of legislation from the<br /> first nebulous condition has been clogged at every<br /> step—clogged in Parliaments, clogged even in the<br /> courts of law—by many interests that have had<br /> nothing to do with literature, or were at best, but<br /> accidental to its existence.<br /> - 4. Gentlemen, it is not for me to say too<br /> precisely what those interests have been. Still<br /> less may I in this hospitable presence condemn<br /> them as wholly selfish and of retrogade tendency.<br /> I am willing to believe that they have sometimes<br /> been forced upon the classes who have been<br /> parties to them by a sense of duty to their own,<br /> in relation to other classes, and to their own<br /> nation in relation to other nations. But all the<br /> same they have impeded the rights of authors.<br /> You will allow me to tell you, gentlemen, that<br /> those rights are natural rights, that they are not<br /> primarily created by the State, that however<br /> necessary it may be to call in the help of the law<br /> for the protection of the rights of literary<br /> property, the author&#039;s right in the book he<br /> produces is a right of creation, and that by its<br /> nature it should never cease, and should never be<br /> divided with another. That it is so divided,<br /> divided with the reader, divided with the pub-<br /> lisher, is a concession which the author makes in<br /> order that a greater force than his personal force<br /> shall protect what he has made. I am not<br /> pretending that this is the bearing of copyright<br /> from the point of history or of the law of nations.<br /> But it is the principle of copyright put down on<br /> the bed rock of natural law. Dr. Johnson put it<br /> down on this bed rock, and no man has ever been<br /> Imore sound on the rights of literary property.<br /> 5. Gentlemen, the progress of legislation in<br /> England, and throughout the civilised world, has<br /> been towards the recognition of this natural<br /> right. It has been a hard and long battle.<br /> Many a good man has fought for it. Since<br /> Johnson there have been Scott, Carlyle, Thack-<br /> eray, Dickens, Charles Reade, Lytton, and<br /> Wilkie Collins. And among living men, who<br /> are doing their best to establish the principle<br /> that the author has a right to control his<br /> writings, there are Mr. Lecky, Mr. Herbert<br /> Spencer, Sir Walter Besant, and your renowned<br /> fellow-townsman, whom all Canadians agree to<br /> honour, Mr. Goldwin Smith. The crowning<br /> glory of that struggle has been the international<br /> agreement which we call the Berne Convention.<br /> This agreement recognises that the book is the<br /> absolute property of the author, and that this<br /> property is to be respected in every country that<br /> is party to the union. Briefly expressed, Copy-<br /> right under the Berne Convention is like marriage<br /> in all civilised states, and just as the marriage<br /> that is good in the country where it is contracted<br /> is good in the rest of the world, so the copyright<br /> that is secured in the country of origin is secured<br /> over all the countries of the Convention. We<br /> consider this agreement a great triumph for.<br /> literature, and many of the nations of Europe<br /> have entered in it. We should deplore anything<br /> that would imperil it or limit its operation. Now,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#508) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 54<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I will venture to say that no Canadian desires to<br /> endanger the Berne Convention if he can see his<br /> way to preserve it without injury to the<br /> industries of his country.<br /> 6. And here, gentlemen, we come to the ques-<br /> tion at issue between us. There is one great<br /> country which has not yet entered into the<br /> Berne Convention, and that country is your neigh-<br /> bour, the United States. In the United States<br /> the recognition of the rights of literary property<br /> was for a long time limited to the recognition of<br /> their own rights. The universal rights of lite-<br /> rary property were unrecognised in the States<br /> down to four years ago. The result was the<br /> practice of a form of piracy which demoralised<br /> trade, degraded literature, and nearly extermi-<br /> nated the profession of letters. When the good<br /> and true men in the United States at length<br /> prevailed over the dishonest traders the legis-<br /> lation they made had to be of the nature of a<br /> compromise. They desired to go down to the<br /> bed rock of natural right, but class interests were<br /> too strong for them. They were not fools, and<br /> did not attempt to run their heads against stone<br /> walls. They wisely remembered that half a loaf<br /> was better than no bread, and they accepted a<br /> limited copyright which allowed the United<br /> States printer to deny copyright to anybody who<br /> did not print on American soil. This limited<br /> legislation was only to be granted to foreign<br /> countries in exchange for reciprocal rights.<br /> England was asked for herself and her colonies<br /> could she grant those reciprocal rights. She<br /> answered that she could. On that understanding<br /> the President issued a proclamation asserting<br /> the rights of British subjects to copyright in the<br /> United States subject to the conditions of the<br /> laws of the States.<br /> 7. Gentlemen, here lay the crux of your own<br /> difficulty. This great country is by the accident<br /> of its geographical position, the rival, the peace-<br /> ful but dangerous rival of Canada. It was a<br /> large and powerful rival. It had sixty-five<br /> millions of readers against your five millions.<br /> It could afford to outbid you in the market for<br /> books. Your territory was soon flooded with<br /> literature which was no longer pirated as before,<br /> but authorised. Also it was still flooded with other<br /> books, which, not being copyright in the States,<br /> continued to be stolen. You could not compete<br /> and you could not steal—let us say you would<br /> not if you could. So you demanded the right to<br /> legislate for yourselves, and you based your<br /> claim to do so on a clause in the British North<br /> America Act of 1867. By this Act you wished<br /> to control every book that came into your<br /> dominion, just as you control every piece of<br /> merchandise that comes here. And your legis-<br /> lation was intended to say that before a book<br /> should have copyright in Canada it should be<br /> manufactured here. The manufacturing should<br /> be for a short period under the author&#039;s control,<br /> but after that period it should be under the<br /> control of the officers of the Dominion Parlia-<br /> ment. Obviously this was legislation that did<br /> not agree with the spirit of the Berne Conven-<br /> tion. Your own statesman, Sir John Thompson,<br /> found the Berne Convention opposed to the legis-<br /> lation you desired, and so he asked for an order in<br /> council giving Canada relief from the Union.<br /> Canada had a right to ask for such relief after an<br /> interval of twelve months.<br /> 8. Now, I am not here, sir, to discuss the con-<br /> stitutional aspects of the question. We have<br /> been doing that with more or less temper since<br /> 1889, and we might go on to the end of the<br /> century and “get no forrader.” Whether the<br /> Act of 1867 gives you the right to legislate for<br /> yourselves on One aspect of international copy-<br /> right, and whether the British Government are<br /> bound to grant you, at your request, exemption<br /> from the advantages and obligations of the Berne<br /> convention, can very well be left to the decision<br /> of the law officers in London and in Ottawa. My<br /> presence here in Toronto as your guest, tacitly<br /> implies that we recognise that, rightly or wrongly,<br /> Canada has certain powers in this matter, and is<br /> likely to be allowed to exercise them. Don’t let<br /> us drift away from copyright into a question of<br /> constitutional right. Don’t let us obscure our<br /> true problem in the clouds of party politics.<br /> Don&#039;t let us encourage any able, vigorous, and<br /> patriotic young Minister to say that Canada has<br /> a right to misgovern herself if she likes. Let us<br /> keep this dispute down to the question of whether<br /> an author has a right to control his books abso-<br /> lutely, and if he has not, what measure of his<br /> control must he hand over to the State.<br /> 9. Gentlemen, the attitude of authors towards<br /> your Act of 1889 is very easily stated—we object<br /> to your claim to manufacture our books, whether<br /> We will or not, because the right of the author<br /> which ought to be shared with the reader only<br /> would be divided with the printer also, who ought<br /> to be no party to the copyright contract. On<br /> grounds of natural law there is only one party to<br /> copyright, the author. The laws of nations have<br /> agreed to allow a second party to come in, the<br /> reader, who is granted limited rights on stringent<br /> terms. You are now claiming, as the United<br /> States claimed, the admission of a third party,<br /> and if the first party does not like three to the<br /> contract, you are asking that there shall be only<br /> two, with the discontented party, the first party,<br /> the party of the author, left out. That is our<br /> objection to your Act of 1889 on abstract prin-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#509) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I 55<br /> ciples. On grounds of material fact we object to<br /> it because (I) it multiplies the places of manu-<br /> facture, and so prevents the production of all<br /> but very popular books, and that will be a<br /> grievous injury to works of scholarship and<br /> research; (2) it puts a book into the position of<br /> merchandise coming to your shores, whereas no<br /> book will ever come here and ask you to manu-<br /> facture it unless you first go deliberately over the<br /> water and fetch it across; (3) it allows of a period<br /> when a book is no longer under its author&#039;s<br /> control, and that strikes a blow at the absolute<br /> spirit of copyright and demands a freer name,<br /> and finally (4) it requires that you should with-<br /> draw from the Berne Convention, which is the<br /> sheet-anchor of the hope of all who have fought<br /> for the security and dignity of literature.<br /> Io. Gentlemen, I have tried to state the case<br /> fairly, and without questioning your right to legis-<br /> late for yourselves, I want to ask you a single ques-<br /> tion—What&#039;s the good? What&#039;s the good of the<br /> Act of 1889 to any party among the people for<br /> whom you legislate? What&#039;s the good to your<br /> author P What&#039;s the good to your reader?<br /> What&#039;s the good to your printer? What&#039;s the<br /> good to your publisher and bookseller P I say<br /> the Act of 1889, as it stands, is no good to any of<br /> these. It is no good to your author because it<br /> deprives him of copyright in all the countries of<br /> the copyright union, and reduces him to the<br /> isolation of his right of copyright in Canada. It is<br /> no good to your reader, because he gets his popular<br /> books at fifty cents, seventy-five cents and a<br /> dollar at present, and if he expects them any<br /> cheaper he expects what our readers in England<br /> never get and what he has no right to ask if he<br /> has any desire to leave bread and butter to the<br /> men who make his literature. It is no good to<br /> your printer (by that, I mean not the owner of<br /> your steam machines but your compositor) because<br /> your Act does not require that you should find<br /> labour for your poor operatives in composing<br /> your books (a claim that would have had our<br /> sympathy) but only that your publishers should<br /> import the plates that have been made by the<br /> labour of English operatives, and this, which has<br /> been claimed as a concession to England is really<br /> an injury to English authors because it will help<br /> you to produce books at less than the natural<br /> price, and that is an unsound commercial basis.<br /> And finally it is no good, and much less than no<br /> good, to your publishers and booksellers, because<br /> the unlimited licenses which it allows will cut the<br /> throat of the book trade, by reducing the prices<br /> of popular books from fifty cents to twenty-five<br /> and to fifteen and ten, until at length from the<br /> plates of a newspaper serial a novel will as<br /> formerly in the United States be produced by the<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> soap merchant to wrap round bars of kitchen<br /> soap, and bookselling as a separate industry will<br /> in ten years&#039; time be gone from the face of<br /> Canada altogether. In short, sir, to use the<br /> idiomatic language of one of your own rude but<br /> wise and far-seeing legislators of the past,<br /> “There ain&#039;t nothing to it no-how.”<br /> II. But, gentlemen, do not suppose that I am<br /> blind to the difficulties of your position. While<br /> I have been in Canada. I have learned a good deal.<br /> I have met some of your publishers in person; I<br /> no longer believe that their first and only purpose<br /> is any form of shameful confiscation, any invasion<br /> of the market of the United States, and however<br /> much I may think they are pursuing a mistaken<br /> and dangerous policy, I am entirely willing to<br /> believe that they wish to remain upright, honest,<br /> and high - principled men. Since I came to<br /> Canada. I have seen some things which, while they<br /> do not excuse your Act of 1889 to an author, go<br /> far to explain its existence. On your bookstalls,<br /> for instance, I have found three different copy-<br /> right editions of “Trilby,” the English copyright<br /> edition, the Colonial copyright edition, and the<br /> Canadian copyright edition. The anomaly and<br /> absurdity of the position of this book needs no<br /> comment, and neither does that of my own copy-<br /> right book, the “Manxman,” which comes to<br /> Canada from England on payment of its six cents<br /> duty and from the United States subject (until<br /> lately), to the author&#039;s royalty of I2; per cent.<br /> thus paying me (nominally if not really) twice for<br /> the piece of work. Since I came to Canada. I<br /> have seen the necessity for the reform or the<br /> rescinding of Acts (like the Foreign Reprints<br /> Acts) made to meet a condition that is gone—<br /> the condition of general piracy in the United<br /> States down to 1891. And though I do not<br /> think tho anomalies of your present copyright<br /> arrangements call for legislation of so radical a<br /> nature as you propose, I recognise the fact that<br /> your geographical position in relation to the<br /> United States, the absence there of an agreement<br /> with the Berne Convention, and the presence<br /> there of a manufacturing clause in favour of<br /> American printers, gives you a certain justifica-<br /> tion which no other English colony (such as<br /> Australia), could possibly have for a measure of<br /> self-control and for a limited right to make the<br /> books intended for your own market. I say this<br /> guardedly and after reflection, and always with<br /> the reservation that all your manufacturing<br /> clauses are objectionable to authors and a limita-<br /> tion of the principle of copyright, only to be<br /> allowed under peculiar and trying conditions.<br /> But as long as the United States keeps out of the<br /> Berne Convention, and as long as they insist on<br /> manufacturing their own books, just so long,<br /> R.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#510) ################################################<br /> <br /> 156<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> but not one hour longer, I would (speaking<br /> for myself alone), be willing to grant to<br /> Canada (divided as it is from the States<br /> only by an imaginary border which is easily<br /> passed), the right to make her own books<br /> under some measure of authors’ control. Given<br /> this authors’ control, I do not think your Cana-<br /> dian copyright should be any cause of offence to<br /> America or disturb the understanding on which<br /> the President made his proclamation. And I do<br /> not think it ought to be in opposition to the<br /> spirit of the Berne Convention, whose second<br /> article seems to provide for just such cases as<br /> your own. But everything depends on the<br /> measure of control which you leave to the author,<br /> and I must tell you at once that unlimited licens-<br /> ing under the direction of your Government<br /> would be entirely inconsistent with the idea of<br /> authors’ rights entertained by the signatories to<br /> the Berne Convention. Some form of licensing I<br /> should personally advocate for Canada under the<br /> peculiar difficulties of her present relation to the<br /> United States with its right to manufacture, but<br /> it must be single licensing, and it must take<br /> cognizance of authors’ control, and that will not<br /> only be best for us, but also best for you—best<br /> for you as authors, best for you as readers, and<br /> as printers and as publishers. It is not for me<br /> now to say more precisely what system of licens-<br /> ing under the author&#039;s control I should urge my<br /> brother authors to accept. I have formulated a<br /> scheme which, as you know, I am submitting to<br /> your Government, and shall propose to my fellow<br /> authors without prejudice. I believe they will<br /> consider it fully and fairly, and I have every con-<br /> fidence that your Government will use as much<br /> of it as seems sound and wise.<br /> 12. Gentlemen, only one word more. What-<br /> ever law you make in Canada. I personally mean<br /> to obey it, and the best of the authors in Eng-<br /> land, as far as they are able, will obey it also.<br /> Though it bear heavily on us we will submit.<br /> But I beg of you not to put us to too hard a test.<br /> Do not let us feel that foreign countries—France<br /> and Germany—can be more fair to us than our<br /> own colony. We are very proud of Canada. It is<br /> the youngest of the nations, and we think there<br /> is room enough for two great nations on this<br /> great continent. Canada has all the future<br /> before her. It would have been a joy and a source<br /> of pride if she could have led the way in this<br /> matter. We want to see her lead the way. We<br /> realise that in the time to come the greater Eng-<br /> land must be here beyond the sea—here among<br /> your great forests, your mighty waters, your now<br /> trackless wastes, that are waiting to spring up<br /> into yellow harvests. And we want to remember<br /> always that the men who are building up this<br /> newer England are our own kith and kin, our<br /> brothers who are far from home, our fathers’<br /> sons.”<br /> * ---,<br /> NEW YORK LETTER,<br /> - New York, Nov. 15.<br /> EVERAL months ago the editor of the<br /> S Author took occasion to praise the brisk<br /> and lively literary weekly called the<br /> Critic; and this paragraph suggested to me<br /> that some account of the various literary journals<br /> of America might be of interest to the readers of<br /> the Author.<br /> The best and the best known weekly review in<br /> America is the Nation, which was founded some<br /> thirty years ago by Mr. E. L. Godkin, under whose<br /> control it still continues. The Nation is not a<br /> literary paper pure and simple; it was modelled<br /> probably upon the Spectator, and its first interest<br /> is, and has always been, in politics. But its book-<br /> reviewing has always been extraordinarily well<br /> done, better done on the whole than in any other<br /> journal in the English language, I think. From<br /> the beginning the literary portion of the Nation<br /> has been in charge of Mr. W. P. Garrison, a son<br /> of the anti-slavery leader. Mr. Garrison and Mr.<br /> Godkin were able to enlist as occasional reviewers<br /> the leading American authorities in science and<br /> in art, and in literature. Very little of the<br /> reviewing is done in the office, as nearly every<br /> book is sent at once to the special expert who is<br /> in the habit of reviewing every volume on the<br /> same topic. Twenty or thirty of the leading<br /> professors at Harvard, at Columbia, at Johns<br /> Hopkins, and at Yale, are on the list of the<br /> Nation’s contributors, and can be called upon<br /> each for his special knowledge. This gives great<br /> weight to the Nation&#039;s opinion on all subjects<br /> where knowledge is of primeimportance; in history,<br /> for example, and in every department of science.<br /> In its criticism of pure literature, of fiction, and<br /> of poetry in particular, the Nation is neces-<br /> sarily less authoritative ; and, despite its best<br /> endeavour, it has not always been able to find<br /> reviewers able to do justice to contemporary<br /> fiction. But the AVation is not alone in this, for<br /> in no department of literature are their fewer<br /> open-minded experts than in fiction; and the<br /> average review of a modern novel in the Nation<br /> is likely to be as intelligent and careful as in any<br /> other journal,<br /> From the beginning the Nation was fortunate<br /> in its friends. Lowell was for years an abundant<br /> contributor; and so was Mr. Henry James. Mr.<br /> Howells has recently told us in Harper’s<br /> Magazine how he served on its staff, until he<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#511) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I57<br /> was tempted away to the Atlantic Monthly.<br /> Among Mr. Howells&#039; successors were Mr. W. C.<br /> Brownell and Professor George E. Woodberry.<br /> For a long while Mr. James Bryce was the London<br /> correspondent of the Nation, and its Paris<br /> correspondent is still M. Auguste Laugel. Some<br /> ten or fifteen years ago the owners of the Nation<br /> bought the chief afternoon paper of New York, the<br /> Evening Post, edited for half a century by the<br /> poet Bryant ; and since then the most of the<br /> literary notes and of the book reviews of the<br /> Nation appear also in the Evening Post. Some-<br /> times the Nation contains a scientific or a<br /> philosophical review so solid that it is felt to be<br /> Out of place in the evening paper; and sometimes,<br /> especially in the holiday season, the pressure of<br /> the advertisements in the columns of the Evening<br /> Post is so great that room cannot be found for<br /> all the Nation’s book notices.<br /> The Critic is now about fifteen years old, half<br /> the age of the Nation. As the nearest British<br /> analogue to the Nation is the Spectator, so the<br /> nearest British analogue to the Critic is the<br /> Academy, although the Critic has always given<br /> far more space to news than the Academy ever<br /> did. The Critic was founded by Miss J. L.<br /> Gilder, who had long been the New York corre-<br /> spondent of the Academy. She was aided by a<br /> younger brother, Mr. J. B. Gilder. The Critic<br /> has always paid special attention to the topics of<br /> the time, to the book of the hour, to the author<br /> of the day. It celebrated the centenary of<br /> Washington Irving&#039;s birth with a special number<br /> containing contributions from many of the leaders<br /> of American literature. Its London correspondent<br /> was for a while Mr. W. E. Henley, who could not<br /> keep his political prejudices out of his letters, and<br /> who was succeeded by Mrs. L. B. Walford. The<br /> London correspondent is now Mr. Arthur Waugh,<br /> who has been very happy in taking the tone of<br /> the paper and in supplying it with the latest news<br /> of literary London. Although the literary centre<br /> of the United States is now in New York, it was<br /> once in Boston, and it may be some day in<br /> Chicago; so the Critic has correspondents in<br /> both cities, thus retaining a hold on the past and<br /> keeping in touch with the future. Mr. Charles<br /> Wingate writes the weekly letter from Boston,<br /> and Miss Lucy Monroe supplies that from<br /> Chicago, not finding it easy sometimes to make<br /> bricks without straw. The Critic has always<br /> opened its columns freely to discussion of music<br /> and drama and the fine arts. I believe that Mr.<br /> Charlesde Kay was once the writer on the fine arts;<br /> and that Mr. W. J. Henderson is now responsible<br /> for the musical criticism. Mr. Paul M. Potter,<br /> the dramatiser of “Trilby,” was the first dramatic<br /> critic of Miss Gilder&#039;s paper, Of late this<br /> important department has been in less expert<br /> and in less intelligent hands.<br /> It is pleasant to be able to record the fact that<br /> the columns of the Critic and of the Nation are<br /> absolutely free from the sickening self-puffery of<br /> their own contributors which disgraces certain<br /> of the Tondon reviews. The Nation never<br /> criticises the books written by members of its office<br /> staff, and it is noted for the freedom with which<br /> it handles the writings of its occasional con-<br /> tributors. An American man of letters told me<br /> the other day that for twenty years he had written<br /> almost every review in the Nation on a certain<br /> important topic, besides contributing occasional<br /> articles on other subjects, and that he had seen<br /> more than once, in parallel columns to a con-<br /> tribution of his own, an adverse criticism of some<br /> book of his or of one of his magazine articles.<br /> No review has ever appeared in the Critic of any<br /> books of Mr. Richard Watson Gilder—solely<br /> because he is the brother of the editors of the<br /> Critic.<br /> The Critic was at first a fortnightly, although<br /> it became a weekly more than ten years ago. A<br /> fortnightly still is the Literary World of Boston,<br /> a journal modelled on its namesake in London.<br /> Until recently it was edited by the Rev. N. P.<br /> Gilman, who was an authority on profit-sharing,<br /> and who was more interested in ethics than in<br /> aesthetics. Its New York correspondent was Mr.<br /> John D. Barry, for a while assistant editor of<br /> the Forum. The London correspondent of the<br /> Literary World is now Mrs. Hinkson (Katherine<br /> Tynan).<br /> The Dial of Chicago is not a fortnightly; it is<br /> a semi-monthly, appearing on the Ist and 15th of .<br /> every month. It is now a little more than ten<br /> years old, and it is still conducted by its founder,<br /> Mr. Francis F. Browne, who is assisted by Mr.<br /> William Morton Payne. Its New York correspon-<br /> dent is Mr. Arthur Stedman, the son of Mr.<br /> E. C. Stedman. The Dial is a serious and<br /> a dignified review; it is representative of all that<br /> is best in the intellectual life of Chicago, and its<br /> existence is evidence that there is an increasing<br /> appreciation of literature in that city of strenuous<br /> endeavour. All its more important reviews are<br /> warranted by the signatures of the writers.<br /> Many years ago the importing house of<br /> Scribner and Welford (now merged in Charles<br /> Scribners Sons) started a little trade monthly<br /> modelled on the Quarterly Notes of Longmans,<br /> Greene, and Co. It was called the Book-Buyer,<br /> and at first it served simply to announce the books<br /> of the house which published it. In time it added<br /> illustrations, and invited articles from writers of<br /> repute. It printed, for example, Mr. Laurence<br /> Hutton&#039;s interesting series of articles on American<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#512) ################################################<br /> <br /> I58<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> book-plates. Its Christmas number always con-<br /> tains half a dozen signed and illustrated reviews<br /> of the chief holiday books of the year. Its editor<br /> is now Mr. Moody. Its London correspondent<br /> was Mr. Ashby Sterry, and he was succeeded by<br /> Dr. Robertson Nicoll.<br /> It may be fanciful, but it has always seemed to<br /> me probable, that it was the Book- Buyer which<br /> suggested to Dr. Nicoll the starting of the Book-<br /> man—just as his Woman at Home was obviously<br /> modelled on the American Ladies Home Journal.<br /> Still this did not prevent Dodd, Mead, and Co.<br /> from arranging to publish an American edition of<br /> Dr. Nicoll&#039;s literary monthly. They engaged as<br /> editor Professor Harry Thurston Peck, of Columbia<br /> Cellege, who very soon found that if the American<br /> Bookman was to be a success, it could borrow but<br /> little from its British namesake, since the literary<br /> interests of New York at d London are often<br /> widely different. So it is that Professor Peck’s<br /> Bookman contains a scant portion of the matter<br /> that appears in Dr. Nicoll’s Bookman—little<br /> more than the letter from Paris and a review or<br /> two every month. Dr. Nicoll sends a monthly<br /> letter from London to the New York journal.<br /> Professor Peck has succeeded in making the<br /> American Bookman a brisk and lively review,<br /> abounding in gossip and trenchant in criticism,<br /> and he has altogether too much sense of proportion<br /> and too wide a knowledge of books to give up to<br /> the infusoria of contemporary literature the space<br /> they are allowed to fill in the Bookman’s London<br /> namesake.<br /> Space fails to consider here at length the<br /> Literary News, which issues monthly from the<br /> office of the Publisher&#039;s Weekly or Book News,<br /> which is published by Wanaker, the universal<br /> provider of Philadelphia. Nor can I do more than<br /> note the clever and unconventional little semi-<br /> monthly Chap-Book, issued by the young firm of<br /> Stone and Kimball in Chicago. H. R.<br /> *- a 2-º<br /> r- - -,<br /> NOTES FROM PARIS,<br /> HAVE been consulted on more than one<br /> Occasion, recently, by authors who wish to<br /> produce their works, or rather transla-<br /> tions of their works, in Paris. I may as well<br /> resume here what I have invariably answered<br /> when questioned on these points. The work must<br /> be produced at the author&#039;s entire risk. The cost<br /> of translation may be calculated at about IOS. a<br /> thousand words. This is very fair pay, consider-<br /> ing the prices paid for literary work in Paris. (A<br /> Parisian publisher once offered me 312 for<br /> translating a 150,000 - word story by Paul<br /> Marguerite. But no member of our society would,<br /> I hope, care to sweat a brother-littérateur.) The<br /> cost of production of Say IOOO copies of the<br /> ordinary 3 francs 50 cent. volume would be about<br /> 340. At least that is what a good publisher<br /> would demand. The cost of advertising the book<br /> would be enormous. There is little or no review-<br /> ing done in the French papers, so that the Eng-<br /> lish author would have to make up his mind to<br /> do without this gratuitous publicity. The net<br /> receipt from each copy sold would be about two<br /> francs. (I am supposing the book to be issued at<br /> 3 francs 50 cents.) The sale of the book would<br /> probably be a very small one. I always dissuade<br /> authors from engaging in any speculation of this<br /> kind. The preceding remarks will explain why I<br /> do so.<br /> The Parisian Society of Authors, who publish<br /> their own works, which I described in an article<br /> which was reproduced in last month&#039;s Author, has<br /> sent methe first book issued by theassociation. This<br /> is a collection of short stories, republished from<br /> various periodicals, entitled “La Grande Nuit.”<br /> I cannot speak very enthusiastically about this<br /> first production. I do not refer to the literary or the<br /> commercial value of the tales, but to the book as<br /> a book. Its “get-up &quot; is amateurish, the cover is<br /> a singularly unattractive one, a pale grey in colour,<br /> and the printing is not up to the mark. The<br /> importance of “get-up,” cover-paper, printing,<br /> and general symmetry, never impressed them-<br /> selves more vividly on me than in examining this<br /> book. In these matters experience, such as is<br /> possessed by publishers who know their business,<br /> appears indispensable. Isuppose that the managers<br /> of the Societé Libre will acquire it in time. In<br /> the meanwhile the lack of it seems likely to<br /> jeopardise the success of the undertaking.<br /> What I wrote in recent numbers of the Author<br /> anent certain black sheep in our midst has<br /> brought me a quantity of abuse — all anony-<br /> mous, of course—and what I wrote has been<br /> entirely misrepresented. One editor, who com-<br /> mended me to the attention of the mad doctors,<br /> represented me as having described as blacklegs<br /> “reviewers and people who read for publishers.”<br /> Reference was made to some of the most revered<br /> names in English letters, and I was described as<br /> having levelled my attack against gentlemen for<br /> whom I have as much reverence and loyalty as I<br /> have contempt and loathing for the persons<br /> whom I had in mind. I never attacked the re-<br /> viewers. It would be as basely ungrateful as it<br /> would be foolishly unjust for me to do so. My<br /> remarks were addressed to the prosperous writer<br /> of books who does not scruple to attack anony-<br /> mously, for hire, the books of brother authors.<br /> I know persons of this description, and, as I<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#513) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I 59<br /> wrote, they would be tolerated in no other country<br /> but England. My remarks were also addressed<br /> to the prosperous writers who retail literary<br /> advice at a guinea, the dollop to publishers,<br /> anonymously. The prosperity and the anony-<br /> mity of the person constitute his claim to the title<br /> of literary blackleg.<br /> It is a painful subject, and one that I am most<br /> loth to pursue, for the further one penetrates into<br /> the bas-fonds of literary society in England the<br /> sadder at heart he must be at the degradation of a<br /> noble profession. Here one finds false brothers of<br /> every variety, and a mass of malice, injustice,<br /> extortion, and oppression, which would surprise<br /> one amongst King Prempeh&#039;s merry men at<br /> Rumassi. The number of literary impostors at<br /> present before the public in England is no in-<br /> considerable one, and a banquet of literary ghosts<br /> holden in London would bring together a large<br /> and unhappy attendance. There is So-and-so—I<br /> am speaking of an actual person—who has not<br /> written a single line of any of the books published<br /> under his name. And there are many like him.<br /> In fact anyone who takes the trouble to investi-<br /> gate the matter will find more people in the lite-<br /> rary profession who are flourishing on absolutely<br /> false pretences than in any other profession in<br /> England. In France these Tartuffes are pointed<br /> out and at ; in England they pass high in the<br /> public esteem.<br /> A writer in The Critic of New York qualified<br /> as “colossal nonsense” a remark of mine in a<br /> recent number of the Author, in which I expressed<br /> disapproval of the conduct of a successful literary<br /> man, who, on behalf of a firm of publishers, was<br /> offering to well-known albeit unprosperous<br /> brother-writers terms very far below what in<br /> literary circles are considered fair rates. Another<br /> instance of the same kind has quite recently been<br /> brought to my notice. In this case a well-known<br /> novelist, whose work is acknowledged to be of the<br /> highest literary value, was asked to write an<br /> essay on a subject, involving great special know-<br /> ledge, at the rate of twelve shillings the page of<br /> six hundred words. This offer was made in the<br /> name of a well-known literary man. I must be<br /> guilty of still more colossal nonsense, and repeat<br /> that I do not think it befits a man of letters to<br /> act as taskmaster in the interests of a commercial<br /> house to the prejudice of his fellow-authors,<br /> It is not often that a novel written on a play<br /> achieves any very great success, and it is therefore<br /> worthy of notice that M. Edmond Lepelletier&#039;s<br /> version of Sardou’s “Madame Sans-Gêne” is now<br /> in its eighty-seventh thousand. The great popu-<br /> larity of the play no doubt largely helped the sale<br /> of M. Lepelletier&#039;s novel.<br /> Paul Deroulède&#039;s patriotic, Anglophobic drama,<br /> WOL. VI. -<br /> “Messire du Guesclin,” which is being performed<br /> at the Porte-Saint-Martin Theatre, is a very great<br /> success. It tickles the French Chauvin in the<br /> right spot. One result of this success has been<br /> to create a demand for M. Deroulède&#039;s volume of<br /> poems, and a collection of his most patriotic<br /> pieces has just been issued under the title “Poesies<br /> Militaires,” illustrated by Jeanniot. It is selling<br /> extremely well. Though one does not altogether<br /> approve of M. Deroulède&#039;s extreme patriotism,<br /> bordering as it does on aggressiveness, one is<br /> very glad that success—and success of a financial<br /> nature—has at last come to him. His is a very<br /> noble character. He sacrificed everything in his<br /> loyal devotion to Boulanger, and was brought by<br /> his fidelity into sore straits. “Messire du Guesclin”<br /> is, I fancy, his first play; though as a nephew of<br /> Emile Augier he had from youth up every<br /> encouragement to try his hand at dramatic<br /> writing.<br /> It is symptomatic of the popularity of the short<br /> story or nouvelle in France that a Society of Short-<br /> Story Writers, formed for convivial purposes, has<br /> drawn together a large number of members. The<br /> society held its first monthly dinner last week at<br /> a fashionable restaurant on the boulevard.<br /> Mr. A. P. Watt was telling me the other day<br /> of an experiment he had tried on behalf of one<br /> of his clients. He sold a right of serializing a<br /> very successful novel to a provincial paper some<br /> months after the book had appeared as a volume.<br /> At the beginning both the author and Mr. Watt<br /> were rather anxious lest this serialization might<br /> Inot diminish the sale of the book as a volume.<br /> FIowever the experiment was quite successful.<br /> That the serialization did not interfere with the<br /> sale of the volume was shown by the fact that<br /> subsequently a new edition of IO,OOO copies was<br /> called for. In France, books are serialized over<br /> and over again, and in no case has this been<br /> found to affect the sale of the book as a book<br /> otherwise than favourably. At the time of writ-<br /> ing, the “Count of Monte Cristo’’ is running as<br /> a serial in more than a dozen papers in France,<br /> and the book still sells as well as ever. It has<br /> been serialized hundreds of times. The same<br /> might be said of scores of other popular French<br /> books.<br /> A translation of a book by a member of the<br /> Authors’ Club, “An Original Wager, by a<br /> Vagabond,” is about to appear in serial form in<br /> &#039;L&#039; Echo du Nord. It is sure to be very popular.<br /> The book describes how, for a wager, the author<br /> supported himself in France for six weeks entirely<br /> by utilising his sporting capacities. He boated,<br /> he swam, he bicycled, he taught billiards and<br /> tennis, he ran, rode, and walked, and won his<br /> bet in the end. The story is most entertainingly<br /> S<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#514) ################################################<br /> <br /> 16o<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> told and the book 1s fresh and novel. It is<br /> dedicated to the “sportsmen of France,” from<br /> whom it is sure to have a warm welcome.<br /> RoBERT H. SHERARD.<br /> ** = --&gt;<br /> * * *<br /> POPE AND GRUB STREET.<br /> T was Pope, and Swift to aid him, who esta-<br /> blished among us the Grub-street tradition.<br /> He revels in base descriptions of poor men&#039;s<br /> wants; he gloats over poor Dennis&#039;s garret, and<br /> flannel nightcap, and red stockings; he gives<br /> instructions how to find Curl’s authors, the<br /> historian at the tallow chandler&#039;s under the blind<br /> arch in Petty France, the two translators in bed<br /> together, the poet in the cock-loft in Budge-row,<br /> whose landlady keeps the ladder. It was Pope, I<br /> fear, who contributed, more than any man who<br /> ever lived, to depreciate the literary calling. It<br /> was not an unprosperous one before that time, as<br /> we have seen; at least, there were great prizes in<br /> the profession which had made Addison a<br /> minister, Prior an ambassador, and Steele a<br /> commissioner; and, Swift almost a bishop. The<br /> profession of letters was ruined by that libel of<br /> “The Dunciad.” If authors were wretched and<br /> oor before, if some of them lived in haylofts of<br /> which their landladies kept the ladders, at least<br /> nobody came to disturb them in their straw; if<br /> three of them had but one coat between them,<br /> the two remained invisible in the garret, the third,<br /> at any rate, appeared decently at the coffee-house,<br /> and paid his two-pence like a gentleman. It was<br /> Pope who dragged into light all this poverty and<br /> meanness, and held up those wretched shifts and<br /> rags to ridicule. It was Pope that has made<br /> generations of the reading world (delighted with<br /> the mischief, as who would not be who reads it P)<br /> believe that author and wretch, author and rags,<br /> author and dirt, author and drink, gin, cow-heel,<br /> tripe, poverty, duns, bailiffs, squalling children<br /> and clamorous landladies, were always associated<br /> together. The condition of authorship began to<br /> fall from the days of “The Dunciad;” and I believe<br /> in my heart that much of that obloquy which has<br /> since pursued our calling was occasioned by<br /> Pope&#039;s libels and wicked wit. THACKERAY.<br /> **<br /> ,-- - -,<br /> WHY NOT GIVE THE NAMES:<br /> T is sometimes asked why the Society does<br /> I not publish the names in the cases detailed<br /> in these columns. It is sometimes even<br /> suggested that the cases are invented. Very early<br /> easy to understand it.<br /> in the existence of the Society the method of<br /> publishing cases without names was adopted,<br /> advisably, in the reports and papers of the<br /> Society. And in the very useful book issued by<br /> the Society, called “Methods of Publishing,” the<br /> agreements, &amp;c., commented on were published.<br /> without names. What are the advantages and<br /> what are the reasons of this line P One has not<br /> the authority of the committee to explain or<br /> defend their action in this place; but it is very<br /> The case is brought to<br /> the secretary ; it is very often an agreement.<br /> carefully drawn up so as to impose upon the<br /> ignorance, not only of the author, but of the<br /> ordinary solicitor—see some of the agreements in.<br /> “Methods of Publishing; ” it is above all things<br /> necessary that the clauses should be explained<br /> to the author first, and to the public next,<br /> with full comment showing where there are<br /> traps laid and where the author is made to give<br /> away rights which he should have kept. But<br /> full comment is impossible when the names of<br /> both parties are given; one cannot call the author<br /> an ass for signing such a contract, nor the<br /> other side a sharp for asking him to do so. But,<br /> one can point out anonymously with fulness.<br /> the credulity of the one, and the sharp practice of<br /> the other; one can explain the meaning of things<br /> quite clearly and plainly without names. In<br /> the “Methods of Publishing,” a book which our<br /> younger members do not seem to study so much<br /> as they should, no one can complain that freedom.<br /> of exposition—and exposure—is wanted. Every<br /> one of the agreements given there is a real<br /> agreement, just as every one of the cases quoted<br /> in the Author is a real case.<br /> Now, the case having been set forth with the<br /> exact facts neither heightened nor suppressed,<br /> and with our comments, it remains for the person<br /> criticised or exposed to put the cap on his own<br /> head if he pleases. When Mr. Sprigge&#039;s book,<br /> the “Methods of Publishing,” appeared, one was<br /> in great hopes that somebody would come forward<br /> and put the cap on his own head. Nobody did.<br /> That was four years ago. The book has been<br /> widely circulated and warmly praised. Nobody<br /> has stepped forward to say, “This is my abomin-<br /> able agreement.” On the contrary, the book has<br /> checked a vast number of abuses, and prevented<br /> many cruel swindles. Surely to check an abuse is<br /> a far more useful thing than to attack one out<br /> of many guilty persons.<br /> But, in order to meet everybody’s views, the<br /> secretary makes through these columns the follow-<br /> ing proposal: Whenever a case is exposed in the<br /> Author, he is quite prepared to communicate to<br /> any member of the Society the name of the pub-<br /> lisher concerned. That member may make any<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#515) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I6 I<br /> use of his information that he pleases. It is, of<br /> course, understood that no case is published in<br /> this paper unless the secretary has in his hands<br /> all the documents—letters, agreements, accounts,<br /> &amp;c.—connected with it.<br /> It should be explained, in common justice, that<br /> the number of cases is much smaller than it was ;<br /> in other words, those persons who thought they<br /> could go on “besting” the author with impunity<br /> find that it will not do. It should also be recog-<br /> mised that the persons who are still loud in<br /> their abuse of the Society are chiefly those who<br /> still practise the falsification of accounts, and the<br /> charging of advertisements for which they pay<br /> nothing.<br /> r- * ~s<br /> NOTES AND NEWS,<br /> HE telegram published in the Times of Nov.<br /> 26, which is reproduced on p. 15I seems to<br /> show that the Canadian copyright question<br /> is solved by a compromise. It would not be<br /> reasonable to discuss the terms of the compromise<br /> until fuller information has been received. Let<br /> it, however, be noted here that whatever good has<br /> been attempted or achieved in this business is due<br /> solely to the action of Mr. Hall Caine; at great<br /> expense of time and trouble. Mr. Hall Caine has<br /> converted the Canadian people to a reasonable<br /> frame of mind; and he has saved, it is hoped, inter-<br /> national copyright, which was threatened by the<br /> Canadians. For these services he deserves, and<br /> will receive, the best thanks of all who are con-<br /> nected with literature; and he has accomplished<br /> a work which will bring lasting honour to his<br /> name. It remains for us, whom he has repre-<br /> sented, to arrange a becoming welcome for Mr.<br /> Hall Caine on his return.<br /> Another thing of great importance must be<br /> noted. For the first time in history, matters con-<br /> nected with literary property have been intrusted<br /> to a man who creates literary property. When,<br /> until this year, have English authors ever been con-<br /> sulted on questions of copyright, i.e., on questions<br /> connected with literary property P Now Mr. Hall<br /> Caine goes out to Canada, the representative of the<br /> Society of Authors, i.e., of fifteen hundred men and<br /> women of letters, the only English literary associa-<br /> tion of any importance. He is also recognised as<br /> the representative of the Society, and is received as<br /> such, by Mr. Chamberlain, the Secretary of State<br /> for the Colonies; and he is received and recognised<br /> as our representative by the authors of the United<br /> States and by the Copyright Association of<br /> Canada, and by the Government of Canada. Ten<br /> years ago whatever question of literary property<br /> might arise would have been handed over to some<br /> publisher; it would have been assumed that<br /> literary property belonged altogether to pub-<br /> lishers; that literary men were their employés,<br /> their clerks, as necessary for the conduct of<br /> their business as the boys who put up the<br /> parcels.<br /> As regards the conduct of this paper, I have<br /> to announce that “ H. R.,” who has acted as its<br /> New York correspondent for two years, is com-<br /> pelled to retire: a successor will be found. Mr.<br /> Sherard will continue as Paris correspondent: it is<br /> proposed to engage a Canadian and an Australian<br /> correspondent. Arrangements have been made<br /> for as complete an enumeration of new books<br /> and announcements as possible: there will be a<br /> monthly paper on the “literature&quot; of the maga-<br /> zines; there will be an occasional feuilleton ;<br /> and we shall repeat from time to time, for fear<br /> it should be forgotten, the true meaning of<br /> royalties, deferred royalties, and half profits.<br /> It would greatly tend to the usefulness of the<br /> Author if members of the Society would lend it<br /> about, see that it is placed on club tables, and,<br /> should they not care to keep it, if they would give<br /> it to any person engaged in literary pursuits.<br /> Mr. John Morley is reported by Mr. Stead to have<br /> recently estimated the number of readers among the<br /> forty millions of inhabitants of the country at one<br /> million. I cannot understand this estimate. There<br /> are, in these islands, nearly 300 public free libraries:<br /> most of them are lending libraries: at many of<br /> them there are visitors every day by the thousand.<br /> If only IO,OOO readers frequent each library,<br /> there are 3,OOO,OOO readers at once: but in reality<br /> there are many more than 10,000. Probably<br /> 2O,OOO would be nearer the average, which would<br /> give us 6,000,000 for the number of readers taken<br /> from the lower middle class or the upper working<br /> class alone, and not counting the very large class<br /> of wealthier people who use Smith and Mudie and<br /> other libraries, and buy books. I reckon these at<br /> 2,OOO,OOO, or 400,000 families. And my total<br /> of readers is 8,000,ooo, or one-fifth of the whole.<br /> If we allow for children under twelve the propor-<br /> tion is very much higher. I cannot think that<br /> Mr. John Morley has been following the enormous<br /> advance of reading during the last few years: of<br /> reading, I mean, as an habitual recreation: nor<br /> can he have observed the significance of the facts<br /> connected with the development of the cheap<br /> magazine; the turning out every year of readers<br /> from the Board Schools by their hundreds of<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#516) ################################################<br /> <br /> I62<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> thousands; and the opening of new public<br /> libraries.<br /> Professor Saintsbury, on the other hand, is re-<br /> ported to lament that we read too much and too fast;<br /> that we no longer take notes; and that common-<br /> place books have gone out. There is published in a<br /> daily newspaper, he says, the matter of an ordinary<br /> 8vo. volume. There is more ; in a certain number<br /> of the Times I reckoned there was the matter of<br /> three old-fashioned three-volume novels. The<br /> Professor assumes that the ordinary reader goes<br /> through the whole paper. There is his mistake;<br /> ino reader goes through the whole paper. It is<br /> impossible. Different things interest different<br /> readers; some things are to some readers im-<br /> possible. I am, myself, a person of very limited<br /> tastes. Political speeches I seldom read; nor<br /> debates in any of the many Parliaments. In<br /> their stead I read the leading articles upon them.<br /> Sporting news; financial news; the column from<br /> the London Gazette ; ecclesiastical news; meet-<br /> ings of companies; stock and share lists; all<br /> these I pass over. I also pass over all the<br /> advertisements. So that, really, my daily Times<br /> does me very little harm, as I read no more than<br /> a sixth part of it. As for notes and common-<br /> place books, no one except students ever did make<br /> notes or keep common-place books; and these do<br /> still. I have piles of notes on subjects concerning<br /> which I work most ; they are not kept in a com-<br /> mon-place book, but in brown paper envelopes on<br /> loose sheets of paper.<br /> In fact this kind of talk ignores the real truth.<br /> that for ninety-nine out of a hundred, reading is<br /> for recreation, not for study. It is a recreation<br /> that permits and encourages the reading of<br /> serious and grave books as well as works of<br /> imagination. But it is recreation and not study.<br /> How should it be otherwise? Most people are<br /> not ambitious: they do not seek to rise; they are<br /> contented with a humble lot : they ask of life<br /> nothing but work not too hard ; pay, not too<br /> low ; rest, not too short. And books help them<br /> to rest better than any form of recreation ever<br /> invented. Certainly they are not going to make<br /> notes or to keep common-place books any more<br /> than they are going to swallow the whole of their<br /> newspaper every day.<br /> Alexandre Dumas is dead. His last imarticu-<br /> late words, according to the doctor standing at<br /> his bedside, were “like the closing of a book.”<br /> What more fitting conclusion to his life?<br /> An incident of which all literary Paris has been talking<br /> lias again brought prominently to the front a question that<br /> has long been a sore point with French authors. The<br /> question is a quarrel of ancient date between writers and<br /> publishers, and the incident is the rupture that occurred a<br /> few weeks back between one of the most prominent Parisian<br /> publishers and a French author of world-wide renown, who<br /> is an Academician. The nature of the quarrel is the utter<br /> absence of any sort of control over the sale figures of their<br /> works, which the authors assert is the result of the pub-<br /> lishing conditions at present in vogue in Paris. If the<br /> authors’ tales are to be believed, there are publishers who<br /> print editions of which the profits never find their way into<br /> the writers&#039; pockets, and of which the authors, indeed, are<br /> entirely ignorant of the printing. Another practice said to<br /> be common is the misrepresentation of the number of<br /> volumes comprised in an edition. The very celebrated<br /> author already alluded to fancied he had a grievance of<br /> this kind, and separated himself from his publisher. How-<br /> ever, after negotiations that have lasted several weeks, he<br /> has been convinced that he was mistaken, and his books<br /> will continue to appear with the old imprint.<br /> The above paragraph is reproduced from the<br /> Daily Chronicle. So far there has been no<br /> accusation—no suspiciou, even—of such frauds<br /> brought against English publishers. Is it worse,<br /> however, than overcharging the cost of produc-<br /> tion—or than charging for advertisements which<br /> have cost nothing P These practices are all allied:<br /> they are tricks: they degrade the trade. There<br /> is only one course possible for honest men : it is<br /> for one side to demand, and for the other to offer,<br /> an audit when the accounts are sent in : and that<br /> as a regular thing, confessedly adopted on account<br /> of the tricks and cheateries of the dishonest.<br /> An article appeared in last month’s Nineteenth<br /> Century abusing the Society and the Literary<br /> Agent. It was, in fact, over due. Such an article<br /> used to appear once a month : then once in three<br /> months: now once in six months.<br /> This article is written by a person who signs<br /> himself “One of the Trade ’’ at the head of the<br /> paper, and “T. Werner Laurie” at the end.<br /> There is no “T. Werner Laurie ’’ in the list of<br /> the trade. It has been ascertained, however, that<br /> a “T. Werner Laurie” is an employé of Mr.<br /> Fisher Unwin.<br /> Here are some of the things in this paper:<br /> I. “ Unlimited accusations * are now being<br /> hurled at publishers, presumably by the Society.<br /> What are these accusations? Publishers are<br /> going to “take up the matter seriously.” Very<br /> good. Nothing could be better.<br /> 2. The Society, it appears, became a success<br /> because amateurs wanted to put letters after their<br /> name. No one has ever put any initials after his<br /> name that would connect him with the Society.<br /> 3. The promoters formed a Council, some of<br /> whom have “actually had MSS. published.” The<br /> list of our Council is published with every number<br /> of the Author. Look at the names who have<br /> “actually had MSS. published.”<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#517) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I63<br /> 4. The “Cost of Production” is a “pleasant<br /> romance.” We thought this kind of impudence<br /> was finished. We once offered to take over on our<br /> own figures all the printing of a certain publisher<br /> who ventured to attack them. Then he sat down.<br /> 5. Publishers, it appears, who give royalties of<br /> 20 or 25 per cent, lose on these books. Do they?<br /> A publisher who was interviewed on this subject<br /> in the New Budget complained and wept over the<br /> fact that with such a royalty he could only get 7d.<br /> for himself on each copy—this after deducting all<br /> the office and advertisingexpenses. That is loss, isit?<br /> 6. Writers not so fortunate must suffer by the<br /> publishers&#039; losses on the big royalties. Fudge |<br /> 7. The author is to be especially pitied for this<br /> rise in royalties. Poor author | He will doubtless<br /> go back joyfully to the sweet old terus.<br /> 8. The Society has destroyed the old friendship<br /> between author and publisher. Well: one looks<br /> round: one finds as many friendships between<br /> honourable publishers and their authors as ever.<br /> 9. The Society has not succeeded in “forcing ”<br /> up royalties to this or that height. The Society<br /> does not try to force royalties. It shows what<br /> they mean: it throws light on the actual cost of<br /> producing and on the actual returns of a book.<br /> This, however, is enough to show the stuff of<br /> which the article is composed.<br /> The rest of the article chiefly consists of abuse<br /> of the Literary Agent. The one short answer to<br /> this is-We must either meet the publisher as<br /> One man of business with another, or we must<br /> appoint an attorney to meet him for us. All the<br /> railing with which this person fills his page about<br /> the literary agent&#039;s malpractices is rubbish and<br /> beside the mark. If it were true, it concerns the<br /> author, who has not yet, I believe, invited any<br /> publisher&#039;s clerk to protect him from his own<br /> man of business. Now it simply stands to reason<br /> that any publisher who refuses to treat with an<br /> author&#039;s man of business--agent—i.e., solicitor—<br /> can only do so because he declines to discuss<br /> business affairs with one who knows as much as<br /> he knows himself. And why? Why should he<br /> be unwilling to play an open game P The answer<br /> is quite obvious. One is always rejoiced to welcome<br /> such a production as this article. It gives ourselves<br /> the opportunity of stating once more our raison<br /> d&#039;être and our performances. It shows the world<br /> the foolish misrepresentations by which the Society<br /> can alone be attacked: and it disposes of all the<br /> silly stuff which is invented for the purpose of<br /> attacking the Literary Agent.<br /> An answer to the article appears in the<br /> December number of the Nineteenth Century.<br /> That part of it which concerns the Society is by<br /> our chairman. That which concerns the agent is<br /> by myself. WALTER BESANT,<br /> THE THREE-WOLUME, NOWEL AGAIN.<br /> WHE question of the three-volume novel is not,<br /> it appears, closed. Miss Braddon has pro-<br /> duced her latest novel in the old form, and<br /> Mudie’s Library has refused to take it. Miss<br /> Braddon&#039;s views on the subject have been com-<br /> municated to the Westminster Gazette, and were<br /> published in that paper. She defends the old<br /> form with the following arguments—not always<br /> novel—but, from a novelist of Miss Braddon&#039;s<br /> standing, commanding respectful hearing:<br /> I. The old form was light to hold, of large and<br /> clear type; the one-volume novel is too often thick<br /> and heavy in the hand, with small and closely<br /> printed type, tiring to the eyes.<br /> 2. She would like a plebiscite on the subject<br /> from English novel readers.<br /> 3. Under the old system the new writer had a<br /> better chance.<br /> The last seems at first a strong argument in<br /> favour of the three-volume form. Certain firms<br /> could command a subscription of any novel they<br /> issued—a subscription large enough to cover the<br /> cost of production. This cannot be done with a six-<br /> shilling book. On the other hand, however, is it<br /> necessary that the new writer should find the way<br /> so very plain and smooth for him? Is it not better<br /> that there should be some difficulty in obtaining an<br /> entrance? It must be confessed that many persons<br /> are now unable to produce novels who were<br /> admitted as novelists under the old system. A<br /> new writer will now find greater difficulty about<br /> acceptance. So much the better for literature.<br /> And it is not possible that, with so many<br /> publishers all wanting good work, any new writer<br /> who is good should be passed over.<br /> 4. The danger of encouraging slight and<br /> ephemeral stories. There is always that danger;<br /> but did it not exist before, when it was so easy to<br /> get a three-volume story published? And will<br /> the public buy the slight and flashy stories that<br /> Miss Braddon fears P -<br /> 5. The danger of trying to attract attention by<br /> “ sailing near the wind.” But it has always<br /> existed—this danger. Besides, Mudie&#039;s Library<br /> professes to refuse admission to such books.<br /> 6. The weakening of the power of the libraries<br /> That is, surely, a danger for the libraries them-<br /> selves, not for authors, to consider.<br /> 7. A possible change to book borrowing from<br /> book buying. No. There cannot be any such<br /> change. Book buying depends upon income.<br /> It is entirely a matter of income. A great many<br /> people read at home at least a hundred books a year.<br /> That means, at 4s. 6d. each, 3822 IOS. a year. How<br /> many people are there who can afford to spend<br /> £22 Ios. a year on the purchase of books?<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#518) ################################################<br /> <br /> I64<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 8. The danger that the libraries will refuse to<br /> buy any expensive work. I do not think there is<br /> i. * danger to be apprehended under this<br /> €a,Ol.<br /> 9. The absurdity of the old “Procrustean<br /> length º argument.<br /> Here Miss Braddon speaks common sense.<br /> There never has been any “Procrusteam ” length<br /> for the three-volume form of novel. Its length<br /> varied from IOO,Ooo to 300,000 words. The six-<br /> shilling novel has just about the same limitations<br /> as to length.<br /> On the whole, the one strong argument in<br /> favour of the three-volume form is that it is light<br /> to hold and easy to read. The loss of it may<br /> mean a great deal to invalids and old people.<br /> The strongest argument against it is, in my mind,<br /> the fact that it locked up the work and kept it out<br /> of the hands of the general public for nearly a year.<br /> Was it not a strange anomaly that we used to<br /> publish a book twice—once for those who sub-<br /> scribed to the libraries, and then for the general<br /> public P. For my own part, it has always seemed<br /> to me that the libraries resigned certain advan-<br /> tages in changing the system; but one is nºt<br /> obliged to inquire how the libraries conduct their<br /> business. Our concern is with our own business.<br /> W. B.<br /> *~ * *<br /> THE NEW ZEALAND AUTHOR,<br /> By EDITH SEARLE GROSSMAN.<br /> (From the Canterbury Times, N.Z., Aug. 29, 1895.)<br /> Y subject, I am afraid, is a negative;<br /> authors, indeed, we have in plenty, but<br /> none of them have “prospects,” or, at<br /> least their prospects are chateaux, like the Baron&#039;s<br /> “in Spain, or enjoy the most airy of situations.”<br /> The matter might not be worth pen and ink but<br /> for the extraordinary illusions prevalent. It is<br /> really surprising that no small proportion of<br /> people should still imagine literature an easy path<br /> to wealth and fame. Almost every girl or young<br /> man who takes a high place in English during<br /> her or his school or university years dreams of a<br /> splendid career in authorship. No doubt this is<br /> true of England as well as of her colonies; but<br /> our delusion is fostered much longer, and we find<br /> it much harder to face actual facts. In the first<br /> place, the English novels of the day reach us only<br /> when they have made a great “hit” at home, and<br /> the new novelists we hear of are those favoured<br /> few who have happened to catch the fancy of the<br /> hour. -<br /> When we read of the rapid success of some<br /> colonial writer, like Rolf Boldrewood, our vague<br /> aspirations are fanned to a flame, and we do not<br /> It is not with us as with English people.<br /> reflect on the hundreds who have tried in vain.<br /> We<br /> have no struggling or moderately-successful<br /> literary class; no “new Grub Street’’ in our<br /> sight to warn us. There is no such thing as<br /> a literary class in the colonies. We know little<br /> of the mediocre writers of the day. But university<br /> students have at their fingers&#039; ends the literary<br /> history of the first half of this century. Now this<br /> period was marked by the rise of the novel. If<br /> there were many failures then they are forgotten<br /> now ; what impressed the young ambitious student<br /> was the brilliant success of a few.<br /> The fact is that nowadays nothing is commoner<br /> than literary talent ; nothing more uncommon<br /> than pecuniary success. Perhaps the proportion<br /> of talented people is greater in this colony than<br /> in England, because we have no really illiterate<br /> class; a few remnants there are of the old peasant<br /> immigrants; a few born colonials on whom<br /> education is thrown away ; but every New<br /> Zealander of this second generation has a chance<br /> of cultivating his abilities. We have all the best<br /> books here, even the best of each year as it comes<br /> out; it is only the bad books that stay “at<br /> home; ” most New Zealanders are educated<br /> “beyond their sphere *—as old-fashioned people<br /> would say—and the hard details of our business<br /> world, our restless struggle for our daily bread,<br /> or for pleasure or for show, fail to satisfy those<br /> reared among the abstract passions, the reverence,<br /> the enthusiasm of a university life. It is to<br /> escape from a meaner lot that we return with hope<br /> and courage to a literary career.<br /> What is the end of it all? A return, sooner or<br /> later, to the old struggle to satisfy material wants.<br /> Unless some change takes place, there is no hope<br /> of literary success for a colonial. The sooner this<br /> is stamped upon the minds of all, the better.<br /> Courage, intellect, time, health, and temper are<br /> wasted in struggling against overwhelming odds.<br /> Sooner or later we must return to that practical<br /> life which the colony demands from us. It is in<br /> the world of action, not of thought, that the<br /> prizes lie. Doctor, lawyer, teacher, tradesman, all<br /> and each have prospects of brilliant success, and a<br /> certainty of avoiding absolute failure. Titerature<br /> alone offers no field at all.<br /> I shall not waste time over the efforts of that<br /> rapidly increasing throng who, each year, pay<br /> heavy sums to local publishers and get back<br /> nothing at all. We maturally consider ourselves<br /> superior to the inglorious crowd.<br /> But untried writers do not understand what are<br /> the difficulties in their way. Every difficulty that<br /> an English author encounters is doubled for a<br /> colonial, because the great distance between us<br /> and London, and the impossibility of finding out<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#519) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 165<br /> exactly how our own affairs stand, place us com-<br /> pletely at the mercy of a publisher. But I think<br /> we can only get some glimpse of our troubles by<br /> considering the ordinary circumstances of publica-<br /> tion. Suppose a novel ready after some months<br /> of work; we imagine all we have to do is to sell<br /> it for some price, large or small, to a publisher.<br /> Very likely the merest novice in London has got<br /> beyond this stage of ignorance; but certainly most<br /> colonials suppose, when they have given time,<br /> talent, and toil to a book, they have earned<br /> some return. Not at all; we find we are to pay<br /> a large sum down to the publisher, and may be<br /> very thankful if we ever get any of it back again.<br /> In short, we require an outlay of capital, and<br /> there is only the barest chance of any profit. In<br /> the first place there is the printer to pay, and then<br /> the publisher runs up sundries in a manner which<br /> would put any dressmaker to the blush. It is<br /> almost necessary to have manuscript type-written<br /> nowadays, and this is a preliminary trifle in the<br /> total expense. It will cost, say, between £5 and<br /> 3IO. Then, if we want to do the thing cheaply,<br /> the manuscript is offered to a local publisher.<br /> This is how we nearly all begin. Now, this is<br /> sheer suicide to any chance of success. It may<br /> be of service to repeat here the advice given—of<br /> course, too late—by the head of one of our leading<br /> publishing&#039; firms: “Do not try to publish any<br /> book in the colonies. If you cannot get it<br /> accepted by a well-known firm, do not publish it<br /> at all.” Booksellers pay more attention to the<br /> name of the publisher than to that of the author,<br /> especially when the latter is quite unknown. A<br /> novel published in New Zealand has no chance of<br /> circulation beyond New Zealand. The proportion<br /> of book buyers in each colony is so small that such<br /> a book is certain to be a failure. Book-buying is<br /> almost universally regarded as an extravagance.<br /> Suppose, then, that we have learnt this much<br /> wisdom from the first book; it has probably cost<br /> some £40 or £50 if the venture was a small one,<br /> and the agent tolerably honest.<br /> Next we apply to the best English houses, who,<br /> however, will seldom accept books by unknown<br /> people. After a year of wasted hopes and vain<br /> suspense, we hear of some new or less important<br /> firm, and get our manuscript at last accepted.<br /> |But these small houses compensate themselves for<br /> extra risks by taking extra profits. The author<br /> pays the entire cost of production. The Authors’<br /> Society&#039;s journal estimates this at a little over<br /> £100 for one thousand copies; a fair average sum<br /> paid by colonial writers for the printing would be<br /> 360 for five hundred copies. A common selling<br /> price for the modern novel is 3s. 6d., so that if<br /> every copy sold the profit would be about £27.<br /> But, of course, the author could not expect to get<br /> this; the publisher, besides all manner of extra<br /> charges secures his own profits, say two-thirds, so<br /> that, if the whole edition sold, the author would<br /> not be able to get a single penny (profit) in<br /> return ; indeed, he might not be able to cover the<br /> Original outlay. A sale of five hundred copies<br /> represents, say, ten times the number of readers;<br /> and it is not one colonial author in a hundred who<br /> will get a larger circulation than this, indeed,<br /> very few will get as many as five thousand readers.<br /> Of course, it is a consolation to reflect that one&#039;s<br /> thoughts and ideas have become the property of<br /> so many people; still, from a business point of<br /> view, it is unprofitable. In the case considered,<br /> the author who has paid £60 is not at all likely<br /> to receive back more than £20, so that his book<br /> will be a dead loss of £40. I will take one case<br /> which did occur. The cost of printing a novel<br /> was £60; it was sold at 3s. 6d. a copy, and, when<br /> about three hundred copies were sold, the author&#039;s<br /> cheque amounted to £7 13s. ; the rest was taken<br /> up by mysterious trade discounts and charges for<br /> advertising. The account sent looked desperately<br /> accurate, though the author did not quite under-<br /> stand why trade discount figured twice. Still,<br /> there was clearly nothing to be done.<br /> One reason why so few copies are sold is that<br /> circulating libraries supply the reading public<br /> with all they want. The only book-buyers in the<br /> colonies are country people, a few students, and a<br /> very few personal friends of the author. Most of<br /> the friends are in the habit of asking the author<br /> for the loan of his book, a custom on whose<br /> astonishing meanness no one has yet reflected.<br /> All are free to read or buy as they please, or to<br /> borrow from the library, but to ask woman or man<br /> for their own book is just as much begging for<br /> charity as to ask a doctor, a lawyer, or a teacher<br /> for his services gratuitously. It is plain enough<br /> that literature, if persisted in, is more likely to<br /> lead to ruin than to prosperity. I wonder if the<br /> English authors, to whom we address our despair-<br /> ing appeals, feel anything more than astonishment<br /> at our ignorance of the world. Perhaps after all<br /> they would not pity us if they knew that we are<br /> in no danger of starving. There is some sort of<br /> active career open to all, at least to men, so we<br /> turn at last to manual labour, or to some uncon-<br /> genial profession; it is our minds that are starving<br /> and wasting away.<br /> There are some who will write for their own<br /> pleasure, regardless of others. These have the<br /> true gift; and they will have the best, the purest<br /> joy of creation, but their creation and their joy<br /> will perish with them. If there be among<br /> colonials those who have so deep a passion, and<br /> who have also the leisure to satisfy it, let them<br /> write; and if they really believe they have some-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#520) ################################################<br /> <br /> I66<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> thing to their fellows, let them pay for a hearing.<br /> But let us cease dreaming of literature as a path<br /> to wealth and honour. It is worth our while to<br /> remember the witty story of a man who gave up<br /> his carriage in order to publish his poems.<br /> z- - -<br /> DINNER TO DR, BRANDES,<br /> WHE Authors’ Club gave a dinner on Monday,<br /> Nov. 18th, to Dr. Brandes. The chair<br /> was taken by Mr. Douglas Sladen. The<br /> following report of the speech made by the illus-<br /> trious guest appeared in the Daily Chronicle of<br /> the 19th.<br /> “Personally I am in debt to England for other<br /> more valuable impressions. I came as a young<br /> man to London. I got an impression of the<br /> strength of the English race. I saw in Hyde<br /> Park old men of seventy years ride on horseback<br /> with as jaunty an air as the youngest, with<br /> cheeks as red and fresh as the cheeks of a child.<br /> I began early in life to study English literature.<br /> I have written a big book in six volumes, on the<br /> European literature of the first fifty years of our<br /> century, and the kernel of this work is the poetry<br /> of England, the hinge on which it turns. Though,<br /> as you perceive, I speak English very badly, still<br /> I assure you I can read it very easily. I know<br /> thoroughly Wordsworth and Coleridge, Walter<br /> Scott and Moore, Keats, Landor, Shelley, and<br /> Byron. Of all the poets of the century nobody<br /> has impressed me more deeply than Shelley. I<br /> read the “Ode to the West Wind&#039; with ecstasy<br /> and delight, I know the shorter poems line for<br /> line. There never was a lyrical poet greater than<br /> Shelley. I do not know his peer. In West-<br /> minster Abbey there is a bust of Southey, but I<br /> miss the images of Keats, of Shelley, of Byron.<br /> It has surprised me to find that this English<br /> people, which can certainly not be called an<br /> essentially military people, has honoured in its<br /> public places many of its generals, a few of its<br /> statesmen, but—except William Shakespeare in<br /> Leicester-square—very few of all those who have<br /> produced the great and glorious English litera-<br /> ture. Yet foreigners return again and again to<br /> the study of this literature, and above all others<br /> Shakespeare commands the attention of every<br /> civilised being. Everyone tries to understand<br /> him better and more fully than his predecessors.<br /> And I must plead guilty to a continuous six<br /> years&#039; course of him. . In old times a critic<br /> was little esteemed of poets and authors.<br /> They believed him full of envy and malice,<br /> they believed he wore an abdominal belt of<br /> serpents. In our time people know that a critic<br /> is simply a man who can read and who<br /> teaches others to read—an art that is rarer<br /> than would be supposed. A critic is a man who<br /> is as pliant and supple when the question is<br /> to understand, as he is inflexible and firm when<br /> it is his task to speak out. He understands men<br /> and people who do not understand one another.<br /> He builds up bridges over the gulf that separates<br /> people from people, he is the true engineer of<br /> spiritual life. As he builds, so he clears away,<br /> and plants hedges and torches on the way. And<br /> as he builds up so he pulls down. &#039;Tis not faith<br /> that moves mountains, it is criticism that moves<br /> them—all the mountains of antiquated faith, of<br /> superstitions, and dead tradition. You do not know<br /> how fortunate you are to own a language that is<br /> understood all over the earth, so that you can<br /> appeal in your own words to your hearer. We,<br /> who have a language that is only understood by<br /> very few millions, are only known in translations.<br /> You are fortunate to have copyright in your work.<br /> Scandinavians have no literary agreement with<br /> other countries. Foreign publishers seldom send<br /> us anything for our copyrights, and often a copy<br /> of their piracies is even denied. And we are little<br /> translated. Of thirty volumes I have written,<br /> not a dozen are translated into German, and most<br /> of them in pirated editions made from texts that<br /> are twenty years old, and have in the meantime<br /> been entirely revised. These books bear my name,<br /> and have even been retranslated in many other<br /> languages, but I never have acknowledged them<br /> as mine. As I am on the threshold of an intro-<br /> duction to the English public, I am glad to be<br /> able to tell you that I have every reason to believe<br /> that it will be in a translation which for once I can<br /> be proud of. But it is not of my good fortune that<br /> I wish to talk. I want to repeat what I have<br /> said of yours. You are, indeed, fortunate in the<br /> possession of a literature such as yours is. I saw<br /> last Saturday in the Natural History Museum an<br /> enormous disk of a giant tree, many hundred<br /> years old. The tree was so old that its centre was<br /> marked as contemporary with the battle of<br /> Agincourt, and the different rings as contemporary<br /> with Shakespeare&#039;s birth, Newton’s death, the acces-<br /> sion of Queen Victoria, and so on. In spite of its age<br /> the stem had remained fresh and living until it<br /> was felled by human hand. Such a venerable<br /> tree is English literature, and it lives and flourishes<br /> to-day as of old. May never its woodman pass,<br /> and may it live and thrive and bear fruits ſ”<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#521) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 167<br /> MR, STANLEY J. W.EYMAN AS DRAMATIC<br /> AUTHOR,<br /> LIFTON has had the honour of producing<br /> Mr. Stanley Weyman’s first dramatic<br /> piece, which was copyrighted on Nov. the<br /> 22nd by a company of amateurs playing under<br /> Mr. Forster Alleyne. The piece is “ For the<br /> Cause,” played very nearly as it appeared in<br /> Chapman’s Magazine in May, but on the stage<br /> the quick terse conversation and epigrammatic<br /> dialogue have their full weight ; and the<br /> intensely dramatic situations prove Mr. Wey-<br /> man&#039;s power as a dramatic author. The piece is<br /> but of one act, but in the short time, about an<br /> hour, required to play it, the audience is moved<br /> by pathos, dread, and horror, and swayed to<br /> laughter. Legitimate situations excite a tension<br /> of feeling for the principal, in fact only, woman<br /> in the little play, Marie, the daughter of an<br /> old Huguenot who loves a Leaguer, who would<br /> have the Pope the only sovereign of Paris. The<br /> Huguenot is hiding the king in his stables, and<br /> Henri Quatre finds his way into the house as the<br /> stables are cold; and nearly surprises the young<br /> lovers. Marie has hidden Phillip, and to her<br /> anguish she learns this intruder is the King; and<br /> his friends join him, and in the room where the<br /> Leaguer who would hang them all is hidden, they<br /> unfold their plans to take Paris. Here the<br /> strength of the play gives grand scope to the<br /> actors, especially to Marie : she would die for her<br /> King Henri of Navarre; but she would save her<br /> lover: but he, if he escapes, will slay the King,<br /> her own father, and even destroy all hope for her<br /> faith. The King&#039;s plan is bared; a dumb stable<br /> boy comes in and points to where he saw Phillip<br /> hide, but is not understood; all are leaving;<br /> Marie in agony will give her heart for the King;<br /> he returns to say a word to her he has trusted,<br /> and she blurts out her secret, but immediately to<br /> passionately deny her words; but her lover is<br /> dragged from his hiding place. The King was<br /> played forcibly by Mr. Alleyne, and Miss Bryant<br /> did well as Marie, and Mr. K. Bryant also played<br /> with force and feeling as Phillip; especially when<br /> confronted with the sounds of the King&#039;s friend.<br /> The King rushes between them, and demands<br /> their sparing him almost in vain, until in passion<br /> he cries, “He does not die. France speaks.”<br /> For the girl who sacrificed her lover, and her life<br /> for the King, as she now lies senseless at their<br /> feet, he shall be spared. In a short, powerful<br /> speech he tells Phillip to go. “The girl you love<br /> has ransomed you; go to leave a name that shall<br /> live for centuries and stand for infamy.” The play<br /> should end where Phillip lifts up his Marie&#039;s body<br /> and bears her off; or he might be kneeling beside<br /> her as she half revives, as the curtain descends.<br /> What follows is de trop, and spoils the “Curtain”;<br /> but it is certain “For the Cause” will not be<br /> played for the last time at Clifton, and it may be<br /> the first, but can hardly be the last, acting piece<br /> by Mr. Stanley Weyman.<br /> JAMES BAKER.<br /> * * *-*.<br /> BOOK TALK,<br /> HIS very day are published the “Family<br /> Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti,” edited,<br /> with a memoir, by Mr. William Michael<br /> Rossetti, brother of the poet. Mr. Rossetti was<br /> assisted in the work by suggestions from his<br /> sister, the late Christina Rossetti. Messrs Ellis<br /> and Elvey are the publishers.<br /> Mr. Julian Sturgis has written a story entitled<br /> “The Master of Fortune,” for Messrs. Hutchin-<br /> son and Co.&#039;s Zeit-Geist series. -<br /> Mr. Rider Haggard has written an African tale<br /> for the New Year number of the African Review.<br /> A volume of short stories, by Mrs. Kate<br /> Douglas Wiggin, entitled “The Village Watch-<br /> Tower,” will be issued soon by Messrs. Gay and<br /> Bird.<br /> Miss Edith Sichel is the author of “The Story<br /> of Two Salons,” which is concerned with French<br /> social life in the last century, and will be published<br /> by Mr. Arnold.<br /> A new story from the pen of Mr. W. E. Norris,<br /> called “Clarissa Furiosa,” will begin in the<br /> January number of the Cornhill Magazine.<br /> Sir Edwin Arnold has signed one thousand<br /> portraits for the frontispiece of the autograph<br /> edition of “The Book of Good Counsels,” which<br /> Messrs. W. H. Allen and Co. will publish soon,<br /> with drawings by Mr. Gordon Browne.<br /> Mr. Locker-Lampson&#039;s Memoirs, which Mr.<br /> Augustine Birrell is editing, will be entitled “My<br /> Confidences,” and the work is expected to be<br /> ready at Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co.&#039;s early in<br /> the coming year.<br /> NIr, R. Barry O’Brien, who wrote the notice of<br /> Mr. Parnell in the “Dictionary of National<br /> Biography,” is now preparing a life of the late<br /> Irish leader, and asks those who can to send<br /> recollections or documents pertaining to his<br /> Caréel&quot;.<br /> A world tour recently made by the Rev. H. R.<br /> Haweis is to result in a two-volume book of<br /> “Talk and Travel,” which Messrs. Chatto and<br /> Windus will publish. Previously, also, the writer<br /> journeyed twice in America, and his impressions<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#522) ################################################<br /> <br /> 168 -<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> and experiences then will of course be included<br /> in the record.<br /> Mr. Oswald Crawfurd has a volume in the<br /> press for Chapman&#039;s Story Series entitled “The<br /> White Feather.” An adventure tale by Mr.<br /> Clark Russell will also appear in this series.<br /> Mr. Crawfurd has edited a collection of “Lyrical<br /> Verse from Elizabeth to Victoria,” a volume of<br /> 400 pages, which, like the others, will be pub-<br /> lished by Messrs. Chapman and Hall.<br /> Dr. Riccardo Stephens, of Edinburgh, has<br /> written a novel called “The Cruciform Mark,”<br /> which Messrs. Chatto and Windus will publish<br /> SOOI] .<br /> The Carlyle Centenary, on the 4th inst., will be<br /> marked by the opening, for about a month, of an<br /> exhibition of pictures, MSS., portraits, &amp;c., at<br /> the house, Cheyne-row. Mr. John Morley (whose<br /> leisure for literature will be curtailed should his<br /> candidature for Montrose be successful) is to<br /> preside at a meeting in Chelsea Town Hall on<br /> the same day, when the title-deeds of the Carlyle<br /> House will be handed over to the fund.<br /> A full bibliography of Tennyson was prepared<br /> by the late Mr. Richard Herne Shepherd. It is<br /> now shortly to be issued to subscribers by Mr.<br /> Frank Hollings, 7, Great Turnstile, Holborn,<br /> W.C.<br /> It is likely that another work of travel by Mr.<br /> Henry Norman will be published soon. This will<br /> consist of a reprint, with additions, of the long<br /> series of letters written to the Daily Chronicle<br /> by Mr. Norman during a tour of over two months<br /> through the countries (so deeply interesting at<br /> the moment) of the Balkan Peninsula. The<br /> letters were entitled “Round the Near East,” and<br /> discussed alike the rulers and rule of Turkey,<br /> Bulgaria, Montenegro, and the rest, and the<br /> social characteristics of their peoples and cities.<br /> Mr. Sidney Colvin writes to the Athenaeum<br /> explaining that “The Great North Road,” the<br /> story by Stevenson which appears in the Christ-<br /> mas number of the Illustrated London News, was<br /> not one of the last undertakings of its author,<br /> but belongs rightly to the year 1884. The tale<br /> “Weir of Hermiston,” upon which Stevenson was<br /> engaged at the time of his death, will appear in<br /> the new political review Cosmopolis.<br /> An important collection of letters has been<br /> brought to light, according to the Glasgow<br /> Evening News, in an old Caithness castle. They<br /> number several hundreds, including letters by<br /> Burns, Scott, Byron, Moore, and Dickens, all<br /> addressed to Mr. George Thomson, the distin-<br /> guished musical amateur, in connection with his<br /> “Miscellany of Scottish Song,” which he was<br /> engaged upon at the end of last century. Some<br /> of those more closely relating to Burns will be<br /> published in the Centenary edition of his Life<br /> and Letters, which Mr. Henley and Mr. Henderson<br /> are preparing. The publication of the letters as<br /> a whole has been allowed exclusively to the<br /> Glasgow Evening News.<br /> Mr. Elbert Hubbard’s book on “Little<br /> Journeys,” to the homes of famous people, will<br /> be issued very soon by Messrs. Putnam. The<br /> author disclaims giving biographies of the<br /> characters or guides to the places, and merely<br /> calls the articles outline sketches and impres-<br /> sions. Victor Hugo, Shakespeare, Dickens,<br /> Carlyle, Dean Swift, Mr. Ruskin, and Mr. Glad-<br /> stone are among the subjects of the volume.<br /> For the Jowett Memorial at St. Paul’s School<br /> over £800 has been subscribed, and a committee<br /> is taking tenders for erecting an organ in the<br /> Great Hall.<br /> “Excursions in Libraria : Retrospective Reviews<br /> and Bibliographical Notes,” is the title of a volume<br /> by G. H. Powell, which Messrs. Lawrence and<br /> Bullen will shortly issue. Some of the chapter<br /> headings are: “The Philosophy of Rarity,” “A<br /> Shelf of Old Story Books,” “With Rabelais in<br /> Rome,” and “The Wit of History.”<br /> Mrs. Oliphant&#039;s new work, “The Makers of<br /> Modern Rome,” will be published by Messrs.<br /> Macmillan as a sister volume to her “Makers of<br /> Florence.” It is divided into four books—<br /> “Honourable Women not a Few,” “The Popes<br /> who made the Papacy,” “Lo Popolo and the<br /> Tribune of the People,” and “The Popes who<br /> made the City.” There will be illustrations by<br /> Mr. Joseph Pennell and others.<br /> Mr. F. G. Kenyon, of the Department of<br /> MSS. at the British Museum, has written a<br /> popular textual history of the Bible down to its<br /> latest translation in English, with illustrations<br /> showing in facsimile the characteristics of the<br /> MSS. and the errors of the scribes. Messrs.<br /> Eyre and Spottiswoode are the publishers.<br /> In his book on “The Dover Road,” to be pub-<br /> lished immediately by Messrs. Chapman and Hall,<br /> Mr. Charles Harper says that this stretch of<br /> seventy-six miles is the most ancient and historic<br /> highway in England. This is one of a series of<br /> similar volumes by Mr. Harper.<br /> Several interesting developments in periodicals<br /> fall to be recorded. The Savoy, the new art and<br /> literary quarterly, with Mr. Arthur Symons and<br /> Mr. Aubrey Beardsley as editors, will appear this<br /> month ; and in disclaiming any school its pro-<br /> spectus says: “For us all art is good which is<br /> good art.” M. F. Ortmans is to be editor of the<br /> new monthly international review Cosmopolis.<br /> The Arena reduces its price from five to three<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#523) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE<br /> 169<br /> A UTHOI8.<br /> dollars per annum; and the New Budget becomes<br /> a monthly instead of a weekly. A new political<br /> review, the Progressive, is announced for early in<br /> 1896, whose editor will be Mr. William Clarke,<br /> M.A. Secondary and higher education will be<br /> the field of Cap and Gown, a new weekly journal.<br /> Mr. A. D. McCormick, whose spirited drawings<br /> were a feature of Sir W. M. Conway&#039;s book on<br /> his expedition to the Karakorum Himalayas, has<br /> himself written and illustrated a narrative of the<br /> journey, striking, of course, more a personal than<br /> a geographical note. Mr. Unwin will issue the<br /> book, which is to be called “An Artist in the<br /> Himalayas.”<br /> Many old book - plates, including that of<br /> Henrietta Louisa Jefferys, Countess of Pomfret,<br /> are to be reproduced in “Ladies&#039; Book-Plates,”<br /> by Miss Norna Labouchere, the forthcoming<br /> volume in the Ex-Libris Series of Messrs. Bell<br /> and Sons. Two other works in this series will be<br /> “The Decorative Illustration of Books,” by<br /> Walter Crane, and “Decorative Heraldry,” by<br /> G. W. Eve.<br /> Among art volumes announced is one of draw-<br /> ings by the well-known American artist, Mr.<br /> Charles Dana Gibson, which Mr. Lane will<br /> publish. Mr. Paton will follow the subject of<br /> Mr. Wedmore&#039;s recent book, “Etching in<br /> England,” with a volume to be published by the<br /> De Montfort Press.<br /> Overshadowing all else in the rush of new books<br /> during November were the volumes of Matthew<br /> Arnold’s “Letters, 1848-1888 ° (Macmillan), and<br /> that of Stevenson’s “Wailima Letters” (Methuen).<br /> Much of the domestic kindliness of Arnold’s<br /> character is brought out ; apart, we glean his<br /> opinion of Thackeray as “not a great writer; ” of<br /> Carlyle, that Johnson stood “a great deal better;”<br /> and of Tennyson, that he was “deficient in intel-<br /> lectual power.” Stevenson&#039;s letters to his friend,<br /> Mr. Sidney Colvin, are charming and very self-<br /> revealing. Much of his life may perhaps be<br /> interpreted through these two of his sentences:<br /> “The world must return some day to the word<br /> duty, and be done with the word reward. There<br /> are no rewards, and plenty of duties.”<br /> A series of open-air books is a new departure<br /> which Mr. John Lane is making. It is called the<br /> Arcady Library, and the first volume, “Round<br /> About a Brighton Coach Office,” by Maude<br /> Egerton King, with title-page by Lucy K. Welch,<br /> is already due. “Life in Arcady,” by Mr. J. S.<br /> Fletcher, will be the second ; then “Scholar<br /> Gypsies,” by John Buchan.<br /> A German translation of Mrs. Edmonds&#039;<br /> “History of a Church Mouse” has been pub-<br /> lished in Berlin. The translator is Fräulein<br /> Helene Lobedan.<br /> “The Romance of Rahere, and other Poems,”<br /> by E. Hardingham, and “Drifting through<br /> Dreamland,” by T. E. Ruston, are among the<br /> new volumes of Verse to be published by Mr.<br /> Eliot Stock.<br /> Miss Cholmondeley, whose health has never<br /> recovered from the severe strain put upon it in<br /> writing “Diana Tempest,” will shortly leave<br /> England for Madeira, where she is advised to pass<br /> the winter, and where it is confidently expected<br /> that she will regain complete health.<br /> “Diana Tempest” has reached its fifth edition<br /> in England and its tenth thousand in America.<br /> “A Cluster of Quiet Thoughts,” being a re-<br /> issue of the three series of aphoristic poems,<br /> cont ibuted by the Rev. Frederick Langbridge to<br /> the Sunday at Home, will be published shortly<br /> by the Religious Tract Society.<br /> Three new volumes of stories are announced<br /> for publication by Mr. Elliot Stock. “The Story<br /> of the Old Oak Tree, told by himself,” by Thorpe<br /> Fancourt ; “The Commandment with Promise,”<br /> by Hon. Gertrude Boscawen; and “Tales Told<br /> by the Fireside,” by a well-known living poet.<br /> “Joseph the Dreamer,” by Robert Bird, author<br /> of “Jesus the Carpenter of Nazareth,” has just<br /> been published by Messrs. Longmans, Green, and<br /> Co. It is a plain Bible story of the life of Joseph<br /> paraphrased in such a way that it will appeal<br /> without doubt to the children for whom it is<br /> intended.<br /> “England&#039;s Greatest Problem,” by the author<br /> of “A Colony of Mercy,” will be published by<br /> |Messrs. Bentley and Co., at the price of 58., in<br /> the course of next month.<br /> Mrs. Katharine S. Macquoid&#039;s new novel, “His<br /> Last Card,” will be published in a six-shilling<br /> volume, by Messrs. Ward and Downey, at the<br /> end of this month.<br /> •- = -s.<br /> LITERATURE IN THE PERIODICALS.<br /> AUTHOR, AGENT, AND PUBLISHER. T. Werner Laurie.<br /> Nineteenth Century for November. (See p. 162.)<br /> GUSTAVE FLAUBERT. Ernest Newman. Fortnightly<br /> Review for December.<br /> “EOTHEN &#039;’ AND THE ATHENAEUM CLUB.<br /> Blackwood’s Magazine for December.<br /> OXFORD IN FACT AND FICTION.<br /> zine for December.<br /> OxFORD IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. Macmillan&#039;s<br /> Magazine for December.<br /> THE HOMES OF THOMAS CARLYLE. II.<br /> Young Man for December.<br /> TOLSTOI : THE MAN AND HIS MESSAGE.<br /> Young Man for December.<br /> THOMAS CARLYLE. II. Mrs. J. Fyvie Mayo. Leisu, re<br /> Howr for December. -<br /> Lady Gregory.<br /> Blackwood&#039;s Maga-<br /> Marion Leslie.<br /> W. J. Dawson.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#524) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 7o<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> LIVING CRITICS. II. : THEODORE WATTS. Frances<br /> Hindes Groome. Bookman for November.<br /> A BIT OF GEORGE ELIOT’s Country. John Foster<br /> Fraser. Bookman for November.<br /> HALL CAINE. R. H. Sherard. Windsor Magazine for<br /> November.<br /> |FAMOUs POETS. VII. : PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.<br /> Charlotte A. Price.<br /> CHARLES READE.<br /> December.<br /> NEW FIGURES IN LITERATURE AND ART. III. : HAMLIN<br /> GARLAND. Atlantic Monthty for December.<br /> THE PRACTICAL USEs OF POETRY. R. F. Horton, D.D.<br /> Swnday Magazine for December.<br /> PORTRAITS OF KEATS FROM THE LIFE.<br /> Nov. I6.<br /> THE CIVIL LIST PENSIONs. Saturday Review for Nov. 9.<br /> Belgravia for December.<br /> Elsie Rhodes. London Society for<br /> Athenaewm for<br /> A WORD ON THREE VOLUMEs. Miss Braddon. West-<br /> minster Gazette for Nov. 6.<br /> Do PUBLIC LIBRARIES SPREAD IDISEASE. Scrutator.<br /> Westminster Gazette for Nov. 27.<br /> HALL CAINE’s PLEA : THE CASE FOR THE BRITISH<br /> AUTHORs. Report of Banquet to Mr. Hall Caine by<br /> Toronto Publishers. Toronto Daily Mail and Empire for<br /> Oct. 26. (See p. 152.)<br /> MEMORIES OF STEVENSON : A Talk with Mr. Charles<br /> Baxter. Daily Chronicle for Nov. 20.<br /> “HILL-Top Now ELs” AND THE MORALITY OF ART.<br /> Spectator for Nov. 23.<br /> NOTABLE REVIEWS.<br /> Of Stevenson’s “Wailima. Letters.”<br /> for Nov. 2.<br /> Of Matthew Arnold&#039;s Letters, 1848-1888.<br /> Nov. 19.<br /> Of Mr. William Watson’s “The Father of the Forest<br /> and other Poems.” Spectator for Nov. 16.<br /> Of Mr. Meredith’s “The Amazing Marriage.”<br /> Courtney. Daily Telegraph for Nov. 22.<br /> Of Mr. Hardy’s “Jude the Obscure.”<br /> Nov. 23.<br /> A.T.Q.C. Speaker<br /> Times for<br /> W. L.<br /> Athenoew’m for<br /> $ $3. $ #<br /> The Spectator article adopts Mr. Grant Allen&#039;s<br /> term “Hill-Top” as a name for a class of fiction,<br /> and is surprised that nobody has had the presence<br /> of mind to point out that these books, with their<br /> perverse didacticism, are quite as great sinners<br /> against the non-moral standard of literature as<br /> the old-fashioned goody tale. It sees, however,<br /> that the new school, though it will not admit<br /> itself wrong, is putting itself in the wrong. The<br /> writer discusses pointedly Mr. Hardy and Mr.<br /> Allen. But the really interesting question, he<br /> says, is whether a novel can be a work of art and<br /> not have a sound moral at the heart of it. As to<br /> which our contemporary proceeds:<br /> Because the moral tale done to order has often succeeded<br /> in being dismally inartistic, the idea got abroad—even<br /> among religious people—that there is some deep-seated<br /> and ineradical hostility between the beauty and truth of<br /> art and the beauty and truth of morality; and that to hold<br /> and confess the opposite opinion is to announce oneself a<br /> fubsy Philistine. Whereas the truth of the matter really<br /> is that these inartistic moral tales are inartistic only<br /> because the writers of them lack some or all of the gifts<br /> that make an artist. It is possible to be very zealous for<br /> morality and yet have no imagination, no insight, and no<br /> style. This is a truth that no one is ashamed to utter.<br /> Why, then, should we be ashamed to say also that it is<br /> quite impossible to write a great poem or a great novel<br /> without a clear and true perception of the moral and<br /> spiritual laws of God, as manifested in the life of the world<br /> he has created P<br /> If the article on Tolstoi, by Mr. Dawson in the<br /> Young Man, were also to cross the reader&#039;s eye,<br /> he might wonder vaguely if the Russian novelist<br /> is pleasing in the sight of the Spectator critic. Mr.<br /> Dawson&#039;s definition of the true realist is “an<br /> artist who sees life steadily, and sees it whole,”<br /> whereas most of our so-called realists, he says, do<br /> pick and choose:—<br /> They choose the vile and abominable, and are as men<br /> whose one passion is to pick over a tray of diamonds in<br /> order to discover the one flawed stone. They have<br /> lost the sense of proportion, and see life out of perspective.<br /> But with Tolstoi this rarely or never happens. Being an<br /> absolutely sincere man, bent upon depicting life as it really<br /> is, he sees life in its true proportion. He does not hesitate<br /> to paint evil if it comes in his way, and he paints it with<br /> tragic force; but he is always sensible of the widespread<br /> goodness, sweetness, and sanity of general life.<br /> The Saturday Review on “Civil Pensions” is<br /> a protest against the lack of principle in the<br /> distribution of the fund. In her article on<br /> “Eothen * in Blackwood’s, Lady Gregory recalls<br /> the Athenaeum Club of “the days—or nights—of<br /> the round table, of which Hayward, Kinglake,<br /> Chenery, were the ruling spirits.”<br /> *-<br /> e- - -<br /> CORRESPONDENCE,<br /> I.—HISTORICAL FICTION.<br /> HERE are probably not many authors in<br /> this country who see the Quarterly<br /> Bulletin of the Boston Public Library,<br /> and it is on this account that I venture to<br /> draw the attention of your readers to the<br /> interesting chronological index to historical<br /> fiction which is being published in the columns<br /> of this journal. This index, which includes<br /> prose fiction, plays, and poems, catalogues in<br /> chronological order all fiction relating to different<br /> countries. So far we have been given indexes to<br /> the historical fiction of America, England, Scot-<br /> land, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary,<br /> Bohemia, Switzerland, Netherlands, Scandinavia,<br /> Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.<br /> This index would doubtless prove valuable to<br /> British novelists, and those portions of it which<br /> relate to the British Isles might, if the editor per-<br /> mitted, be printed as a supplement to the Author.<br /> The publication of this index has suggested to<br /> me another which might be of general interest, viz.,<br /> an “Index of Geographical Fiction.” The com-<br /> piler of such a catalogue would take each country<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#525) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. I7 I<br /> separately, and would classify, under, appropriate<br /> divisions, those works of fiction which centre<br /> round some particular district, or which deal with<br /> life in certain countries. I should be glad to hear<br /> opinions as to the worth of such an index.<br /> While upon this subject, perhaps you will allow<br /> me to refer to another bibliographical subject—the<br /> need for some “Encyclopædia of Bibliography ’’<br /> which would give the most important books on all<br /> subjects, including perhaps a few of the longest<br /> magazine articles. I am aware that there have<br /> been published compilations dealing with “the<br /> best books,” &amp;c., but these are but tentative<br /> attempts to deal with a vast subject. In<br /> Chambers’s “Encyclopædia &quot; an attempt has been<br /> made in some cases to give a guide to the litera-<br /> ture of the subject, but this is very far from<br /> supplying the needs of the author, the librarian,<br /> the journalist, the professional man, and that<br /> mythical person—the general reader. With co-<br /> operation an “Encyclopædia of Bibliography ’’<br /> might be compiled, and a publisher found willing to<br /> undertake its publication. HERBERT C. FYFE.<br /> Albemarle-street, W., Nov. 9.<br /> II.-MY INITIALs.<br /> Is it allowable to use the Author as a medium<br /> for growling P. If so, I ask to be allowed to state<br /> my grievance.<br /> It was only a few days ago that I found out I<br /> had any grievance. My eyes were opened by<br /> reading an article in the Nineteenth Century by<br /> Mr. T. Werner Laurie, in which it is stated with<br /> regard to the foundation of the Society of<br /> Authors, that : “The idea of being able for a<br /> Small sum per annum to put a few initials after<br /> their names, and obtain a sort of license to call<br /> themselves authors, tickled many hundreds of<br /> amateurs.”<br /> I ask then, Where are my initials? Of<br /> course everybody likes to have initials and to use<br /> them. Mr. Yawkins, the banker in “Little<br /> Pedlington,” who could write after his name<br /> P.U.K.S., P.Z., and A.L.S.F.O., has always<br /> seemed to me much to be envied. Now Mr.<br /> Laurie would never have made the above state-<br /> ment unless he had certainly known of cases<br /> where letters signifying membership of the<br /> Society of Authors were used. This consideration<br /> makes it but too probable that there is some inner<br /> clique, connected with the management of the<br /> Society, who revel in secret in alphabetical<br /> ornaments.<br /> This ought not to be. What is fair for some is<br /> fair for all. Let obscure members have their<br /> privileges. What are they to put after their<br /> names P Should it be the English full-length<br /> M.I.S.O.A., or more briefly, the initials of the<br /> Latin title, Auctorum Societatis Socius.<br /> Anxiously awaiting a reply.<br /> ILLITERATUS.<br /> III.—AUTHORS AND EDITORs.<br /> An author is in the habit of receiving from<br /> various editors a payment at the rate of, let us<br /> say, 30s. a thousand words. From a second-rate<br /> paper he receives a request to write an article at<br /> a very much lower rate, say about half. Is he<br /> acting fairly by the editors who pay him the<br /> higher scale if he does work for another editor at<br /> a very much lower rate P Is it not very much<br /> like a man who sells brooms, offering one broom<br /> to Jones for 6d. and another broom of the same<br /> character to Brown for 3; d.?<br /> Or may we say that the custom of being paid<br /> various rates so largely prevails in journalism<br /> that the author would be justified in charging<br /> the different fees for his work to different editors?<br /> I should very much like to have your editorial<br /> opinion upon this point, and perhaps some of<br /> the readers of the Author would also favour us<br /> with their views on the subject. X. X. X.<br /> IV.-Co-operaTION.<br /> Might it not be advisable to invite propositions<br /> from your readers with a view to co-operation<br /> and mutual protection. Someone must commence<br /> this, and, however impracticable they may be, I<br /> beg to offer some of my own ideas upon the<br /> subject, leaving you to publish them or not as<br /> you see fit :<br /> I. That a central depôt or storehouse should<br /> be created for the purpose of keeping and dis-<br /> tributing literary work entrusted to it, its<br /> methods and appliances being similar to those<br /> common to all publishers. The manner of<br /> raising the capital necessary is detailed later on.<br /> 2. That the manager of the same should be<br /> appointed by the directors for the time being,<br /> who would exercise a general control, and would<br /> pass the periodical balance-sheets, subject to<br /> proper audit.<br /> 3. That a certain proportion of the directors<br /> should be elected by the subscribers of capital in<br /> the first instance, and, subsequently—that is to<br /> say, after repayment of the capital—that the<br /> whole body should be chosen by the literary<br /> clients of the said depôt.<br /> 4. That the profits of the said depôt should<br /> arise from (a) the sale of publications to the<br /> trade, (b) the rent of space occupied by the<br /> clients storing publications; less (a) expenses of<br /> management, &amp;c., (b) the price paid to authors<br /> for publications sold, (c) the expense of issuing a<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#526) ################################################<br /> <br /> 172<br /> THE<br /> A UTHOR.<br /> proper trade circular, (d) interest on capital until<br /> paid off. g<br /> 5. That the profits on publications sold should<br /> consist of the difference between a fixed propor-<br /> tion of the price of publication payable to the<br /> author, and a higher fixed proportion to be<br /> claimed from the bookseller, the said fixed pro-<br /> portions being common to all the publications<br /> placed in the hands of the depôt.<br /> 6. That as books are sometimes sold singly at<br /> somewhat higher rates than when a quantity are<br /> aken, and as the depôt, when applied to directly,<br /> would be compelled to demand the full price<br /> from private customers, such a profit be called<br /> ea traneous, and after payment of interest on<br /> capital and management expenses, be divided pro<br /> ratd amongst those whose books had been sold<br /> during the period in question. Authors would<br /> thus receive their proper share of an amount<br /> which no publisher now accounts for. In the<br /> first instance this extraneous profit might be<br /> used to pay off the capital.<br /> 7. That if, after repayment of the capital and<br /> division of extraneous profits, as above, a<br /> system of book-keeping be adopted whereby a<br /> further profit is apparent, that this profit be<br /> used for repayment of rent for space occupied.<br /> If the necessary system of book-keeping were<br /> found to be too complicated this rule need not be<br /> insisted on.<br /> 8. That if, after repayment of rents, there is<br /> still a remainder, that this shall be distributed<br /> pro ratá to the authors whose books have been<br /> sold during the term in question, or shall be<br /> carried forward or otherwise used at the discre-<br /> tion of the directors. This would account for<br /> the whole of the proceeds, all of which would go<br /> to the benefit of the authors, but would be sub-<br /> ject to the same proviso as paragraph 7.<br /> 9. That every author be debited for the cost<br /> of advertisements inserted at his request, but not<br /> for notices in circulars issued by the depôt. That<br /> he also be charged for the actual expenses<br /> incurred in the distribution of gratis copies to<br /> the Press, &amp;c., and for shipping expenses to<br /> foreign countries.<br /> Io. That the capital should be raised by<br /> subscription amongst those willing to use the<br /> depôt, and should in no case bear more than 5<br /> per cent. interest.<br /> 11. That the capital should be repaid to the<br /> subscribers as soon as possible. The security<br /> offered to the finders of capital would lie in the<br /> list of names promising work to the company.<br /> 12. That after repayment of the capital, the<br /> whole profit should be divided amongst the<br /> clients.<br /> 13. That if more capital were afterwards<br /> required to work the business, such capital should<br /> be raised by fresh subscriptions, also repayable at<br /> the earliest opportunity. Such capital could<br /> easily be found, as it would constitute a first<br /> charge on a going concern.<br /> 14. That as the business would, if wound up<br /> after the repayment of its capital, still possess the<br /> amount of its original capital intact, the said<br /> amount should, after liquidation, be invested as a<br /> fund for the benefit of destitute authors, or should<br /> be otherwise disposed of as the directors or clients<br /> thought fit, or as might be beforehand determined<br /> upon.<br /> I5. That some of our most successful and best<br /> known authors be urged to encourage the formation<br /> of such a co-operative company by entrusting it<br /> with distribution of some of their work, and,<br /> when possible, by providing a portion of the<br /> capital.<br /> I6. That an experienced manager be secured at<br /> a fair and proper remuneration, who would be<br /> liable to instant dismissal were he shown to<br /> have appropriated printers&#039; discounts to his own<br /> use, or to have acted in any other way than as a<br /> bona fide agent.<br /> By the above scheme it appears to me that all<br /> fhe profits must go to the authors, who are<br /> themselves able to regulate the price to be paid<br /> to them for copies, and the price at which copies<br /> are to be sold to the trade. It would not prevent<br /> private agreements with publishers, but would<br /> give every author a free hand in dictating the<br /> terms of such agreements.<br /> The expenses of the depôt can be approximately<br /> determined beforehand, also the amount of capital<br /> required. Except rent and expenses of manage-<br /> ment no risks are run by the depôt, which would<br /> act merely as an agent. The subscribers of<br /> capital would be prevented from subsequently<br /> turning the company into a mere money-making<br /> machine. If advisable, the depôt might act as<br /> the intermediary between the author and printer,<br /> charging a fixed percentage for its services. If<br /> not thought advisable, the depôt might supply<br /> authors with a printed form giving details as to<br /> cost of production. Information on this subject<br /> might be gleaned from the pages of the Author.<br /> Where authors wished for independent opinion<br /> before undertaking the risk of publication, the<br /> depôt or the Society of Authors might recom-<br /> mend a reader to them for this purpose.<br /> The Society of Authors provides the required<br /> nucleus for some such scheme as the above, and,<br /> should its readers formulate something practical,<br /> could easily constitute a competent committee to<br /> thresh out the preliminary details.<br /> In the event of this being done, I beg to sign<br /> myself A FUTURE SUBSCRIBER.	https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/284/1895-12-02-The-Author-6-7.pdf	publications, The Author
283	https://historysoa.com/items/show/283	The Author, Vol. 06 Issue 06 (November 1895)	<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.+06+Issue+06+%28November+1895%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 Issue 06 (November 1895)</a>			<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</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>	1895-11-01-The-Author-6-6					121–148																		<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=6">6</a>											<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1895-11-01">1895-11-01</a>							6			18951101	C be El u t b or,<br /> (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors.<br /> Monthly.)<br /> CON DUCTED BY WALTER BESAN T.<br /> Wol. VI.-No. 6.]<br /> NOVEMBER 1, 1895.<br /> [PRICE SIXPENCE.<br /> JFor the Opinions eaſpressed in papers that are<br /> signed or initialled the Authors alone are<br /> &quot;esponsible. None of the papers or para-<br /> graphs must be taken as earpressing the<br /> collective opinions of the committee unless<br /> they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br /> Thring, Sec.<br /> *-* →<br /> HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all<br /> remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and<br /> requests that all members not receiving an answer to<br /> important communications within two days will write to him<br /> without delay. All remittances show.ld be crossed Union<br /> iBank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered<br /> letter only.<br /> Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on<br /> all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub-<br /> jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are<br /> returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS.<br /> *~~ 2–%<br /> e- * *-*.<br /> WARNINGS AND ADWICE.<br /> 1. TYRAWING THE AGREEMENT.-It is not generally<br /> understood that the author, as the vendor, has the<br /> absolute right of drafting the agreement upon<br /> whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out.<br /> Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In<br /> every form of business, this among others, the right of<br /> drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or<br /> has the control of the property.<br /> 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.—In selling Serial Rights remember<br /> that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that<br /> is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you<br /> object to this, insert a clause to that effect.<br /> 3. STAMP YOUR AGREEMENTs. – Readers are most<br /> URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements<br /> immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected<br /> for two weeks, a fine of £1 o must be paid before the agree-<br /> ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every<br /> case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter<br /> which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The<br /> author may be assured that the other party to the agree-<br /> ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society,<br /> to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of<br /> members stamped for them at no ea pense to themselves<br /> eacept the cost of the stamp.<br /> 4. AsCERTAIN WHAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES To<br /> BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an<br /> arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi-<br /> ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he<br /> reserved for himself.<br /> 5. LITERARY AGENTS.–Be very careful. Yow cannot be<br /> too careful as to the person whom you appoint as your<br /> agent. Remember that you place your property almost un-<br /> reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting<br /> the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience<br /> of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone.<br /> 6. COST OF PRODUCTION.——Never sign any agreement of<br /> which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part,<br /> until you have proved the figures.<br /> 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERs.-Never enter into any cor-<br /> respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad-<br /> vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced<br /> friends or by this Society.<br /> 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any accownt whatever,<br /> bind yourself down for future work to anyone.<br /> 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or<br /> responsibility whatever without advice.<br /> Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a MS. has been re-<br /> fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises<br /> they may put forward, for the production of the work.<br /> II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American<br /> rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any<br /> agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the<br /> publisher, unless for a substantial consideration.<br /> I2. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper,<br /> either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright,<br /> without advice.<br /> 13. ADVERTISEMENTS. — Reep some control over the<br /> advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in<br /> the agreement.<br /> I4. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any<br /> other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy,<br /> charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with:<br /> business men. Be yourself a business man.<br /> Society’s Offices :-<br /> 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN&#039;s INN FIELDs.<br /> *~ * ~ *<br /> g- &gt; --&gt;<br /> HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br /> I. WERY member has a right to ask 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 /> business or the administration of his property. If the advice<br /> sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member<br /> has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the<br /> case is such that Counsel&#039;s opinion is desirable, the Com-<br /> mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this<br /> without any cost to the member. -<br /> 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br /> and publisher&#039;s agreements do not generally fall within the<br /> O 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#476) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 22<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br /> to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually<br /> engaged upon such questions for us.<br /> 3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past<br /> accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in<br /> order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree-<br /> ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively<br /> so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any<br /> agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor-<br /> mation thus obtained may prove invaluable.<br /> 4. If the examination of your previous business trans-<br /> actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should<br /> take advice as to a change of publishers.<br /> 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro-<br /> posed document to the Society for examination. -<br /> 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in<br /> the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish-<br /> ing firm in the country. -<br /> 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you<br /> are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are<br /> reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing<br /> the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen-<br /> dence of the writer.<br /> 8. Send to the Editor of the Author notes of everything<br /> important to literature that you may hear or meet with.<br /> 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of<br /> members&#039; agreements and their preservation in a fireproof<br /> safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con-<br /> fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who<br /> will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:—(1)<br /> To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To<br /> stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon<br /> them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments<br /> due according to agreements.<br /> *-- * ~ *<br /> e- * *-*.<br /> THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE,<br /> EMBERS are informed :<br /> 1. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate takes charge of<br /> the business of members of the Society. That it<br /> submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree-<br /> ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene-<br /> rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business<br /> details.<br /> 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured<br /> will be forwarded upon detailed application.<br /> 3. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate works only for those<br /> members of the Society whose work possesses a market<br /> value. -<br /> 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations<br /> whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia-<br /> tions are placed ea clusively in its hands, and that all<br /> communications relating thereto are referred to it.<br /> 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by<br /> appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days&#039;<br /> notice should be given.<br /> 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi-<br /> cations proxmptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent<br /> to defray postage.<br /> 7. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate does not invite MSS.<br /> without previous correspondence : does not hold itself<br /> responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that<br /> in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray<br /> zoostage. -.<br /> 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for<br /> lectures by some of the leading members of the Society;<br /> that it has a “Transfer Department * for the sale and<br /> purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register<br /> of Wants and Wanted &#039;&#039; is open. Members are invited to<br /> communicate their requirements to the Manager.<br /> There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services<br /> will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It<br /> is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the<br /> Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in<br /> the Syndicate.<br /> ~s-A<br /> -* ~ *-*.<br /> NOTICES.<br /> HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the<br /> Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br /> of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very<br /> heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br /> many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br /> 6s. 6d. Subscription for the year. -<br /> The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and<br /> communications on all subjects connected with literature<br /> from members and others. Nothing can do more good to<br /> the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive,<br /> and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this<br /> work send their names and the special subjects on which<br /> they are willing to write P<br /> Communications for the Awthor should reach the Editor<br /> not later than the 21st of each month.<br /> All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether<br /> members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate<br /> to the Editor any points connected with their work which<br /> it would be advisable in the general interest to publish.<br /> Members and others who wish their MSS. read are<br /> requested not to send them to the Office without previously<br /> communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable<br /> despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in<br /> which they are received. It must also be distinctly under-<br /> stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances,<br /> undertake the publication of MSS.<br /> The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at<br /> 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary<br /> for information, rules of admission, &amp;c.<br /> Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br /> have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do<br /> this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker&#039;s<br /> order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the<br /> trouble of sending out a reminder.<br /> Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br /> warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a<br /> most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding<br /> for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they<br /> would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five<br /> years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest.<br /> or dishonest? Of course they would not. Why then<br /> hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them-<br /> selves into literary bondage for three or five years P 4.<br /> Those who possess the “Cost of Production * are<br /> requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15<br /> per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble<br /> of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the<br /> pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding<br /> is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be<br /> added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands<br /> at £9 4s. The figures in our book are as near the exact<br /> truth as can be procured; but a printer&#039;s, or a binder&#039;s,<br /> bill is so elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be<br /> arrived at.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#477) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I 23<br /> Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br /> in the “Cost of Production” for advertising. Of course, we<br /> have not included any sums which may be charged for<br /> inserting advertisements in the publisher&#039;s own magazines,<br /> or in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too<br /> often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from<br /> sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket,<br /> &#039;by inserting any number of advertisements in his own<br /> magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are<br /> who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those<br /> who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it.<br /> *-<br /> r- - -<br /> FROM THE COMMITTEE.<br /> HE Secretary has in hand the preparation of clauses to<br /> meet the various points necessary for an agreement in<br /> any of the ordinary methods of publishing.<br /> Dr. Jurisconsult Ernst Lange, of Zurich, has prepared and<br /> presented to the Committee a paper on the “Contracts of<br /> Publishing ” in Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Switzer-<br /> land. It has been resolved to print this pamphlet uniform<br /> with the “Cost of Production.” The best thanks of the<br /> Committee were passed to Dr. Lange for this gift.<br /> A somewhat interesting case has been before the Com-<br /> mittee. It would have been more interesting had it been<br /> settled in a court of law by a friendly action. The case is<br /> one in which an author’s MS. was accidentally burned<br /> while in charge of a publishing firm. Of course this<br /> accident entails upon the author a great deal of labour.<br /> IHow far are the publishers liable in such a case ? Did they<br /> take reasonable precautions in the matter P The case has<br /> been settled, one hopes to the satisfaction of both parties.<br /> But still the question of what constitutes reasonable precau-<br /> tions remains open. An analysis of the “autumn announce-<br /> ments,” classified into authors, subjects, and publishers, is<br /> presented to readers with this number of the Awthor. The<br /> lists used are those of the “Announcement Number’ of the<br /> Publishers’ Circular. The omission of four or five firms<br /> is due to the fact that they did not appear in the circular.—<br /> G. H. THRING, Secretary.<br /> LITERARY PROPERTY.<br /> I.—CANADIAN COPYRIGHT.<br /> WHE visit of Mr. Hall Caine to Canada<br /> promises to produce the fruits of concilia-<br /> tion and peace. So long as Canada. On her<br /> side stuck out stiffly for the right to make her<br /> own copyright, even if it brought the whole of<br /> Fnglish literature to ruin, and so long as we on<br /> our&#039;s protested against the iniquity of these claims<br /> and the extreme unpleasantness of being ruined<br /> in order to bring a temporary flow of dollars into<br /> the pockets of a few Canadian printers, nothing<br /> could be done.<br /> Now that Mr. Hall Caine has gone over as our<br /> representative, the matter has a chance of being<br /> talked over amicably. He has been very favour-<br /> ably received so far, both in the States and in<br /> Canada. The following is the latest intelligence :<br /> OTTAWA, Oct. 20.<br /> The importance of the Canadian copyright question is<br /> clearly shown by the fact that the Governments of France,<br /> Belgium, and the United States have caused their repre-<br /> sentatives in this country to report upon the probable effect<br /> of Canadian copyright legislation.<br /> Mr. Hall Caine has concluded for the present his<br /> business with the Privy Council of the Dominion and has<br /> left for Toronto. He will return here about the middle of<br /> November.<br /> The opinion prevails in official circles that new legislation<br /> on the subject of copyright will be introduced into the<br /> Dominion Parliament in the coming session. The Premier<br /> says that Mr. Hall Caine has presented the case of the<br /> British authors in a moderate and diplomatic manner. The<br /> serious test, however, will come when he returns to Ottawa<br /> to discuss details. Meantime, Mr. Hall Caine is over-<br /> whelmed with offers of hospitality. He has accepted an<br /> invitation from Canadian publishers at Toronto this week,<br /> and from American publishers in New York on Nov. I.--<br /> Times.<br /> An important contribution to the subject has<br /> been made by Mr. Herbert Spencer in the Times<br /> of Oct. 22. After demolishing Sir Charles<br /> Tupper&#039;s contention about the expressed opinion of<br /> certain British authors, he says:<br /> And now let me point out an important issue which is<br /> entirely ignored. The requirement that, to obtain copy-<br /> right in the United States, a book must be manufactured<br /> there prevents the writing of many books which would<br /> otherwise be written. On works of amusement it does not<br /> weigh heavily, but on works of instruction it often weighs<br /> with fatal effect—it does not kill them, but it prevents<br /> them from being born. Many valuable treatises which men<br /> of science wish to write are never written because the losses<br /> entailed would be too great. But could writers of grave<br /> books have both the English and American markets, while<br /> bearing only one cost of production instead of two, many<br /> who are now silent would be enabled, without ruining<br /> themselves, to give the public such benefits as might result<br /> from their knowledge and ideas. That the existing system<br /> discourages literature of the kind which most needs<br /> encouraging I am able to give conclusive proof. When in<br /> 1860, after issuing the prospectus of the series of works<br /> which has since occupied me, I had to decide whether or<br /> not I might with prudence commence, the prospect of some<br /> sale in America finally determined me. Certain arrange-<br /> ments were made under which a portion of the edition<br /> printed here was sent over, and under which the small<br /> circulation to be obtained there, added to the circu-<br /> lation to be obtained here, made possible a return sufficient<br /> to pay expenses and leave a small surplus. But the<br /> possibility of this arrangement depended wholly upon<br /> the ability to make the setting up of type here serve for<br /> the American market as well as for the English. Notwith-<br /> standing this economy, it resulted that inadequate returns<br /> obliged me so continually to trench upon what little pro-<br /> perty I possessed that, in 1866, I had to issue a notice of<br /> discontinuance—a notice which was withdrawn only because<br /> certain incidents increased my private resources. Thus it<br /> is manifest that had I not obtained a sale in America with-<br /> out reprinting there the works which have occupied me<br /> since 1860 would never have been written.<br /> “So much the better,” many people will say, That may<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#478) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 24<br /> THE AUTHOIR.<br /> be. I cite this experience not as illustrative of a special<br /> result, but as illustrative of a general result. There needs,<br /> I think, no further proof that the interdicting clause of the<br /> American Copyright Act prevents the publication of many<br /> books of the graver kinds which would otherwise be pub-<br /> lished.<br /> And on the same day the Times thus summed<br /> up the case in a leading article:<br /> The discussion has not been altogether without effect.<br /> The Canadian Government sent a representative, the<br /> Deputy Minister of Justice, to this country, who was<br /> made acquainted with the claims and wishes of British<br /> authors and publishers. In consequence of this mission, it<br /> is believed, the Colonial Government have allowed it to be<br /> understood that they are not unwilling to introduce certain<br /> modifications into the law passed by the Dominion Parlia-<br /> ment. In order to follow up this suggestion of compromise,<br /> Mr. Hall Caine was deputed by the Incorporated Society of<br /> Authors to visit Canada and to place before the politicians<br /> of the Dominion the views of his comrades in the world of<br /> letters. His reception by the Canadians has been most<br /> gratifying, as the telegrams we have published from time to<br /> time have shown, and he is himself of opinion that the<br /> people of Canada in general do not care for, or at least do<br /> not clamour for, the Copyright Bill demanded by half-a-<br /> dozen printing firms. But whether any real impression has<br /> been produced upon those who hold the strings of legislation<br /> is still a matter of doubt. Mr. Hall Caine and others have<br /> laid stress on the fact that what is asked for is only that<br /> Canada may be deterred from legislating in a manner<br /> unfairly affecting the interests of what may be surely called<br /> a not unimportant section of the community at home. In<br /> Mr. Hall Caine&#039;s opinion the case is not hopeless. If the<br /> interests of British authors can be protected against piracy,<br /> and if the international agreement into which the United<br /> States have been brought with so much difficulty is not<br /> imperilled, there can be no desire in this country to restrict<br /> in the smallest degree the legislative independence of the<br /> Canadians in regard to copyright. At the same time it is<br /> fair to ask Canada whether it is either wise or just to push<br /> her pretensions in this matter to the utmost. If Canada is<br /> to have a separate copyright law of her own, every British<br /> colony may claim the same power, and this literary par-<br /> ticularism, however it may benefit local publishers and<br /> printers, can only be injurious—indeed, as Mr. Spencer<br /> contends, quite ruinous—to the real producers of books.<br /> It would be lamentable if, after a considerable advance had<br /> been made towards international copyright, such a check<br /> should be given to progress. We trust that the new<br /> legislation on this subject, which, it is said, is likely to be<br /> brought forward in the coming session at Ottawa, will be<br /> governed by larger views than those of a small body of local<br /> traders.<br /> The following important telegram appeared in<br /> the Times of Oct. 26:<br /> OTTAwa, Oct. 25.<br /> Mr. Hall Caine has been busy this week with the Toronto<br /> publishers. He has submitted to them his promised amend-<br /> ments to the Canadian Act of 1889, and, although the<br /> interested class find it hard to accept them as a whole and<br /> have deferred their decision for a few days, they admit that<br /> the proposals are much the best of any which have reached<br /> them from the outside. Mr. Hall Caine&#039;s proposals admit<br /> the manufacturing clause, but on terms much more favour-<br /> able to the author than the manufacturing clause of the<br /> |United States.<br /> The Toronto publishers and booksellers entertained Mr.<br /> Hall Caine at a banquet at the National Club to-night. Mr.<br /> Hall Caine delivered a speech, in the course of which he<br /> admitted that the facts of Canada’s geographical position.<br /> in relation to the United States, the non-acceptance by the<br /> latter Power of the Berne Convention, and the presence in<br /> the United States of a manufacturing clause in favour of<br /> American printers justified Canada to a certain extent in<br /> her demand for a measure of self-control and for a<br /> limited right to produce books intended for the Canadian<br /> market. He said this guardedly, after reflection, and<br /> always with the reservation that all manufacturing clauses<br /> were objectionable to authors and that limitation of the<br /> principle of copyright was only to be allowed under<br /> peculiar and trying conditions. Mr. Hall Caine went on.<br /> to say:-<br /> As long as the United States keep out of the Berne Con-<br /> vention, and as long as they insist on manufacturing their<br /> own books, just so long, but not one hour longer, I would,<br /> speaking for myself alone, be willing to grant to Canada—<br /> divided as she is from the United States only by an imagi-<br /> nary border which is easily passed—the right to make her<br /> own books under some measure of control on the part of<br /> the authors. Given this authors’ control I do not think<br /> your Canadian copyright should be any cause of offence to<br /> America or should disturb the understanding on which the<br /> President made his proclamation. I do not think it ought<br /> to be in opposition to the spirit of the Berne Convention,<br /> the second article of which seems to provide for just such<br /> cases as yours. But everything depends on the measure of<br /> . control which you leave to the author, and I must tell you<br /> at once that unlimited licensing under the direction of your<br /> Government would be entirely inconsistent with the idea of<br /> authors’ rights entertained by the signatories of the Berne.<br /> Convention. Some form of licensing I, personally, advo-<br /> cate for Canada, who is under peculiar difficulties in her<br /> present relations to the United States with its right to.<br /> manufacture, but it must be single licensing, and must take<br /> cognisance of authors’ control. That will not only be best,<br /> for us but also best for you—best for you as authors, as<br /> readers, and as printers and publishers. It is not for me.<br /> now to say more precisely what system of licensing under<br /> authors’ control I should urge my brother authors to accept.<br /> I have formulated a scheme, which, as you know, I am sub-<br /> mitting to your Government, and which I shall propose to<br /> my fellow-authors without prejudice. I believe they will<br /> consider it fully and fairly, and I have every confidence<br /> that your Government will use as much of it as seems<br /> sound and wise.<br /> II.-CANADIAN WRITERs AND THE COPYRIGHT<br /> ACT.<br /> A “Canadian Author’’ writes to the Times as<br /> follows:<br /> In coupling the authors with the publishers<br /> of Canada Sir Charles Tupper implies that the<br /> interests of the two classes are identical. This<br /> shows that one member of the Dominion Cabinet<br /> at least is in the dark as to the real bearings of<br /> his own Act. The interest of the Canadian<br /> author, instead of being, in this matter, identical<br /> with that of the printers, whom Sir Charles<br /> Tupper honours with the name of publishers, is<br /> diametrically opposed to it. Canadian writers<br /> would suffer from competition with pirated<br /> Works, English or American, just as American<br /> authors suffered from competition with pirated<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#479) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I 25<br /> English works in the days before international<br /> copyright. Publishing, as the Canadian author<br /> of any important work other than local must, not<br /> in Canada but in England or the Tſnited States,<br /> he could not afford to reprint in Canada, a<br /> country which has but a limited reading public,<br /> for the sake of obtaining Canadian copyright.<br /> Canadian writers were not consulted about the Act,<br /> nor had they anything to do with it. It was carried<br /> by the influence of a few interested individuals or<br /> firms through a Parliament not highly qualified<br /> to legislate on questions of this kind. Now that<br /> the attention of writers in Canada has been<br /> called to the matter, all with whom I have had an<br /> opportunity of speaking are opposed to the Act.<br /> Let there be one copyright for the whole<br /> Empire. This is the only satisfactory settlement<br /> of the question. Is each colonial dependency to<br /> have its own copyright, and Australia six, with<br /> practical liberty of piracy all round P<br /> In the Canadian Monthly Professor Goldwin<br /> Smith deals with the Canadian copyright question<br /> as follows:<br /> It is time that Canadian writers should pay<br /> attention in their own interests to the Canadian<br /> Copyright Bill. Hitherto the matter has been<br /> in the hands of the publishers or printers, while<br /> the writers, who were equally concerned, were<br /> not being consulted, and appear hardly to have<br /> known what was going on till the controversy<br /> about the ratification of the Bill by the Imperial<br /> Government arose. The Minister of Justice,<br /> speaking at Toronto against Imperial interference<br /> with Canadian legislation, coupled Canadian<br /> authors with Canadian publishers in a way show-<br /> ing that he supposed the interests of the two<br /> classes to be identical, and alike opposed to those<br /> of their British rivals. This proves that the<br /> Minister is himself ill-informed as to the effects<br /> of the Bill. It might have occurred to him that<br /> the interest of the native producer of literary<br /> Wares could not, any more than that of the<br /> native producer of any other wares, be identical<br /> with that of the importer of the same wares<br /> unpaid for, or paid for under their proper price.<br /> That the Bill is injurious to British authors<br /> and publishers is not denied. The Minister of<br /> Justice himself compares it to the protective<br /> tariff, which, he admits, is adverse to the British<br /> producer. To say nothing of justice or regard<br /> for the rights of our fellow-subjects of the<br /> Empire, the literary interest of Great Britain is<br /> powerful, and largely controls. British opinion<br /> through the Press. The same may be said with<br /> regard to the same interest in the United States,<br /> which is equally threatened by the Bill. It<br /> seems hardly worth the while of Canada to provoke<br /> two such enmities for the sake of furthering<br /> the commercial objects of a few individuals or<br /> firms.-The Evening Telegraph, Sept. 30.<br /> III.-COI/ONIAI, CoPYRIGHT.<br /> By WALTER BESANT. (Reprinted from the Melbowtime<br /> Argus.)<br /> In dealing with the subject of Colonial Copy-<br /> right I must be understood to speak as a man<br /> of letters only, and not as a lawyer. I admit, of<br /> course, that the law, as it concerns every possible<br /> subject, must underlie all other considerations.<br /> At the same time I hope to show that there are<br /> special considerations, conditions, and facts con-<br /> nected with copyright which require it to be<br /> treated as a subject for legislation, quite apart<br /> from all other branches of trade and industry.<br /> At this present moment Canada is endeavouring<br /> to effect a change in her copyright law, which<br /> fills with dismay everybody concerned with the<br /> literature of the English-speaking races. This<br /> change is advocated by a small knot of Canadian<br /> printers who have succeeded somehow in pulling<br /> the political strings. Protests of all kinds have<br /> been showered upon the Canadians; deputations<br /> of authors and publishers have most vehemently<br /> set forth their views, partly to Lord Ripon, from<br /> whom little can be expected; partly in the daily<br /> papers; papers have been written in the maga.<br /> zines; and the case, which includes the whole<br /> British Empire, with the United States, against<br /> Canada, has been formally drawn up for the<br /> Society of Authors by their counsel.<br /> By the existing Copyright Acts—those of 1842<br /> and of 1846—the colonies now stand on exactly<br /> the same footing as the mother country; that is<br /> to say, a book published in Melbourne is pro-<br /> tected from piracy as much as a book published<br /> in London. Further, by the Berne Convention,<br /> which is now joined by all civilised countries in<br /> the world, except one, the rights of authors are<br /> respected in whatever country he produces his<br /> book. Lastly, the United States of America have<br /> been induced, after infinite trouble, to grant pro-<br /> tection from piracy on the condition of separate<br /> printing, within a certain time, in their country.<br /> It is not a gracious, but a grudging condition.<br /> However, it serves, and it produces much less in-<br /> convenience than was anticipated. What this<br /> international copyright means, then, is this. A<br /> French writer publishing in Paris cannot be re-<br /> published or translated, in whole or in part, in<br /> London or in New York, without his own consent.<br /> Of course, this may mean a very considerable<br /> privilege. It would give, for instance, to such<br /> great writers as Renan and Victor Hugo, the<br /> control over translations which are too often<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#480) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 26<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> slovenly and sometimes misrepresenting ; it would<br /> prevent the publication of garbled and imperfect<br /> editions; and it would insure them the English,<br /> German, and Italian markets, whatever may be<br /> their value, in addition to the French market.<br /> But the French rights in English-speaking coun-<br /> tries are a small matter. Let us consider rather<br /> the present position of our own people, the<br /> authors of the British Empire, and those gene-<br /> rally of the English-speaking race, whether belong-<br /> ing to our empire or to the United States of<br /> America.<br /> First of all, our authors have before them a<br /> possible audience which already far surpasses any<br /> audience that the world of letters has ever yet<br /> commanded. A great poet such as Tennyson, a<br /> great novelist such as Dickens, now addresses<br /> nearly forty millions in these islands, sixty<br /> millions in the States, in Canada five millions, in<br /> Australia, New Zealand, the Cape, the Islands,<br /> and in India—where the educated Hindoo reads<br /> English literature with avidity—another twenty<br /> millions at least. This immense audience of a<br /> hundred and twenty millions is increasing by<br /> leaps and bounds; the child now in the cradle<br /> will, if it lives out the natural span, see it<br /> increased threefold.<br /> To this unprecedented congregation — this<br /> boundless audience—the author of the present<br /> moment speaks. Compare this audience with<br /> that enjoyed by Virgil, who spoke to that very<br /> small part of the Roman Empire where Latin was<br /> the language of the people; with that of a<br /> mediaeval poet such as Chaucer, who spoke to an<br /> England of four millions, and those divided up<br /> into dialects which were not understood by each<br /> other; with that of Shakespeare, when England<br /> had no more than five or six millions; with that<br /> of Wordsworth, who wrote when America, con-<br /> tained three or four millions and when Australia.<br /> was not. Or compare this audience with that<br /> possessed by the modern Frenchman with thirty-<br /> five millions, by the German with his forty<br /> millions, by the Dane, the Dutchman, the Italian,<br /> or the Swede. There is no comparison.<br /> At the present the man with a message to the<br /> English-speaking peoples has this wonderful<br /> power, never before possessed in anything like<br /> the same fulness and the same strength. He<br /> prints his book in London and it goes over all<br /> the British possessions; he prints it at the same<br /> time in New York and it goes over the whole of<br /> America. A novel lies before me whose circula-<br /> tion in our own country and colonies has already<br /> reached the number of 55,000, the sale still going<br /> on. If it sells only 30,000 in the States we have<br /> a circulation of 85,000. And if we allow only<br /> IOO readers to each volume we have an audience<br /> for this one writer of eight millions and a half.<br /> Do you think an estimate of IOO readers too<br /> many P I do not, considering the way in which<br /> the book is passed from hand to hand, and is<br /> called for at all libraries, free and circulating,<br /> and the way in which it is lent from house to<br /> house.<br /> By the present arrangement, then, the success-<br /> ful author may, if he pleases, control the publi-<br /> cation of his book, the price, and its appearance.<br /> He commands the immense market over the<br /> British Empire and the American Republic. He<br /> derives from his works an income which places<br /> him on a level almost with the successful barrister,<br /> and he has stepped out from his previous condi-<br /> tion of degrading dependence upon the so-called<br /> “generosity&#039; of publishers to that of the master<br /> of a considerable estate. In this world we honour<br /> —and we rightly honour—the strong, the success-<br /> ful, and the rich. We despise the weak, the<br /> dependent, and the poor. Therefore literature,<br /> which is only now beginning to be wealthy as a<br /> profession, has within the last few years stepped<br /> forth out of contempt into honour. Understand<br /> me. I know that the individual poet, novelist,<br /> essayist has always been held in honour. But<br /> his profession has always been held in contempt.<br /> All this change has been the result of the<br /> Imperial Copyright Act, the Berne Convention,<br /> and the American International Copyright Act.<br /> These measures have thrown open to all of us,<br /> whether we belong to Melbourne or New Zealand<br /> or Tobago or London, a profession more noble<br /> than any other, daily growing more and more in<br /> honour, daily growing richer, more envied, and<br /> more powerful.<br /> So much for the author. What about those<br /> who were not authors P What will this common<br /> possession of a common literature do for us?<br /> First of all, when we honour the profession we<br /> honour him who belongs to it. With honour<br /> goes authority. The voice of the author begins<br /> to assume the tone of authority. We all of us<br /> help to make him heard; we look about us to<br /> find, if we can, the man with a voice. Already it<br /> makes to the reader no difference whether his<br /> author speaks from Chicago or from London; to<br /> the author, however, it makes all the difference<br /> whether he is speaking to a now half-populated<br /> state of America or to the world. In the former<br /> case he is local and provincial, marrow and limited;<br /> in the latter case he is compelled, by the vastness<br /> of his audience, to become broad and human.<br /> There are already, in fact, two literatures with<br /> us—the one, narrow and local, ephemeral and<br /> provincial, unknown outside its own limits; the<br /> other, boundless as humanity itself. To the<br /> latter, for instance, belong, of our own time,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#481) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I 27<br /> Tennyson and Longfellow, Carlyle and Emerson,<br /> Thackeray and Dickens. To the other belong<br /> most of those who rain down upon us the shower<br /> of new books published every month, destined<br /> for the greater part to die in the year of their<br /> birth; the little poets with their dainty little<br /> editions of 250 copies; the little novelists of<br /> whoun the libraries take 500 or Iooo; the little<br /> essayists, and all the little people whose only<br /> merit—but this is considerable—is that they love<br /> letters and the literary life, and would fain, if kind<br /> heaven permitted, lead that life.<br /> Then one objects, “But before the Inter-<br /> national and Imperial Copyright Acts, English<br /> books got into America, and American books into<br /> England.” They did; and now I will show you<br /> what is going to happen if the Canadian printers<br /> have their unholy way. That is, I will show you<br /> what will happen by pointing out what did<br /> happen before the passing of these Acts.<br /> The true “inwardness &#039;&#039; of the Canadians is<br /> that they intend this legalised piracy for the sake<br /> of a few printers. Their intention is not to pro-<br /> vide their own people with good literature,<br /> because that is done already, but to issue cheap<br /> reprints of English authors, and to flood the<br /> American markets with vilely-printed books at<br /> 6d. each. Experience shows that over the long<br /> frontier of Canada and America, it is absolutely<br /> impossible to keep out pirated books. In the old<br /> days, before the International Copyright Act was<br /> passed, American pirated editions were openly<br /> sold in Canada, nobody interfering. In this<br /> country, though to a much less degree, Tauch-<br /> nitz editions are imported and sold. The Society<br /> of Authors has twice memoralised the Colonial<br /> Office to prevent the sale of American pirated<br /> reprints in Jamaica, at the Cape, at Singapore,<br /> and other places. It requires an amount of<br /> watchfulness on the part of Customs and police,<br /> which, I suppose, we can hardly expect. At the<br /> present moment, however, there are no American<br /> pirates and no American pirated editions. The<br /> danger is from ourselves, and we are actually<br /> memoralising the Colonial Office against acts of<br /> piracy threatened by our own fellow subjects.<br /> The effects of the old American piracy were<br /> these, among others. The pirates brought out<br /> their books in the commonest and vilest form at<br /> the cheapest possible price. The people bought<br /> them in the railway trains, read them, and threw<br /> them out of window. Nobody wanted to keep<br /> the abominable things. But the abominable<br /> things were modern English literature. There-<br /> fore, literature came to be considered by the<br /> whole American people, except the cultured<br /> classes, as a thing of no account or value. Who<br /> would wish to keep the works of the greatest<br /> WOL, WI.<br /> poet, the greatest dramatist, the greatest preacher,<br /> in a dirty edition on the vilest paper and in the<br /> vilest type P Those who love literature aright<br /> like to have their books daintily printed, beauti-<br /> fully bound, as becomes a thing which is our<br /> most valued and most precious possession. For<br /> my own part I hate and detest that kind of<br /> cheap literature which dares to present great<br /> works in unworthy form. I would rather not<br /> have a book at all than have it in such a form.<br /> A good book is like a lovely woman—it must be<br /> well and tastefully dressed. Literature itself,<br /> therefore, was degraded by these detestable<br /> editions.<br /> People, again, were taught to expect books for<br /> nothing. Now, since no other kind of work can<br /> be got for nothing, since none of those Americans<br /> who bought the dirt cheap books ever thought<br /> of working for nothing, it followed, as a matter<br /> of course, that the makers of these books became<br /> of no more account in the eyes of the mass than<br /> the wretched slaves of the sweater—pitied because<br /> they are so sweated, despised because they are so<br /> helpless. Is this good for literature ?<br /> Another of the pernicious effects of piracy—a<br /> matural recoil—was the practical starving of<br /> American authors. It is not too much to say that<br /> until the passing of the Act of 1891 native<br /> American literature was, by the very acts of the<br /> Americans themselves, starved and stunted.<br /> Only those engaged in literature alone—made of<br /> it their livelihood—who could not help it. I<br /> mean, because the promptings of natural<br /> aptitude, or genius, if you like, forced literature<br /> upon them, because they could do nothing else.<br /> Hardly anyone, therefore, tried to liveby literature.<br /> That, it was recognised, was a thing ridiculous<br /> and impossible. Journalism helped along some<br /> American writers, lecturing some, a professorial<br /> chair a good many. Lowell was a professor;<br /> Oliver Wendell Holmes was a lecturer; Nathaniel<br /> Hawthorne was American Consul in England.<br /> What hope was there for the American author<br /> when the whole of the English literature could be<br /> bought for 6d. a volume * That is now changed;<br /> the American author, like his English rival, is<br /> assuming independence; he can now meet that<br /> English rival face to face on equal terms. “We<br /> are both,” he says, “published in the same form<br /> and at the same price. Let critics and the public<br /> choose between us or take us both.” If both are<br /> good let us take both ; there is always room for<br /> good work; if one is better than the other let us<br /> take the better man without asking whether he is<br /> American or English. !<br /> Let us return to the Canadian experiment. I<br /> tell you what happened speaking from the year<br /> I 995, a distance of time which conveys certain<br /> P<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#482) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 28<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> advantages. It enables us, you understand, to<br /> speak outside the heat and prejudice of the<br /> moment and with due regard to the proportion of<br /> things. -<br /> “In the year 1895 the Canadians, being still<br /> nominally a colony of Great Britain, though in<br /> reality independent, passed an Act in favour of<br /> a few printers which had very far reaching conse-<br /> quences. These consequences, it is necessary to<br /> explain, were pointed out at the time as perfectly<br /> certain to follow. It was, indeed, easy to pro-<br /> phesy that they would follow. By this Act<br /> Canadian printers were empowered to reprint any<br /> books that were not printed and published in<br /> Canada within one month of their appearance<br /> elsewhere. There was also a clause granting a<br /> royalty of Io per cent.—an iniquitous and paltry<br /> royalty—to the author. As Canada was already<br /> engaged to pay a royalty of 12% per cent. to the<br /> author, and as she had never made any serious<br /> attempt to discharge this duty, the new offer was<br /> treated with contempt. Indeed, there was never<br /> the least attempt to carry out this part of the<br /> Act. When it was passed, owing to the miserable<br /> weakness of the Colonial Minister, the Canadians<br /> made haste to show what had been their intention<br /> all along. They published rapidly, at the rate of<br /> one volume a week, all the popular writers of the<br /> day. These books were on bad paper, with bad<br /> type, put together anyhow for cheapness; they<br /> were sold at the price of sixpence, and presently<br /> they began to appear in all the American towns,<br /> on all the American bookstalls, and in all the<br /> American trains. Once more, the American<br /> people, who for four years had been learning that<br /> the acquisition of a good book is like the acqui-<br /> sition of any other precious thing—that it wants<br /> money—were again taught that the cheapest<br /> thing in the world, and therefore the most value-<br /> less, was literature. The Canadian printers at<br /> first did very well; presently, of course, others<br /> rushed into the trade, and competition speedily<br /> devoured the profits. But the other colonies now<br /> took up the subject. There are printers every-<br /> where: and there are people everywhere who<br /> would like to get books for nothing, re-<br /> gardless of consequences. “Why, it was<br /> asked in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, New<br /> Zealand, Cape Town, Calcutta, Bombay, ‘should<br /> not our printers share in this great busi-<br /> ness? Let us have our own Copyright Act.<br /> Det us do what we like with foreign authors.<br /> We need not pretend to give royalties. We are<br /> not obliged to give anything; we will not give.<br /> anything.’ So they, too, joined in. And then<br /> the Americans saw that there was nothing to be<br /> done but to repeal their Copyright Act, and this<br /> they did. The first thing, of course, was to<br /> crush the Canadian printers, who had done all<br /> the mischief. This they effected very easily in a<br /> few months by underselling at a loss. So the<br /> Canadian printer went bankrupt, and all that<br /> Canada got for herself out of her iniquity was<br /> the bankruptcy of these printers, a general deter-<br /> mination on the part of her people to get books<br /> for nothing, and a general contempt for letters.<br /> In America the authors saw with dismay the<br /> return to the old condition of things; they were<br /> once more face to face with a cut throat competi-<br /> tion ; the English author could be had for<br /> nothing; who would pay the American author<br /> anything P In the colonies, each had its own<br /> Copyright Act; they were united in one point<br /> only—that they would pirate everything. Litera-<br /> ture among themselves, therefore, was absolutely<br /> killed; the market of the Melbourne publisher,<br /> for instance, was bounded by the narrow borders<br /> of the State of Victoria. One is not surprised to<br /> hear, for instance, that in a very short time the<br /> only Melbourne publisher left conducted his<br /> business from a hand-barrow. In Great Britain,<br /> partly owing to the contempt into which litera-<br /> ture fell, and partly causing this contempt, the<br /> colonial and American reprints were introduced<br /> wholesale and sold without let or hindrance.<br /> And so for a whole generation literature fell,<br /> being cultivated only by an enthusiast here and<br /> there, or by a rich amateur. With the decay of<br /> letters set in that other period of decay and<br /> decline which belongs to the following chapter of<br /> our history.”<br /> IV.-ADVERTISEMENTs.<br /> Everything that is unknown is enormous. That<br /> is why the cost of advertisements generally looms<br /> before the imagination as so stupendous. The<br /> following table will explain what advertising a<br /> book really means. It shows, that is, how much<br /> is added to the cost of a book by advertising to<br /> the extent of £5, £2O, &amp;c., up to £100 for nooo,<br /> 2000, up to 40,000 copies. The figures mean<br /> pence :<br /> Edition. £5 31 O | 32O || 4:30 350 38o 31 oo<br /> d d. d d. d. d. d.<br /> IOOO I 1. 2# 4; 7% I 2 | IQ# 24<br /> 2OOO 3. I} | .2% 3% 6 9; I 2<br /> 3OOO # # I # 2} | 4 || 6% | 8<br /> 5000 # ## | # I # 2} | 3}} | 4;<br /> IO,OOO #; #; ## ## I} | I }} | .2%<br /> 2O,OOO #; #; # #; # ## I}<br /> - 3 - ! s t<br /> 40,000 Tàu #5 | #: #; | #; ## | #<br /> It will be seen from this table that, while the<br /> cost of advertising is very large per copy for<br /> Small editions, for large editions it may be<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#483) ################################################<br /> <br /> TIIE AUTHOR.<br /> I 29<br /> almost neglected as for single copies. Thus to<br /> spend £100 in advertising a book of which no<br /> more than IOOO copies are printed or can be<br /> sold, adds 2s. to the cost of every volume; so that<br /> (see Cost of Production, p. 3i) if a book of<br /> 2O sheets of 34 lines and 339 words to a page in<br /> long primer, without moulding or stereotyping, and<br /> allowing 4; d. a copy for binding, cost £79, or<br /> with corrections about £80, i.e., Is. 7#d. to each<br /> copy, an additional 2s. On the production makes<br /> such a book published at a loss. Sometimes this<br /> price is raised to 7s. 6d., or even more in order to<br /> allow for advertising. Sometimes, again, pub-<br /> lishers seem perfectly reckless about the money<br /> spent in advertising. Thus an account was some<br /> time ago sent to the Society showing that about<br /> £230 had been spent in advertising a book pub-<br /> lished at 7s. 6d., of which some 5000 copies had<br /> been sold. A detailed account was demanded and<br /> furnished. The account appeared to be quite<br /> correct, being examined and tested here and there.<br /> It seemed as if the publisher had been ransacking<br /> the country to find the least eligible of country<br /> papers. This, however, was an extreme case.<br /> On the other hand, when a book reaches, say,<br /> 10,000 copies, 38 IOO can be spent upon it without<br /> adding any more than 23d. to the cost of produc-<br /> tion, while with a very large circulation of<br /> 40,000 copies 3200 can be spent, if necessary–<br /> but it would not be necessary—without adding<br /> more than I d. to the cost.<br /> It is needless to say that these figures do not<br /> include advertisements which cost nothing, i.e.,<br /> those of the publishers&#039; circulars, magazines, &amp;c.,<br /> nor those which are simple exchanges.<br /> There are, however, several ways in which a<br /> loook is advertised.<br /> 1. By paying, as considered above, for an adver-<br /> tisement in the papers.<br /> 2. By the advertisements which cost nothing<br /> in the publishers&#039; own organs—these, however,<br /> wery often have no circulation to speak of—<br /> or by exchange, which, if charged, is a kind of<br /> theft.<br /> 3. By reviews in the papers. Their influence<br /> depends partly on the circulation of the paper and<br /> partly on the authority which it commands.<br /> From which it is manifest that the daily morning<br /> papers are, and must be, the best possible friends<br /> that the author can find.<br /> 4. By the circulating library lists.<br /> 5. By the name and reputation of the author.<br /> 6. By the talk of those who read the books and<br /> their recommendation of it to each other.<br /> There are, of course, other ways. One is sorry<br /> to see, for instance, that books are creeping into<br /> the big advertisements on railway stations; they<br /> have not yet begun in the fields beside the rail-<br /> VOL. VI,<br /> ways along with the pills; but that will probably<br /> come soon when some more enterprising publisher<br /> appears.<br /> But the best advertisement of a book, the only<br /> one which really makes it go, is not the daily<br /> paper, nor the weekly paper, nor anything at all,<br /> but the talk about it among the people.<br /> When therefore an indignant publisher, as has<br /> happened once or twice lately, holds up his hands<br /> over the awful cost of advertising a book, ask him<br /> for a detailed account. And when he speaks of<br /> the terrible expense of advertising a book which<br /> has really succeeded, say 56,opo copies, make him<br /> prove, by audited account, how much the adver-<br /> tising cost for every volume sold.<br /> W.—A CLAUSE ON ADVERTISEMENTs.<br /> The Secretary has received an agreement con-<br /> taining a clause to the effect that advertisements<br /> of the books in the publisher&#039;s own organs shall be<br /> charged at half the usual tariff.<br /> In the Author for June, 1893, appearel two<br /> papers on publishing, written originally for the<br /> Pall Mall Gazette by Sir Frederick Pollock,<br /> then chairman of committee. The following<br /> paragraph formed part of the second paper :<br /> I turn to the specific question of payment for advertise-<br /> ments. Under a profit-sharing agreement, for half profits,<br /> or two-thirds, or as the case may be, this, like other out-<br /> goings, is a matter of quasi-partnership account. Only the<br /> actual cost, whatever it is, ought to be debited. Therefore,<br /> if P. publishes A.’s book on the terms of dividing profits,<br /> and the book is advertised in P.&#039;s own magazine, only the<br /> cost of paper and print should be charged in respect of<br /> that advertisement, and, possibly, some fractional addition<br /> for any increased cost of distributing the magazine which<br /> may be due to the bulk of advertisements. The same prin-<br /> ciple seems to apply to what are called exchange advertise-<br /> ments. If Q. advertises P.&#039;s books in return for P. adver-<br /> tising Q.&#039;s there is no real outgoing except for the paper .<br /> and print. I do not see on what ground any further charge<br /> against the book can be justified.<br /> In Dec. 1893, ihe committee submitted to<br /> counsel certain questions on the practices and<br /> rights (ºf publishers. Among them was the<br /> following: . -<br /> Has the publisher the right under a share-profit agree-<br /> ment to charge for advertisements (a) inserted in his<br /> own magazines or trade-lists, and (b) inserted in other<br /> publishers&#039; magazines by exchange without payment P<br /> To this question the following reply was given : .<br /> The publisher is, in our opinion, only entitled under<br /> such an agreement to charge the actual cost of advertise-<br /> ments, whether inserted in his own magazines or trade lists,<br /> or those of other publishers. He cannot charge against the<br /> author the sum which a stranger would have paid for the<br /> insertion of such an advertisement. The actual cost in case<br /> (b) would in effect appear to be the actual obst to him of<br /> inserting in his own magazine an advertisement in exchange<br /> for the advertisement of the work in question in another<br /> publisher&#039;s magazine. * -<br /> * * * * P 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#484) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 3O<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> This opinion was signed by Mr. Herbert H.<br /> Cozens-Hardy, Q.C., and Mr. James Rolt.<br /> It is very much to be desired that we should<br /> take a case into court, and try this very important<br /> question. It is important for this special reason,<br /> that, if a publisher can charge for advertising in<br /> his own organs, or for exchanges for which he<br /> pays nothing, he has the absolute right to swamp<br /> the whole proceeds of the book in such advertise-<br /> 7ments.<br /> If, therefore, an author signs such a clause as<br /> conveys this right, he actually gives the pub-<br /> lisher the power of advertising as much as he<br /> pleases, as often as he pleases, in his own organs,<br /> or, by exchange, in other organs.<br /> He may be in his rights, even though he<br /> destroys for the author the whole of the profits<br /> by advertisements which cost him no more than<br /> the price of printing and paper in his own organs.<br /> This permission, observe, may be demanded of the<br /> author without any clause as to the circulation<br /> and influence of his papers. The publisher may,<br /> for instance, possess a magazine with a miserable<br /> circulation of three or fourthousand at the outside,<br /> advertisement in which is practically valueless, and,<br /> by means of that little worthless organ, he may<br /> take whatever part of the profits that he may<br /> please. If the author is willing to grant such a<br /> clause let him do so, at least, with his eyes open.<br /> Of course, the answer will be that one must<br /> trust his publisher. He could not do anything<br /> dishonourable. Very likely not. In that case,<br /> why ask for the power P -<br /> It will, perhaps, be asked how a publisher could<br /> possibly swamp the profits by such advertise-<br /> ments P In this way. An inside page of<br /> advertisements in an ordinary magazine may be<br /> put down as worth £5. What is to prevent the<br /> publisher from taking up two pages or more with<br /> advertisements and press notices of the book?<br /> Thus he may charge £Io a number against the<br /> book. If he carries this on for twelve numbers,<br /> there is £120 taken from profits and put in the<br /> publisher&#039;s pocket. Very few, indeed, are the<br /> books which are worth so much. He will pretend<br /> that the advertisements were for the good of the<br /> book. In that case, why did he not advertise in<br /> a great morning daily which has readers by the<br /> hundred thousand P<br /> - WI.-A Noble OFFER.<br /> A correspondent sends us the following case:–<br /> He sent a MS. to a publisher who offered to<br /> produce it at the author&#039;s cost, and sent an<br /> agreement and estimate, as follows:<br /> I. The book, which contained I3O,OOO words,<br /> would make a volume of 416 pages, demy 8vo.<br /> 2. He said that the book would cost—composing,<br /> printing, paper, and binding—397 for an edition of<br /> 500 copies.<br /> 3. He proposed to spend £20 in advertising<br /> the book. -<br /> 4. He would account to the author for sales at<br /> two-thirds of the published price, thirteen as<br /> twelve, less his own commission of 20 per cent.<br /> And he proposed 16s. as the nominal price.<br /> In other words the book would cost the author<br /> 29.125 allowing £8.for corrections and extras, i.e.,<br /> 5s. a volume. But as forty were to be given to<br /> the press, and the author would have probably<br /> ten, there were only 450 to be sold, and each<br /> volume would cost the author 5s. 6;d. He<br /> would receive for each copy sold under the<br /> proposed arrangement 7s. Io; d. Or, he would<br /> have to get rid of 318 copies before he cleared<br /> his expenses.<br /> Let us see what on his own showing the pub-<br /> lisher would get. The reduction of one-third<br /> with the thirteen as twelve he would say was for<br /> the trade. -<br /> For himself there remained the 20 per cent.<br /> commission. This, on the most favourable terms,<br /> if the whole 450 were sold, would amount to<br /> about £35. So far, the terms appear fair enough.<br /> But, to look into the agreement a little closer,<br /> what about the thirteen as twelve? A book of<br /> which a bookseller orders by the dozen, is a<br /> popular book. This was not. It is quite certain<br /> that very few such orders would be given. The<br /> publisher, therefore, puts into his pocket the odd<br /> volume; that is to say, he receives Ios. 8d. as a<br /> rule for every volume and accounts for as if he<br /> had received 9s. Iošd., pretending that they were<br /> all gone at thirteen as twelve. This means nearly<br /> IOd. a volume added to his gains, or, on the 450<br /> copies, £18 15s. ; bringing up his profits in this<br /> secret manner to £53 odd.<br /> Again, he wants to spend £20 in advertising<br /> the book. Where? In his own organs? He<br /> does not say. Supposing that he possesses an<br /> organ, and that he can exchange, he may not<br /> spend a single penny in honest advertising; or,<br /> suppose that he spends 35 in legitimate advertis-<br /> ing, he may thus pocket 315. His gains now<br /> amount to £68.<br /> But there is a grimmer side to this instructive<br /> case. The author sent his MS. to a London<br /> printer—a large printer of very good standing<br /> and repute. His estimate was £67 for composi-<br /> tion, printing, paper, and binding.<br /> This was a London printer, understand, with<br /> a country branch. The publisher&#039;s reply was, of<br /> course, that he was a very inferior printer. But<br /> he was one of the first printers in London. Now,<br /> it is simply impossible to believe that the pub-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#485) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOIR.<br /> I 3 I<br /> lisher&#039;s estimate was actually £30, or nearly 50<br /> per cent. above the estimate procured by the<br /> author.<br /> We therefore have the following possible result:<br /> 3 s. d. 3 s. d.<br /> Profits as set forth in the agreement 35 O O<br /> Secret Profits:<br /> I. By the “13 as 12 º’claims ...... 18 15 O<br /> 2. By the advertisements ......... I5 O O<br /> 3. By overcharge of printing ...... 3O O O<br /> Total by secret and underhand<br /> profits ......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 I5 O<br /> Total profits............ 398 I5 O<br /> It may be said that the whole edition might<br /> Inot be sold off. That is true. What, however,<br /> is to be said of the system by which the author is<br /> hoodwinked into signing agreements by which<br /> the results can be made to come out as above P<br /> AUTHORS THEIR OWN PUBLISHERS.<br /> A PARISIAN ExPERIMENT.<br /> Reproduced from the Westminster Gazette with the Editor&#039;s<br /> permission.<br /> in Paris, at 11, Rue d’Ulm, under the title<br /> of La Société Libre d’Edition des Gens de<br /> Lettres (Authors’ Free Association of Publishing),<br /> a society of men of letters, with the object of<br /> publishing, without the intermediation of a<br /> publisher, approved works of the members.<br /> Amongst distinguished members of the Comité<br /> de Patronage who have already adhered to this<br /> association may be mentioned Alexandre Dumas,<br /> Benry Becque, Jules Barbier, Stéphane Mallarmé,<br /> Henry Bauêr, and Paul Alexis.<br /> The probability of the success of such an<br /> association of authors has been often discussed<br /> in English literary circles, and many members of<br /> the English Society of Authors have proposed to<br /> the Committee of that Society that it should<br /> undertake the publication at cost price of the<br /> works of its members. It accordingly appeared<br /> to me that some information as to the organisa-<br /> tion and working of this French Association and<br /> its prospects of success would be interesting to<br /> many readers of the Westminster. This informa-<br /> tion has been supplied to me by M. Henri<br /> Rainaldy, the emergetic secretary general of the<br /> association.<br /> It appears that, although the Association has<br /> only been in existence two months, already more<br /> than one hundred French authors, known and<br /> unknown, not including the members of the<br /> \ BOUT two months ago there was founded<br /> Comité de Patronage, have joined it. The associa-<br /> tion is composed of honorary members, subscrib-<br /> ing members, and titulary members. The hono-<br /> rary members are selected amongst distinguished<br /> persons in French society, preference being given<br /> to leading lights in the literary world. These<br /> form the Committee of Patronage. Subscribing<br /> members are those persons who, not being authors<br /> themselves, are sufficiently interested in the<br /> association and its objects to subscribe a minimum<br /> of Io francs per annum to the funds of the society.<br /> They do not participate in the privileges of the<br /> association, but have their share of such honour<br /> and fame as may accrue to it. M. Rainaldy does<br /> not mention how many persons in French society<br /> —of the Philistines the most Philistine—have<br /> shown themselves sufficiently interested in the<br /> commercial aspects of literary production to sub-<br /> scribe even the minimum to this association.<br /> For my part, I should imagine their number to<br /> be but a small one. The titulary members, who<br /> must justify their claims to be considered men or<br /> women of letters, pay an entrance fee of 2 francs<br /> and a monthly subscription of 2 francs—that is<br /> to say, about 19s. per annum. Every member is<br /> entitled to have one book, plaquette, or pamphlet,<br /> published by the association and at its cost each<br /> year, but not more than one book, plaquette, or<br /> pamphlet. The manuscripts of members are sub-<br /> mitted to the committee of management, and are<br /> read by a Bureau de Lecture formed of members<br /> of this committee. It may be noted that no<br /> member of the committee of management can<br /> publish his works at the expense of the associa-<br /> tion. The readers have, consequently, no personal<br /> interest to ensue in rejecting the manuscripts of<br /> members. The Bureau de Lecture reports once a<br /> month on the manuscripts submitted, and such<br /> as have appeared to the readers to have a com-<br /> mercial value are published by the association, as<br /> funds allow and in order of reception. Members<br /> whose manuscripts have been rejected by the<br /> bureau, or who do not care to submit them to the<br /> bureau, can have them published at cost price,<br /> The profits on each work, less 25 per cent.—<br /> which goes to the funds of the association—are<br /> paid over to the author quarterly. “Parisian<br /> publishers,” says M. Rainaldy, “pocket from 40<br /> per cent. to 60 per cent. of the profits. That is a<br /> state of things that we wish to alter.”<br /> The society will not have printing-works of its<br /> own. For the production of each work tenders<br /> are invited from the French printers. In no case<br /> can a sum exceeding one-half of the funds of the<br /> association be spent on the production and<br /> publication of any one book. On the other hand,<br /> the association will not capitalise, and 50 per<br /> cent, of its funds will always be available for the<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#486) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 32<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> production of the works of members. “Our<br /> funds will keep increasing in proportion to the<br /> number of books we publish,” says the enthusi-<br /> astic M. Raimaldy, who does not appear to take<br /> into consideration the possibility of an error Cn<br /> the part of the Bureau de Lecture as to the com-<br /> mercial value of a manuscript, and a consequent<br /> loss to the association. “Our funds will increase,”<br /> he says, “like a snowball. C&#039;est la boule de<br /> neige.” He adds, what should interest Sir Walter<br /> Besant, who has always contested the publishers&#039;<br /> claims for general expenses, or rather the extent<br /> of these claims: “Our general expenses are<br /> practically nil.”<br /> Another of the endeavours of the Société Libre<br /> d’Edition will be to force down the price at<br /> which novels are published in France. “We<br /> intend to reduce the price of books gradually, till<br /> we get it down to the acceptable price of two<br /> francs.” At present French novels are published<br /> at 3 francs 50 cents, that is to say, when the<br /> usual discount has been deducted, at 2 francs<br /> 75 cents. Of this sum the bookseller gets<br /> 25 cents per copy, the remaining 2 francs 50 cents<br /> being divided between the publisher and the<br /> author. The author&#039;s royalty in France varies<br /> between 30 cents and I franc a copy. The<br /> average royalty paid to men of the standing of<br /> Mirbeau, J. K. Rosny, the younger Daudet,<br /> Margueritte, Paul Hervieu, and others, is 50 cents.<br /> De Goncourt is said to receive 60 cents and Zola<br /> I franc per volume. The arrangement seems to<br /> suit all parties, and, with all deference to M.<br /> Rainaldy and the members of his society, I must<br /> say that I have never heard amongst reputable<br /> men of letters in Paris any complaints about the<br /> system, or about their treatment at the hands Cf<br /> the reputable publishers. What complaints there<br /> are come from the booksellers, who say, not with-<br /> out some justice, that 2%d. is hardly sufficient<br /> remuneration to them for their trouble in selling<br /> a 3 franc 50 cent book. It is true that, almost<br /> without exception, books are delivered to the<br /> booksellers in France on the sale or return<br /> principle, and that 2; d. is 2}d. One fails to see<br /> what margin of profit will remain to be divided<br /> amongst authors and publishers in France—the<br /> booksellers can be left out of the question, as<br /> they will certainly not content themselves with<br /> anything less than the 2#d.—if the Société Libre<br /> succeeds in forcing the price of books at present<br /> published at 3 francs 50 cents down to 2 francs.<br /> How could, for instance, a book like Zola&#039;s<br /> “Debâcle,” a work of over 200,000 words, be<br /> produced to be published at 2 francs P , Mr.<br /> Hall Caine, in England, is certainly with M.<br /> Rainaldy, and hopes to see his books published<br /> at the lowest possible prices, relying on immense<br /> sales for his adequate remuneration. “I have<br /> broken the back of the three-volume novels,” he<br /> said to me when I was staying with him in Peel<br /> last month, “and now I hope to break the back<br /> of the six-shilling volume.” But quod Jovi&#039;s est,<br /> non bovis est, and authors of the popularity of<br /> Hall Caine need not be looked for almongst the<br /> members of the Société Libre d’Edition des Gens<br /> de Lettres.<br /> In connection with this association will be pub-<br /> lished a “Revue,” or monthly magazine. “It is<br /> not founded yet,” says M. Rainaldy, “and its<br /> organisation will take a long time, all the more<br /> so because we are up to our necks in work.” This,<br /> “Revue” will publish short short stories and<br /> other aeuvres de courte haleine by members of the<br /> society, and should serve a useful purpose. It is<br /> at present almost impossible for an unknown<br /> writer in France to find a newspaper or a maga-<br /> zine which will publish a nouvelle, or short story,<br /> great as is the public appreciation of this form of<br /> literary work, even if he abandons all claim for<br /> remuneration. The “ring ” of successful writers<br /> does exist in Paris; .the same men contribute<br /> constantly to such papers as Gil Blas, Le Journal,<br /> and L&#039;Echo de Paris; the outsiders have no.<br /> chance of obtaining a hearing.<br /> The Société Libre d’Edition has already com-<br /> menced to work. M. Rainaldy says:<br /> “We shall publish two books next month, “La<br /> Grande Nuit,” by Henry l’Huissier, and “Quand<br /> le tour est joué, a humorous novel by Michel<br /> Jicé. Our third and fourth volumes will be the<br /> work of one of our best-known living writers—I<br /> am not allowed to mention his name at present—<br /> and, after that, that is to say, in November and<br /> in December, we shall publish some remarkable.<br /> works by new writers.”<br /> Neither M. l’Huissier nor M. Jicé, the two.<br /> members who have benefited first by the organisa-<br /> tion of the society, have as yet been able to secure<br /> a hearing under the old order of things, nor had<br /> they been heard of before. This is proof that, at<br /> its outset at least, the Sociéte Libre d’Edition is,<br /> working, without fear or favour, on the principles<br /> enunciated by its secretary. The experiment will.<br /> be watched with interest on both sides of the<br /> Channel, both by publishers and men of letters.<br /> It may be remarked, in conclusion, that such a<br /> society is likely to be of more service to authors,<br /> in France than a similar organisation would be.<br /> in England, because in France a publisher never<br /> publishes the work of unknown men at any risk<br /> whatever to himself. Our English publishers,<br /> have far more courage and enterprise.<br /> ROBERT H. SHERARD.<br /> *... a 2-sº<br /> r- - -<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#487) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I 33<br /> NEW YORK LETTER,<br /> New York, Oct. I 5.<br /> HAVE already quoted from the interesting<br /> series of letters which appeared in the<br /> London Times a few weeks ago on literature<br /> in America. I do not know who the writer of<br /> these letters may be, but I can declare that he<br /> displayed a knowledge of the conditions of<br /> authorship in America, and of the publishing<br /> trade here, quite extraordinary in a foreigner,<br /> and rare enough even in a native. To say this is<br /> not to say that I agree with all his opinions, of<br /> course; but I can say that the British reader<br /> may rely on all his statements of facts.<br /> Obviously the Times correspondent had taken<br /> the trouble to inform himself thoroughly about<br /> the American makers of books, in both senses of<br /> the words; and he discussed the manufacture of<br /> books in the United States quite as sensibly as he<br /> considered the writing of books here. It is this<br /> solid foundation of knowledge which is wanting<br /> in most British criticism of American affairs.<br /> In a recent number of a London monthly called<br /> the Bookman, for example, there was a paragraph<br /> which was a masterpiece of complacent ignorance.<br /> It declared that the American publishing trade<br /> had been “slow to feel the modern movement for<br /> better type and comelier binding, but of late the<br /> De Winne Press and the University Press have<br /> been turning out very handsome text; and in the<br /> last year a new firm, Messrs. Copeland and Day,<br /> have been getting up their works with a kind of<br /> binding and ornament we are more accustomed<br /> to in England. Their artists are as yet a little<br /> timid and imitative, and one wonders what<br /> Mr. Morris thinks of their edition of ‘The<br /> House of Life,” which gives us for some<br /> two dollars a very charming imitation of a<br /> * Kelmscott Press&#039; work, with the same rich<br /> elaborate borders and initial letters, and the<br /> same heavy black type. It may be said that the<br /> mediaeval workmen copied their masters in much<br /> the same fashion, and that a part of the merit of<br /> conventional design is that its forms and sug-<br /> gestions are passed on from epoch to epoch, work-<br /> man to workman. The same publishers&#039; edition<br /> of Father Tabb&#039;s poems takes a suggestion from<br /> the cover design of Mr. John Gray’s “Silver-<br /> points,’ and their ‘Robert Louis Stevenson: ’ a<br /> study, follows more closely the title-page of Mr.<br /> Horner’s “Diversi Colores,’ and for so much of<br /> “American piracy’ one can be grateful without<br /> turning Socialist and having all things in common,<br /> for it has given us two charming books the more.”<br /> This mention of the University Press, which is<br /> a printing house only and not a bindery, with<br /> no mention of the Riverside Press, where every<br /> indeed.<br /> process of book manufacture is carried on with<br /> the widest resources and the utmost skill, reveals<br /> how very slight indeed is the Bookman&#039;s ac-<br /> quaintance with the facts. The Times corre-<br /> spondent showed his knowledge of the situation<br /> when he declared that “the art of embellishing<br /> books receives more attention in the United<br /> States than it does here. More care is taken<br /> with the outward appearance, and questions of<br /> paper, print, binding, and illustration are more<br /> studied.” So true is this that the New York<br /> representative of a very important London pub-<br /> lishing house confessed to me not long ago that<br /> he was not a little ashamed of the make-up of<br /> many of the books sent him by the home firm, as<br /> they were so inferior in appearance to works of<br /> the same high class manufactured in America.<br /> The Times correspondent was quite right in<br /> saying that “the comparative excellence of<br /> British and American printing is a subject upon<br /> which very various opinions are held. Examples<br /> of the very finest work could probably be selected<br /> from offices on both sides of the Atlantic, of<br /> which it could only be said that they could not be<br /> improved upon.” For example, different as they<br /> are in many respects, there is very little to choose<br /> between the new complete edition of Robert Louis<br /> Stevenson&#039;s works printed in Edinburgh and<br /> published in London, and the new complete<br /> edition of Edgar Allen Poe&#039;s works printed in<br /> Boston and published in Chicago. In both of<br /> these sumptuous sets of seemly tomes there<br /> is the most tasteful harmony of paper and<br /> type and ink. Both of them do the highest<br /> credit to their producers. I agree with the<br /> Times correspondent in thinking that perhaps<br /> the average of book-printing is higher in Great<br /> Britain than in the United States, and for the<br /> reason he suggests, that as labour is cheaper in<br /> England than in America more time can be spent<br /> in the delicate task of “making ready.”<br /> Probably the most exquisite printing yet<br /> accomplished in America is that of the De Winne<br /> Press, due to the loving care and profound tech-<br /> nical skill of Mr. Thomas I. De Winne, a devoted<br /> student of the history of his craft. To Mr. De<br /> Winne is to be ascribed the marvellous printing<br /> of the woodcuts and process blocks used in the<br /> Century Magazine, which other magazines may<br /> envy and imitate, but which none have yet been<br /> able to equal. To Mr. De Winne&#039;s taste in great<br /> measure is due the very beautiful page of the<br /> “Century Dictionary,” and as we all know, the<br /> page of the ordinary dictionary is very ugly<br /> Mr. De Winne has always loyally<br /> seconded every effort of the artistic staff of the<br /> Century Company whether the thing under dis-<br /> cussion was a magazine, a dictionary, or an<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#488) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 34<br /> THE AUTHOIR.<br /> ordinary book. The Century Company is solici-<br /> tous rot only about its printing, but also about<br /> its binding; and its secretary, Mr. Chichester,<br /> takes endless pains with the cover designs. It<br /> would greatly surprise the old-fashioned publish-<br /> ing-houses of Paternoster-row if they knew the<br /> large annual sum which this single American<br /> firm paid out to decorative artists for cover<br /> stamps. And this outlay is greater than it<br /> seems, for I have more than once been told that a<br /> cover-design accepted and paid for has been<br /> discarded in favour of another which seemed<br /> more appropriate.<br /> Only a writer having very slight knowledge of<br /> American publishing houses would single out for<br /> special praise the new, and unimportant, firm of<br /> Copeland and Day, who have so far done little<br /> more than imitate certain of the freakish fashions,<br /> and doubtful fantasticalities, of recent London<br /> bookmaking. The house which holds a position<br /> of undisputed preeminence in America as manu-<br /> facturers of books is Houghton, Mifflin, and Co.,<br /> who do their own printing and binding at the River-<br /> side Press. The firm of Houghton, Mifflin and<br /> Co. is the successor of Houghton, Osgood, and<br /> Co., which was the result of a union between<br /> Burd and Houghton, on the one hand, and J. R.<br /> Osgood and Co. on the other. J. R. Osgood and<br /> Co. was the successor of Fields, Osgood, and Co.,<br /> and of Ticknor and Fields, which had absorbed<br /> the business of Phillips, Sampson, and Co. The<br /> books published a quarter of a century ago by<br /> James R. Osgood were no better in appearance<br /> than the average; but the books now published<br /> by Houghton, Mifflin, and Co. have unfailing dis-<br /> tinction and grace, to be ascribed, I believe,<br /> mainly to the delicate taste and the tireless atten-<br /> tion of Mr. George H. Mifflin. It is due, I think,<br /> largely to the elevating influence of the Riverside<br /> Press that the standard of bookmaking is so high<br /> in the United States. Equally potent was the<br /> founding of the Grolier Club in New York ten<br /> years ago, to afford a centre of communication<br /> between book-lovers and book-makers, between<br /> bibliophiles and collectors on the one hand, and,<br /> on the other, printers, engravers, decorators,<br /> paper-makers, and type-founders.<br /> The old house of Little, Brown, and Co.<br /> always succeeded in giving solidity and dignity to<br /> the volumes bearing their imprint. Of late not a<br /> few of the books sent forth by Dod, Mead and<br /> Co., have been worthy of praise. Mr. Marvin is<br /> responsible for the manufacture of the volumes<br /> issued by Charles Scribner&#039;s Sons, and he has<br /> been often very happy in the cover-designs he<br /> has employed. Harper and Brothers now give<br /> far greater attention to the decoration of their<br /> books than was formerly the case, and often with<br /> conspicuous success; among the volumes the<br /> have sent forth to delight fastidious book-lovers<br /> may be mentioned the series of books illustrated<br /> by Mr. E. A. Abbey and Mr. Alfred Parsons, the<br /> elaborately adorned edition of the “Cloister and<br /> the Hearth” of two or three years ago, and the<br /> delicately decorated “Wignettes of Mahattan” of<br /> last year, with Mr. W. T. Smedley&#039;s satisfying<br /> illustrations. The new house of Stone and<br /> Rimball in Chicago is also doing its best to make<br /> books beautiful, Mr. Herbert L. Stone taking this<br /> department under his own care. His chief<br /> triumph so far is the edition of Poe, which I have<br /> already mentioned. -<br /> The correspondent of the Times singled out for<br /> praise a complete edition of Charles Lever’s tales<br /> issued by Little, Brown, and Co., but this is only<br /> one of many similar series published within the<br /> past ten or fifteen years by different houses in<br /> New York and Boston. Little, Brown, and Co.<br /> are also responsible for complete editions, in<br /> English, of Victor Hugo&#039;s romances, and for<br /> editions (not complete, of course, but containing<br /> a score or more of volumes) of the romances of<br /> the elder Dumas. These were all illustrated<br /> adequately. In like manner Dodd, Mead, and<br /> Co. made sets of Anthony Trollope’s “Chronicles<br /> of Barset ’’ (published in London by different<br /> firms and in different forms) and of his Parlia-<br /> mentary novels—the “Phineas Finn &quot; series.<br /> These books are well made, and they are intended<br /> for the private libraries of the well-to-do, who<br /> like to own full sets of standard authors. As a<br /> rule they are sold only in sets, and the usual price<br /> is about two dollars a volume, say 8s. I need not<br /> say that Hugo and Dumas, Lever and Trollope<br /> were thus honoured only after the market had<br /> been supplied by Thackeray and Dickens, by<br /> George Eliot and Hawthorne.<br /> By the sudden death of H. H. Boyesen,<br /> Columbia College loses one of its best known<br /> professors, and New York one of its most inter-<br /> esting figures. Professor Boyesen was a Norse-<br /> man who wrote most vigorous English, and who<br /> translated American life and character into novels<br /> of vehement realism. He had the courage of his<br /> convictions, and he broke many a lance with Mr.<br /> Andrew Lang, who still defends literary forms<br /> that seemed to Boyesen hopelessly out of date.<br /> H. R.<br /> $n<br /> e:<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#489) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHIOIR.<br /> I 35<br /> THE GERMAN AUTHORS’ SOCIETY.<br /> HE Association of German Authors (Die<br /> Deutsche Schriftsteller-Genossenschaft) is<br /> a limited liability association, i.e., each<br /> member&#039;s liability amounts to £2 10s. at the most.<br /> It was founded in Berlin in October, 1891, and<br /> so well has it prospered that in June, 1895, it<br /> numbered already 650 members. The great object<br /> they propose to themselves, and which they keep<br /> steadily in view, is to elevate German authors<br /> and journalists to a better social and financial<br /> position. To attain this purpose several depart-<br /> ments have been established, each designed to<br /> help literary men in one particular kind of<br /> trouble; pecuniary and judicial aid can be<br /> obtained here by the members of the association,<br /> and not only these, but all members of the pro-<br /> fession are assisted in their dealings with editors,<br /> publishers, or managers of theatres.<br /> First there is the banking department. It<br /> receives payments for the members, attends to<br /> the drawing in of money due, and makes<br /> advances on such, or grants credit on sufficient<br /> security. At another department judicial advice<br /> and information is obtained relating to all affairs<br /> of the profession, cases of dispute are settled by<br /> arbitration, and, if necessary, lawsuits are insti-<br /> tuted. Then there is the literary bureau, where<br /> novels and novelettes in manuscript or in print<br /> can be handed in, and help is given towards their<br /> publication or their appearance in a daily paper<br /> or magazine. The dramatic agency represents<br /> dramatic authors, and maintains their rights in<br /> all their relations with the theatres. A further<br /> department acquaints journalists in want of<br /> employment with the vacancies that occur.<br /> Besides, the association undertakes the publica-<br /> tion and sale of literary works, and effects the<br /> purchase of all publications that are desired, so<br /> that it carries on the functions of a publisher as<br /> well as those of a bookseller.<br /> A fortnightly magazine, The Right of the Pen,<br /> most ably edited by Herr Martin Hildebrandt, is<br /> published by the association to uphold its<br /> interests and those of all German authors and<br /> journalists. It is forwarded gratis to the<br /> members.<br /> Only persons engaged in literary or journalistic<br /> work are admitted as members. A person desiring<br /> to become one has to send in a declaration on a<br /> given form to the presidents (Martin Hildebrandt<br /> and M. von Reymond), expressing his unqualified<br /> concurrence in all the statutes of the association.<br /> This is published in the organ of the society,<br /> and four weeks later he is received a member,<br /> after payment of a fee of admission of 5s. The<br /> share of every member amounts to £2 Ios., of<br /> which, if the whole sum is not paid in, at least<br /> one-tenth must be paid at once, whilst the rest<br /> can be paid in monthly instalments of at least<br /> 2s. To this amount, as I have said before, every<br /> member is liable for the association. For mem-<br /> bers who have obtained more than one share, the<br /> liability rises in proportion to the number of<br /> shares they have taken, i.e., a member&#039;s liability<br /> increases to £5 if he owns two shares, and so<br /> on. If a person wishes to cease being a member,<br /> he must give notice to the presidents of the<br /> association one year before the resignation takes<br /> place.<br /> For members living in Berlin or visiting there,<br /> and also for persons not members of the society,<br /> a club was founded by the association, which is<br /> open from Io a.m. to about 2 a.m. It was founded<br /> to promote unconstrained social intercourse among<br /> authors, journalists, artists, men of science, and<br /> other men in public life. The club is managed<br /> by a committee of five, of whom three are elected<br /> every year in the general meeting of the associa-<br /> tion from those club-members who are also<br /> members of the association. These three, within<br /> a week, have to call the yearly general meeting<br /> of the club, and in that the two other members<br /> of the committee are elected. Then a chairman<br /> is chosen, and notice is given to the presidents of<br /> the association of the fact. The committee has<br /> to maintain order in the club-rooms; it has to<br /> receive and to exclude members, to keep up the<br /> business communication with the presidents of<br /> the association, and to set down the regulations<br /> for the use of the arrangements of the club.<br /> To become a member of the club one has to<br /> send in a notice to the presidents of the associa-<br /> tion on a given form, expressing one&#039;s wish, and<br /> promising to strictly follow club rules and regu-<br /> lations; and this must be supported by two<br /> members of the club. Then the committee<br /> makes the names of the candidate and his two<br /> supporters known by hanging up a notice giving<br /> their names for four weeks in the club, and, besides,<br /> they are published in the The Right of the Pen,<br /> the organ of the association. The candidate can<br /> be admitted only in the presence of at least three<br /> of the members of the committee, and the admis-<br /> sion must at once be notified to the association.<br /> In case of admission being refused the candidate<br /> can appeal to the committee for a resumption of<br /> the proceedings, but this must be done within a<br /> fortnight. -<br /> The fees, which can be paid annually or<br /> quarterly, are very moderate. For members of<br /> the association, of the Union of German Authors<br /> (Der Deutsche Schriftstellerverban), of the Berlin<br /> Press Union (Verein Berliner Presse), and of the<br /> Literary Society (die Litterarische Geseltschorft),<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#490) ################################################<br /> <br /> 136<br /> TIIE AUTHOIR.<br /> they amount to I 2s. a year; for persons that are<br /> not members of any one of the societies men-<br /> tioned, they are now £1 4s. annually. These<br /> latter also have to pay an extra fee of admission<br /> of IOS. The membership runs one year, and,<br /> unless notice to the contrary is given, is silently<br /> regarded as continued for another year every 30th<br /> of June. If anyone wishes to resign, he must<br /> give notice to that effect to the presidents of the<br /> association, in a registered letter, at least three<br /> months&#039; before the 30th of June, on which day<br /> the business season of the association closes.<br /> Exclusion takes place if a member acts in a<br /> manner unbecoming a gentleman, and is made<br /> known to the person in question by a vote from<br /> the presidents. An eventual appeal must be<br /> lodged with the committee within a fortnight,<br /> and, till the final decision, the membership is<br /> regarded as suspended.<br /> At present the club occupies five pretty, taste-<br /> fully-decorated rooms on the first fioor of Kronen-<br /> strasse 61, in the best quarter of Berlin, in<br /> which house are also the offices of the association.<br /> The library and reading-room contains about 5oo<br /> papers and magazines of all descriptions and<br /> from all countries. Refreshments can be had at<br /> any time between Io a.m. and 2 a.m., but are not<br /> served in the reading-room, where also smoking<br /> is not permitted. Neither is it allowed to make<br /> cuttings from the papers, or to take magazines<br /> and books away.<br /> Only members in possession of members&#039; cards<br /> are admitted. They are allowed to introduce<br /> guests three times, but if a guest comes oftener<br /> he is regarded as having become a candidate for<br /> the club. The ladies of members are also allowed<br /> to visit the rooms. Dinners are given now and<br /> then, and every year a great feast is held under<br /> the auspices of the association for some benevo-<br /> lent fund ; in the winter a ball is given. The<br /> principal object, however, is to provide a place of<br /> meeting free from social restraint, where men can<br /> stroll in and out just as they please, and that this<br /> has been successfully attained, no one can doubt<br /> that has even been in the rooms. The most<br /> interesting evenings are those after a “first<br /> night,” when the critics congregate, and one can<br /> hear the sharpest tongues of Berlin give judg-<br /> ment for or against the new piece.<br /> Among the members of the association are a<br /> good many ladies, but lady visitors are not so pro-<br /> minent in Germany as in England, nor are they<br /> so numerous, and though, e.g., Olga Wohlbrück<br /> and Elsa von Schabelsky are well known enough<br /> here, I doubt that English readers have ever<br /> heard of them. Some of the best names, how-<br /> ever, of present German literature are to be<br /> found in the members’ list. For instance, Ernest<br /> von Wildenbruch, the poet, dramatist, and<br /> novelist; Hermann Sudermann, whose novels and<br /> dramas are acknowledged to be among the best<br /> our time has produced; and the veteran novelist,<br /> Friedrich Speilhen. Among others I may men-<br /> tion Oscar Blumenthal, owner and manager of<br /> the Lessing Theatre, the adapter of many English.<br /> plays; Max Halbe, whose drama “Youth &quot; (Die<br /> Jugend) had a run of over a hundred nights.<br /> here; Maximilian Harden, founder and editor of<br /> the Future (Die Zukunft), a weekly publicaions,<br /> the best German journalist of the day; Gutavet,<br /> Kadelburg, the successful actor and playright;<br /> Carl Bleihtren, John Henry Mackay, Alexander<br /> von Roberts, Georg von Ompteda, Wilhelm von<br /> Polenz, and many others. Most of these are<br /> members of the club as well as of the association.<br /> Among the members of the club only I may<br /> mention C. A. Raida, the conductor and com-<br /> poser, some of whose compositions are well.<br /> known in England; R. Alexander, the great<br /> comic actor; and G. Tielscher, who created the<br /> part of “Charlie&#039;s Aunt” here.<br /> I could name a good many others who have<br /> made their mark in the world, but the names<br /> given show sufficiently that the association and<br /> its club are a great success.<br /> Berlin. CLARENCE SHERWOOD.<br /> *- ~ *-*.<br /> NOTES AND NEWS.<br /> HE death of Mr. Henry Reeve, C.B., which<br /> took place on Monday, October 21st, at the<br /> ripe age of eighty-two, removes from our<br /> lists one of our oldest and one of our most distin-<br /> guished members. Mr. Reeve joined the Society<br /> as a vice-president at its foundation eleven years.<br /> ago, and has remained a subscribing member down<br /> to the present year. He was not able to assist the<br /> Society by taking the chair at any of our meetings,<br /> but he always took an interest in our proceedings<br /> and sympathised with our methods and policy.<br /> At the outset of the Society it was a great thing<br /> for us to receive the adhesion of so distinguished<br /> a member of the world of letters as the editor of<br /> the Edinburgh Review. He is principally known<br /> by his “Greville Memoirs.” He also published a<br /> translation of Guizot&#039;s “Life of Washington”<br /> and a series of essays on “Royal and Republican<br /> France,” and in 1869 he received from the<br /> University of Oxford the degree of D.C.L. He<br /> was a companion of the Bath and commander of<br /> the Royal Military Order of Portugal.<br /> *-- sº-º-º- ºr<br /> noticed the Authors’<br /> It has advanced so far<br /> We have not yet<br /> Journal of New York.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#491) ################################################<br /> <br /> TIIB A UTIIOIR.<br /> I 37<br /> as the third number of the second volume. The<br /> number for October, 1895, contains a paper by Mr.<br /> Charles Burr Todd on “Authors’ Societies and<br /> their Work; ” another on the Syndicate System ; a<br /> “white list” of editors, i.e. a list of journals in<br /> which the contributor is always paid : a good<br /> Quantity of ‘l’ersonal’ papers and experiences:<br /> Questions and answers; and more personal notes.”<br /> There is also a list of current literary articles.<br /> It is a practical and useful paper: it lacks, how-<br /> ever, the element which is always found in the<br /> fore-front in these pages—the figures and the<br /> meaning of the figures. There is also a delightful<br /> column of Authors’ own advertisements: “An<br /> observer upon the manners of the school girl<br /> would like to contribute to something.” “A<br /> joke-carpenter and all-round funny man offers<br /> his devices.” Another “would do valentines<br /> or adv&#039;ing verse. Nothing makes so effective<br /> an ad.” “Publishers should send for the crisp,<br /> fetching, irresistible things that I write.”<br /> “Short, crisp, breezy sketches of life in wealthy,<br /> wonderful, wicked New York.” “Entirely new<br /> and original plots furnished by a well-known<br /> author who has not time to work them up.”<br /> With many more equally pleasant and suggestive.<br /> Mr. Herbert Spencer, in the Times of Sept.<br /> 2 I, paid a tribute of recognition to the services<br /> of the late Professor E. L. Youmans, which should<br /> be copied in these columns. The New York<br /> correspondent of the Times, in speaking of<br /> the publishing house of Appleton and Co., a<br /> house which has done a great deal for literature<br /> in the United States, mentioned the fact that<br /> they were the first to introduce authorised<br /> editions of Herbert Spencer, Tyndall, Huxley,<br /> and Darwin to the American public, and that<br /> also originated the well known International<br /> Scientific series. Mr. Herbert Spencer thus<br /> writes: -<br /> While recognising the indebtedness of English men of<br /> science to the house of Messrs. Appleton, justice requires<br /> me to say that the “debt of gratitude ’’ is in chief measure<br /> owed to my late friend Professor E. L. Youmans. The<br /> soundness of his judgment having been proved to them by<br /> experience, the Messrs. Appleton adopted to a large extent<br /> the suggestions made by him respecting English works to<br /> be republished. It was at his instigation that they under-<br /> took the publication of my works, the works of Tyndall,<br /> Huxley, and Darwin, and the works of various other<br /> scientific men. He was deeply desirous of obtaining for<br /> English authors a due share of the profits resulting from<br /> the sales of their books in America, and his desire met<br /> with a proper response from the Messrs. Appleton. How<br /> far the remunerative terms given to English authors must<br /> be ascribed to his negotiations and how far to the equitable<br /> feeling of Messrs. Appleton, it is of course impossible to<br /> Say; but my own correspondence with him enables me to<br /> testify that his unceasing effort was to maintain authors’<br /> interests. For a period of thirty years, during which<br /> wounded vanity.<br /> English works had no copyright in America, arrangements<br /> initiated about 1860 gave to English authors who published<br /> with the Messrs. Appleton profits comparable to, if not<br /> identical with, those of American authors. To the Messrs.<br /> Appleton great credit must be accorded for having loyally<br /> carried out these arrangements in my own case and in the<br /> cases of various of my friends, and I believe, in all other<br /> cases; but I cannot permit the part taken by Professor<br /> Youmans in the matter to be ignored.<br /> To him, more than to any other American, the gratitude<br /> of English authors is due.<br /> Let me also correct the statement of your correspondent<br /> respecting the International Scientific series. This was not.<br /> “originated ” by the Messrs. Appleton, but by Professor<br /> Youmans. Further, he was the originator of the Popwlan&quot;<br /> Science Monthly, for many years edited by him and now<br /> edited by his younger brother.<br /> We have published one or two letters on<br /> privately publishing a book. I do not suppose<br /> that many will try this plan, but it is certainly<br /> far better and more economical than paying a<br /> publisher for producing it. For instance, there<br /> is the person who replies to the author of a MS.<br /> that “his reader has reported so favourably on<br /> the work that he is disposed to offer the follow-<br /> ing exceptional terms: The author to pay £IOO ;<br /> if he will not, then 38o; if not 380, then 360 ;<br /> and so on.” That person must make his profit<br /> out of the transaction; it is not for doing so that<br /> one blames him. The author, however, can<br /> save that profit by printing the book himself.<br /> One correspondent has recently asked how an<br /> author is to introduce the book to the public.<br /> Well, there is but one way. He must send the<br /> book round to the Press; he must advertise it;<br /> he must offer it to the trade. The publisher can<br /> do no more. Probably the author would not<br /> make much of a success with his book; but if it<br /> is a good book, and one wanted by the public, he<br /> would, perhaps, do quite as well with it in this.<br /> way as in any other. If it is a bad book, he<br /> would do no better with a publisher than without.<br /> The best advice we can offer to an aspiring author<br /> is the old advice: If publisher after publisher<br /> refuses your MS. put it away for a while ; after a<br /> year or two read it again, and you will probably<br /> understand why it was refused. Never, never,<br /> never, pay for producing what publishers refuse.<br /> This advice is quite useless, and wasted, and<br /> thrown away. No candidate for the honours of<br /> authorship can be made to believe that his MS.<br /> is worthless. All I want, he says, is a chance.<br /> Produce me, give me to the public, on any terms.<br /> I will pay anything—only produce me. He is.<br /> produced, and the wounds of that bleeding purse<br /> can no more be healed than the agonies of<br /> I have before me a little collection of stories.<br /> published on the method indicated above. It is<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#492) ################################################<br /> <br /> 138<br /> TIIL. A UTHOIR.<br /> a very little book in large print : the stories are<br /> wretched: the writer has no knowledge at all of<br /> the art : not the least: she is too young to have<br /> any experience of the world: she is not dramatic :<br /> she has neither imagination nor style—not one<br /> single thing to qualify her for writing fiction.<br /> She paid £40 in advance: she was told that she<br /> would not be liable for any further payment “in<br /> respect of the paper and materials for producing<br /> the book.” The book would probably cost about<br /> £20, for of course very few copies would be<br /> bound. There was a further clause stating that<br /> the money expended in advertising would be<br /> taken from the sales of the book. Well: the<br /> first thing that this honourable publisher did was<br /> to send a demand for £5 for advertising the<br /> book ; this was sent ; as an afterthought, a<br /> demand for money for corrections; this was sent;<br /> then a second demand for another £5 for adver-<br /> tisements; this was refused. Nothing more has<br /> been heard about the book at all. Of course, if<br /> people are so foolish as to accept such offers they<br /> only have themselves to blame. It is an old, old<br /> Story.<br /> The acumen of the country solicitor in such<br /> business as ours is very remarkable. A case<br /> was brought to me privately; one of the very<br /> common type, like that quoted above, in which<br /> an unfortunate aspirant agrees to pay a sum<br /> of money which he is led to believe will<br /> constitute his sole liability for the production<br /> of what is humorously called a Work. The said<br /> Work did not possess the smallest chance of any<br /> kind of success—a thing which the publisher&#039;s<br /> reader, if it was read, ought to have known<br /> perfectly well. However, the book was printed,<br /> and then more claims came in. And equally, of<br /> course, no sales. I told the victim that if he<br /> would send me all the papers I would give them<br /> to the secretary of the Society of Authors, who<br /> is a solicitor, and would obtain from him an<br /> opinion at least ; perhaps, also, such action on the<br /> part of the Society as would make the creature<br /> disgorge. Meantime the victim had referred the<br /> matter to his solicitor, who wrote to me that, if<br /> any action were taken, this publisher “would have<br /> sufficient influence with the newspaper critics to<br /> get any future book issued by other publishers<br /> damned.” That is the exalted opinion of our<br /> critics by a country solicitor On a previous<br /> occasion a certain country solicitor asked a man<br /> of letters in London for his advice con-<br /> cerning a certain little technical book he had<br /> recently published on his own account. The<br /> man of letters advised him to send copies to all<br /> the papers, and to advertise it in certain papers<br /> which would be most likely to bring his book<br /> before the people for whom it was intended. It<br /> appeared, however, that what this writer wished<br /> for was advice as to some secret and underhand<br /> way of squaring the Press, as with a “four” of<br /> gin—a thing which he assumed to be constantly<br /> done and easily managed. Therefore he went<br /> about showing the letter of advice to his friends.<br /> “There !” he cried, “I’ve known this man for<br /> forty years and this is all he will do for me!”<br /> In the first of these two cases there was another<br /> point. The victim was charged about double the<br /> actual cost of production. The country solicitor<br /> states, as from his own wide experience and know-<br /> ledge, that the cost of production was certainly<br /> quite equal to that charged.<br /> The number of magazines and journals of<br /> which the contents are almost altogether, or<br /> wholly, devoted to fiction, is bewildering. A new<br /> venture is promised to begin this month with the<br /> opening chapters of eight new novels. Heavens !<br /> Imagine the simultaneous swallowing of eight<br /> opening chapters, and then waiting for a week<br /> for the next eight second chapters It seems<br /> like taking eight dinners in so many weeks—<br /> the eight soups first week, the eight fish the<br /> next week, and so on. One would like statistics,<br /> if they could be obtained, showing the number<br /> of novels actually running at any moment.<br /> Thus, there are the monthly magazines, the<br /> great illustrated weeklies, the weekly news-<br /> papers, the weekly journals, such as Chambers&#039;s,<br /> and so forth—those that appeal to a large<br /> audience; those that are nothing but a weekly<br /> story. If we could only obtain these statistics<br /> we should understand for the first time how<br /> enormous is the mass of those who read stories<br /> as their principal form of recreation. One is<br /> not talking here of critical readers, but simply<br /> of readers—boys and girls, working lads and<br /> factory girls, domestic servants, clerks, shop<br /> girls, and so on upwards, all reading, all buying<br /> their weekly pennyworth, all revelling in the<br /> woes, and the joys, and the anxieties of other<br /> people which make them forget their own.<br /> Bere is a curious illustration of the decline and<br /> fall of a great name, and of its subsequent<br /> revival. I have the story from the publishers of<br /> the novelist in question. For the last ten years<br /> this novelist has been suffering from eclipse<br /> partial to eclipse almost complete. Year after<br /> year the demand for his books went down, down,<br /> down—it seemed at last as if it was a matter of<br /> only a year or two before he would be quite for-<br /> gotten. Then a new edition of two of his books<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#493) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I 39<br /> was produced. Suddenly, his name revived; the<br /> demand increased daily. Within three months<br /> more than 15O,OOO copieg of each of these two new<br /> editions have gone off. If we may measure by<br /> numbers, the popularity of this writer is still far<br /> greater than that of any living man or woman—<br /> not counting Du Maurier, with his “Trilby,” in<br /> the States. The name of the novelist is Charles<br /> Reade; the two books are “The Cloister and the<br /> BHearth’’ and “It’s Never Too Late to Mend.”<br /> Why is Charles Reade so popular? Because he<br /> is dramatic ; because he is full of humanity, and<br /> heart, and sympathy. Produce a book, my hero<br /> of half-a-dozen failures, with these qualities, and<br /> you, too, shall win the love of the world.<br /> A correspondent (p. 147) points out that Mr.<br /> Rudyard Kipling in his earlier Indian stories<br /> adopted the dialogue or dramatic form of telling<br /> his story. This is quite true, and I ought to have<br /> remembered the fact; and I owe every apology<br /> to Mr. Rudyard Kipling for not remembering<br /> that fact. There is no living person who has a<br /> greater respect than myself for the genius of Mr.<br /> Rudyard Kipling, many of whose stories are, Ithink,<br /> simply unequalled by anything in our language,<br /> so that I am all the more vexed that I should be<br /> suspected of doing him an injustice. It appears<br /> to me, however, that the adoption of the dramatic<br /> form by Miss Violet Hunt and Mr. Anthony<br /> Hope is due rather to French influence than to<br /> imitation of Mr. Rudyard Kipling, whose<br /> methods and treatment neither of these writers<br /> appears to me to follow. However, where we<br /> find attractive or charming work it makes very<br /> little difference where the form in which it is cast<br /> was originally invented or by whom it was<br /> suggested. The dialogue story has, I believe,<br /> “come to stay.” WALTER BESANT.<br /> *~ * –e<br /> - -,<br /> ON SENDING OUT BOOKS FOR REVIEW.<br /> T is stated in the Daily Chronicle that a<br /> novelist—Miss Marie Correlli—is about to<br /> discontinue the practice of sending out her<br /> books for review. This statement leads one to<br /> consider the utility of the present custom. First<br /> of all, it is notorious that, while authors of all<br /> kinds are continually grumbling against their<br /> reviewers, neither authors nor publishers cease to<br /> send their books for review. Obviously, there-<br /> fore, the advantages of the present system out-<br /> weigh the disadvantages, otherwise the books<br /> would no longer be sent. The press copies, if<br /> one considers what they mean, amount to a<br /> pretty heavy tax; they amount to about forty<br /> copies of every new book. Taking our usual<br /> unit of a six-shilling volume, this means a tax of<br /> about £7 on every work, if we suppose that these<br /> press copies would otherwise be taken by the<br /> trade.<br /> In addition, of course, all the principal papers<br /> receive advertisements of the book. There seems.<br /> a tacit understanding that the books shall be<br /> advertised in the papers which receive the copies<br /> —a thing which seems only fair. For publicity is.<br /> absolutely necessary for a book on its first<br /> appearance. The papers give it a certain pub-<br /> licity in their advertising columns; but an adver-<br /> tisement, unless the writer is very well-known, is of<br /> very little help compared with a favourable review.<br /> In the hope of obtaining such a favourable review<br /> the book is always sent, and literature has this<br /> enormous advantage over every other marketable<br /> production—that it can look to receive, as nothing<br /> else can, what purports to be an open and un-<br /> biassed opinion from a competent person who<br /> honestly reads the book before he reviews it.<br /> Again, the lift that a favourable review can give<br /> a book depends very much on the circulation of<br /> the paper, and on the weight and authority of its<br /> judgments. Everybody knows that a favourable<br /> opinion appearing in any one of the great morn-<br /> ing papers is simply invaluable to a book. There-<br /> fore, unless these papers—which is not likely—<br /> lose their weight, or are allowed to become, like<br /> some existing organs, the channels for personal<br /> venom or incompetence, they will certainly con-<br /> tinue to receive books for review. And, just as,<br /> at present, those writers who are neglected, or<br /> treated with harshness, will continue to grumble.<br /> But when authors take over the advertising of<br /> their books into their own hands, which will<br /> certainly be one of the reforms of the future, a<br /> change will take place as to indiscriminate adver-<br /> tising in papers which pay no regard to the<br /> character of the reviews. A journal which allows<br /> blackguard reviews, venomous reviews, and the<br /> introduction of personal enmities, will certainly<br /> cease to receive either advertisements of books or<br /> books to review. We consent to the heavy tax on<br /> the understanding of fair play : that is to say,<br /> there is an unwritten compact that every book.<br /> reviewed shall be honestly read—not that every<br /> book sent shall be reviewed ; and that the<br /> reviewer shall be a competent and large-minded<br /> person. Where this is not the case there can be<br /> no earthly use in sending the volumes, and there<br /> can be no desire to do what is possible in main-<br /> taining the paper by way of advertisements.<br /> On several occasions in these columns attention<br /> has been drawn to the reviews of books in batches,<br /> in paragraphs of eight or ten lines each. This<br /> practice, as carried out in some papers, seems little.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#494) ################################################<br /> <br /> I4O<br /> TIIE AUTHOIR.<br /> short of a breach of faith. For it is impossible to<br /> pass a judgment, that is, a critical judgment, with<br /> reasons, in a short paragraph. Further, if one<br /> considers what is paid for such a batch of notices,<br /> it is manifestly impossible for the reviewer to<br /> read all, or, indeed, any of the books. For<br /> instance, there are, or have been, cases in which a<br /> column of so-called reviews, despatching a dozen<br /> novels, is paid for at one guinea, the column. To<br /> read and to pronounce a competent judgment on<br /> twelve novels would require at the very least six<br /> days. Can the reviewer live and pay his rent and<br /> dress his wife and family on a guinea for six<br /> days’ work—this is, fifty-two guineas a year?<br /> The thing is absurd. There are, then, to repeat,<br /> four things that authors and publishers have<br /> a right to demand in exchange for the book<br /> and the advertisement: (1) that the reviewer<br /> shall honestly read the book which he under-<br /> takes to review; (2) that the reviewer shall<br /> &#039;be competent for the task he undertakes;<br /> (3) that the reviewer shall not be allowed<br /> to introduce personal animosities; and (4) that<br /> the book shall not be jumbled up in a batch.<br /> If there is no reasonable security that these four<br /> points are not safeguarded by the editor, why<br /> should we give a journal either advertisements or<br /> books? Further, there is another consideration<br /> which must be taken into account. Every paper<br /> which shovels its books together, by doing so,<br /> loses the whole of its literary authority. No<br /> notice of a book carries with it either weight or<br /> authority where the book appears as one of a<br /> batch. This treatment simply destroys the critical<br /> character of the paper. For, to the outside world<br /> it appears self-evident that the books of a batch<br /> must be all of slight importance; and by the<br /> critical world it is perfectly well understood that<br /> books so noticed cannot possibly be read, because<br /> there is no time for reading them. The author, for<br /> his part, humbly feels that if he is worth noticing<br /> at all he is worth noticing as a separate individual.<br /> Should it not—one ventures with submission to<br /> ask—be a g, eat distinction for a book to be noticed<br /> by a great paper—a distinction which every author<br /> would desire? Would it not be the graceful<br /> part of a great paper to confer this distinction on<br /> the few books that deserve it? Such a paper has<br /> the power of “making” a book, and, therefore,<br /> the author. But it can only exercise this power<br /> by suppressing a great quantity of “notices” of<br /> less important books. There is—one knows—<br /> only room for a certain amount of critical matter;<br /> the question to consider is how to use that room<br /> for the advancement of the best interests of<br /> literature. Surely a half dozen slight and hasty<br /> opinions on books good, bad, and indifferent<br /> cannot advance any interests of literature.<br /> THE INTERNATIONAL PRESS CONGRESS<br /> AT BORDEAUX.<br /> HE most marked points in the first Inter-<br /> national Press Congress at Antwerp were<br /> the polyglottic nature of the speaking and<br /> the amiable cordiality with which knotty or con-<br /> troversial matters were settled. At Bordeaux,<br /> at the second congress, it was very noticeable<br /> that on the first day French was the only language<br /> used, with a small modicum of English ; and<br /> although on the succeeding days more English<br /> was heard, yet no other tongue, save French,<br /> intruded itself upon the congress, in spite of the<br /> fact that Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Austrian,<br /> Hungarian, &amp;c., delegates were present; the<br /> Germans one and all excusing themselves on the<br /> ground of the Titerary Congress about to be<br /> held at Dresden.<br /> The chief object of the Congress was to con-<br /> sider the establishing of a “Central Bureau for<br /> the United Associations of the Press.” A<br /> bureau that generally is to elevate the profession,<br /> and raise the status of its members, and espe-<br /> cially to deal with all international points of<br /> journalism; to assist journalists travelling in<br /> foreign countries, to settle international disputes,<br /> and arrange international copyright, international<br /> telegraph charges, and all matters that touch<br /> upon the advancement and well being of the press<br /> of all countries, and its professional members.<br /> The nation that must be dominant in all<br /> journalistic matters by sheer force of its numbers<br /> and organisation is England, but to retain this<br /> international dominance it is necessary that<br /> capable men be sent as delegates to the Inter-<br /> national Congress, and that men of influence<br /> and personality be elected on the committee of<br /> the Central Bureau. This last goes sans die, and<br /> with Mr. Crosbie as president this year, and Sir<br /> Hugh G. Reid, Mr. Clayden, and Mr. Fisher as<br /> hon. Secretary, the English press has been most<br /> capably represented on the committee. Amongst<br /> the delegates at Bordeaux were place away dames,<br /> the Misses Drew, Stuart, Armstrong, Mrs.<br /> Visger; and Mr. Crosbie, Sir A. Rollit, Sir<br /> H. G. Reid, Messrs. Byrne, Gatwicke, Pullan,<br /> Wollak, Baker, Warden, Askell, Crauford,<br /> Twobey, Campion, &amp;c. Mr. F, sher acting as hon.<br /> secretary and Mr. Cornish secretary.<br /> The principal of the debates were upon the<br /> constitution of the Bureau and Congress, and<br /> upon statutes to regulate the Bureau.<br /> At the first session the chair was taken by Mr.<br /> Boissevain, of Holland, owing to a little mis-<br /> understanding amongst the French ; and Sir<br /> Hugh Reid read a paper which was given in<br /> French by M. de Keyser, detailing the efforts<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#495) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE<br /> I4 I<br /> A UTHOI’.<br /> made in England for organising journalism and<br /> their outcome—the Institute of Journalists, with<br /> 4OOO members.<br /> M. de Berazza, of Spain, in a most lengthy<br /> speech, then argued that the central bureau<br /> ishould be an association of individuals, and not<br /> of associations; but, after a long discussion, this<br /> was out-voted. How the bureau could deal with<br /> every individual seemed an impossibility. Upon<br /> the two questions of the number of votes each<br /> association should have, and the amount of levy<br /> to be made per member, a heated argument<br /> arose. England, with 40OO members, would have<br /> forty votes if one per IOO was accorded; but she<br /> would also have to pay an enormous sum above<br /> other countries if Is. per member was the levy.<br /> Ultimately it was agreed that votes be allowed<br /> one in a hundred, Mr. Crosbie, with agreement of<br /> his confréres, agreeing that twenty votes should<br /> be the maximum allowed to any country, and 25<br /> centimes was adopted as the levy per head.<br /> Another subject that raised many voices was<br /> the composition of the committee of direction.<br /> One representative for 3OO members was sug-<br /> gested, but this cut out all small States, even if<br /> several grouped together. The suggestion that<br /> reach State should send one would not work, as<br /> three States in an Empire could then out-vote the<br /> Empire. Finally, it was settled—one representa-<br /> tive for every IOO members, small States group-<br /> ing together; and, upon this, there followed a<br /> discussion upon how these representatives be<br /> elected—at home or at the congress. Fierce and<br /> almost wild were the cries of Je demande la parole,<br /> and the debate was adjourned for each country<br /> to consult amongst themselves; and, on resuming,<br /> the compromise arrived at was, the delegates at<br /> the congress agree to elect the representatives on<br /> the central committee, according to mandate from<br /> their associations, for One or three years.<br /> When the various statutes were passed for<br /> confirmation by the home associations, two warm<br /> debates arose on International telegraph tariffs and<br /> copyright in news and in literary style. A perfect<br /> babel being aroused, when Mr. Albert Batville, of<br /> the Figaro, asked if it was just for a provincial<br /> paper to copy in a few hours a costly telegram of<br /> a Paris paper. Oui ou Won 2 The writer hereof<br /> spoke for the protection of literary style in news<br /> relation, and Messrs. Askell and Crauford, of<br /> Paris, and Mr. Hebaer all spoke, the latter most<br /> eloquently on this knotty question of news copy-<br /> right.<br /> . The general opinion upon the Educational test<br /> for journalists was brought out by a paper by<br /> Mr. Heinzman-Tavino, but the discussion proved<br /> how sadly needed was a set of rules for debate;<br /> and a suggestion of such rules was given in by<br /> Capt. Gratwicke, to be discussed at the next<br /> Congress.<br /> On re-electing the Central Committee, Mr.<br /> Crosbie and Sir H. G. Reid were chosen for<br /> England, with Mr. Fisher as honorary-secretary.<br /> The social side of the Congress was full of<br /> agreeable entertainment and charming surprises,<br /> and if our president, Mr. Crosbie, had distinguished<br /> himself by his calm Suavity and pacifying speeches<br /> when presiding or assisting at the sessions of the<br /> Congress, he added to the impression created by<br /> his witty well-timed impromptu remarks at the<br /> breakfasts and banquets that were showered upon<br /> the Congressites.<br /> Two excursions were arranged, one to Arcachon<br /> and one in the Medoc. At Arcachon carriages<br /> were in waiting for drives in the forests; yachts<br /> for excursions in the Bay after the sumptuous<br /> déjeuner; and in the Medoc at each chateau<br /> every kindness was shown the calvacade, that<br /> was headed by two huntsmen in red, sounding<br /> fanfares on their horses. At Boulac a déjeuner<br /> was spread, with a little wine list of 146 brands<br /> and vintages; and at the lovely Chateau Larose<br /> Pergauson Count Lakens received the Congress, a<br /> “lunch &quot; of a very choice description, although it<br /> was 8 p.m., being spread on the lawn with the<br /> finest crus. The drive through the vineyards was<br /> the more charming, as the vintage had just com-<br /> menced, and some picturesque groups of vintages<br /> were met en route.<br /> The Tnternational Congress next year is at<br /> Buda-Pesth. It will probably be more poly-<br /> glottic than this French one. The English<br /> members will do well to prepare their papers,<br /> decide upon their speakers, and arrange matters<br /> of precedent for all important matters; and also<br /> appoint a translator; as so often the very gist of<br /> an English speech is omitted or mistranslated.<br /> Continental rules of debate so differ from, and<br /> Continental customs at functions are so unlike<br /> our own, that preparation should be made for<br /> these differences, that our English journalists<br /> may take their proper position both in debate and<br /> socially. JAMES BAKER.<br /> *~ * ~ *<br /> * *<br /> LITERARY ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS.<br /> L. M.<br /> THE BURNS AND DUNLOP CORRESPONDENCE.<br /> Roberts. Fortnightly Review for November.<br /> BOOK COLLECTING As A FINE ART.<br /> Fortnightly Review for November.<br /> HOW TO COUNTERACT THE “PENNY DREADFUL.”<br /> Hugh Chisholm. Fortnightly Review for November.<br /> Julian Moore.<br /> A LATTER DAY CRITIC AND GEORGE ELIOT. Mrs<br /> Mark H. Judge. Humanitarian for November.<br /> SoME PortRAITs of SIR WALTER Scott. F. G. Kitton.<br /> Magazine of Art for November.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#496) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 42<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> CHRISTOPHER NORTH : The Scottish Walton. Alex.<br /> Cargill. Pall Mall Magazine for November.<br /> THOMAS CARLYLE. Mrs. Mayo. Leisure Hour for<br /> November.<br /> THE HOMEs OF THOMAS CARLYLE. Marion Leslie.<br /> Young Man for November.<br /> HISTORIAN, PoliticiaN, NOVELIST : An Interview with<br /> Mr. Justin McCarthy, M.P. Sarah A. Tooley. Young Man<br /> for November.<br /> CHRISTABEL ROSE COLERIDGE.<br /> November.<br /> THE ADVANCE OF ADVERTISEMENT.<br /> for November.<br /> LITERARY BOSTON THIRTY YEARS AGO.<br /> Swnday Magazine for<br /> Cornhill Magazine<br /> William Dean<br /> Howells. Harpers’ Magazine for November.<br /> THE ART OF TRANSLATING. Quarterly Review for<br /> October.<br /> FREEMAN, FROUDE, AND SEELEY. Qwarterly Review<br /> for October.<br /> THE NovKLS OF MARIA EDGEworth. Quarterly Review<br /> for October. .<br /> THE NEW DRAMA. Quarterly Review for October.<br /> SIR JAMES FITZJAMES STEPHEN. Edinburgh Review for<br /> October.<br /> THE FUTURE OF THE QUARTERLIES.<br /> Oct. 26.<br /> THE POET&#039;s FUNCTION As INTERPRETER.<br /> Oct. 19.<br /> “BLUGGINEss.” Spectator for Oct. 12.<br /> Book PLATEs. Builder for Oct. 19.<br /> AUTHORS THEIR Own PUBLISHERS : A Parisian Experi-<br /> ment. Robert H. Sherard. Westminster Gazette for Oct. 14.<br /> . NOTABLE REVIEWS OF OCTOBER.<br /> Of Professor Walker’s “The Greater Victorian Poets.”<br /> Speaker for Oct. 12.<br /> Of Henry Arthur Jones’s “The Renascence of the<br /> English Drama.” Spectator for Oct. 12.<br /> Of George Eliot. Daily Chronicle for Oct. 23.<br /> Of S. R. Crockett’s “The Men of the Moss Haggs.”<br /> Daily Chronicle for Oct. 24.<br /> Of Walter Peter’s “Miscellaneous<br /> Chronicle for Oct. 23.<br /> :k:<br /> Spectator for<br /> Spectator for<br /> Studies.” Daily<br /> 3% $ $:<br /> To counteract the “penny dreadful,” Mr. Hugh<br /> Chisholm urges, in the new number of the Fort-<br /> nightly, that the Board School curriculum be<br /> remedied to train boys thoroughly how to behave<br /> themselves, and that Board School teachers<br /> should have just as much control over their<br /> charges as public school masters have over theirs.<br /> He looks also, however, to some means of supply-<br /> ing good fiction as cheaply as bad—penny popu-<br /> lars of Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, the Kingsleys,<br /> Marryat, Stevenson, and others:<br /> Popular authors of ephemeral fiction now (he says) make<br /> a great deal more money than their labours are really<br /> worth, compared with the equal or greater efforts of workers<br /> and artists in other lines. But when the inevitable reaction<br /> comes they will be glad to reduce their prices, and make<br /> their profit by means of an enormous cheap circulation.<br /> Besides, as copyrights run out, the dead hand will compete<br /> with the living, and an enormous mass of readable fiction<br /> published in the last fifty years will of necessity bring the<br /> new authors into a proper perspective. *.<br /> Extracts from some hitherto unpublished letters<br /> of the poet Burns to Mrs. Dunlop are given in<br /> the paper on the subject in the Fortnightly, by<br /> L. M. Roberts, who remarks that “we cannot<br /> help feeling that the letters he had received from<br /> Mrs. Dunlop were among the papers which the<br /> dying man would fain have “put in a state of<br /> arrangement’ or buried in oblivion”; and that,<br /> Burns&#039;s complaints to her “ of the persistent.<br /> presence of his ‘old attendant, poverty,’ are so fre-<br /> quent and so bitter as to lay him open to the impu-<br /> tation of covert begging.” Mrs. Judge, in her<br /> article in the Humanitarian, defends the memory<br /> of George Eliot against the criticism by Mrs. Lynn<br /> Linton in a recent number of the JWoman at<br /> Home.<br /> The importance of the work of translation is:<br /> upheld by a writer in the Quarterly, as it was in.<br /> a much briefer article in Macmillan&#039;s last month.<br /> The following words of the Quarterly reviewer<br /> really represent the general view taken by both :<br /> Much translation doubtless is produced by hacks, and<br /> it is obviously poor enough. But such production is in<br /> reality only like the other hack or journeyman work which,<br /> fringes true and living literature. Translation worthy of<br /> the name has its proper place, and that no mean one, in the<br /> hierarchy of letters.<br /> And “the aim of a translation should be to<br /> produce an impression similar, or as nearly as may<br /> be similar, to that produced by the original.”<br /> While, as to poetry, the last word is Dryden&#039;s,<br /> “To be a thorough translator of poetry a man<br /> must be a thorough poet.”<br /> Maria Edgeworth’s novels occupy the con-<br /> sideration of a Quarterly reviewer, who finds that<br /> the novelist’s faults arose from the “cardinal<br /> defect” of moral teaching being her first object,<br /> and literature, or the interest of her tale, only<br /> second. But “in depicting scenes and characters,<br /> of Irish life Miss Edgeworth struck a new vein of<br /> material for fiction; ” and, thus interpreted, what<br /> Sir Walter Scott called her “admirable Irish<br /> portraits,” were in truth the inspiration of the<br /> Waverley novels; as they also were, on his own<br /> admission, of Tourgenieff’s pictures of the Russian<br /> peasantry.” Also in the Quarterly there is a<br /> comparison of “Freeman, Froude, and Seeley,”<br /> who, says the writer, were agreed only on one.<br /> point, i.e., in acknowledging the didactic view of<br /> history. “None of them would be content with<br /> mere literary brilliancy, nor with mere antiquarian<br /> correctness. Each of them accepts for the his-<br /> torian the duties and responsibilities of a political<br /> teacher,” though their method in carrying these<br /> out was widely different.<br /> Another article in the Quarterly is “The New<br /> Drama,” in which the writer says that psychology<br /> has been during the last twenty years upsetting<br /> our conventional ideas, but that the New Drama,<br /> is, as was the Elizabethan, a cosmopolite drama,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#497) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I 43<br /> “with the distinction, however, of self-conscious-<br /> mess.” As to Mr. Jones&#039;s plea for literature in<br /> drama, the writer concludes:<br /> Put into connection with all that is vital and preserva-<br /> tive of English life,” where is his “atmosphere’’ of literary<br /> plays P. If we have proved anything it is that we must no<br /> longer hope for a school of national dramatists; there is no<br /> point of union for a “school”; the “national” recedes<br /> before the peep show of the soul. But this peep show has,<br /> as we have seen, its limits. By respecting them we may<br /> Secure good plays; and occasionally great dramas like<br /> “Heimat” and “The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.” . . But<br /> honest workmanship and healthy purposes are much more<br /> vital than showy pretensions to literary immortality.<br /> *- a -º<br /> BOOK TALK.<br /> S&quot; EDWIN ARNOLD is having a number<br /> of his articles reprinted in volume form<br /> under the title “East and West.” The<br /> book, with illustrations by Mr. R. T. Pritchett,<br /> will be issued by Messrs. Longmans.<br /> Mr. George Meredith’s new novel, “The<br /> Amazing Marriage” is to appear this month, in<br /> two volumes, published by Messrs. Archibald<br /> Constable and Co. Mr. Hardy’s “Jude the<br /> Obscure,” due to-day (Nov. 1) from Messrs.<br /> Osgood McIlvaine, was “for various reasons”<br /> “abridged and modified in some degree&quot; when<br /> appearing serially, but will now be seen in its<br /> full form.<br /> Other principal works of fiction will include<br /> Mr. Grant Allen’s “British Barbarians,” to be<br /> published by Mr. Lame; “The Adventurer of the<br /> North,” by Mr. Gilbert Parker (Methuen); “The<br /> Little Pilgrim’s Progress,” by Mrs. Hodgson<br /> Burnett (Warne); Mr. Clark Russell’s volume<br /> of sea stories entitled “The Tale of the Ten ‘’<br /> (Chatto and Windus); a volume of stories by<br /> Mr. Quiller Couch (Cassell); “The Herb Moon,”<br /> by John Oliver Hobbes (Unwin); and Mr.<br /> Kipling&#039;s book of jungle stories (Macmillan).<br /> A psycho-physiological story entitled “An<br /> Evil Motherhood,” heralded as being “extremely<br /> original in its treatment,” is to be issued by Mr.<br /> |Elkin Matthews, the author of which is a new<br /> writer named Walter Ruding.<br /> “Chapman&#039;s Story Series” is another new issue,<br /> of course, from the old firm of Chapman and Hall.<br /> It began a few days ago with a volume containing<br /> “The Long Arm,” the detective story by Miss<br /> Mary E. Wilkins, which gained the Batcheller<br /> Syndicate prize, and other stories. The second<br /> volume will be “In a Hollow of the Hills,” by<br /> Bret Hart; Mr. Charles James is the author of<br /> the third, and Mr. Oswald Crawfurd of the<br /> fourth.<br /> The “Pierrot Library,” which comes from the<br /> Bodley Head, is one of the latest series of novels<br /> to be projected. The volumes will be 2s. 6d. net<br /> cash, and Mr. Lane has engaged Mr. Aubrey<br /> Beardsley to design title pages and covers.<br /> “Pierrot,” the first volume of the series, will be<br /> by Mr. de Vere Stackpoole; Mr. Egerton Castle<br /> and Mr. A. T. G. Price will contribute the next<br /> two.<br /> The “Fleur de Lys Series&quot; of novels emanates<br /> from Messrs. Jarrold and Sons, the first story<br /> being by Mr. R. D. Chetwode, entitled “The Lord<br /> of Lowedale.”<br /> Mr. Stanley Weyman&#039;s historical romance,<br /> “The Red Cockade,” will be published at the<br /> beginning of December by Messrs. Longmans.<br /> “Sweetheart Travellers” is the engaging title<br /> of Mr. Crockett&#039;s forthcoming book, which will<br /> be illustrated by Mr. Gordon Browne. Messrs.<br /> Wells and Gardner will publish it.<br /> Short stories by various writers, intended to<br /> show each at his best, is the plan of a volume<br /> entitled “XX. Stories,” which Mr. Fisher Unwin<br /> is about to bring out. The contributors to the<br /> book will include Mr. Justin M&#039;Carthy, Mr.<br /> Manville Fenn, Mr. Barry Pain, Mr. Brandon<br /> Thomas, and others.<br /> “Robert Louis Stevenson,” by Annie Mac-<br /> donell, is the forthcoming volume in the<br /> Contemporary Writers Series, published by<br /> Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton. The important<br /> “Wailima Letters”—the correspondence during<br /> several years of the late Mr. Stevenson to Mr.<br /> Sidney Colvin—is published to-day (Nov. 1) by<br /> Messrs. Methuen. Mr. Colvin is preparing to<br /> write the biography of Stevenson, though a year<br /> or two will elapse before the work can be ready.<br /> “Weir of Hermiston,” the novelist’s unfinished<br /> work, will be published this season by Messrs.<br /> Chatto and Windus.<br /> Miss Marie Corelli has during the month issued,<br /> through Messrs. Methuen, a new novel called<br /> “The Sorrows of Satan,” to which she prefixes a<br /> notice stating that “no copies of this book are<br /> sent out for review.” -<br /> Two new novels by Mrs. L. T. Meade will<br /> appear immediately, “The Voice of the Charmer,”<br /> which Messrs. Chatto and Windus will publish;<br /> and “A Princess of the Gutter,” a story of<br /> Christian Socialists’ work in East London, to be<br /> issued by Messrs. Wells, Gardner, and Co.<br /> Life in Paris during the French Revolution is<br /> the subject of a novel by Mr. Harold Spender,<br /> entitled “At the Sign of the Guillotine,” which<br /> Mr. Unwin will publish in a few days. It is<br /> woven round the love-romance of one of the<br /> great revolutionists,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#498) ################################################<br /> <br /> I44 THE<br /> A UTHOR.<br /> The biography of Admiral of the Fleet, Sir<br /> Henry Keppel, which Messrs. Bentley are to<br /> publish, will have illustrations by the late Sir<br /> Oswald Brierley, marine painter to the Queen.<br /> This firm will also publish a new work by Miss<br /> Julie Sutter, entitled “England&#039;s Greatest<br /> Problem.” This problem is poverty, and the<br /> author concludes that ours is pre-eminently the<br /> land of vagrants.<br /> Among coming biographies is one of the well-<br /> known actor Mr. John Hare, written by Mr.<br /> Edgar Pemberton.<br /> The Rev. C. H. Simpkinson, rector of Farnham,<br /> is the biographer of the late Dr. Thorold, Bishop<br /> of Winchester, who left a mass of material to<br /> work upon. , Messrs. Isbister are the publishers.<br /> “Comrades,” by Annabel Gray, is now pub-<br /> lished by Mr. Henry J. Drane, Salisbury House,<br /> Salisbury-square. Price 6s. I vol.<br /> Mrs. Edmonds desires to state that the<br /> “Pappas Narkissos&quot; of her friend Demetrius<br /> Bikelas was translated by her and published in a<br /> magazine four years ago, but not, as in the<br /> present case, “adapted&#039;’ to meet the views of the<br /> S.P.C.K.<br /> The “Tife and Letters of Admiral Sir B. J.<br /> Sullivan ’’ is in preparation by his son, Mr. H. N.<br /> Sullivan, and the book will be published by Mr.<br /> Murray. Canon Rawnsley has written the bio-<br /> graphy of Dr. Harvey Goodwin, the late Bishop<br /> of Carlisle, which will come from the same firm.<br /> Mr. H. D. Traill has written “The Life of Sir<br /> John Franklin” from documents hitherto unpub-<br /> lished, and the work will be published by Mr.<br /> Murray.<br /> A new volume by Vernon Lee, entitled “Re-<br /> naissance Fancies and Studies,” is to be published<br /> by Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co.<br /> Mr. William Watson will be represented this<br /> season by a volume of verse, which, as yet, how-<br /> ever, remains untitled. A volume of poems by<br /> Mr. C. W. Dalmon, entitled “Song Favours,” will<br /> be issued shortly also by Mr. Lane. Mr. H. C.<br /> Beeching has edited, and Mr. Walter Crane<br /> illustrated, “A Book of Christmas Verse,” which<br /> will appear immediately from Messrs. Methuen.<br /> “Songs for Silverwig,” by Mr. Norman Gale,<br /> with illustrations by Miss Helen Stratton, will<br /> be published by Messrs. Constable. Before long<br /> the volume by the late Christina Rossetti may be<br /> expected from Messrs. Macmillan; while Miss<br /> Helen Fowler will issue a second book, “Verses<br /> Wise and Otherwise,” through Messrs. Cassell.<br /> Mr. Reginald Blunt has written a book on<br /> “The Carlyles&#039; Chelsea Home,” which is to<br /> appear from Messrs. Bell in time for the<br /> centenary of the birth of Carlyle a month hence.<br /> The frontispiece is an unpublished photograph,<br /> of which the sage wrote, “The best likeness.<br /> known to me.” -<br /> Five books of equal importance within the last.<br /> four weeks were: “The Biography of Professor<br /> John Stuart Blackie,” by Anna M. Stoddart<br /> (Blackwood), and that of “Hans Christian<br /> Andersen,” by R. Nisbet Bain (Lawrence and<br /> Bullen); “Reminiscences of Thirty-five years of<br /> My Life,” by Sir Joseph Crowe (Murray);<br /> “Anima Poetae,” from Coleridge&#039;s notebooks,<br /> edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge (Heinemann);<br /> and Dr. Skelton’s reminiscences of Froude,<br /> Disraeli, Thackeray, and others, in his volume,<br /> “The Table Talk of Shirley” (Blackwood). In<br /> the last is this glimpse of how, in 1870, Froude<br /> regarded his critics: “Some day, I think, I shall<br /> take my reviewers all round, and give them a<br /> piece of my mind. I acknowledge to five real<br /> mistakes in the whole book—twelve volumes—<br /> about twenty trifling slips equivalent to “i&#039;s&quot;<br /> not dotted and “t’s ” not crossed; and that is all<br /> that the utmost malignity has discovered. Every<br /> One of the rascals has made a dozen blunders of<br /> his own, too, while detecting one of mine.”<br /> The literature of the Victoria Cross and of<br /> its recipients is to have an addition in a volume<br /> by Mr. D. H. Parry, which Messrs. Cassell will<br /> issue. Besides interviewing many of the heroes<br /> whose valour he tells of, the author has had<br /> resort to War Office documents in order to ensure<br /> accuracy.<br /> The fruits of the past month in periodical<br /> literature were the Country House (J. T. Brown,<br /> publisher) and the Cycle Magazine (Cycle Press<br /> Dimited) both illustrated sixpenny monthlies on<br /> generally accepted lines. A new international<br /> review, the Cosmopolis, devoted to politics, litera-<br /> ture, science, and art, will be begun in January,<br /> the publisher to be Mr. Fisher Unwin, and the<br /> price 2s. 6d. monthly. The leading writers of<br /> England, France, and Germany are to contribute<br /> to it, and in each case the original English,<br /> French, and German will be printed. The short<br /> story is to be an “interesting feature,” and that<br /> in the first number will be from the pen of<br /> M. Paul Bourget.<br /> What will doubtless prove a popular collection.<br /> in these days of the exaltation of sport is “The<br /> Songs and Ballads of Sport and Pastime,” which<br /> IMr. W. W. Tomlinson has compiled for a volume<br /> in the Canterbury series published by Messrs.<br /> Walter Scott Limited. Present-day singers are<br /> represented by Mr. Andrew Lang, Mr. Norman.<br /> Gale, Mr. William Sharp, Mr. Coulson Kernahan,<br /> and others; while there are also selections from<br /> Fielding, Ramsay, Scott, and Charles Kingsley.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#499) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I45&quot;<br /> Dr. Isaac Taylor has just completed the work<br /> “Names and their Histories: Elements of His-<br /> torical Geography and Topography,” on which he<br /> has been engaged for four years. It will be pub-<br /> lished by Messrs. Rivington, Percival, and Co.<br /> Mr. Alfred H. Miles is the editor of a book of<br /> “Anecdotes of Natural History,” which will be<br /> published shortly by Messrs. Hutchinson. It is<br /> to be a study, in a popular form, of the habits<br /> and customs of animals, and suitable as a manual<br /> for teachers. Among other works announced are:<br /> “British Birds&#039; Nests,” by Mr. R. Kearton, with<br /> an introduction by Dr. Bowdler Sharpe (Cassell);<br /> “The Great Rift Valley,” being an account of a<br /> journey to Baringo and Mount Kenia by Mr.<br /> J. W. Gregory (Murray); and a volume of<br /> hunting sketches in Africa by Mr. Frederick W.<br /> Kirby, entitled “From Kahlamba to Libombo”<br /> (Blackwood).<br /> Mr. Joseph Hatton&#039;s new novel “When Greek<br /> meets Greek: A Tale of Love and War: ” will be<br /> published or was published in London and Phila-<br /> delphia on Nov. 14, by Messrs. Hutchinson and<br /> Messrs. Lippincott. It is running serially in the<br /> People on this side of the Atlantic, and in Leslie&#039;s<br /> Weekly on the other, and by arrangement with<br /> the author in Melbourne, New Zealand, Tasmania,<br /> and the Transvaal. Mr. Hatton appears to be<br /> satisfied with his “three-volumes-in-one&quot; experi-<br /> ence, his first experiment in that direction being<br /> with “The Banishment of Jessop Blythe.” His<br /> new book appears in similar form, but he drops<br /> his yellow cover for something more conventional.<br /> It was “By Order of the Czar” that started the<br /> yellow craze, and Mr. Hatton hoped he had<br /> made it his trade mark, as if an author could<br /> rely upon any other individuality than that which<br /> belongs to the work itself. -<br /> The new volume of the “Dictionary of National<br /> Biography” devotes eight and a half columns to<br /> the life of the forgotten great Englishman, who<br /> was lately reintroduced to English history by<br /> Mr. James Baker in his volume upon the life of<br /> this hero. Peter Payne for four centuries has<br /> been forgotten and ignored by his countrymen.<br /> Płow singular a circumstance is it that this life<br /> of the great link between Wyclif and Luther should<br /> appear in the very year when such an onslaught<br /> is made upon Wyclif&#039;s teaching, and when Eng-<br /> land is again asked to step back under Rome&#039;s<br /> thrall. Justice is now done to Payne&#039;s self-<br /> sacrificing noble life. He says (one writer in the<br /> Dictionary) Peter Payne was the man who<br /> induced Sir J. Oldcastle to follow Wyclif.<br /> Mr. Sydney Hodge&#039;s serial story, “When Leaves<br /> were Green,” now running in the Argosy, will be<br /> republished in 3 vol. form by Messrs. Chatto and<br /> Windus in January,<br /> Mr. William Addison will have ready, early in:<br /> November, to be published by Mr. Horace Cox,<br /> a new volume entitled “Crimean and other Short<br /> Stories.”<br /> Mrs. Alfred Baldwin’s new book, “The Shadow<br /> on the Blind,” will be published immediately by<br /> Messrs. J. M. Dent and Co. It is a collection of .<br /> modern ghost stories.<br /> “One Woman&#039;s Wisdom,” the Australian story<br /> which Messrs. Routledge and Sons bought from.<br /> Miss A. G. Murphy, and published last month, is.<br /> that lady’s very first attempt at story writing of<br /> any description. She wrote it in one hour weekly<br /> from March to December, the actual time devoted<br /> to the work being thus only about forty hours.<br /> A special colonial edition is about to be published.<br /> Mr. Daniel Chamier has written a handy<br /> volume entitled “Law relating to Literary Copy-<br /> right and to Authorship and Publication of<br /> Books,” which has been published by Mr.<br /> Effingham Wilson. Within the compass of 150.<br /> pages, Mr. Chamier has collected the law relating<br /> to copyright in literature as distinguished from<br /> artistic, musical, and dramatic copyright. The<br /> volume will be found to be useful and convenient<br /> to all concerned with literary property. It is<br /> intelligibly compiled, and deals succinctly with the<br /> mass of statutes, common law rules and prece-<br /> dents which make up the Cumbrous code by<br /> which literary ownership is governed. Mr.<br /> Chamier has dealt usefully with a large number<br /> of recent decisions, but it is inevitable that the<br /> effect of his labours should be to once more<br /> demonstrate the urgent need for the consolidating<br /> statute on the lines of Lord Monkswell&#039;s Bill<br /> which was drafted by the Society.<br /> “The National Portrait Gallery of British<br /> Musicians,” edited by John Warriner, Mus. Doc.,<br /> of Trinity College, Dublin, will shortly be issued<br /> by Messrs, Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. This<br /> ought to prove a very interesting volume to those<br /> interested in music and musicians.<br /> “The Dowager Lady Tremaine” is the title of<br /> a story by Mr. J. B. Alliott (Elliot Stock).<br /> “A Handbook of Theology,” by the Rev. John<br /> Harries (Elliot Stock), is, as its name denotes, a<br /> volume of lectures or chapters on various points<br /> of doctrine. The writer apparently belongs to<br /> the Methodist Episcopal Church.<br /> Work-a-day Poems, by Fanchon (Reveirs<br /> Brothers, Greystoke-place), is a little volume of<br /> simple verse. They should be confined to private<br /> circulation among the friends of the writer.<br /> “Shiloh” and other Poems, by Reginald Tavey<br /> (Elliot Stock), are verses of a religious or<br /> meditative kind. They may be accepted as an<br /> early effort.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#500) ################################################<br /> <br /> I46<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> “Spring&#039;s Immortality,” by Mackenzie Bell<br /> (Ward, Lock, and Bowden). We have learned to<br /> look for good work from Mr. Mackenzie Bell.<br /> The new volume is full of fine verse. The follow-<br /> ing sonnet belongs to the season:<br /> OLD YEAR LEAVES.<br /> Tossed by the storms of Autumn chill and drear,<br /> The leaves fall auburn-tinted, and the trees -<br /> Stand reft and bare, yet on the silent leas<br /> The leaves lie drifted still—while cold, austere,<br /> Stern Winter waits—while early snowdrops cheer<br /> The woodland shadows—while the happy bees<br /> Are wakened by the balmy western breeze,<br /> And birds and boughs proclaim that Spring is here.<br /> So lost hopes severed by the stress of life<br /> Lie all unburied yet before our eyes,<br /> Though none but we regard their mute decay;<br /> And ever amid this stir and moil and strife<br /> Fresh aims and growing purposes arise<br /> Above the faded hopes of yesterday.<br /> “Translated * is the third edition of a touching<br /> little memorial of the life and death of a boy.<br /> This little book, too, is religious (Marshall<br /> Brothers).<br /> The author of “Somnia, Medici,” Mr. J. A.<br /> Goodchild, appears with another volume of verse.<br /> Let us be permitted to quote one poem to show<br /> the “quality” of the poet:<br /> WIOLIN SONG.<br /> Gentle music murmurs low<br /> In mine ear.<br /> I am where the roses blow<br /> Upon bushes set arow,<br /> And anear.<br /> Thrills and throbs a violin<br /> At that casement, where within<br /> Sits my dear.<br /> Pirst an old-world song she played,<br /> Sweet in tone ;<br /> Then a little pause she made<br /> Ere in fairyland she strayed<br /> On alone;<br /> And aerial minstrelsy<br /> Mazed my soul with melody<br /> All her own.<br /> From the chamber where she lay<br /> - Rose aloft<br /> Such a music as a fay<br /> Carols in the buds of May,<br /> Sinking oft<br /> To brief silence, whence again<br /> Fluttered forth some newborn strain<br /> Sweet and soft.<br /> Ah, again that longdrawn note<br /> Which prevails.<br /> From the pairing throstle&#039;s throat<br /> Never sweeter sound might float.<br /> Nightingales,<br /> Ye might never thus prolong<br /> Such finale to your song. |<br /> Hush . It fails.<br /> Mrs. Sitwell has just produced a children&#039;s<br /> story called “In Far Japan.” The scene is laid<br /> in Japan as it was ninety years ago.<br /> CORRESPONDENCE.<br /> I.—DELAYS IN PAYMENT.<br /> MONGST the many benefits which the<br /> Society of Authors confers on writers not<br /> the least is the indirect help of publicity,<br /> the fear of which probably rights many wrongs<br /> without further ado.<br /> Some months ago, a correspondence was carried<br /> on in this paper concerning the long delays in<br /> paying for published articles, in which some of<br /> the minor firms indulged, to the serious inconve-<br /> nience (if not worse) of those who wrote for<br /> them from dire necessity.<br /> Since that time (when a firm attitude on the<br /> subject of regular payments was advocated espe-<br /> cially as desirable on the part of those who had<br /> little to fear, being well-known and popular<br /> writers), it has come under our notice that there<br /> is a marked improvement in respect of this diffi-<br /> culty, no doubt largely brought about by the<br /> fear of doubtful transactions being brought to<br /> the light of day by this Society.<br /> This improvement is likely to continue if<br /> writers are clear and explicit in requiring to<br /> know the terms, times of payment, &amp;c., of any<br /> periodical for which they may be intending to<br /> write, before undertaking to do so. R.<br /> II.-LITERARY BLACKLEGs.<br /> “An Author,” writing on Mr. Sherard&#039;s obser-<br /> vations about “literary blacklegs,” points out, at<br /> too great length for publication in these columns,<br /> the mischief which such a person may do. He is<br /> an author to begin with, but not one whose books<br /> bring in much solid proofs of popularity; he<br /> makes it his business, therefore, to become a<br /> reviewer for as many papers as he can ; he hangs<br /> about publishers in the hope of getting appointed<br /> an adviser; in both capacities he exercises the<br /> envy and malice which belong to the unsuccessful.<br /> The name of such a man should not, our corre-<br /> spondent suggests, be “privately ’’ printed but<br /> publicly.<br /> Is the “Author’’ speaking of an imaginary or<br /> of a real person P Does he really know any man<br /> who possesses, and exercises, this kind of power P<br /> Can he prove that such a man is able to<br /> review the same book in half a dozen papers;<br /> does really review the same book for half<br /> a dozen papers, and with the rancour which<br /> the writer attributes ? If he does know such<br /> a man he might be doing good service by for-<br /> warding to the secretary (I) his name; (2) the<br /> list of papers for which he writes; (3) all<br /> the reviews of one book written by him. As for<br /> the whispering depreciation in a publisher&#039;s ears,<br /> that may be omitted, because the only kind of<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#501) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I 47<br /> depreciation to which the publisher would listen<br /> is that of which the critic would know nothing—<br /> the demand for his rival’s books.<br /> III.-MoRE ON DELAYs.<br /> J. S. M. adds another to the many complaints<br /> concerning certain London journals which invite<br /> contributions, and then neither return them nor<br /> answer any letters. He complains, further, of<br /> delays in sending proof; of delays in publishing;<br /> and of delays in sending the cheque. He also<br /> complains of the autocratic conduct of the editors,<br /> who place their own price upon a contribution.<br /> Well; but the editor must put his own price upon<br /> the work. He knows what his paper can afford<br /> to give and is accustomed to give. It is hard—<br /> very hard—upon the author to keep him in<br /> suspense; it is doubly hard to accept the work and<br /> then not to publish it; but the author has him-<br /> self to blame. He has only to say, “I offer you<br /> this work on the condition that you pay me so<br /> much for it, and that you pay me at once.” Then<br /> the editor can accept or not as he pleases. But<br /> the author says he cannot afford to take this inde-<br /> pendent line. Then he must make the best of<br /> what he cannot mend.<br /> IV.—THE DIALOGUE STORY.<br /> I keep reading in the Author and other<br /> journals that the new vogue in fiction—tales told<br /> by dialogue—has been started by Miss Violet<br /> Hunt, Mr. Anthony Hope, and Black and JWhite.<br /> Surely Mr. Rudyard Kipling, in his earlier<br /> Indian stories, was the first to set the fashion<br /> in this respect. “The Gadsbys,” “Under the<br /> Deodars,” &amp;c., appeared long before those other<br /> writers had commenced to publish their “Stories<br /> in Scenes,” and who were doubtless inspired to<br /> follow in his wake. As many other authors are<br /> likely to follow suit, it seems only right that Mr.<br /> Kipling should be recognised as the leader of this<br /> new school of fiction. CHARLEs E. HALL.<br /> W.--THE SOCIETY As PUBLISHERs.<br /> So much has been written and said lately con-<br /> cerning publishers and their profits in proportion<br /> to risks that one wonders why the Society of<br /> Authors do not take up publishing as a business.<br /> Practically every English author of note is a<br /> member of the Society. Why should they not<br /> issue their books through the Society, and why<br /> should not the Society offer to young authors<br /> an amelioration of the advantages (?) held out to<br /> them by publishers generally P<br /> Surely the cream of the literary clientèle would<br /> be secured at once, the finest advice is to be had<br /> on the premises, so to speak, and a fair profit,<br /> after expenses, secured.<br /> I am merely a hard-working magazine writer,<br /> and no novelist, if one is judged by the published-<br /> book standard, but, with an eye to the future, I<br /> am quite willing to increase my subscription to<br /> £5 a year for four years in order to give the<br /> thing a fair trial. Doubtless there are hundreds.<br /> more who would do the same thing, but it seems.<br /> to me that if a few popular novelists like to put<br /> their heads together success would be assured<br /> without pecuniary assistance at all. If the “new”<br /> publisher with his solitary office and the boy can<br /> do so well, what a future should be before the<br /> English Authors’ Guild ! F.<br /> VI.-WHY NOT A CoMPETITION.<br /> I see that the Author invites suggestions; and<br /> it has struck me that a competition, once a year,<br /> of a literary kind, might do much to increase the<br /> attractiveness of a magazine that cannot be too<br /> well known.<br /> Would it be possible for the society to offer a<br /> prize for the best short prose idyll and the best<br /> short poem by young authors who have published<br /> not less than one book, or one set of magazine.<br /> articles, not at their own expense P and, also, in<br /> the event of the MSS. reaching the required<br /> standard of merit, might the two successful<br /> papers be printed in the Christmas number of<br /> the Author P A nominal fee of Is. for the<br /> reading of every paper sent in (the proceeds, after<br /> paying the reader, to be devoted to a pension<br /> fund or some other literary work) would be but<br /> a small expense to contributors, and the prospect<br /> of having one’s name acknowledged by the best<br /> authors would be of incalculable value to any<br /> little known or struggling writer.<br /> I have myself written two stories of about 300.<br /> pages. With the copyright of the first I un-<br /> fortunately parted for the sum of £60; and<br /> fresh editions of the book are still selling at the<br /> end of eight years. For my second story I<br /> received £60 on the first edition, and I retained<br /> the copyright. I have also been fairly successful<br /> with short articles and a dramatic study. I<br /> wrote a short story once for a very well known.<br /> magazine, and for a month&#039;s work received<br /> £2 IOs. I have seldom been paid according to<br /> the quality of my work, I do not mean that it.<br /> is better than other peoples&#039;; but that, being<br /> independent of my pen, I need never grudge time.<br /> or trouble; and that I often rewrite and revise<br /> a MS. from five to seven times before sending it<br /> out. I have a story coming out in a popular<br /> juvenile paper this Christmas, and a promise<br /> from another publisher to read another MS.; but<br /> I am an unknown author, in the sense that I can<br /> command no certain market for what I write,<br /> and that I often send an article to half a dozen,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#502) ################################################<br /> <br /> 148<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> publishers before it is accepted. Speaking for<br /> myself, one year&#039;s numbers of the Author free<br /> would be a much valued prize, and I believe if<br /> the competition that I have suggested could be<br /> held once a year, that the pleasure and stimulus<br /> given would be very great, provided the trouble<br /> of reading the papers sent in were not beyond the<br /> time of the society, which I know must necessarily<br /> be limited. A LITTLE KNowN AUTHOR.<br /> (Oct. 5, 1895.<br /> VII.-MUSIC AND POETRY.<br /> Tn reply to Mr. Sherard, I would say that I<br /> think there need be no more mystery in the<br /> inability of so many musicians to be poets, or<br /> poets to be musicians, than of most musicians<br /> to be capable mathematicians, although the<br /> principles of melodious sound have a mathe-<br /> matical basis.<br /> It seems to me that superexcellence is rarely to<br /> be found together in the spheres of both emotion<br /> and of reason. Hence we find the scientific<br /> insight of Darwin to be unaccompanied by much<br /> musical or poetic taste; the rhythmic talent of<br /> ;Sir Walter Scott or Mr. Gilbert to be remarkably<br /> destitute of a knowledge of musical melody, and<br /> the most subtle races of the East or of old to be<br /> deficient in musical harmony; while the encyclo-<br /> paedic information possessed by the late Professor<br /> Robertson Smith was unaccompanied by even<br /> average musical taste.<br /> Music, in its present state, being the youngest<br /> of the fine arts, as well as the most artificial if<br /> not most original, it is natural to expect to find<br /> side by side in some of its exponents the emotional<br /> faculties peculiar to the “heir of all the ages,”<br /> associated with the rational capacity characteristic<br /> of more primitive man, so long as evolution<br /> remains so one-sided. It may be that, in time, the<br /> man of genius will exhibit the loftiest qualities of<br /> the whole; but as yet this is generally unobserv-<br /> able.<br /> I very much doubt the commonly received<br /> dictum as to Darwin having once possessed and<br /> afterwards lost, in the pursuit of science, even an<br /> average taste for music and poetry; as he pre-<br /> sumably followed his bent, along the line of least<br /> resistance, for the One quality need no more<br /> interfere with the other, than love with genius.<br /> The one would rather supplement the other, and<br /> thus both prove mutually recreative—assuming<br /> both to be genuine. It is, of course, different in<br /> the case of a practising artist, whose manipulative<br /> skill would suffer by devotion to science alone;<br /> but, as regards mere passive appreciation, the<br /> culture of the more rational side of our complex<br /> nature need in no way interfere with the other.<br /> Similarly, while science may modify man-made<br /> theology, it cannot destroy Divine religion.<br /> As music and poetry somewhat resemble each<br /> other in their qualities of rhythm, melody,<br /> harmony, and form, it would seem as if excellence<br /> in the one would imply success in the other; but,<br /> seeing how often philosophic poetry is popularly<br /> unpalatable if not unintelligible, while the more<br /> popular is comparatively superficial, we need not<br /> wonder if even the most popular music and the<br /> most popular poetry are so rarely producible by<br /> the same person. Both require a natural gift to<br /> be developed by an artificial culture; and life is<br /> generally too short, while art is usually too wide,<br /> or nature is mostly too chary of her best, to<br /> secure the highest qualities of head, heart, and<br /> will, or of science, music, poetry, and wisdom, as<br /> well as popular appreciation, in even the highest<br /> genius yet evolved.<br /> The how seems simple enough, but the why is<br /> still sufficiently mysterious to rank among the pro-<br /> found problems awaiting solution by the coming<br /> science of the soul. PHINLAY GLENELG<br /> VIII.-MIsquotATIONs.<br /> Mrs. Henry George Corbett writes to complain<br /> of misquotations in criticism. Her recently<br /> published novel, “Deb o&#039; Mally&#039;s,” has been<br /> noticed in a certain paper. A quotation from her<br /> book was printed in the notice. The passage as<br /> it stands in the book and as it was presented in<br /> the paper is as follows:<br /> The girl was working in front of one of the many windows<br /> which lighted the huge room, and the westering sun was<br /> frolicking daintily among the wonderful luxuriance of her<br /> red-gold hair, enhancing its brightness till it became<br /> dazzling to look upon. Perhaps she had become aware<br /> that she was being regarded with unusual interest, for her<br /> heavily-fringed violet eyes had a look in them which would<br /> have been considered haughty, had her position been less<br /> humble, and the pearly purity of her complexion was<br /> suffused by a brighter tint than usual.<br /> The following is the passage as it appears in<br /> the paper:<br /> The western sun is frolicking daintily among the<br /> wonderful luxuriance of her red-gold hair, enhancing its<br /> brightness till it beams dazzling to look upon. Her heavily-<br /> fringed, violet eyes had a look in them which would have<br /> been haughty had her position been less humble, and the<br /> pearly purity of her complexion was suffused by a brighter<br /> tint than usual.<br /> It will be seen that the verb westering has<br /> been changed into the adjective western, and that<br /> the rules of grammar have been painfully violated<br /> by putting the auxiliary verb first in the present<br /> and then in the past tense. By substituting the<br /> word beams for the word became, my critic has<br /> managed to make the sentence unintelligible,<br /> and by omitting, firstly, two whole lines and,<br /> secondly, the verb “considered,” he has produced<br /> a “quotation ” which possesses neither sense nor<br /> cohesion.	https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/283/1895-11-01-The-Author-6-6.pdf	publications, The Author
282	https://historysoa.com/items/show/282	The Author, Vol. 06 Issue 05 (October 1895)	<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.+06+Issue+05+%28October+1895%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 Issue 05 (October 1895)</a>			<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</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>	1895-10-01-The-Author-6-5					101–120																		<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=6">6</a>											<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1895-10-01">1895-10-01</a>							5			18951001	C be Elu t bor.<br /> (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors.<br /> Monthly.)<br /> con DUCTED BY wal. TER BES ANT.<br /> Wol. VI.-No. 5.]<br /> OCTOBER 1, 1895.<br /> [PRICE SIXPENCE.<br /> For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are<br /> signed or initialled the Authors alone are<br /> responsible. None of the papers or para-<br /> graphs must be taken as earpressing the<br /> collective opinions of the committee unless<br /> they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br /> Thring, Sec. -<br /> HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all<br /> remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and<br /> requests that all members not receiving an answer to<br /> important communications within two days will write to him<br /> without delay. All remittances show.ld be crossed Union<br /> Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered<br /> letter only.<br /> Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on<br /> all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub-<br /> jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are<br /> returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS.<br /> *—- 2--&quot;<br /> ,-- we ---,<br /> WARNINGS AND ADWICE,<br /> I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.-It is not generally<br /> understood that the author, as the vendor, has the<br /> absolute right of drafting the agreement upon<br /> whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out.<br /> Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In<br /> every form of business, this among others, the right of<br /> drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or<br /> has the control of the property.<br /> 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.–In selling Serial Rights remember<br /> that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that<br /> is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you<br /> object to this, insert a clause to that effect.<br /> 3. STAMP You R AGREEMENTs. – Readers are most<br /> URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements<br /> immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected<br /> for two weeks, a fine of £IO must be paid before the agree-<br /> ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every<br /> case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter<br /> which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The<br /> author may be assured that the other party to the agree-<br /> ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society,<br /> to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of<br /> members stamped for them at no eaſpense to themselves<br /> eaccept the cost of the stamp.<br /> 4. AsCERTAIN WHAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES TO<br /> BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an<br /> arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi-<br /> ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he<br /> reserved for himself.<br /> 5. LITERARY AGENTS.—Be very careful. You cannot be<br /> too careful as to the person whom you appoint as your<br /> agent. Remember that you place your property almost un-<br /> reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting<br /> the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience<br /> of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone.<br /> 6. CoST OF PRODUCTION.--Never sign any agreement of<br /> which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part,<br /> until you have proved the figures.<br /> 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.—Never enter into any cor-<br /> respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad-<br /> vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced<br /> friends or by this Society.<br /> 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any accownt whatever,<br /> bind yourself down for future work to anyone.<br /> 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or<br /> responsibility whatever without advice.<br /> Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a M.S. has been re-<br /> fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises<br /> they may put forward, for the production of the work.<br /> II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American<br /> rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any<br /> agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the<br /> publisher, unless for a substantial consideration.<br /> I2. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper,<br /> either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright,<br /> without advice.<br /> I3. ADVERTISEMENTS. – Keep some control over the<br /> advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in<br /> the agreement.<br /> I4. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any<br /> other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy,<br /> charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do. with<br /> business men. Be yourself a business man.<br /> Society&#039;s Offices :-<br /> 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN&#039;s INN FIELDs.<br /> *—- ~&quot;<br /> - * ~<br /> HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br /> I. VERY member has a right to ask 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 /> business or the administration of his property. If the advice<br /> Sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member<br /> has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the<br /> case is such that Counsel’s opinion, is desirable, the Com-<br /> mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this<br /> without any cost to the member.<br /> 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br /> and publisher&#039;s agreements do not generally fall within the<br /> M 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#456) ################################################<br /> <br /> I O2<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br /> to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually<br /> engaged upon such questions for us.<br /> 3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past<br /> accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in<br /> order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree-<br /> ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively<br /> so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any<br /> agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor-<br /> mation thus obtained may prove invaluable.<br /> 4. If the examination of your previous business trans-<br /> actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should<br /> take advice as to a change of publishers.<br /> 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro-<br /> posed document to the Society for examination.<br /> 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in<br /> the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish-<br /> ing firm in the country.<br /> 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you<br /> are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are<br /> reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing<br /> the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen-<br /> dence of the writer.<br /> 8. Send to the Editor of the Awthor notes of everything<br /> important to literature that you may hear or meet with.<br /> 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of<br /> members’ agreements and their preservation in a fireproof<br /> safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con-<br /> fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who<br /> will keep the key of the safe. The Society mow offers:–(I)<br /> To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To<br /> stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon<br /> them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments<br /> due according to agreements.<br /> *- - -º<br /> THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE,<br /> EMBERS are informed :<br /> I. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate takes charge of<br /> the business of members of the Society. That it<br /> submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree-<br /> ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene-<br /> rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business<br /> details.<br /> 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured<br /> will be forwarded upon detailed application.<br /> 3. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate works only for those<br /> members of the Society whose work possesses a market<br /> value.<br /> 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations<br /> whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia-<br /> tions are placed ea clusively in its hands, and that all<br /> communications relating thereto are referred to it.<br /> 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by<br /> appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days&#039;<br /> notice should be given.<br /> 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi-<br /> cations prºmptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent<br /> to defray postage.<br /> 7. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate does not invite MSS.<br /> without previous correspondence; does not hold itself<br /> responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that<br /> in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray<br /> postage.<br /> 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for<br /> lectures by some of the leading members of the Society;<br /> that it has a “Transfer Department’’ for the sale and<br /> purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register<br /> of Wants and Wanted ” is open. Members are invited to<br /> communicate their requirements to the Manager.<br /> There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services<br /> will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It<br /> is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the<br /> Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in<br /> the Syndicate.<br /> _**<br /> *-* * *-*.<br /> NOTICES.<br /> HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the<br /> Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br /> of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very<br /> heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br /> many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br /> 6s. 6d. subscription for the year.<br /> The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and<br /> communications on all subjects connected with literature<br /> from members and others. Nothing can do more good to<br /> the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive,<br /> and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this<br /> work send their names and the special subjects on which<br /> they are willing to write P<br /> Communications for the Awthor should reach the Editor<br /> not later than the 21st of each month.<br /> All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether<br /> members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate<br /> to the Editor any points connected with their work which<br /> it would be advisable in the general interest to publish.<br /> Members and others who wish their MSS. read are<br /> requested not to send them to the Office without previously<br /> communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable<br /> despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in<br /> which they are received. It must also be distinctly under-<br /> stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances,<br /> undertake the publication of MSS.<br /> The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at<br /> 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary<br /> for information, rules of admission, &amp;c. -<br /> Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br /> have paid their subscriptions for the year P. If they will do<br /> this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker&#039;s<br /> order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the<br /> trouble of sending out a reminder.<br /> Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br /> warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a<br /> most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding<br /> for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they<br /> would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five<br /> years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest<br /> or dishonest P Of course they would not. Why then<br /> hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them-<br /> selves into literary bondage for three or five years P<br /> Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are<br /> requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15<br /> per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble<br /> of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the<br /> pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding<br /> is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be<br /> added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands<br /> at £9 48. The figures in our book are as near the exact<br /> truth as can be procured; but a printer&#039;s, or a binder’s,<br /> bill is so elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be<br /> arrived at.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#457) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I O3<br /> Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br /> in the “Cost of Production” for advertising. Of course, we<br /> have not included any sums which may be charged for<br /> inserting advertisements in the publisher’s own magazines,<br /> or in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too<br /> often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from<br /> sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket,<br /> \by inserting any number of advertisements in his own<br /> magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are<br /> who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those<br /> who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it.<br /> *- a 2-<br /> * * *<br /> LITERARY PROPERTY,<br /> THE CANADIAN CopyRIGHT QUESTION.<br /> I.<br /> Ottawa, Sept. IO.<br /> IR. C. H. TUPPER, speaking at Toronto<br /> yesterday, referred to the Canadian copy-<br /> right question. He said that, in his opinion,<br /> the time had come when the country must know<br /> whether the unanimous will of the Commons of<br /> Canada was to be respected by the advisers of Her<br /> Majesty in London. “I believe,” he continued,<br /> “that Mr. Chamberlain, with his great ability and<br /> knowledge of our affairs, will prove equal to the<br /> occasion, and insist, no matter how the authors<br /> and publishers of Canada and London may<br /> disagree, no matter whether the right of the<br /> argument be in favour of the authors and<br /> publishers of Canada or of the authors and<br /> publishers of England, that what was intended by<br /> the British Parliament in 1867 must be observed<br /> in 1895. We have a right to misgovern ourselves,<br /> if we choose, in the matter of copyright as we<br /> have in tariffs and everything else.<br /> In the course of a conversation which I had<br /> with him to-day, the Minister of Justice said<br /> that he would be glad to receive Mr. Hall Caine<br /> personally and listen to him, but as the Dominion<br /> Government simply represented the unanimous<br /> voice of Parliament, it would he improper for him<br /> to discuss with the representative of the Society<br /> of Authors the wisdom or unwisdom of the action<br /> of the Canadian Legislature.—Correspondent of<br /> the Times.<br /> II.<br /> Mr. Lancefield loses sight altogether of the real<br /> interests of the great body of authors and pub-<br /> lishers outside Canada, and very conveniently<br /> ignores England’s international copyright obliga-<br /> tions. The United Kingdom and the colonies have<br /> joined the Berne Literary Convention, which<br /> remedied, for the first time, a longstanding<br /> grievance, and has given protection to authors<br /> and publishers where formerly there was none.<br /> Is it then possible that the British Government<br /> will be so shortsighted as to weaken this important<br /> agreement on the simple plea that it does not<br /> suit specially the Canadian printers and pub-<br /> lishers?<br /> Concessions once made in favour of Canada<br /> could not be withheld from Australia and other<br /> British colonies, and any attempts to exclude<br /> the colonies from the Copyright Act would<br /> inevitably lead to dissensions. The conditions of<br /> the Berne Conventions are essentially based upon<br /> the mutual recipoclity of nations; France,<br /> Germany, and other contracting parties would,<br /> therefore, certainly have cause for complaint—<br /> and very justly so—if any such partial and one-<br /> sided exceptions were introduced. In what<br /> position would British authors be if, for instance,<br /> such important book-manufacturing centres of<br /> Germany as the kingdoms of Saxony, Bavaria,<br /> and Würtenberg determined, on the same plea,<br /> to free themselves from the restrictions imposed<br /> upon the whole of Germany by the Berne Con-<br /> vention ? These restrictions must have told<br /> very hardly in certain localities, considering that<br /> the people engaged in the production of books in<br /> any one of these kingdoms exceed by far those<br /> similarly occupied in Canada. If such exceptions<br /> were to be tolerated, I am afraid that piracy<br /> would soon be again the order of the day.<br /> HENRY KLEINAU.<br /> 18, King William-street, Charing Cross, Sept. 9.<br /> —Times, Sept. 13.<br /> III.<br /> Considerable interest has been aroused among<br /> British authors and publishers by reason of the<br /> attempt to obtain proclamation of the Canadian<br /> Copyright Act of 1889. This act was “assented<br /> to” May 2, 1889, to “come into force on a day<br /> to be named by proclamation of the Governor-<br /> General.” At the request of the Imperial Govern-<br /> ment a Canadian representative has been sent to<br /> England to discuss the copyright question with<br /> the imperial authorities, and in the meantime<br /> proclamation is withheld<br /> The particular provision of this Act which is<br /> most objectionable to the British author and<br /> publisher is the one which requires, as a condition<br /> of obtaining copyright in Canada, that a book,<br /> &amp;c., shall be printed and published or reproduced<br /> in Canada within thirty days after publication<br /> elsewhere, in default of which any Canadian<br /> printer may lawfully print and publish the same,<br /> being obliged, however, to give security to pay to<br /> the author a royalty of IO per cent. upon the retail<br /> price of such publication.<br /> If a law containing such a provision is estab-<br /> lished in one of the British colonies, copyright<br /> throughout the imperial domain may be burdened<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#458) ################################################<br /> <br /> IO4<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> with the requirement of separate publication in<br /> each of the colonies, which would be especially<br /> embarrassing to the British author.<br /> A question of more general importance, if the<br /> right of colonial legislation upon copyright be<br /> admitted, will be the effect of such legislation<br /> upon international copyright.<br /> The Act of 1889, above referred to, contains<br /> this provision, limiting the persons who may<br /> obtain copright :<br /> Any person domiciled in Canada, or in any part of the<br /> British possessions, or any citizen of any country which<br /> has an international copyright treaty with the United<br /> Kingdom, in which Canada is included, who is the author,<br /> &amp;c.<br /> This raises the question whether citizens of the<br /> United States could obtain copyright in Canada<br /> even by printing and publishing there, for there<br /> is no international copyright treaty between the<br /> United States and the United Kingdom.<br /> There can be little doubt that if the absolute<br /> right of Canada to legislate upon copyright is<br /> admitted by the Imperial Government, the United<br /> States international copyright law cannot long<br /> endure, and British authors will suffer in conse-<br /> quence. The Canadian market, considered as a<br /> market for Canadian readers, is of very little<br /> importance, but the Canadian market considered<br /> as a vantage-ground from which to send unautho-<br /> rised reprints into the United States is of very<br /> serious consequence.<br /> This presents practical questions which have<br /> already been forced upon our authors by a late<br /> ruling of the Treasury Department of the United<br /> States.<br /> Heretofore the proprietors of United States<br /> copyrights have had the aid of our Treasury<br /> Department in preventing the importation into<br /> the United States of unauthorised reprints of<br /> their works coming from abroad, so that careful<br /> authors, aided by the customs officers, have<br /> succeeded in fairly maintaining their copyright<br /> property. Of course this has not been done<br /> absolutely, for the long frontier gives special<br /> facilities for the passing into the United States of<br /> the garbled and trashy reprints coming from the<br /> Canadian presses. But the author has had his<br /> market fairly free from them. The importation<br /> of such copies being unlawful, and involving<br /> forfeitures and damages, the authors, when aided<br /> by the Treasury Department, have had practical<br /> facilities for protecting their rights, and seldom<br /> had occasion to resort to legal proceedings.<br /> By this new ruling, however, the Treasury<br /> Department has taken the position, in effect, that<br /> authors shall no longer have its aid in cases<br /> where not more than two copies of a work are<br /> imported, and that in such cases, if the copies<br /> imported are unauthorised reprints, the owner of<br /> the copyright must resort for relief to the courts,<br /> and bring his action for the forfeiture of the<br /> copies and for damages. As these reprints are<br /> generally of the very poorest quality, and sell for<br /> about twenty-five cents each, the duty upon them<br /> is also remitted under Article Io96, Customs<br /> Regulations of 1892.<br /> The effect of this ruling, which was promulgated<br /> last spring, has already been felt in the market,<br /> and the unauthorised reprints can now be readily<br /> obtained. Indeed, under such circumstances this<br /> could not be otherwise. It is well known that<br /> the Tauchnitz reprints find their way through<br /> English custom-houses in great numbers, not-<br /> withstanding the earnest efforts of the customs<br /> officers to prevent it, aided by the publishers who<br /> honestly desire that the importation into England<br /> of such reprints should not take place.<br /> |Unless our Treasury Department recedes from<br /> its present position, and co-operates with the<br /> authors as heretofore, the unauthorised Canadian<br /> reprints will seriously endanger the market<br /> value of all domestic copyrights, and materially<br /> reduce the profits of our authors.<br /> This extraordinary ruling of Secretary Carlisle<br /> could, we think, be reversed on a proper presenta-<br /> tion, and we are surprised at the indifference so<br /> far shown by American authors to the injurious<br /> significance of this ruling.—Harper&#039;s Weekly,<br /> Aug. 24.<br /> IV.<br /> A correspondent writes:—“The much-vexed<br /> question of Canadian Copyright has at length<br /> made some steps towards a settlement. Mr. E. L.<br /> Newcombe, Q.C., Deputy Minister of Justice, who<br /> came to this country as the representative of the<br /> Canadian Government, is on the point of returning<br /> to Canada. He will carry with him certain<br /> modifications of Canada&#039;s demand in the still<br /> inoperative Act of 1889. These modifications<br /> have been suggested by the Colonial Office after<br /> close and careful intercourse with Mr. Newcombe,<br /> as well as with the representatives of English<br /> authors and publishers, Mr. Hall Caine and Mr.<br /> F. R. Daldy. It would be inadvisable and prema-<br /> ture to make any statement of their scope further<br /> than to say that they are understood to recognise<br /> the right of copyright in Canada to every person<br /> who has any right of copyright in the United<br /> Ringdom. Beyond this general principle certain<br /> concessions are suggested which it is believed<br /> will meet all that is fair and just in Canada&#039;s<br /> expectations. It now remains to the Canadian<br /> Government to frame an amended Act that will<br /> be likely to obtain the approval of both Parlia-<br /> ments, and it is hoped that Canadian printers on<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#459) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> IO5.<br /> the one hand, and British authors on the other,<br /> will be able to accept the compromise which the<br /> Colonial Office suggests. As Mr. Newcombe&#039;s<br /> instructions forbade him to meet anybody except<br /> the Government, it has been thought right that<br /> Mr. Hall Caine should carry out the wish of the<br /> Authors’ Society and go to Ottawa as the delegate<br /> of English authors to confer with the Canadians<br /> on the terms of their reconstructed Bill. What<br /> he will be allowed to do, whether to appear before<br /> a committee of the Canadian Parliament or,<br /> perhaps, speak at the Bar of the House, will be,<br /> of course, at the discretion of the Premier ; but it<br /> is probable that the Colonial Office, and certainly<br /> the English people, would hear with satisfaction<br /> of any favourable mark of the disposition of the<br /> Canadians to arrive at a settlement which, while<br /> doing justice to Canadian demands, would not be<br /> unacceptable to the authors and publishers of this<br /> country. Mr. Caine is to sail on Sept. 18, by the<br /> White Star steamship Teutonic.”—Times.<br /> V<br /> The point we put is that it is a question of equity<br /> and honesty, and not, as Sir Charles Tupper puts<br /> it, a question of the right of Canadians to mis-<br /> govern themselves. Canadians get full protection<br /> in the Mother Country for all their rights, includ-<br /> ing copyrights and patents, by virtue of a common<br /> citizenship ; yet they now propose to deprive their<br /> fellow-citizens at home of the corresponding rights<br /> in Canada. That is no question of misgovernment,<br /> it is a question of honesty and right feeling. The<br /> average tone and spirit of politics in Canada is<br /> perhaps as low as it is in any part of the<br /> Queen&#039;s dominions, but we might reasonably<br /> expect that public opinion in Canada would not<br /> be favourable to the perpetration of an act of<br /> sheer confiscation. The Canadians might at all<br /> events be reached by considerations of self-<br /> interest. They are now proposing to wrong a<br /> class which exercises a most powerful influence<br /> On English Opinion. The question is often asked<br /> in this country, what possible advantage we gain<br /> by the association with Canada. The Dominion<br /> claims practically an absolute independence in its<br /> domestic, and almost absolute freedom in regard<br /> to its foreign, policy. She is a fruitful source of<br /> embarrassment in our relations with the United<br /> States. It would be difficult to point out where<br /> any compensating benefit to the Mother Country<br /> accrues. Money is borrowed in this country, and<br /> drawn from this country by millions, to promote<br /> the expansion of the Dominion, and in return our<br /> manufacturers are taxed to protect her struggling<br /> industries, and enrich her local manufacturers.<br /> We have to keep our fleet and army ready to<br /> protect her in her differences with the powerful<br /> Government at Washington, and every Canadian<br /> citizen has as freely at his disposal the aid of our<br /> diplomatic and consular service as any English-<br /> man. Except for the costly conceit of counting<br /> Canada as a dominion under the British flag,<br /> there is little we gain by the connection which<br /> could not as readily, and perhaps more cheaply, be<br /> secured from a foreign State. The Canadians<br /> would do well to ask themselves whether it is<br /> worth while, for the sake of benefiting a few<br /> pirates, to set against them the most powerful<br /> influence in the Mother Country. The least they<br /> can expect to pay for naval, military, and<br /> diplomatic protection is an equitable consideration<br /> for the rights of their fellow-citizens throughout<br /> the Empire.—Overland Mail, Sept. 13.<br /> VI.<br /> The following letter from Mr. John G. Ridout<br /> in further reply to Mr. Lancefield appeared in the<br /> Toronto Mail of Aug. 24.<br /> “SIR,--In the Mail of the 17th Aug. Mr.<br /> Lancefield is again as illogical and full of error as<br /> ever; he makes the mistakes of one who has only<br /> an imperfect smattering. He still thinks the<br /> manufacturing clause in the Patent Act is im-<br /> perative and unavoidable, and that, therefore,<br /> books (like inventions) should also be subject to<br /> manufacture in Canada to obtain copyright,<br /> whereas it is settled law here that if there is no<br /> demand for the invention in Canada, there is no<br /> obligation to manufacture within two years or<br /> other extended period. (See 2 Ex. Ct. Rep. Can<br /> —Barter v. Smith.) As a solicitor of patents, I<br /> am engaged every week in obtaining certificates<br /> of extension of time, and it is possible for a valid<br /> patent to exist for eighteen years without any<br /> manufacture whatever under it. How does this<br /> compare with the miserable one month allowed to<br /> manufacture under this piratical Copyright Act<br /> of 1889, which Mr. L. is so anxious to have passed<br /> in the interest of a few publishers?<br /> “Mr. L. is also grossly in error in supposing<br /> that Canada has the “undoubted constitutional<br /> right to legislate as to copyright,’ and that Lord<br /> Salisbury was given an unwarranted pledge to<br /> the United States authorities in 1891, when he<br /> told them that a U.S. citizen, by obtaining copy-<br /> right in Great Britain, secured it also in all<br /> British possessions. This Mr. L. designates<br /> ‘startling intelligence,’ ‘a thunderbolt out of a<br /> clear sky,’ whereas it has always been the case<br /> since the Imperial Act of 1842, before Mr. L. was<br /> born, and is likely to continue so. The B. N. A.<br /> Act did not affect this Act one iota. In Smiles v.<br /> Belford, 23 Grant, 590 (Sept., 1876), Proudfoot, J.,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#460) ################################################<br /> <br /> IO6<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> finds that the Imperial Act of 1842 was still<br /> applicable to Canada, and states: ‘I have not<br /> been able to discovery anthing in the statute<br /> (B. N. A. Act, sect 91-129), re copyright con-<br /> ferring any greater powers in this respect on the<br /> Dominion and province, than was previously<br /> enjoyed by the Province of Canada. There is<br /> nothing indicating any intention of the Imperial<br /> Parliament to abdicate its power of legislating on<br /> matters of this kind. It was never contended<br /> that the Provincial Legislature could make laws<br /> at variance with those which the Imperial Parlia-<br /> ment might choose to pass, and declare to have<br /> effect throughout the British dominion, &amp;c.’<br /> “This was unanimously upheld in the Court of<br /> Appeal (Ont. S. C. I App. Rep. Ont. 436,<br /> March, 1877); it was also considered that the<br /> ‘Colonial Laws Walidity Act&#039; was paramount, and<br /> all that was done by the B. N. A. Act was to<br /> transfer from each of the Provincial Legislatures<br /> to the House of Commons the right to legislate as<br /> to copyright.<br /> “On Dec. 31, 1889, the Law Officers of the<br /> Crown decided that the power of legislating as to<br /> copyright under the B. N. A. Act did not autho-<br /> rise the Parliament of Canada to amend or repeal<br /> any imperial Act conferring privileges in Canada,<br /> and that the Colonial Laws Walidity Act (1865)<br /> rendered such legislation void where repugnant<br /> to the provisions of this latter Act.<br /> “Notwithstanding all the sophistries and<br /> special pleading of the late Sir John Thompson,<br /> made doubtless to appease the Copyright Associa-<br /> tion of Canada, who have the cheek to hold them-<br /> selves forward as representing Canada, although<br /> with a membership of only some twenty-six, this<br /> question has been settled absolutely years ago,<br /> and yet Mr. Edgar, M.P., and some others, do<br /> not appear to be aware of this fact, and still harp<br /> on the B. N. A. Act.<br /> “Copyright is an imperial question and not a<br /> colonial question. Canada is part of a world-<br /> wide empire, and a member of the great inter-<br /> national brotherhood of authors and artists from<br /> which a few unpatriotic and selfish Canadian<br /> publishers wish to sever us. We have extradition<br /> treaties and Merchant Shipping Acts imposed on<br /> us without a murmur. As we are not permitted<br /> to make Canada the dumping ground and place<br /> of refuge for the criminals of the world, so we<br /> should not be permitted to make her a nuisance<br /> in the literary and artistic world by breaking up<br /> the international convention as to copyright, and<br /> destroying the rights and privileges of Canadian<br /> authors, artists, musicians, &amp;c. (to say nothing of<br /> the rights of Britishers and others), throughout<br /> the empire and the most civilised countries of the<br /> world. This would be the effect of withdrawing<br /> Canada from the Berne Convention, in order to<br /> appease the greed of half a dozen Canadian<br /> publishing houses, members of this paltry Copy-<br /> right Association, who have been dictating the<br /> policy of the Government as to copyright. Our<br /> statesmen for years past have been pursuing a<br /> policy of isolation for Canada, both as to copy-<br /> right as well as patents, trade marks, and<br /> designs. What sense is there in belittling, dis-<br /> couraging, and destroying the privileges of over<br /> five hundred copyrighters each year in Canada,<br /> to appease the specious “home manufacture” cry<br /> of half a dozen Canadian publishers ?<br /> “Outside of the provisions of the Berne con-<br /> vention the International Copyright Act of 1886<br /> (Imp.) gives a Canadian copyrighter copyright<br /> throughout all the Queen&#039;s dominions merely by<br /> obtaining copyright at Ottawa. What, then,<br /> have we to complain of P. We have reciprocal<br /> rights.<br /> - “Yours, &amp;c.,<br /> “JoBIN G. RIDOUT.<br /> “Toronto, Aug. 2 I.”<br /> NEW YORK LETTER,<br /> New York, Sept. 15.<br /> N the very Interesting series of letters on<br /> “Literature in America ’’ which has been<br /> appearing in the London Times, perhaps the<br /> most interesting paragraph was the one in which<br /> the correspondent declared that “No part of their<br /> British inheritance is more prized by Americans<br /> than our literature. Few of them cross the<br /> Atlantic without visiting Stratford-on-Avon—a<br /> pious pilgrimage seldom undertaken by ourselves.<br /> . In most departments of life national distinc-<br /> tions and improvements upon British example are<br /> emphasised ; in literature a disposition exists to<br /> claim a common heritage with us in the great<br /> masters of language; to assert an even firmer<br /> loyalty to the old models than we can. In<br /> American schools and universities the study of<br /> English literature receives undoubtedly more<br /> attention than in ours; and, even in purity of<br /> pronunciation and correct use of words, they are<br /> in many respects more conservative. Societies,<br /> clubs, and reading circles founded for the study<br /> of the works of a single author, or a particular<br /> period, are far more abundant ; and the average<br /> young American men and maidens have probably<br /> read and studied more standard English litera-<br /> ture than their contemporaries in the old<br /> country.”<br /> Here, if I may open a parenthesis, the corre-<br /> spondent of the Times fails to observe the dis-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#461) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Io&#039;7<br /> tinction between the words British and English,<br /> which is beginning to obtain among American<br /> writers on English literature. As I heard this<br /> distinction put by a professor of literature at a<br /> leading American university not long ago, it is to<br /> this effect, “English literature is co-extensive<br /> with the English language. Whatever is written<br /> in English, no matter whether in London or<br /> Edinburgh, or New York or Calcutta, or Mel-<br /> bourne, in so far as it may be literature at all, is a<br /> part of English literature. That portion of this<br /> great English literature of ours which is written<br /> in America is American literature, that portion<br /> which may be written hereafter in Canada or in<br /> Australia will be Canadian literature and Austra-<br /> lian literature. And thus, to distinguish that<br /> portion of English literature now being written<br /> in Great Britain, we are forced to call it British<br /> literature.” In a word, since both sets of writers<br /> are using the English language, the proper<br /> antithesis is not between English authors and<br /> American authors, but between American authors<br /> and British authors.<br /> But the correspondent of the Times is alto-<br /> gether right in his assertion that English<br /> literature as a whole is more elaborately studied<br /> in the United States than in Great Britain.<br /> Nothing is more surprising to the undergraduate<br /> at an American university who wishes to pursue<br /> still further his studies in his own language than<br /> to discover that he can get no instruction in<br /> English literature at either of the great English<br /> universities. Perhaps I am wrong in saying that<br /> nothing is more surprising than this, for there is<br /> one thing even more astonishing, and this is to<br /> find an accomplished journalist like Mr. Andrew<br /> Lang seriously contending that English literature<br /> cannot be taught. Apparently Mr. Lang con-<br /> founds teaching with examining. Titerature,<br /> whether English or French or Latin or Greek, is<br /> a bad subject to examine on, no doubt; probably<br /> but little of any Greek examination is based on<br /> Greek literature, as literature pure and simple.<br /> But it is only in Great Britain, I think, that<br /> teaching is subordinated absolutely to examining.<br /> The Germans teach German literature with their<br /> usual thoroughness; the French teach French<br /> literature with their usual tact and skill; the<br /> Americans teach English literature. Just how<br /> they do it can be seen by a perusal of a volume<br /> called the “Teaching of English,” recently<br /> published by D. C. Heath and Co., and containing<br /> a score of papers reprinted from the Dial of<br /> Chicago, where they appeared nearly two years<br /> ago. Each of these papers was written by a<br /> professor at an important American university,<br /> and each gives an account of the method employed<br /> at that institution, noting the number of instruc-<br /> WOL, WI.<br /> tors and providing a list of the courses given.<br /> In the department of English at Harvard there<br /> must be nearly half a score of instructors, and in<br /> the same department at Columbia there are more<br /> than half a dozen. I cite these two institutions<br /> because no other of the American universities<br /> give as much attention to English as do Harvard<br /> and Columbia. The writer of the article on Yale<br /> in this volume complains of the fatal inadequacy<br /> of the instruction there, for example. As the<br /> writer of the article on Columbia points out, the<br /> English department has three distinct divisions;<br /> it is expected to teach first, English composition,<br /> in other words, rhetoric ; and second, the history<br /> of the English language; and third, the history<br /> of English literature. At Oxford and at Cam-<br /> bridge there is formal instruction only in the<br /> second of these three divisions, the history of the<br /> English language, although a certain amount of<br /> instruction in the first of the three, rhetoric, is<br /> undoubtedly given to the tutors in their criticism<br /> of the frequent essays. In every important<br /> American university the effort is made to supply<br /> proper instruction in all three departments. It is<br /> perhaps in the teaching of rhetoric that the greatest<br /> advance has been made, under the leadership of<br /> Harvard. Professor Barrett Wendell there,<br /> acting perhaps on suggestions of Professor A. S.<br /> Hill, developed a new method of practical instruc-<br /> tion in English composition. The substance of<br /> Professor Wendell’s teaching is to be found in<br /> his volume of lectures published two or three<br /> years ago by Charles Scribner and Sons. Pro-<br /> fessor George R. Carpenter, a Harvard man,<br /> brought this method to Columbia, where it was<br /> still further improved. Now Yale has called a<br /> Columbian man, Dr. Charles S. Baldwin, to<br /> introduce it to the undergraduates at New Haven.<br /> Professor Carpenter&#039;s book on “Rhetoric * is<br /> now published by Macmillan and Co. Four<br /> little volumes recently issued by Henry Holt<br /> and Co. are also to be mentioned here, as they<br /> are the outcome of this new movement. They<br /> are “Specimens of Argumentation,” edited by<br /> Mr. G. P. Baker, of Harvard; “Specimens of<br /> Exposition,” edited by Mr. Lamont, also of<br /> Harvard; “Specimens of Narration,” edited by<br /> Mr. Brewster, of Columbia; and “Specimens of<br /> Prose Description,” edited by Dr. Baldwin,<br /> formerly of Columbia and now of Yale. These<br /> specimens have in each case been carefully chosen<br /> to reveal the principles of the art, and they are<br /> adroitly contrasted one with another; and the<br /> notes and introductions of the editors afford a<br /> body of doctrine which the student can afterward<br /> apply for himself.<br /> The literary activity of the faculty and advanced<br /> students at Columbia is probably second only to<br /> N<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#462) ################################################<br /> <br /> IO3<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> that at Harvard. The total number of instructors<br /> at Harvard is over three hundred, and the total<br /> number at Columbia is over two hundred and<br /> fifty; no other American university has two<br /> hundred—Chicago, Yale, and Princeton coming<br /> next to Columbia. Certain of the doctorate dis-<br /> Sertations are issued in a series of “Studies in<br /> History, Economics, and Public Law,” and others<br /> in a series of “Contributions to Philosophy,<br /> Psychology, and Education,” both of which now<br /> bear the imprint of Macmillan and Co. There<br /> is talk of a third series shortly to be begun of<br /> “Studies in Literature and Philology.” The<br /> next volume of the Columbia University Bio-<br /> logical series will be Dr. Bashford Dean’s “Fishes,<br /> Living, and Fossil; ” and the next three publi-<br /> cations of the Columbia University Press will<br /> be Professor Mayo-Smith’s “Statistics and<br /> Sociology,” Professor Munroe-Smith’s “Roman<br /> Cases on Obligation,” and Professor E. B.<br /> Wilson’s “Atlas of Fertilization.” Other new<br /> books by Columbia professors published by<br /> Macmillan and Co. are Professor Giddings&#039;<br /> “Theory of Sociology” and Professor E. R. A.<br /> Seligman’s “Essays in Taxation.”<br /> I hear that Mr. Taurence Hutton, before his<br /> arrival in London, was busy in Paris with Dr.<br /> B. E. Martin, preparing a book upon the “Home<br /> and Haunts of French Men of Letters in the<br /> French Metropolis.” Dr. Martin, who has been a<br /> diligent and enthusiastic student of that side of<br /> Paris for upwards of a quarter of a century, had<br /> gathered a great mass of valuable and interesting<br /> material, which Mr. Hutton was helping him to<br /> verify and identify on the spot, and in a local<br /> way, with the aid of old maps and plans of<br /> the city. The book is to be uniform with Mr.<br /> Hutton’s “Literary Landmarks of London; ” and<br /> in view of Dr. Martin&#039;s knowledge of the French<br /> capital, the French language and French litera-<br /> ture, coupled with Mr. Hutton’s experience in<br /> digging out such things and putting such things<br /> together, the work should be one that will appeal<br /> to many readers. There is no book, in French<br /> or in English, especially devoted to this subject,<br /> and the allusions to it in the literature of Paris<br /> are scant and scattering<br /> Year by year the number increases of the books<br /> which have first seen the light piecemeal in the<br /> magazines; and just now an unusually large pro-<br /> portion of the volumes recently published or<br /> about to appear are made up of contributions to<br /> periodicals. Mr. Frederic Remington has found<br /> a particularly happy name for the collection of<br /> the breezy papers he has written to accompany<br /> his own vigorous pictures; he has called it “Pony<br /> Tracks,” and it is published by Harper and<br /> Brothers. From Harper&#039;s Magazine also has<br /> Mr. R. H. Davis gathered the papers which<br /> recorded the experience of a tenderfoot in Paris.<br /> To be expected soon is the volume containing the<br /> bold and striking stories of Western life with<br /> which Mr. Owen Wistar has strengthened the<br /> pages of Harper&#039;s during the past two years.<br /> From the Century have been taken the admirable<br /> woodcuts of the great Dutch paintings, engraved<br /> directly from the originals by Mr. Timothy Cole,<br /> and to be accompanied by letterpress from the<br /> pen of Mr. John C. Wan Dyke. In the Century<br /> also appeared the articles by Mr. Brander<br /> Matthews, which will be published in London by<br /> George Bell and Sons in the Ex-Libris Series,<br /> and here in New York by Macmillan and Co.,<br /> under the title of “Bookbindings, Old and New ;<br /> Notes of a Booklover.” From St. Nicholas and<br /> from Harper&#039;s Young People comes a volume to<br /> be published by the Century Company; it is<br /> called “Hero Tales of American History,” and it<br /> has been prepared by Mr. Theodore Roosevelt and<br /> Mr. Henry Cabat Lodge, who have picked out of<br /> the very eventful and picturesque history of the<br /> United States certain of the most characteristic<br /> episodes—the Battle of New Orleans, for example,<br /> the Fight of the Constitution and the Guerrière,<br /> Cushing&#039;s Attack on the Albermarle, &amp;c. Mr.<br /> Lodge is a senator of the United States, and Mr.<br /> Roosevelt is now President of the Police Com-<br /> mission of New York City; they are both men of<br /> letters, and they are both practical politicians.<br /> For the Freeman and Hunt series of “ Historic<br /> Towns,” published by Longmans, Green, and Co.,<br /> Mr. Roosevelt wrote the volume on New York, and<br /> Mr. Lodge that on Boston.<br /> The welcome announcement has been made by<br /> Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., that enough of<br /> Lowell’s hitherto uncollected verse has been found<br /> to warrant the publication of another volume of<br /> his poetry this autumn. It is to be hoped that<br /> more than one volume of his prose will follow in<br /> due season, for there is abundant material for<br /> half a dozen volumes of essays scattered here and<br /> there in the Nation, and in the Atlantic Monthly,<br /> and in the North American Review. . R.<br /> *= ~ -º<br /> ar- - -<br /> NOTES FROM PARIS<br /> S a consequence of my last “ Notes from<br /> Paris” in the Author, I have received several<br /> letters in which I am asked several ques-<br /> tions. Of these the only one which I have time to<br /> answer this month is the question : “Who reads<br /> for publishers in Paris P” The answer is: The<br /> publisher himself, and that very rarely. French<br /> publishers rarely,if ever, take any riskin connection<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#463) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Io9<br /> with a book. An unknown author having an MS.<br /> to publish, must pay for its publication. A suc-<br /> cessful author&#039;s work is sent to the printers<br /> without any previous perusal. Few, if any,<br /> Parisian publishers have “literary advisers;”<br /> their “literary advisers” are their ledgers. What<br /> literary advisers there may be—I never heard of<br /> any—are certainly not successful authors.<br /> In conversation the other day, at the National<br /> Club, in a group in which, inter alios, Hall<br /> Caine and Harold Frederic were present, the<br /> talk turned on the literary blackleg, and the case<br /> of one was cited. It is worth repeating. This<br /> is a certain well-known literary person, who,<br /> according to reports which he has never contra-<br /> dicted, is making a very large income with his<br /> pen. Amongst other literary functions he is the<br /> editor of a publication issued in monthly parts.<br /> In this capacity he has recently been inviting<br /> various well known but financially unprosperous<br /> confrères to contribute papers on the special sub-<br /> jects dealt with in these monthly parts at the rate<br /> of 2 Is... the page of I IOO words, to include the<br /> whole copyright. I wonder, when this successful<br /> novelist looks in the glass, how he likes the look<br /> of himself. *<br /> Alphonse Daudet writes me that he has been<br /> très souffrant, but is now much better, and is hard<br /> at work again. He is enjoying the autumn down<br /> at Champrosay.<br /> I hear various accounts of Emile Zola&#039;s new<br /> novel “Rome” from various people who have<br /> discussed it with the master, or have heard him<br /> read passages from his manuscript. Some say it<br /> is far and away the best thing he has ever<br /> written, others that it is very fine, but that they<br /> do not see the novel in it. My own impression<br /> is that it will be very documentary and rather<br /> dull, and that there will be rather too much of it.<br /> Zola himself told me that it will exceed “La<br /> Debäcle” in length.<br /> The forthcoming publishing season in Paris<br /> promises works of great interest. To begin with<br /> there will be Alphonse Daudet&#039;s “Soutien de<br /> Famille,” some scenes in which are laid in Eng-<br /> land, and will afford an insight into the impres-<br /> sions received by the writer during his short<br /> stay in London this spring. Then there is Paul<br /> Bourget’s “L&#039;Idylle Tragique,” Jean Richepin’s<br /> new novel “Flamboche,” and Maurice Barrès&#039;s<br /> “Leurs Figures,” a series of articles origi-<br /> nally published in Le Figaro. Apropos of<br /> Barrès&#039;s book, I must say, little as I like Barrès<br /> and his work, that the article which gives its<br /> name to the book is one of the best pieces of<br /> journalism that I have ever read. It was written<br /> just after the memorable sitting in the Chamber<br /> of Deputies when it was made public that the<br /> list of the IO4 deputies who had received bribes<br /> from the Panama Company was in the hands of<br /> the Government, and that a general prosecution<br /> would probably be commenced. Barrès in his<br /> article depicts “Their Faces.” It was published<br /> on the morrow, and by noon was the talk of the<br /> town. Daudet was enthusiastic about its literary<br /> quality.<br /> The gentle poet François Coppée is back in his<br /> native Paris from a cure at Eaux-Bonnes, and, I<br /> am glad to hear, at work again on a new novel<br /> which, begun in the spring, had been laid aside<br /> at the time of his illness. We shall await this<br /> novel with interest, for Coppée has not yet<br /> succeeded in producing a good novel, though he<br /> has produced good poetry and excellent plays. Few<br /> men can write hoth excellent plays and excellent<br /> novels. Will Coppèe be one of the few P I hope<br /> so, for he is such an excellent man.<br /> François Coppèe never refuses to be inter-<br /> viewed, though he is a nervous, reserved man,<br /> very fond of seclusion. I once saw him being<br /> interviewed by an American journalist who<br /> hardly spoke any French at all—Coppée speaks<br /> no English—and I could not help admiring his<br /> patience and his benevolence. “Why should I<br /> refuse to help the good young fellows—who,<br /> after all, are my confrères—to earn a little<br /> money P” he says.<br /> Of interest to English readers will be “Nouvelles<br /> études Anglaises,” by the late M. Darmesteter,<br /> which is to be published shortly by Messrs.<br /> Calman-Lévy. Of similar interest to the<br /> Americans will be Les Américaines Chez Elles, by<br /> Th. Bentzon, which will also be published by<br /> Messrs. Calman-Lévy.<br /> Amongst further contributions to the mass of<br /> literature on the Napoleonic period, which are<br /> shortly to be published in Paris, I note “Le<br /> Journal de la Campagne de Prusse, 1806-1807,”<br /> by Maréchal Davent, “Lettres de la Duchesse de<br /> Broglie,” “La Campagne de 1812,” by Major<br /> Faber du Faure, with a preface by Armand<br /> Dayot, Georges Barral’s “Epopée de Waterloo,”<br /> Ida Saint-Elme&#039;s “Memoires d’une Contem-<br /> poraine,” vol. 2 of the “Journal du Maréchal de<br /> Castellane, 1804-1862,” the “Memoires du Duc<br /> de Persigny,” the “Memoires du Lieutenant-<br /> Général Comte de Saint-Chamans, 1801-1830,” and<br /> the fifth and last volume of General Baron<br /> Thiebault&#039;s memoirs. And I have only mentioned<br /> the more important. Hall Caine used to tell me<br /> of some great writer who told him that it is the<br /> first sign of decay in a man when he begins to<br /> persistently look back on his past. If this be<br /> true, and if it holds good with nations also, I<br /> am afraid that our dear France must be in a bad<br /> way. Indeed, I know she is.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#464) ################################################<br /> <br /> UIQ.<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> A question which is agitating literary Paris is<br /> this: Inasmuch as the French Academy was only<br /> created by Richelieu for the purpose of writing a<br /> dictionary of the French language, will the<br /> Academy, ipso facto, be dissolved when it has<br /> finished its labours on the French dictionary P<br /> Academicians are being consulted on this ques-<br /> tion. In the meanwhile, M. Zola need not be<br /> anxious. The labour of the Academy appears to<br /> be as immortal as the Academicians themselves<br /> claim to be. The dictionary has not progressed<br /> during all these years beyond the letter A.<br /> Léon Daudet is bringing out a volume of<br /> “Critiques,” I am rather sorry to hear. Léon<br /> Daudet has far too much originality to need to<br /> write “critiques” about other writer&#039;s works.<br /> We had been hoping for his new novel, “Le<br /> Voyage de Shakespeare dans le Nord.”<br /> Considerable interest is being taken in France<br /> in contemporary English literature, and of late<br /> quite a number of translations of modern English<br /> novels have appeared en feuilleton in the best<br /> French news, apers. This is as it should be,<br /> though the prices paid for droits de traduction<br /> are lower than they should be under the circum-<br /> stances.<br /> In Arthur Benham we, of the Authors’ Club,<br /> have lost an excellent companion, a downright<br /> good fellow, and the world at large an excep-<br /> tionally gifted writer. If Benham had lived, the<br /> English stage would have been endowed with<br /> plays which would have been able to bear com-<br /> parison with the best French work. Those who<br /> knew his work, and could foresee of what he was<br /> capable, will agree with me in this statement.<br /> The tendency of French authors, with the<br /> notable exception of M. Emile Zola, is to give<br /> less and less matter in their 3ſr. 50c. volumes.<br /> This is less because the French author is lazy<br /> than because the French reader prefers a short<br /> book. In England, whose commercialism infects<br /> everything and everybody, the reader wants as<br /> much “reading-matter’’ for his money as he can<br /> get. Other things being equal, the 6s. volume,<br /> which contains 120,000 words, will sell far better<br /> than the 6s. volume of only 80,000 words, and so<br /> on. Many booksellers have told me this on both<br /> sides of the water.<br /> ROBERT H. SHERARD.<br /> NOTES AND NEWS,<br /> WHE utterances of Sir C. H. Tupper on the<br /> copyright question, as reported in the<br /> Times, do not appear conciliatory, but<br /> quite the contrary. He seems to have no under-<br /> standing of the real interests at stake which are<br /> not at all connected with the paltry gains of a few<br /> Toronto printers. Nor do they really concern, so<br /> far as Canada is concerned, the material interests<br /> of authors. Under the old arrangement Canada<br /> is bound to collect and to send over 12% per cent.<br /> royalty. This she has never done, except on a<br /> very small scale. Under the new arrangement<br /> she will be bound to collect and to send over a<br /> Io per cent. royalty. There is not the least reason<br /> to believe that she intends to discharge this, any<br /> more than she has hitherto discharged the other<br /> obligations. No one would object to the action<br /> of Canada in this matter but for the danger to<br /> international copyright. Nothing can be more<br /> important than that all the English speaking<br /> races should be governed by the same laws of<br /> copyright, and that these laws should protect<br /> literature alike in every one of the countries<br /> concerned. If Sir C. H. Tupper is unable to see<br /> the importance of binding all these countries<br /> together by the bond of a common literature, so<br /> much the worse for Sir C. H. Tupper; and still<br /> the fact remains that, although , the proposed<br /> action will endanger this great measure, now<br /> happily obtained after fifty years of struggle for<br /> it, these Canadians are pressing on a measure<br /> with no excuse but (1) the alleged right to make<br /> their own copyright laws, and (2) the undoubted<br /> intention of the Toronto printers—there are no<br /> publishers to speak of—to pour their cheap and<br /> pirated stuff into the American market.<br /> Is there to be a new form of novel? If<br /> so, it will be a novel told in dialogue, with<br /> scenes, acts, and tableaux. The French have<br /> for some time used this method with short<br /> stories. A story called “A Hard Woman,” by<br /> Miss Violet Hunt, now running in Chapman’s<br /> Magazine, is destined, I think, to be followed by<br /> many others told in the same way. Miss Hunt<br /> relates her story almost entirely by dialogue.<br /> Not quite. In her next novel of this kind she<br /> will probably still more largely use the dialogue<br /> form. In the bright and clever pages of “A<br /> Hard Woman” there are many little bits of<br /> description which might be turned into dialogue,<br /> and there are other bits which might be omitted<br /> altogether, as, for instance, the words which<br /> describe the action. Of course, it is quite possible<br /> to write a long novel wholly as a play. Since a<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#465) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR,<br /> I I I<br /> play tells a story, a story can be told by a play.<br /> That is elementary. But there are certain rules<br /> to be observed in an acting play which do not<br /> apply to a novel: romance is not limited to<br /> two hours in reading: nor to five acts: nor to<br /> any set scenes; nor is it bound to observe the<br /> Conventional exits and entrances; nor has the<br /> novelist to “write up&quot; parts for this or that<br /> actor. . In all these points he is quite free. Yet<br /> a novel in dialogue has to be dramatic. In other<br /> words the characters must stand out, every one<br /> clear and distinct and unmistakable: there can<br /> be no woolliness. The story must be clear and<br /> plain from the outset : everything must be<br /> indicated briefly : the situations must be effective:<br /> there must be no waste of talk: the scenes must<br /> not be too long : every chapter, i.e., every<br /> situation, must have its own scene: and there<br /> must be no waste of scenes, but every one must<br /> carrv on the story.<br /> Everybody must have observed the growing<br /> tendency to use dialogue instead of description.<br /> The old-fashioned description—word-painting it<br /> used to be called—is going out fast. Perhaps we<br /> are too impatient to read it any longer. If, for<br /> instance, you take up one of the old-forgotten<br /> novels of the last century—I have scores of these,<br /> and have had to read them all—you will find<br /> description employed for everything. No emotion,<br /> no passion, is suggested or left to the imagina-<br /> tion; there is very little dialogue. The result is,<br /> generally, the most deadly dulness conceivable.<br /> I think that Black and White was the earliest<br /> paper to publish those dialogues, and monologues,<br /> and scenes in dialogue which, in the hands of<br /> Anthony Hope and Miss Violet Hunt, and others,<br /> have been found so delightful and so fresh.<br /> With the “Hard Woman’ before us, it seems<br /> quite safe to prophecy a great development of the<br /> dialogue. Meantime, it must be remembered,<br /> that to read a play requires a certain amount of<br /> imaginative power. The larger part of mankind<br /> have not enough imagination to read plays with<br /> pleasure; therefore, this new branch of fiction<br /> can never supersede the other. Yet it will cause<br /> the old style to brighten itself, to become more<br /> dramatic—-that is to say, it will make the art of<br /> fiction more exacting and more difficult. This is<br /> as it should be; for, since the art has been found<br /> to offer a profession at once delightful and capable<br /> of offering great prizes in fame and fortune, it has<br /> begun to attract more and more the better sort.<br /> =sºººº-<br /> I have received several letters of complaints<br /> concerning contributors and their grievances.<br /> They have mostly been already treated, and at<br /> some length, in these columns. We are glad to<br /> believe that the publication of these complaints<br /> has resulted in some good, especially in those<br /> Quarters where the editor is anxious to treat his<br /> contributors with respect and courtesy. The com-<br /> plaints, which do not affect respectable journals,<br /> are as follows:<br /> I. A journal advertises for contributions, offer-<br /> ing so much per column.<br /> The contributor sends in something with stamps<br /> for return ; does not get it returned, and receives<br /> no answer to his letter. My contributor thinks<br /> that the editor thus acquires a valuable mass of<br /> literature. I rather incline to the belief that he<br /> acquires a valuable mass of postage stamps.<br /> 2. Long waiting.<br /> A MS. accepted; in seven months, a proof; in<br /> another month, appearance; three weeks after-<br /> wards, a cheque.<br /> My sympathies are, I confess, partly with the<br /> editor. Our English custom of paying on publi-<br /> cation is bad, because it tempts an editor to pile<br /> up more than he wants. Having all this matter,<br /> however, what can he do but take it as it comes?<br /> 3. Delay of readers. One writer has been kept:<br /> in suspense for two months. But perhaps the<br /> reader was on holiday.<br /> 4. Some editors announce, beforehand, that<br /> publication and not the sending of a proof is a<br /> guarantee of acceptance.<br /> Well, a public announcement of this limitation<br /> is like a clause in an agreement. “You can<br /> take it,” says the editor, who has a perfect right to<br /> make such conditions as he thinks fit, “ or you<br /> may leave it.”<br /> 5. My correspondent argues that all work should<br /> be paid for when bought. I think so too. But,<br /> On the other hand, there is this to be said. If the<br /> editor can wait, and use an otherwise doubtful<br /> article when it seems convenient; to fill a gap;<br /> to meet the topic of the day: there is many an<br /> article from unknown writers which he is able to<br /> take and to use—which he would not take and<br /> use had he to pay for it on the spot. I think,<br /> however, that it would be quite possible for an<br /> editor to say, “I may be able to use this article if<br /> you leave it with me? Perhaps I may not.<br /> Will you take your chance?”<br /> Great news for poets&#039; An editor, a London<br /> editor, the editor of a London magazine is<br /> advertising for poems | Actually, a London<br /> editor, who is generally believed to live in an<br /> active shower bath of poems, is advertising for<br /> more | He says that he wants them for immediate<br /> printing. Well, this seems a chance, but still we<br /> must not be precipitate. First, we must find out<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#466) ################################################<br /> <br /> II 2<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> something about the special circumstances of the<br /> case. The address is not that of the Pall Mall<br /> Magazine, nor that of Longman&#039;s, nor that of the<br /> English Illustrated—what magazine can it be?<br /> For “immediate printing,” too. Is there to be<br /> any payment for these immortal poems ? Is the<br /> editor to have them for nothing? Once there was<br /> an editor who advertised for articles—prose or<br /> poetry. When anybody sent him an article he<br /> replied courteously—he was a very polite editor—<br /> that the article was magnificent—epochmaking—<br /> and that he should be delighted to publish it in his<br /> magazine. The author, of course, would at once<br /> become an annual subscriber—prepaid—and<br /> would take 500 copies of the number containing<br /> his article at sixpence a-piece. These copies he<br /> could easily sell among his friends for a shilling<br /> each, and so before long grow not only famous,<br /> but also rich beyond the dreams of avarice. I do<br /> not think, however, that the magazine had a long<br /> life.<br /> A correspondent writes as follows: “It is pro-<br /> bable that a little story, a gem of its kind, called<br /> “A Page of Philosophy,’ which appears in this<br /> (last) month&#039;s Macmillan&#039;s Magazine, may fail to<br /> receive the recognition due to its merit. I hope<br /> you will allow me to recommend to the attention<br /> of critics the simplicity and delicacy of portraiture<br /> achieved in a few lines; the subtlety of wit and<br /> the graceful polished style that characterises this<br /> story. One critic, at least, ventures to think<br /> that the story belongs both to literature and art.<br /> The author is a practised craftsman as well as an<br /> artist; the vividness with which this pessimist<br /> reveals himself no less through his letters than by<br /> the comments of his little group of friends, might<br /> well be envied by the master of short story-<br /> tellers.” I wish there were more correspondents<br /> so ready and eager to proclaim aloud the discovery<br /> of good work by a new, or an anonymous, writer.<br /> It is always easy—alas! so very easy—to decry<br /> and to depreciate and to “slate.” It requires<br /> only a bitter tongue and a malevolent heart; one<br /> need not read a work in order to revile it ; but to<br /> praise it intelligently and critically wants actual<br /> reading and the generosity of heart that can<br /> recognise work better than the critic can himself<br /> produce. As for this story, I have not yet read<br /> it, but I will make haste to follow my correspon-<br /> dent’s advice, and I recommend all readers of the<br /> Author to do likewise. -<br /> The following letter is stated by the Writer<br /> (Boston, Mass.) to have been received by an<br /> American publisher. It is so modest, so shrink-<br /> ing and diffident that one is amazed to learn<br /> that it was refused. Why does he not send it<br /> over here P A Boom—that enviable fortune—a<br /> Boom, would be certain :<br /> Messrs : Having just completed a novel, entitled<br /> “Doomed to Destruction: or, a Coquette&#039;s Punishment,”<br /> I take the liberty to write you, with a view, of course, of<br /> selling you the same.<br /> This is truly a most remarkable work throughout. Its<br /> style is pleasing, the plot is profound, and the characters<br /> play their parts in the drama to perfection.<br /> This is no blood-and-thunder story, but rather an<br /> intensely interesting love story, and is one of the few<br /> novels before the public which are able to hold the reader’s<br /> attention from the first page of the book to the last.<br /> Expecting an early reply, I am, yours most respectfully,<br /> A. B.<br /> From the same paper I learn that Mary<br /> Cowden Clarke, the compiler of the Shakespeare<br /> Concordance, is still living. Her home is at<br /> Genoa, and she is now eighty-six years of age.<br /> She therefore belongs to the Annus Mirabilis,<br /> 1809, which produced Darwin, Bismarck, Glad-<br /> stone, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and so many<br /> more illustrious men and women.<br /> The Writer is a paper devoted to the guidance<br /> and instruction of those who aspire to literary<br /> honours. There is generally some good and<br /> practical advice in its pages, together with a great<br /> deal of personal matter. Thus a long article is<br /> “made up&quot; out of one in the Forum on the gains<br /> of a man who lives by writing. There is a paper<br /> on plot-making for stories by a writer whose name<br /> is not known on this side of the Atlantic. He has,<br /> however, little to say except to tell what is, or<br /> was, the practice of certain well-known novelists.<br /> There is talk about the methods of illustration;<br /> there are queries; there are grammatical notes;<br /> there are lists of books and literary articles; and<br /> there are personal notes—these in great abundance.<br /> There is also advertised a “Literary Bureau,”<br /> which reads MSS. and tries to place them, and<br /> advises on them. We observe that the “Bureau”<br /> charges exactly twice as much for reading and<br /> advising on an MS. book as is charged by our<br /> Society for the same work. Would it, I wonder,<br /> be a useful thing for the Society to offer advice<br /> on articles for magazines P. The Literary Bureau<br /> charges for reading and advising about one shilling<br /> for every thousand words. This seems to include<br /> typewriting, but the advertisement is not plain<br /> On this point. The charge, if it does not include<br /> typewriting, seems too much for a magazine<br /> article, which should run from six thousand to<br /> ten thousand words. Now, there are thousands<br /> of articles submitted to editors every year.<br /> Would it be possible for us to help the writers<br /> by giving them the opinion of a judicious coach,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#467) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> II 3<br /> and to relieve editors of some of their labours<br /> by reading magazine articles and advising on<br /> them for a small fee of five shillings each P Our<br /> present system of reading MSS. has proved very<br /> helpful to many. Perhaps some of our readers<br /> will give their opinion upon this point. Of course<br /> it must be understood that the Society cannot,<br /> at all events, at present, offer MSS. to editors, nor<br /> undertake the work of literary agency in any<br /> form. WALTER BESANT.<br /> *~ * ~ *<br /> - * ---<br /> JOHN KEATS,<br /> (Born 29th Oct., 1795.)<br /> Lyrist, who—nursed not by Aonian flow,<br /> But rush and roar of London&#039;s wilderness,<br /> Ere scathed by scorn Tartarean—felt the stress<br /> That fired the Greek, the pearl’d Spenserean glow,<br /> And garden-glamour of Boccaccio,<br /> Roams he thro&#039; happier regions of redress P<br /> Whom the Gods loved—by some divine caress<br /> Dower&#039;d with Song a hundred years ago.<br /> He has survived the Critic&#039;s venom&#039;d fang,<br /> The Day-star of his fame has cleft the gloom,<br /> Pale o&#039;er him no elusive Phantoms loom,<br /> Nor knows he fruitless Passion’s arrowy pang ;<br /> Still peer the Roman violets round his tomb,<br /> Whose chant was sweeter than the Bird’s he sang.<br /> C. A. KELLY.<br /> *- A -º-<br /> z- - -<br /> MR, AUSTIN DOBSON&#039;S POEMS,<br /> HY is it that while poets of the more<br /> serious kind, poets who deal in ambi-<br /> tious tragedies and pessimistic odes, are<br /> as plentiful as gooseberries among us, those who<br /> sing leviore plectro have always been few, and<br /> threaten to become still fewer? Perhaps it is<br /> owing to the seriousness of the British tempera-<br /> ment, or perhaps to the playfulness of the critics,<br /> who conceive that the highest compliment possible<br /> to the writer of light verse is a statement that<br /> “this verse shows that the writer may some day<br /> accomplish work of a different and far more<br /> valuable kind,” meaning, presumably, an addition<br /> to those lugubrious works of which we have more<br /> than an abundance already. Why, again—to ask<br /> one more futile question—is there some species<br /> of deadly blight which afflicts the few who are<br /> really capable of giving us light verse of the<br /> first order, and which leads them to desert this<br /> form of composition so early P. Thus had Mr.<br /> Locker Lampson ceased to sing long years<br /> before his death, thus has Mr. Lang jilted<br /> the gayer muse, thus, worst far, is it possible<br /> for us to regard Mr. Dobson’s two small volumes<br /> as the sum of his work in rhyme. Small they<br /> are, the two together contain but some 500<br /> minute pages. But how gladly would some of<br /> us forego many of his prose sketches of the<br /> eighteenth century, delighted as they are, for a<br /> third volume of verse, to stand on our book-<br /> shelves beside “At the Sign of the Lyre,” and<br /> “Old World Idylls 1”<br /> For, indeed, I do not think it overbold to claim<br /> that Mr. Dobson is absolutely the best writer of<br /> English light verse that has ever lived. There<br /> are the rollicking rhymes, which represented<br /> poetical humour in the earlier part of the century,<br /> bristling with puns, overflowing with animal<br /> spirits—the work of Thomas Hood in his more<br /> boisterous mood, of Theodore Hook, Barham,<br /> and others. There is the more subdued but<br /> deftly polished work of Praed, Henry Leigh, and<br /> Mortimer Collins, the irresistible parodies of<br /> Calverley and J. K. Stephen. But nowhere save<br /> in Mr. Dobson&#039;s poems do we find that exquisite<br /> perfection of form joined with the brilliancy of a<br /> finished wit and the tender insight of a true poet.<br /> Perhaps the late Mr. Locker Lampson approached<br /> him most nearly, but alike in structure and beauty<br /> of thought Mr. Dobson’s best verses seem to me<br /> to beat all rivals with the utmost ease. And,<br /> while no poet is perfectly equal to his best at all<br /> times, surely few are so little unequal as is Mr.<br /> Dobson.<br /> Of the two volumes into which his work has<br /> been gathered, perhaps “At the Sign of the Lyre &quot;<br /> is slightly the better. From cover to cover, from<br /> “The Ladies of St. James’s ”:<br /> The ladies of St. James’s<br /> You scarce can understand<br /> The half of all their speeches<br /> Their phrases are so grand :<br /> But Phyllida, my Phyllida |<br /> Her shy and simple words<br /> Are clear as after rain-drops<br /> The music of the birds—<br /> (Could any but a poet have written these last<br /> four lines P) down to the graceful rondeau at the<br /> end the book is a pure delight. One does not<br /> know what quality in it to admire most. The<br /> humour of “A Legacy” and “Dora versus<br /> Rose,” the laughing satire of “The Poet and<br /> the Critics,” the charming tenderness of such<br /> pieces as “Little Blue-Ribbons” or “Daisy’s<br /> Walentines”:<br /> But wait. Your time will come.<br /> Obliging Fates, please send her<br /> The bravest thing you have in men,<br /> Sound-hearted, strong, and tender;--<br /> The kind of man, dear Fates, you know,<br /> That feels how shyly Daisies grow,<br /> And what soft things they are, and so<br /> Will spare to spoil or mend her.<br /> And then,<br /> Mr. Dobson’s reverence for the poets forbids<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#468) ################################################<br /> <br /> I4<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> him to write mere parodies. But, however<br /> mechanical Pope&#039;s style may be, could ever imita-<br /> tion come closer than this passage written in his<br /> best manner:<br /> Pope was, like them, the Censor of his Age<br /> An Age more suited to Repose than Rage;<br /> When Rhyming turn’d from Freedom to the Schools,<br /> And, shock’d with Licence, shudder&#039;d into Rules.<br /> Surely Alexander the little would have claimed<br /> the last couplet as his own. Indeed one is<br /> tempted to quote for ever, to write down extracts<br /> from the two green volumes long enough to fill<br /> many articles. But if any know not their charm,<br /> we envy them the pleasure yet to become their<br /> own. How playful is “An Autumn Idyll!”<br /> IIow keen the satire of “A Virtuoso | ?” How<br /> delicate the “Proverbs in Porcelain ” In these,<br /> and elsewhere too, the poet makes us feel the very<br /> atmosphere of the 18th century. Of his skill in<br /> the old French metres—Vallade, Triolet, Villa-<br /> nesse Chant Royal—it is needless to speak. His<br /> is the art that conceals artifice, that makes the<br /> metrical tours-de-force seem so easy to write.<br /> Let us quote only one triolet.<br /> O, Love&#039;s but a dance<br /> Where Time plays the fiddle !<br /> See the couples advance—<br /> O, Love&#039;s but a dance<br /> A whisper, a glance—<br /> Shall we twist down the middle !<br /> O, Love&#039;s but a dance<br /> Where Time plays the fiddle !<br /> What a pity—what a thousand pities, we cry,<br /> that such a poet as this should resolutely put his<br /> verse aside for “the pains of prose.” In Temple<br /> Bar for March, 1895, Mr. Dobson bids his verse<br /> a last farewell:<br /> Not ill-content to stand aside<br /> To yield to minstrels fitter<br /> His singing robes, his singing pride,<br /> His fancies sweet and bitter.<br /> Ah, but he wrote long ago a prophetic answer<br /> to his own excuse.<br /> Indeed! You really fancy so P<br /> You think for one white streak we grow<br /> At once satiric P<br /> A fiddlestick | Each hair&#039;s a string<br /> To which our ancient Muse shall sing<br /> A younger lyric.<br /> And so, having sat down to attempt some sort<br /> of critical estimate of Mr. Dobson&#039;s poems, I<br /> have penned nothing but a frankly uncritical<br /> eulogy of it.<br /> him to give us more of his inimitable verse—only<br /> those who have humbly followed him at a distance<br /> know how inimitable. As for that which he<br /> already has done, surely it will live, for it is the<br /> work not merely of a humorist, but of a poet,<br /> in the truest sense of that weighty word. To<br /> Let me conclude by beseeching<br /> Mr. Dobson&#039;s verse we may fitly apply some<br /> words of his own. -<br /> It will last till men weary of pleasure<br /> In measure<br /> It will last till men weary of laughter<br /> And after<br /> ANTHONY C. DEANE.<br /> Barcombe, Lewes.<br /> *— — —”<br /> * * *<br /> FROM THE MAGAZINES AND REVIEWS,<br /> OLERIDGE looms large in the literary<br /> view at the present time, by reason of the<br /> volumes of his Letters which appeared<br /> lately. Mr. Nowell C. Smith (Fortnightly Review,<br /> “Coleridge and His Critics”) sighs over man-<br /> kind, preferring to be more interested in authors<br /> than their books, and takes the view that though<br /> otherwise it would have been well to wait sixty<br /> years, as we have done, for a Life of Coleridge,<br /> yet, as so much had been written and suggested<br /> about his character, “it was a thousand pities<br /> someone could not give to the world what the<br /> late Mr. Dykes Campbell has so lately given,” a<br /> plain, and so far as possible accurate, narrative.<br /> Mr. Smith appears satisfied with the poet&#039;s<br /> explanation in “Biographia,” how his life was<br /> “one long floundering in ‘a sea of trouble.’”<br /> He longed to take the world into his confidence,<br /> but had never learned that “the sympathetic ear<br /> of the world only exists in metaphor. He was<br /> an egotist, like all of us; but a guileless one,<br /> like—how many ?” Another writer (Atlantic<br /> Monthly) likens Coleridge to a nineteenth-<br /> century Dr. Johnson, “but living in an ampler<br /> ether and breathing a diviner air;” and regards<br /> the source of his thought as those ancient<br /> writers of the Neoplatonist school, Jamblichus<br /> and Plotinus. “The world did not lose when he<br /> turned from poetry to prose”; but the mis-<br /> fortune of his intellectual life was that his best<br /> found vent in conversation rather than in letters,<br /> perhaps because he needed the stimulus of a<br /> visibly present audience, “ or it may have been<br /> that in conversation he found a pathway which<br /> offered least resistance to his powers, hampered<br /> as they were by indolence and weakness of the<br /> will.” According to Mrs. Dynn Linton (National<br /> Review, “The Philistine&#039;s Coming Triumph,”)<br /> “our Philistine,” who “ has had enough to do to<br /> keep alive in him a glimmer of hope for better<br /> days on his political side, as on his literary and<br /> artistic,” now “sees the end of his travail and<br /> the beginning of his triumph.” We are to have,<br /> inter alia, “our sweet and strong and pure and<br /> domestic women back again.” But the Philistine<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#469) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE<br /> II 5<br /> A UTHOR.<br /> “must not stifle Art and clip the wings of<br /> Poetry, save where these are self-degraded by<br /> hiring themselves out to the service of filth and<br /> abomination. He may banish the Pandemos, but<br /> the Anadyomene is sacred; and when he attempts<br /> to drive out Nature with a pitchfork his hands<br /> must be tied behind his back.”<br /> Mrs. Linton first met George Eliot–Marian<br /> Evans of that day—at John Chapman&#039;s, and the<br /> effect was to put up her “mental bristles &quot;<br /> (JWoman at Home, “A First Meeting with<br /> George Eliot ”). “She was essentially underbred<br /> and provincial; and I, in the swaddling-clothes<br /> of early education and prepossession as I was,<br /> saw more of the provincial than the genius. She<br /> held her hands and arms kangaroo fashion; was<br /> badly dressed; had an unwashed, unbrushed,<br /> unkempt look altogether; and she assumed a<br /> tone of superiority over me which I was not then<br /> aware was warranted by her undoubted leader-<br /> ship.” George Eliot&#039;s later self-consciousness<br /> Mrs. Linton is down upon, and her second<br /> marriage is described as “a blunder, if not worse,<br /> that will always cloud her memory and vitiate<br /> her first choice.” “Vernon Lee&#039; offers a kind<br /> of mathematical plan to young writers learning<br /> their métier (Contemporary Review, “On Lite-<br /> rary Construction ”), taking the line that “in<br /> literature all depends on what you can set the<br /> reader to do ; if you confuse his ideas or waste<br /> his energy, you can no longer do anything.” A<br /> pen-stroke is to represent the first train of<br /> thought or group of facts. Another for the<br /> second, long or short, according to the number of<br /> words or pages occupied, and which, connected<br /> with the first stroke, “will deflect to the right or<br /> the left according as it contains more or less new<br /> matter; so that, if it grow insensibly from stroke<br /> number one, it will have to be almost straight,<br /> and if it contain something entirely disconnected,<br /> will be at right angles.” And so on, adding pen<br /> strokes of proportionate length for every new train<br /> of thought or group of facts, and writing the name<br /> along each. If the reader&#039;s mind is to run easily<br /> along the whole story or essay, the resulting map<br /> will approximate most likely to a perfect circle or<br /> ellipse.” The alleged failure of the Free Library<br /> is attributed by Mr. W. Roberts, in a paper on<br /> the subject (New Review), chiefly to lack of judg-<br /> mert in the selection of books. As showing the<br /> “absurd preponderance of fiction,” he quotes<br /> Mr. Charles Welch’s statistics that, in the<br /> twenty-seven districts of London which have<br /> adopted the Act, the issue of fiction averages 75<br /> per cent. in seventeen, and reaches over 80 per<br /> cent. in the other nine. He recommends, to put<br /> the movement on a proper basis, (I) a central<br /> organisation, under the supervision, more or less,<br /> of the Home Secretary; (2) every reader to have<br /> direct access to the books, as a catalogue title is<br /> not, as a rule, a clear indication of the contents<br /> of a book; and (3) a monthly or quarterly list of<br /> acquisitions, arranged according to subject.<br /> Speaking for graduates of five-and-twenty<br /> years&#039; standing, a writer on “Oxford Then and<br /> Now’ (Blackwood&#039;s Magazine), while not entirely<br /> appreciating Somerville Hall and “the invasion<br /> of our old University by a tribe of ‘revolted<br /> daughters,’” hails with pleasure “the presence of<br /> intellectual womanhood as represented by the<br /> wives of the married Fellows.” “Of one thing<br /> we may be sure, that ingenitae Artes and literae<br /> Humaniores will be more truly learned and prac-<br /> tised under the new than under the old régime,<br /> and that many of the more objectionable features<br /> of undergraduate life will of necessity be eradi-<br /> cated.” The Rev. T. E. Brown, in a causerie on<br /> Bobert Burton (New Review), characterises that<br /> Melancholist as a virtual Proteus, a will-o&#039;-the-<br /> wisp. “‘What’s a sovereign P. No, it isn&#039;t,&#039;<br /> was the question with which the late Professor of<br /> Political Economy at Oxford used to delight to<br /> pose an audience of young ladies. Well that is<br /> Burton : he does not want you to know ; your<br /> knowledge would be to him an impertinence.”<br /> *– A –<br /> CRICKET MATCH.<br /> PRESS CLUB v. AUTHORs’ CLUB.<br /> T Lord&#039;s, yesterday, representatives of these<br /> A clubs met in friendly rivalry for the first<br /> time. Although the Press Club had its<br /> strongest eleven in the field, the Authors&#039; Club<br /> was not fully represented. The Authors lacked<br /> the services of Dr. Conan Doyle, who is on the<br /> Continent, and Mr. J. M. Barrie. The match<br /> proved a most Cxciting one, and the interest in it<br /> was well sustained to the finish. Although they<br /> won the toss, the Press Club put their opponents<br /> in first. At the outset this policy was not<br /> attended with very happy results, as, thanks to<br /> some vigorous cricket on the part of Lindsey and<br /> Grimwood-Mears, the Authors had at lunch-time<br /> put together 97 for the loss of only two wickets.<br /> After the interval, however, a complete change<br /> came over the game. Southerton and Preston<br /> each performed the “hat trick,” with the result<br /> that the Authors were eventually disposed of for<br /> 152. When they got out only an hour and three-<br /> quarters remained for play. Jones and Groves<br /> hit in brilliant style, and, as they registered 99 in<br /> less than an hour for the first wicket, the Press<br /> Club passed their opponents&#039; total within fifteen<br /> minutes of the hour originally fixed upon for the<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#470) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 16<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> drawing of stumps, for the loss of only five of<br /> their men. The game was continued until six<br /> o&#039;clock, with the result that the Press Club won<br /> by 49 runs. Scores:<br /> AUTHORs&#039; CLUB.<br /> T. Lindsay, b Preston ... 56 G. C. Ives, not out<br /> H. A. Gwynne, b Graves I | A. Gomme, jun., b Pres-<br /> H. A. Holt, b Jones ...... O ton<br /> E. Grimwood-Mears, c T. Macfadyon, b Preston o<br /> Cowan, b Southerton... 61 | F. Beeton, b Southerton 6<br /> J. Gilmer, b Southerton o Byes I7, 1-b I, n.-b I IQ<br /> N. Balfour, b Southerton o<br /> L. Gomme, b Preston ... 6 Total............ I52<br /> PRESS CLUB. -<br /> ‘G. J. Groves, c Lindsey, A. Cowan, b Holt ......... 7<br /> b Macfadyon ........ ... 69 H. Jacobson, b Ives ... ... I<br /> H. W. Jones, b Holt ... ... 25 | E. R. Ward, run out ...... O<br /> H. Preston, st Gwynne, b J. Barr, b Ives ... . . . . . . . . . 2<br /> Ives ................. ...... I4 E. A. O’Keefe, b Holt ... 2<br /> H. B. Smith, not out...... 55 B 7, 1-b 2, w 3 ... ... I 2<br /> F. Catling, st Gwynne, b<br /> Holt........................ 7 ---<br /> S. J. Southerton, b Ives 7 Total ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201<br /> —Daily Chronicle, Sept. 18.<br /> *— — —”<br /> *<br /> BOOK TALK,<br /> R. EGERTON CASTTLE&#039;S romance “The<br /> Light of Scarthey,” the publication of<br /> which as a serial in The Times&#039; Weekly<br /> Edition has just come to an end, will be issued<br /> in one volume form by Messrs. Osgood McIlvaine<br /> and Co. during the first week of October. This<br /> book will be the second of The Times Novels;<br /> the first to appear in this new and important<br /> series was, as many may remember, Mrs. Francis&#039;s<br /> admirable story “A Daughter of the Soil.”<br /> Mr. Joseph Conrad is engaged upon a new<br /> romance to succeed his successful “Almayer&#039;s<br /> Folly.” The local setting and some of the<br /> characters will be the same. Mr. Fisher Unwin<br /> will publish the volume, which will be called<br /> “An Outcast of the Island.” *<br /> “The Wooing of Doris’’ is the title of a novel<br /> by the late Mrs. J. K. Spender, which Messrs.<br /> Innes are to publish very soon.<br /> Miss Mary Angela Dickens is the author of a<br /> novel called “Prisoners of Silence,” which Messrs.<br /> Osgood McIlvaine are about to publish.<br /> The Latin Quarter of Paris is the subject of a<br /> novel by Mr. Robert W. Chambers, called “In<br /> the Quarter.” Messrs. Chatto and Windus are<br /> the publishers.<br /> “Miss Grace of All Souls” is the striking<br /> title chosen by Mr. W. E. Tirebuck for his novel<br /> on the great coal strike. Miss Grace, a vicar&#039;s<br /> daughter, represents the modern woman of the<br /> story, and three other types are a grandfather<br /> whose faith is in the past, a son with unbounded<br /> belief in the present, and a grandson who is<br /> understood to hold the balance between labour<br /> and capital. The work attempts to represent<br /> the position of the man and woman of to-day<br /> towards the labour question. Mr. Heinemann<br /> will issue it.<br /> Another novel by Katharine Tynan is in the<br /> hands of Messrs. Lawrence and Bullen for publi-<br /> cation. The title is “The Way of a Maid.”<br /> Mr. Henry Craik&#039;s series of selections from<br /> English prose, which began with a volume from<br /> Sir John Mandeville and the early English<br /> writers, will be concluded this autumn.<br /> A new book by Mr. Grant Allen, “The Desire<br /> of the Eyes, and Other Stories,” is announced for<br /> publication by Messrs. Digby, Long, and Co.<br /> The author was, it seems, altogether unaware<br /> of this intention until he read the announcement,<br /> and, indeed, he would not have desired to re-<br /> publish the title-story. Writing the particulars<br /> to the Athenæum of the 21st ult., he states that,<br /> to prevent recurrence of such “unpleasant expe-<br /> riences,” he proposes to send the following printed<br /> notice with every manuscript he forwards to<br /> editors: “This article or story is offered or sold<br /> on the distinct understanding that I part with<br /> British serial rights only for a single periodical;<br /> the copyright, together with all other serial<br /> rights, foreign or colonial, remaining my own<br /> property, unless a written agreement to the<br /> contrary is signed by me.”<br /> A new series of tales of adventure will be com-<br /> menced by Messrs. Innes on an early day. The<br /> first volume is to be “A Set of Rogues,” by Mr.<br /> Frank Barrett ; the second, by Mr. James Chal-<br /> mers, entitled “The Renegade’’; and a historical<br /> tale of the seventeenth century, written by Mr.<br /> J. C. Snaith, and called “Mistress Dorothy<br /> Marvin,” will be the third. The same firm will<br /> also publish “Lost Chords,” a novel by Mr.<br /> Arthur Rickett ; and “For Love of Price,” by<br /> Mr. Leslie Keith. -<br /> Mr. James Hogg, the associate of De Quincey,<br /> has prepared a volume on “De Quincey and His<br /> Friends,” which will be issued this month by<br /> Messrs. Sampson Low. Besides his own remi-<br /> miscences and material Mr. Hogg has secured the<br /> recollections of others who also had admission to<br /> De Quincey’s circle. Dr. A. H. Japp writes an<br /> account of De Quincey’s career for the work.<br /> Mr. Edwin Hodder is to write the biography<br /> of the late Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, who<br /> was chiefly known for his work on behalf of<br /> children employed in canal boats and gipsy vans.<br /> A biography of the late Lord Clarence Paget,<br /> consisting of diaries and memoirs, edited by Sir<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#471) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I 17<br /> Arthur Otway, will be published by Messrs.<br /> Chapman and Hall early in the autumn.<br /> Edinburgh is moving to celebrate the cen-<br /> tenary of the birth of Thomas Carlyle. The<br /> assistance of Professor Masson and Principal Muir<br /> has been secured amongst others, and various<br /> literary and other societies will take part. Mr.<br /> Thomas Usher, secretary of the Border Counties<br /> Association, Edinburgh, invites suggestions on<br /> the subject. A popular illustrated biography of<br /> Carlyle is announced for publication by Messrs.<br /> Chambers.<br /> Besides the “Centenary Burns,” which Mr.<br /> Henley and Mr. T. F. Henderson are editing,<br /> there is to be an edition of the Scottish poet by<br /> Mr. Andrew Lang. The latter is to be published<br /> by Messrs. Methuen ; the former hails from<br /> Messrs. Jack, of Edinburgh. Mr. William<br /> Wallace is revising for a new edition, the “Life<br /> and Works of Robert Burns,” by the late Dr.<br /> Robert Chambers, which will be in four or five<br /> volumes. It will have illustrations from original<br /> drawings by Mr. C. Martin Hardie, R.S.A., Mr.<br /> W. D. Mackay, R.S.A., Mr. G. O. Reid, A.R.S.A.,<br /> and Mr. G. Pirie.<br /> Mr. William Archer has translated from the<br /> Norwegian Dr. Georg Brandes&#039;s work, “William<br /> Shakespeare: A Critical Study.” It will be in<br /> two volumes, and published by Mr. Heinemann.<br /> Mr. Ernest Hartley Coleridge is at work on a<br /> life of the poet, whose grandson he is. Quite<br /> recently the “Letters of Samuel Taylor Cole-<br /> ridge ’’ was published, and warmly welcomed<br /> under Mr. Coleridge’s editorship. He now<br /> invites those who may possess letters still un-<br /> published to forward them to him for use in the<br /> biography. Mr. Heinemann is publisher.<br /> A distinguished band of contributors has been<br /> got for “The Book of Beauty (late Victorian<br /> Era),” a work which Messrs. Hutchison and Co.<br /> are preparing. The writers include, for instance,<br /> Mr. Rudyard Kipling, Mr. Hall Caine, Mr.<br /> George Moore, Mr. Frankfort Moore, Mr. George<br /> Curzon, M.P., the Marchioness of Granby, Wis-<br /> countess Hood, Princess Henry of Pless, Lady<br /> Ileene Campbell, Lady Charlotte Stopford, and<br /> others; while there will be portraits by Sir<br /> Frederic Leighton, Sir John Millais, Sir Edward<br /> Burne-Jones, Mr. Luke Fildes, Mr. J. S. Sargent,<br /> Mr. Whistler, and other painters.<br /> A volume on Asia Minor, Transcaucasia, and<br /> Persia has been edited by Sir Charles Wilson for<br /> Mr. Murray&#039;s Handbook series.<br /> Messrs. A. and C. Black have just published a<br /> new novel entitled “Dr. Quantrill&#039;s Experiment:<br /> the Chronicle of a Second Marriage,” by T. Inglis.<br /> (Price 3s. 6d.)<br /> A history of the most celebrated songs of the<br /> world will begin serially in Lloyd’s News this<br /> week. It is entitled “Stories of Famous Songs,”<br /> and the author, Mr. S. J. Adair Fitz-Gerald, has<br /> spent ten years over it. The work will appear<br /> later in book form.<br /> A new illustrated quarterly will make its<br /> appearance towards the close of the year, pub-<br /> lished by Leonard C. Smithers of Effingham<br /> House, Arundel-street, Strand. The name of<br /> this publication has not yet been decided on, but<br /> a rather strong band of contributors has been got<br /> together, including Mr. Aubrey Beardsley (Art<br /> Editor), Mr. Charles Conder, Mr. F. Norreys<br /> Connell, Mr. Ernest Dowson, Mr. Havelock Ellis,<br /> Mr. Herbert P. Horne, Mr. Lionel Johnson, Mr.<br /> George Moore, Mr. Will Rothenstein, Mr. Arthur<br /> Symons (Literary Editor), and many others. Mr.<br /> Smithers intends to attempt something quite unique<br /> in the reproduction of the artistic contributions.<br /> Mr. Smithers will also publish about the<br /> same time a new novel from the pen of Mr.<br /> F. Norreys Connell, whose “House of the<br /> Strange Woman,” in spite of much hostile<br /> criticism, is reported to be rapidly “catching on,”<br /> and further editions may be looked for in due<br /> course. Mr. Connell, too, has joined the staff of<br /> the Unicorn.<br /> The Roxburghe Press will issue almost imme-<br /> diately “Furs and Fur Garments,” a history of<br /> fur garments and fur animals. It is written by<br /> Mr. Richard Davey. The statistics as to the<br /> modern fur trade have been supplied by Mr.<br /> T. S. Jay, F. Z.S., whose practical knowledge<br /> and experience of the subject should render<br /> the work particularly interesting. It will be<br /> copiously illustrated and daintily produced. An<br /> edition of 5000 copies has already been called for.<br /> The first prize of 2000 dollars offered by the<br /> Bacheller Syndicate for the best detective story<br /> of 2000 words has been awarded to Miss Mary E.<br /> Wilkins, of Randolph, Mass., and Joseph Edgar<br /> Chamberlin, of the Youth&#039;s Companion, who<br /> submitted “The Long Arm,” written in collabo-<br /> ration. Brander Matthews took the second prize<br /> with “The Twinkling of an Eye.” Both stories<br /> have appeared in Chapman&#039;s Magazine. Among<br /> the well-known writers who submitted stories in<br /> competition for the prizes were : Anna Katherine<br /> Green, Florence Marryatt, Duffield Osborne, and<br /> Robert W. Chambers. There were 3000 stories<br /> sent in. Stories worthy of honourable mention<br /> were written by John Seymour Wood, of the<br /> University Club, New York city; H. Lynde, of<br /> Richmond, Ind. ; Edgar Thormet Roy, of New<br /> York city; and David Skeets Foster, of Utica,<br /> N. Y.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#472) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 18<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> “Nooks and Corners of Pembrokeshire,” by<br /> H, Thornhill Timmins, F.R.G.S., will shortly<br /> make its appearance.<br /> Mr. Timmins’ “Herefordshire,” which was very<br /> favourably noticed by the Press. “Nooks and<br /> Corners of Pembrokeshire * describes, in a narra-<br /> tive way, the most interesting localities of that<br /> little known county, and is very fully illustrated<br /> by over Ioo sketches of its more picturesque<br /> features, drawn upon the spot by the author.<br /> A new edition of “The Steam Navy of Eng-<br /> land,” will shortly be issued by Mr. Harry<br /> Williams, R.N., the author. The publishers are<br /> W. H. Allen and Co., 13, Waterloo-place, S.W.<br /> This work is dedicated, by special permission, to<br /> Admiral of the Fleet, His Royal Highness the<br /> Duke of Edinburgh. The author has taken<br /> advantage of the issue of this edition of his<br /> book to add an essay on the Personnel of the<br /> Steam Branch of the Navy, but notwithstanding<br /> this enlargement of the original work, the<br /> publishing price (12s. 6d.) will be the same as<br /> before.<br /> The fifth volume of the “Annual Index to<br /> Periodicals &#039;&#039; issued at the Review of Reviews<br /> office is now ready. It deals with 1894, as the pre-<br /> vious issues have dealt with 1890, 1891, 1892, and<br /> 1893, and thus it forms an exhaustive classified<br /> record of the contents of the English and<br /> American periodicals of last year. It is, in fact,<br /> an attempt to present, as nearly as possible, com-<br /> plete bibliographies of every subject discussed in<br /> the magazines and reviews of the year, as<br /> opposed to a mere alphabetical arrangement of<br /> the titles of articles, which are rarely, if ever,<br /> remembered with accuracy. The price is 5s. nett.<br /> A volume of stories by Rev. W. B. Wallace,<br /> B.A. (ex-Scholar, Senior Classical Moderator,<br /> and Fellowship Prizeman) of Dublin University,<br /> is to be issued in October by the Roxbourghe<br /> Press, under the title of the first story, “The<br /> Clue of Ariadne.” The other stories are entitled,<br /> “Princess Asenath ; a Metaphysical Romance; ”<br /> and “Thrusyllus: a Legend of Capri.”<br /> Sir Henry Irving has accepted the dedication of<br /> Mr. Farquhar Palliser&#039;s new work—a mytho-<br /> logical play in blank verse, entitled “Ermelyn,”<br /> the first portion of which had been previously sub-<br /> mitted for perusal. Mr. Farquhar Palliser, whose<br /> concluding lines to “Christopher Marlowe” were<br /> quoted by Sir Henry Irving at the unveiling of<br /> the Marlowe Memorial in Canterbury, is the<br /> author (under the nom de plume of “ Heber K.<br /> Daniels’) of the “Tales of a Terrace ’’ series,<br /> “Me and Jim,” and many other short stories and<br /> sketches.<br /> The work is similar to<br /> A little volume entitled “The Outcast ’’ will be<br /> published by the S.P.C.K. on 1st Oct. It will<br /> contain two short but very characteristic tales<br /> from the modern Greek of M. D. Kikela and M.<br /> Rarkavitsa, translated and adapted by F. Bayford<br /> Harrison.<br /> Mr. A. W. Gillman, grandson of “Coleridge&#039;s<br /> Gillman,” is about to produce a book called “The<br /> Gillmans of Highgate,” in which will be found<br /> much fresh information concerning Coleridge&#039;s<br /> residence with the Gillmans. There are also<br /> portraits, letters, &amp;c., never before published.<br /> The publisher will be Mr. Elliot Stock, and the<br /> work will be in small quarto.<br /> New Zealand is waking up to her literary possi-<br /> bilities and duties. It is, indeed, almost time that<br /> she should contribute something to the literature<br /> of the day. A novel by Mrs. Suisted, of Westport,<br /> New Zealand, has been purchased by Messrs.<br /> Tillotson and Sons, of Bolton. In their hands<br /> Mrs. Suisted may rest assured that she will have<br /> a very good chance of making a name over the<br /> whole of the English-speaking world. The work<br /> will probably appear at Christmas or early mext<br /> Wear.<br /> “Doctor Johnson and the Fair Sex: a Study<br /> of Contrasts,” is the title of a work by Mr. W. H.<br /> Craig, of Lincoln&#039;s Inn, to be published by<br /> Messrs. Sampson Low. It will contain portraits<br /> of the Doctor and of ladies whose names happen<br /> in the volume—Miss Hannah Moore, Mrs. Siddons,<br /> Mrs Abington, Miss Burney, Mrs. Carter, and<br /> others. To drive briskly in a post-chaise with a<br /> pretty woman who understood him was, it will be<br /> remembered, the ideal existence the “old lion ”<br /> pictured on One occasion. -<br /> Mrs. W. K. Clifford has enlarged and rewritten<br /> her “A Flash of Summer,” which appeared in<br /> the Illustrated London News, and it will be<br /> issued soon in book form by Messrs. Methuen.<br /> Mr, Elkin Matthews is to issue at intervals,<br /> beginning in November, a series of shilling<br /> volumes of poetry. The first will be “London<br /> Poems,” by Mr. Lawrence Binyon, and the second<br /> by Mr. Robert Bridges.<br /> A book by Madame Belloc, called “In a Walled<br /> Garden,” which has a place in Messrs. Ward and<br /> Downey&#039;s list of forthcoming publications, is to<br /> contain personal recollections of, amongst others,<br /> George Eliot, “Barry Cornwall,” Mary Hewitt,<br /> Basil Montagu, Mrs. Procter, and Cardinal<br /> Manning. The same publishers will also send<br /> out “A Comedy of Contrasts,” by W. J. Locke,<br /> author of “At the Gate of Samaria.”<br /> Dr. Robertson Nicoll and Mr. Thomas Wise<br /> are associated in editing a work entitled “Literary<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#473) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> I I 9<br /> Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century: Contri-<br /> butions towards a Literary History of the Period,”<br /> the first volume of which will be issued shortly<br /> by Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton. A portrait<br /> of William Black (which has not previously<br /> been published), etched upon steel by the late<br /> William Bell Scott, is to be the frontispiece; and<br /> the contents will include the trial of Blake for<br /> sedition; Mrs. Browning on Tennyson; A. H.<br /> Hallam and the Tennysons; biographies of<br /> Thomas Wade, Richard Henry Horne, and<br /> Charles Wells, each with new material; a biblio-<br /> graphy of Browning; and letters from Shelley to<br /> Leigh Hunt. The edition is limited to Iooo copies.<br /> The September output of books was fairly<br /> large, but no work of outstanding importance<br /> appeared. That which was of most siguificance<br /> was of political rather than literary interest,<br /> namely, “ The Chitral Campaign : a Narrative of<br /> Events in Chitral, Swat, and Bajour,” the<br /> writer of which is Mr. H. C. Thomson, a press<br /> correspondent who accompanied the relief force.<br /> Mr. Crockett’s “The Man of the Moss Hags”<br /> (Ibister); George Macdonald&#039;s new romance,<br /> “Lilith ” (Chatto and Windus); “Clarence,” by<br /> Bret Harte (Chatto and Windus); “A Woman<br /> in It,” by Rita (Hutchinson); and “Four Years<br /> of Novel Reading,” by R. G. Moulton (Isbister),<br /> were some of the more distinctive of the books of<br /> the month. The last named work, whose author<br /> is a Professor of English Literature in the<br /> University of Chicago, tells of the experiment of<br /> establishing in a Northumberland village a novel-<br /> reading union on the lines that fiction is not<br /> intended solely for amusement, but should fill the<br /> reader&#039;s soul “with a sense of artistic beauty,<br /> and make him long to be good.”<br /> A volume of up-to-date poems entitled “Arrows<br /> of Song,” the author of which, though said to<br /> have achieved distinction as a writer, does not<br /> meantime wish his identity unveiled, is to be<br /> published by Messrs. Hutchinson about a month<br /> hence.<br /> Guy de Maupassant is the model chosen by the<br /> author of a little volume to be published by Mr.<br /> George Redway, entitled “How to Write Fiction,<br /> especially the Art of Short Story Writing: A<br /> Study in Technique.”<br /> A new birth in the periodical press during<br /> September is the Unicorn, a threepenny illus-<br /> trated weekly, edited by Mr. L. Raven-Hill, the<br /> well-known artist. The short story is to be made<br /> a feature. Other events of note in this depart-<br /> ment of literature are the change in the proprie-<br /> torship of Judy, from Mr. Gilbert Dalziel to Miss<br /> Gillian Debenham, Mr. C. H. Abbot, formerly<br /> sub-editor, getting the editor&#039;s chair; the resig-<br /> nation of Mr. Stanhope Sprigg from the editor-<br /> ship of the Windsor Magazine, which, however,<br /> does not come about until February next; and<br /> the alteration by which the American magazines,<br /> the Century and the St. Nicholas, will henceforth<br /> be published in this country by Messrs. Mac-<br /> millan and Co. in place of Mr. Unwin.<br /> Mr. J. F. Hogan&#039;s work, “The Sister Domi-<br /> nions,” the result of a tour of Canada and<br /> Australia during the last Parliamentary recess,<br /> will appear from Messrs. Ward and Downey in a<br /> few days.<br /> Mr. Edward Abbot Parry will immediately<br /> produce a fairy story, “Katawampus and its<br /> Treatment and Cure,” a moral story without<br /> morality. The book will be illustrated by Archie<br /> McGregor, and will be published by David Nutt,<br /> 270, Strand.<br /> At a meeting of the International League of<br /> Press Clubs, recently held at Philadelphia, one<br /> of Our members, Miss Amelia Josephine Cook,<br /> addressed a meeting on the subject of the Society<br /> of Authors and its work and aims in this country.<br /> She especially advocated the establishment of a<br /> Pension Fund in connection with the American<br /> Society or with the League of Press Clubs. The<br /> idea appears to have commanded the sympathy<br /> and interest of her hearers, and there is some hope<br /> that the interest thus created may be followed up.<br /> *-* -<br /> CORRESPONDENCE,<br /> I.—LECTURING IN AMERICA.<br /> OBSERVE that my recent letter to the<br /> Author, in which I warned lecturers going<br /> to America not to be misled by sensational<br /> rumours as to the profits to be earned, has been<br /> generally misquoted as being an acknowledgment<br /> upon my part that my own tour was unsuccessful.<br /> This would be immaterial if it were not that it<br /> places my manager, Major J. B. Pond, in a false<br /> position, since he has publicly stated that my tour<br /> was successful far beyond all possible expecta-<br /> tions. It is only fair to him to say that, during<br /> ten weeks, I hardly ever spoke to a house which<br /> was not full, and that I had to refuse more<br /> engagements than I accepted. I had certainly<br /> considerably more to do than I desired.<br /> I was able, however, when I was over there, to<br /> see something of the conditions of lecturing, and<br /> when I observed a very large sum mentioned in<br /> your columns as being obtained per night, I<br /> thought it right to warn brother authors or<br /> lecturers to be sure of their ground before cross-<br /> ing the Atlantic. My Calculation was based upon<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#474) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 2G)<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> their giving four lectures a week. I have given<br /> as many as ten, but the physical strain was con-<br /> siderable. Far from being disappointed at the<br /> results of Major Pond&#039;s arrangements, I was<br /> amazed at their success. I repeat, however, that<br /> the making of money should be a secondary<br /> object, and there will then be no risk of disap-<br /> pointment. A. CONAN Doy L.E.<br /> II.-EVERY MAN HIS OWN PUBLISHER.<br /> There is no practical difficulty in now ascertain-<br /> ing the approximate cost of producing any ordi-<br /> nary mew book; but, having published his book,<br /> how is an unknown author to introduce it to the<br /> bookselling trade, and to give it on its own<br /> merits a fair chance of sale through the usual<br /> trade channels P<br /> The publisher, we know, has effective means to<br /> promote the sale of the books that he produces,<br /> by means of advertisement, the bookselling trade,<br /> circulating libraries, &amp;c.; but the unknown author<br /> who may wish to publish his own book has usually<br /> no trade connection, and has in fact at present no<br /> available machinery for offering his book for sale,<br /> however intrinsically good or well written it may<br /> be.<br /> If the Society of Authors can show how, under<br /> the circumstances, would-be authors can dispense<br /> with the publisher&#039;s services, and what alterna-<br /> tive machinery exists to enable such persons<br /> when desirous of publishing their own books to<br /> carry out their object in a sound and business-<br /> like way, I cannot but think that many persons<br /> might be tempted to use that machinery.<br /> M. A.<br /> [There is but one way, and that is to do exactly<br /> what the publisher does—send round the book<br /> to the trade, advertise it, and send out copies for<br /> review. John Ruskin has shown the world how<br /> to do without the publisher. Everybody, however,<br /> would not find it pay so well as John Ruskin,<br /> Where a book is published for a special purpose,<br /> and to meet a limited demand, why should not the<br /> author advertise that it is to be had from his own<br /> residence P-ED.]<br /> III.—HIs Own BOOK PRODUCER.<br /> I too have an experience to record as to new<br /> ways of book-producing.<br /> A child’s book was on hand. Christmas before<br /> last small parcels of type were coming in,<br /> and the evenings saw us propping up the<br /> aggravating little letters. Meanwhile wood<br /> blocks were being cut in a fishing loft by the<br /> Sea.<br /> Having mastered the elements of printing, we<br /> engaged a capable printer to work with us. We<br /> found our knowledge sufficient to enable us to<br /> market for some time.<br /> get our own way when tradition was against us.<br /> Paper had to be found, and we searched London<br /> with a fat Jesuit schoolbook in our hands for<br /> sample. A coarse handmade paper at 19s. a<br /> ream, almost identical with that of our exemplar,<br /> was at length discovered. Finally we printed<br /> off two sheets of eight pages a week, the edition<br /> consisting of 300 copies of I2O pages. As the<br /> sheets left the press they again passed through<br /> our hands in order that certain initial letters<br /> might receive a wash of colour.<br /> We did not sell the book. A well-known<br /> firm kindly undertook to publish it at a<br /> moderate percentage, but though there would<br /> have been a good profit if the edition had been<br /> sold, either the price (IOS.) was too high, or we<br /> did not advertise enough, or the matter and<br /> shape did not interest any public.<br /> The cost was small compared with any<br /> recognised means of production. A. S.<br /> *- - -º<br /> New interest is being awakened in the writings<br /> of Sidney Lanier, whose books, previous to his<br /> death, had a limited circulation. A new edition<br /> of his “Select Poems ” has appeared, and atten-<br /> tion is being frequently called to his “Science of<br /> English Verse.” W. H. Ward found enough of<br /> material in the busy life of Lanier to make a<br /> captivating biography, which has been on the<br /> Sidney Lanier was a<br /> Southern man, and served in the Confederate<br /> army through the war. He enlisted as a private,<br /> and refused promotion three times, that he might<br /> be near a younger brother, who was in the same<br /> regiment. He was a prisoner in the Union army,<br /> and wrote “Tiger Lilies” to describe this period<br /> in his experience. After he came out of the Con-<br /> federate army Lanier studied law, presided over<br /> an academy, and lectured at Johns Hopkins<br /> University on “The English Novel.” His lecture<br /> appeared afterwards in book form. In 1873 he<br /> made his home in Baltimore, accepting an engage-<br /> ment as first flute for the Peabody&#039;s symphony<br /> concerts. His father desired that he should<br /> return to Macon, Ga., and engage in the practice<br /> of law, but, being in feeble health (for he was<br /> afflicted with consumption), he believed that his<br /> chances for life were better in Baltimore than in<br /> Macon, and he said that he could not consent to<br /> be a third-rate, struggling lawyer for the rest of<br /> his life, since he had been assured by good judges<br /> that he was the greatest flute player in the world.<br /> Besides, he had high hopes of a successful career<br /> in literature. He died at Baltimore of consump-<br /> tion, September 7, 1881, at the age of thirty-nine.<br /> —Chautauquan.	https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/282/1895-10-01-The-Author-6-5.pdf	publications, The Author
281	https://historysoa.com/items/show/281	The Author, Vol. 06 Issue 04 (September 1895)	<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.+06+Issue+04+%28September+1895%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 Issue 04 (September 1895)</a>			<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</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>	1895-09-02-The-Author-6-4					85–100																		<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=6">6</a>											<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1895-09-02">1895-09-02</a>							4			18950902	C be El u t b or,<br /> (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors.<br /> Monthly.)<br /> C O N DU C T ED BY WA. L TER BES ANT.<br /> VoI. VI.-No. 4.]<br /> SEPTEMBER. 2, 1895.<br /> [PRICE SIXPENCE.<br /> For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are<br /> signed or initialled the Authors alone are<br /> responsible. None of the papers or para-<br /> graphs must be taken as eaſpressing the<br /> collective opinions of the committee unless<br /> they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br /> Thring, Sec.<br /> *- : * ~ *<br /> e- * ~s<br /> HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all<br /> remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and<br /> requests that all members not receiving an answer to<br /> important communications within two days will write to him<br /> without delay. All remittances should be crossed Union<br /> Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered<br /> letter only.<br /> Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on<br /> all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub-<br /> jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are<br /> returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS.<br /> *- - --&gt;<br /> a- - --<br /> WARNINGS AND ADWICE,<br /> I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.-It is not generally<br /> understood that the author, as the vendor, has the<br /> absolute right of drafting the agreement upon<br /> whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out.<br /> Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In<br /> every form of business, this among others, the right of<br /> drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or<br /> has the control of the property.<br /> 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.–In selling Serial Rights remember<br /> that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that<br /> is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you<br /> object to this, insert a clause to that effect.<br /> 3. STAMP You R AGREEMENTs. – Readers are most<br /> URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements<br /> immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected<br /> for two weeks, a fine of £10 must be paid before the agree-<br /> ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every<br /> case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter<br /> which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The<br /> author may be assured that the other party to the agree-<br /> ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society,<br /> to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of<br /> members stamped for them at no ea pense to themselves<br /> eaccept the cost of the stamp.<br /> 4. AscERTAIN whAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES To<br /> Both SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an<br /> arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi-<br /> ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he<br /> reserved for himself. -<br /> 5. LITERARY AGENTs.-Be very careful. Yow cannot be<br /> too careful as to the person whom you appoint as your<br /> agent. Remember that you place your property almost un-<br /> reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting<br /> the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience<br /> of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone.<br /> 6. COST OF PRODUCTION.——Never sign any agreement of<br /> which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part,<br /> until you have proved the figures.<br /> 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.–Never enter into any cor-<br /> respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad-<br /> vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced<br /> friends or by this Society.<br /> 8. FuTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever,<br /> bind yourself down for future work to anyone.<br /> 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or<br /> responsibility whatever without advice.<br /> Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a M.S. has been re-<br /> fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises<br /> they may put forward, for the production of the work.<br /> II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American<br /> rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any<br /> agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the<br /> publisher, unless for a substantial consideration.<br /> 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper,<br /> either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright,<br /> without advice.<br /> I3. ADVERTISEMENTS. – Keep some control over the<br /> advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in<br /> the agreement. -<br /> 14. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any<br /> other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy,<br /> charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with<br /> business men. Be yourself a business man.<br /> Society’s Offices :-<br /> 4, Portugal, STREET, LINCOLN&#039;s INN FIELDs.<br /> *-- - -*<br /> HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br /> I. VERY member has a right to ask 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 /> business or the administration of his property. If the advice<br /> sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member<br /> has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the<br /> case is such that Counsel&#039;s opinion, is desirable, the Com-<br /> mittee will obtain for him Counsel&#039;s opinion. All this<br /> without any cost to the member.<br /> 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br /> and publisher’s agreements do not generally fall within the<br /> experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br /> K 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#440) ################################################<br /> <br /> 86<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually<br /> engaged upon such questions for us.<br /> 3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past<br /> accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in<br /> order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree-<br /> ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively<br /> so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any<br /> agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor-<br /> mation thus obtained may prove invaluable.<br /> 4. If the examination of your previous business trans-<br /> actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should<br /> take advice as to a change of publishers.<br /> 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro-<br /> posed document to the Society for examination.<br /> 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in<br /> the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish-<br /> ing firm in the country.<br /> 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you<br /> are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are<br /> reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing<br /> the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen-<br /> dence of the writer.<br /> 8. Send to the Editor of the Awthor notes of everything<br /> important to literature that you may hear or meet with.<br /> 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of<br /> members’ agreements and their preservation in a fireproof<br /> safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con-<br /> fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who<br /> will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:—(1)<br /> To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To<br /> stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon<br /> them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments<br /> due according to agreements.<br /> *- -”<br /> - * --<br /> THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE.<br /> of Wants and Wanted ” is open. Members are invited to<br /> communicate their requirements to the Manager.<br /> There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services<br /> will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It<br /> is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the<br /> Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in<br /> the Syndicate. -<br /> -*<br /> or - - - -<br /> NOTICES.<br /> HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the<br /> Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br /> of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very<br /> heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br /> many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br /> 6s. 6d. subscription for the year.<br /> The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and<br /> communications on all subjects connected with literature<br /> from members and others. Nothing can do more good to<br /> the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive,<br /> and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this<br /> work send their names and the special subjects on which<br /> they are willing to write P<br /> Communications for the Author should reach the Editor<br /> not later than the 21st of each month.<br /> All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether<br /> members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate<br /> to the Editor any points connected with their work which<br /> it would be advisable in the general interest to publish.<br /> Members and others who wish their MSS. read are<br /> requested not to send them to the Office without previously<br /> communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable<br /> despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in<br /> which they are received. It must also be distinctly under-<br /> stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances,<br /> undertake the publication of MSS.<br /> The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at<br /> 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary<br /> for information, rules of admission, &amp;c.<br /> Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br /> have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do<br /> this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker&#039;s<br /> order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the<br /> trouble of sending out a reminder.<br /> Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br /> warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a<br /> most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding<br /> for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they<br /> would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five<br /> EMBERS are informed :<br /> 1. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate takes charge of<br /> the business of members of the Society. That it<br /> submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree-<br /> ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene-<br /> rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business<br /> details.<br /> 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured<br /> will be forwarded upon detailed application.<br /> 3. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate works only for those<br /> members of the Society whose work possesses a market<br /> value.<br /> 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations<br /> whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia-<br /> tions are placed ea clusively in its hands, and that all<br /> communications relating thereto are referred to it.<br /> 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by<br /> appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days’<br /> notice should be given.<br /> 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi-<br /> cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent<br /> to defray postage.<br /> 7. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate does not invite MSS.<br /> without previous correspondence; does not hold itself<br /> responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that<br /> in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray<br /> postage.<br /> 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for<br /> lectures by some of the leading members of the Society;<br /> that it has a “Transfer Department” for the sale and<br /> purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register<br /> years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest<br /> or dishonest? Of course they would not. Why then<br /> hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them-<br /> selves into literary bondage for three or five years P<br /> Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are<br /> requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15<br /> per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble<br /> of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the<br /> pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding<br /> is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be<br /> added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands<br /> at £948. The figures in our book are as near the exact<br /> truth as can be procured; but a printer’s, or a binder’s,<br /> bill is so elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be<br /> arrived at.<br /> Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br /> in the “Cost of Production’ for advertising. Of course, we<br /> have not included any sums which may be charged for<br /> inserting advertisements in the publisher’s own magazines,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#441) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. - 87<br /> or in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too<br /> often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from<br /> sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket,<br /> by inserting any number of advertisements in his own<br /> magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are<br /> who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those<br /> who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it.<br /> *~ * =<br /> a- * -sa<br /> LITERARY PROPERTY.<br /> I.—ON REMUNERATION.<br /> REMUNERATION. Reward; recompense : The act of paying<br /> an equivalent for services, loss, or sacrifices.<br /> 2. The equivalent given for services, loss, or sacrifices.<br /> |HIS is the definition of the word in Webster’s<br /> T English Dictionary. It is not supposed<br /> that anyone will dispute this authority.<br /> How, then, does it apply to the case of the<br /> author P<br /> Of late years—or even months—there has been<br /> a remarkable and very suggestive persistence,<br /> when certain disinterested persons are writing on<br /> the commercial aspect of literature, in calling the<br /> author&#039;s side of the business his “remuneration.”<br /> The suggestion implied is, of course, that he is<br /> the servant of the publisher. It is against the<br /> use of the word in this sense, that we must protest<br /> continually. The author is remunerated where<br /> he executes piece or paid work—is in plain words<br /> a servant—prepares a new edition with a bio-<br /> graphy, or a critical notice, notes, index, &amp;c.; or<br /> contributes a volume to a series for a stated sum<br /> of money; or writes a paper forming part of a<br /> volume ; in short, whenever an author performs<br /> service for pay he is rightly said to be remunerated.<br /> Many persons engaged in literary pursuits are<br /> always in this kind of service, and are therefore<br /> remunerated. The cases in which the author<br /> is not remunerated are those in which he<br /> creates for himself, without being paid, an<br /> estate, large or small, which he either sells or<br /> hands over to a middleman to administer. Take<br /> the case of a great historian, who would dare to<br /> speak of remunerating Macaulay P Or what<br /> services have Ruskin, Herbert Spenser, Lecky,<br /> Seeley, Froude, Freeman, and other great writers<br /> rendered to their publishers that they should be<br /> “remunerated ” by them P The word is an<br /> insult. We must always bear in mind that<br /> there are now writers in every conceivable branch<br /> of literature—except a few scientific branches—<br /> writers by the hundred, whose works represent in<br /> every case an estate, large or small—generally<br /> small; of enduring or of ephemeral kind—<br /> generally the latter. This is quite a new thing in<br /> literature; it belongs to the literary revolution<br /> which is going on all round us; a revolution<br /> which has enlarged our readers by millions and<br /> spread our literature over the whole globe.<br /> Never before has there been seen in any country<br /> or in any age so great a number of writers in all<br /> branches whom the world receives with welcome.<br /> Every writer, therefore, who belongs to this com-<br /> pany, thus made free of the world, should say,<br /> when he brings a MS. to a publisher, “This is<br /> my property, my own; I wish it administered.<br /> Let us agree, if we can, on the remuneration you<br /> shall receive for administering it. If we cannot<br /> agree I will take it elsewhere.” In all such cases,<br /> the situation is reversed. The publisher is in the<br /> service of the author. He must be remunerated<br /> for his services.<br /> II.-AN AGREEMENT.<br /> Here is another agreement. In this case it<br /> was the first published volume of a writer<br /> who had already had a certain amount of<br /> success in magazines. We will assume that it<br /> was of the character called risky. Now where<br /> was the risk P. The difference between the first<br /> six months’ returns and the cost of production.<br /> If two thousand copies were printed, of which<br /> only 500 were bound at first, the cost would be,<br /> for an average 6s. book of about 8o,ooo words,<br /> about £IOO. But, of course, none of this money<br /> would be paid till after the first returns came in,<br /> except a little for advertising, and that a very<br /> little unless the book showed signs of moving.<br /> What were the terms P<br /> I. For the author.<br /> First 500 copies. Nothing.<br /> Second 500. Five per cent. Five He<br /> would, therefore, receive for the sale of<br /> IOOO copies the magnificent sum of<br /> 37 IOs.<br /> For the second Iooo.<br /> 33O.<br /> For following thousands, say three, at the<br /> rate of I2; per cent., &amp; II 2 Ios.<br /> II. For the publisher.<br /> On the first 500 copies. Nothing. The<br /> returns would about balance the cost.<br /> We must remember that with a new<br /> writer there would be very few large<br /> orders, and single volumes are sold at<br /> about 3s. Io; d. instead of 3s. 6d.<br /> On the next 500 the assumed average of<br /> 3s. 6d. a volume is much below the mark<br /> for the above reason. But it may stand.<br /> Ten per cent., or<br /> 5OO at 3s. 6d. ................. 387 IO<br /> Less the author&#039;s dole ......... 7 Io<br /> 298o o<br /> So that on the first thousand the publisher<br /> nets 380 and the author £7 Ios. The<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#442) ################################################<br /> <br /> 88<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> old and much despised arrangement used<br /> to be half the profits, by which each<br /> would take 343 I5s. On the next<br /> thousand at 3s.6d., the returns are 3175<br /> less the author&#039;s dole of £30. The<br /> publisher therefore gets 3145. But the<br /> book is successful. Another edition is<br /> called for of 3000 copies. It costs about<br /> 31 20.<br /> The returns at 3s. 6d. a volume are 3525.<br /> The publisher therefore stands as follows:<br /> Returns ............ 48.525 O<br /> Cost of production 312o o<br /> Author at I2; per<br /> cent.<br /> II 2 IO 232 IO<br /> 3292 Io<br /> Therefore, on the whole book, the pub-<br /> lisher receives 3517 Ios. ; the author<br /> 3157 Ios. What does the world think<br /> of the publishing business P Let us all<br /> crowd in.<br /> III. The bookseller.<br /> His case is simple. He pays an average<br /> of (say) 38. 9d. mostly in single copies, and<br /> receives 4s. 6d. He gets 9d. a copy for<br /> his profit. We therefore stand as<br /> follows:<br /> I. Author on the first IOOO<br /> copies .................. “t tº e I#d. a copy.<br /> Publisher on the first Iooo<br /> copies ..................... Is. 7#d. a copy.<br /> Bookseller on the first<br /> IOOO copies ......... s &amp; e 9d. a copy.<br /> 2. On the second IOOO copies.<br /> Author per copy ......... 7#d. a copy.<br /> Publisher per copy ... ... 2s. IOd. a copy.<br /> Bookseller per copy...... 9d. a copy.<br /> 3. On the following thousands.<br /> Author receives ......... 9d. a copy.<br /> Publisher receives ...... 2s. a COpy.<br /> Bookseller receives ...... 9d. a copy.<br /> These figures we commend to the very<br /> careful consideration of our friends the<br /> booksellers, especially to those who<br /> believe the pretty story about the authors’<br /> unbridled greed. -<br /> III.-AN UNFORTUNATE PUBLISHER.<br /> A certain publisher was reported a few weeks<br /> ago to have made the following statement about<br /> the new agreements with the successful author.<br /> He said, weeping, that he could only make, for<br /> himself, sixpence or sevenpence a copy out of the<br /> work, while the author, who had done nothing<br /> in the world except write the book, made eighteen-<br /> pence. Poor man He counted all his own office<br /> expenses, and would allow none of the author&#039;s ;<br /> nor would he allow anything for the booksellers&#039;<br /> expenses. He then went on to say that things had<br /> come to such a pass that a successful author<br /> would no longer be able to find anyone to publish<br /> for him. Really What if this person had, at<br /> the very time of speaking, actually made in two<br /> or three months over £1400 out of a single<br /> successful novel by his own showing, that is,<br /> at 7d. a volume on a successful book—figures<br /> not to be blindly accepted P. Sevenpence a volume<br /> for doing nothing, because he had included every<br /> possible “office expense”! For doing nothing at<br /> all ! And yet the successful author would find it<br /> impossible to find a publisher! And yet the poor,<br /> downtrodden publisher was making over £1400<br /> out of this greedy author—all for doing nothing !<br /> Is it possible that such things should be actually<br /> believed and accepted P. Is it possible that<br /> readers should be found to believe them? Is it<br /> hº that editors should be found to admit<br /> them P<br /> IV.-CANADIAN CoPYRIGHT.<br /> There can be little doubt that if the absolute<br /> right of Canada to legislate upon copyright is<br /> admitted by the Imperial Government, the United<br /> States International Copyright Law cannot long<br /> endure, and British authors will suffer in con-<br /> Sequence. The Canadian market considered as a<br /> market for Canadian readers is of very little<br /> importance, but the Canadian market considered<br /> as a vantage ground from which to send unautho-<br /> rised reprints into the United States is of very<br /> Serious consequence.—Harper&#039;s.<br /> *- Am. …mº<br /> 4- * *-*.<br /> NOTES FROM PARIS,<br /> Tº letter from Paris is being written from<br /> Peel in the Isle of Man. I think it is as<br /> well to confess this at once, as last night I<br /> was reading “Literary Impostures” in D&#039;Israeli’s<br /> “Curiosities of Literature,” and fear is upon me.<br /> I will also admit, however, that this fear is mixed<br /> with amusement at the severity of the indictment<br /> of these “impostures,” for times have moved<br /> since then, and with the new journalism and the<br /> introduction of American journalistic habits, this<br /> kind of imposture has become almost universal.<br /> At any rate it is looked upon by American<br /> editors, at least, as inevitable in many cases. I<br /> remember meeting in Paris an American corres-<br /> pondent who made his living by contributing St.<br /> Petersburg letters and Russian news generally<br /> to a syndicate of American papers, and these<br /> letters always appeared as coming from St.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#443) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 89<br /> Petersburg. He would have been highly in-<br /> dignant if I had called him an impostor, and yet<br /> no doubt D&#039;Israeli would have included him in<br /> his series.<br /> One would like to write Paris letters for ever<br /> from Peel for the rest of one’s life. Such at<br /> least is one’s first impression of the place. No<br /> doubt, after a fortnight, or say a month, monotony<br /> would make itself felt, and there would be<br /> hankering after the boulevard and the café, and<br /> the rush and whirl of metropolitan life. In the<br /> meanwhile it is delightful to look up from one&#039;s<br /> paper and admire the bay, the ruined castle<br /> beyond, the fishing-boats, and, above all, the<br /> marvellous lights on sea and land. This Isle<br /> of Man is a wonderfully reposeful spot, and there<br /> are times when one longs for repose. But the<br /> bustle of the great world . . . .<br /> I am very much obliged to various distinguished<br /> correspondents to the Author for assisting to<br /> enlighten me on the question of the truthfulness<br /> of writers of fiction. The question was suggested<br /> to me by a confession by Daudet that fibbing<br /> entranced him. The novelist must, I think, have<br /> a difficulty in steering clear of embellishment,<br /> and there is really no reason why he should<br /> endeavour to do so. Ilying under such circum-<br /> stances is indeed a complimentary effort on the<br /> part of the speaker to interest his audience.<br /> Another question on which I very greatly<br /> desire enlightenment is this: Why is it that, as a<br /> rule, poets, who speak about their music and are<br /> described as “singers” and so on, knew absolutely<br /> nothing about music? I know a very distinguished<br /> singer who cannot distinguish between “God save<br /> the Queen’’ and “La Marseillaise,” and who one<br /> day asked me if “Tommy, make room for your<br /> uncle,” played on a barrel-organ, was not an<br /> aria—he said aria—from La Traviata. I have<br /> many poets amongst my acquaintances, and Ithink<br /> that the best musician amongst them is a gentle-<br /> man who can play “Home, sweet home” on the<br /> piano with his index finger. Yet they are all<br /> “sweetest singers.” There is Rollinat, of course,<br /> a “sweetest singer,” who composes beautiful tunes,<br /> but since he occupies himself with composition of<br /> music, he has practically abandoned the other<br /> kind of music. Was Shakespeare a musician, or<br /> Shelley, or Keats? Baudelaire was not, Poe was<br /> not, Victor Hugo was not.<br /> And, vice versa, most musicians whom I know<br /> have no idea of poetical composition. How very<br /> few writers of operas compose their own librettos,<br /> or writers of songs their own words. One can<br /> explain that this is so in England, that land of<br /> literary sweating, by the fact that as poets can be<br /> had cheap, to-day, to-morrow, and the day after,<br /> the composer does not care to take the trouble to<br /> write his words. He can get a nice poem as low<br /> as five shillings. In France, however, the writer<br /> of the libretto, or of the words for a song, is<br /> entitled to one half the royalties paid by the<br /> opera or the song, so that it would really be<br /> worth the composer&#039;s while to dispense with a<br /> collaborator. Massenet told me that the royalty<br /> on One of his operas or songs is six per cent. of<br /> the takings, and that of this he gets half and the<br /> librettist the other half. I asked Massenet why<br /> he did not write his own words, and he said that<br /> he was no poet and had no ear for music of that<br /> sort. Gounod and Bizet would have said the<br /> same. Beethoven wrote his songs without words.<br /> Verdi goes to Boito, and Sullivan to Gilbert.<br /> I knew that a great many people object to what<br /> they call “talking shop,” and that many authors<br /> affect the same objection. For my part, I care<br /> for nothing else but shop (of a literary kind). I<br /> live in it, I hope to die in it, and shop I must<br /> talk whilst my tongue can wag in its socket. So<br /> here is a story of literary earnings, told me by a<br /> writer who lives in Paris.<br /> “I am thirty-four,” he said, “and have been<br /> writing twelve years. The other day in looking<br /> over my ledger I found that the sum total of my<br /> earnings during these twelve years had been a<br /> little over £6000. In my first year, I earned £92;<br /> in a fat year, I earned £1 IOO. My work has<br /> been in every field of literary activity. I have<br /> written sonnets, and I have translated into the<br /> French and the German languages the caialogues<br /> of ironmongers and of export chemists. I have<br /> written a life of Napoleon, and I have composed<br /> cookery recipes for the Gastronomical Press. I<br /> have contributed variously to the Athenæum, the<br /> Bottlers&#039; Gazette, the Saturday Review, Tit-Bits,<br /> the Wood - Pulp Gazette and Papermakers&#039;<br /> Journal, Truth, the World, the Lancet, and the<br /> Boot and Shoe Trade Review. I have written<br /> short stories, reviews, novels, biographies, para-<br /> graphs, trade notes, words for songs, translations;<br /> in fact, in every department of the trade I have<br /> been active and zealous. I have done special<br /> correspondence in peace and war, have en-<br /> countered dangers, was brick-batted by Belgian<br /> miners, and shot in the arm by rioters in Naples.<br /> And it all amounts to £6000 in twelve years. In<br /> actual production these 36OOO represent the<br /> actual writing of about 9,000,000 words—for I<br /> have worked at a rate as low as 4s. the IOOO<br /> words, and as high as 35. So that altogether<br /> since I started writing for a living I have written<br /> what, allowing eighty words to the inch of closely-<br /> printed newspaper matter, would make a galley<br /> slip of I, I 25,OOO inches in length—that is to say,<br /> considerably over a mile and a half in length; a<br /> slip of printed matter more than nine times the<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#444) ################################################<br /> <br /> 90<br /> THE AUTHOR,<br /> height of the EiffelTower, a length which would be<br /> an eighteenpenny cab fare, or half an hour&#039;s walk<br /> from the Alpha of my literary production to its<br /> Omega. I have written what, cut up into lengths<br /> of the length of a popular novel, would make a<br /> library of nearly seventy-five volumes.”<br /> Since I have been in the Isle of Man, I have<br /> seen a great deal of Hall Caine, and I may say<br /> that if this admirable artist and great genius<br /> had done no other services to humanity, all<br /> authors owe him great respect for the manner in<br /> which he has maintained and imposed the dignity<br /> of the profession of literature. The Manx<br /> people are Conservative of Conservatives; the<br /> Conservative notion about writers is what we<br /> know; yet in the Isle of Man Hall Caine holds,<br /> qud writer, the position that a feudal lord held<br /> in the old days amongst his vassals. I shall not<br /> soon forget with what enthusiam he was received<br /> by a crowded house of Manx people, at the Grand<br /> Theatre, when after the performance of Wilson<br /> Barrett&#039;s version of “The Manxman,” he came<br /> before the curtain and made a short speech.<br /> Whenever he walks abroad, his whole time is<br /> occupied in answering bows and curtseys. It is<br /> a pretty sight for a penman. A swordsman<br /> never had such honours paid him. He deserves<br /> it all, for his sense of the dignity of authorship<br /> exceeds that of any captain of the dignity of<br /> swordsmanship. And the people recognise it.<br /> There is some excitement in Communist circles<br /> in Paris in consequence of the announcement<br /> that a novel dealing with the Commune is shortly<br /> to appear in London, as announced in various<br /> Parisian papers. This is Mr. Francis Gribble&#039;s<br /> “The Red Spell,” which is being published by<br /> Constable and Co. One will read this book with<br /> interest. It is said, and in de Maupassant’s case<br /> this was perhaps proved, that the writer of short<br /> stories rarely succeeds as a writer of novels. Mr.<br /> Francis Gribble has written some admirable short<br /> stories—some quite equal to de Maupassant’s<br /> work—and “The Red Spell” is, I believe, his<br /> first novel. However, as it had a very good<br /> reception in serial form, no doubt the saying will<br /> in his case he disproved.<br /> Mr. Rider Haggard, I read, complains of the<br /> people who write paragraphs about authors, and<br /> asks, “Why should paragraphs be written about<br /> authors P” He calculates that the writers of<br /> paragraphs about authors make larger incomes<br /> than the authors themselves. I wonder if his<br /> calculation is a correct one. I wonder if Mr. E.<br /> Curtice or Mr. Durrant knew of authors’ objec-<br /> tions to this same paragraphing. Indeed, I Can-<br /> not help but wonder.<br /> I notice, in a recent report of the Societé de<br /> l&#039;Hospitalité de Nuit, in Paris that, during the<br /> last year, seven homeless authors sought the<br /> hospitality of their shelters. There were 400<br /> terrassiers, or earth-workers, entertained during<br /> the same period. But, then, I suppose that there<br /> are more bricklayers than authors in Paris. I<br /> wonder who the seven hommes de lettres were !<br /> Naturalists, possibly.<br /> For my part, if ever I come to stand in the dock<br /> in France, may there be an author or twain<br /> among the jury ! I should feel easier then as to<br /> liberty or life. I remember Zola&#039;s views on the<br /> criminal code, as he expounded them during the<br /> period in which he sat as a juryman in the Paris<br /> Court of Assizes; and, quite recently, I met in<br /> Madame Adam&#039;s office a large-eyed and largely-<br /> known man of letters, who kept saying, “I shall<br /> acquit him ; oh, I shall certainly acquit him.” In<br /> the end, as he repeated this statement with<br /> tedious frequency, I asked him what was the<br /> matter, who it was whom he intended certainly to<br /> acquit, and for general information on a subject<br /> which seemed to be affording him some perplexity.<br /> I then learned that I was talking to M. Jules<br /> Bois, that he was sitting on a jury at the Paris<br /> Court of Assizes, and that he could not find it in<br /> him to send the prisoner (who, it appears, had<br /> rather a fine head) to penal servitude. The man<br /> was subsequently acquitted. Zola voted for the<br /> acquittal of every prisoner brought before him.<br /> Thus we are in Bohemia.<br /> The great difference between the literary world<br /> of Paris and the literary world of London is this,<br /> that in London the literary blackleg stalks un-<br /> tarred and unfeathered at the coat-tails of the<br /> newspaper proprietor and publisher. The news-<br /> paper proprietor gives him so much a line for<br /> writing down “innovators,” the publisher gives<br /> him an occasional guinea for rejecting occasional<br /> manuscripts. In Paris such literary blacklegs as<br /> try to crawl betwixt heaven and earth would be<br /> rapier or pistol targets if they did not, by nature,<br /> prefer to be public spittoons. In London we<br /> elbow them in our clubs, in Paris they dare<br /> not show their faces. These literary blacklegs—<br /> I could name many, but would rather spare my<br /> pen—-are so-called men of letters and should be<br /> with us, but prefer to be Ishmaels with one hand<br /> turned against the authors and the other hand<br /> extended for the coppers of those who are not<br /> the friends of men of letters. As long as we<br /> authors tolerate in our midst, at our fingers&#039;<br /> ends, at Our tables, in our salons or garrets these<br /> persons, we shall look for solidarity in vain. In<br /> Paris no successful author would read the manu-<br /> script of another author for a publisher; in<br /> Paris no successful author would write, otherwise<br /> than under his own signature, a criticism on<br /> another author&#039;s book; in Paris no author would<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#445) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 91.<br /> espouse the cause of the publisher who, quá<br /> publisher, is the author&#039;s antagonist. In London<br /> a number of blacklegs—Do you know them P<br /> Yes, I do—are doing this daily, hourly, minutely,<br /> and, like sheep before their shearers, we are<br /> dumb. We even invite them, some to a drink,<br /> some to a week at our country-houses. Let us,<br /> for our protection form a Wehmgericht, or, since<br /> in this age we must be practical, let us have a<br /> black book, privately printed and privately circu-<br /> lated, in which the blacklegs or black sheep in<br /> our midst are denotated and set down ; a waist-<br /> coat pocket booklet with their names and<br /> addresses; so that when we meet the literary<br /> blackleg we may show him the fall of our<br /> coats, velvet or shoddy, over the shoulders, and<br /> waist, and—beyond.<br /> I have spoken strongly in these pages, but I<br /> have always spoken in my own name, and for<br /> the further guidance of those who are not<br /> content I have given the date of my utterance<br /> and the address at which it was uttered. And I<br /> can only repeat what Cluny said in Cluny’s<br /> Cage, in the finest story that was ever written,<br /> that if any gentleman is not “preceesely satisfied”<br /> . . . . Well, you know the rest.<br /> RoBERT H. SHERARD.<br /> Author&#039;s Club,<br /> 3 Whitehall Court, S.W.<br /> Aug. 20th.<br /> *- a -º<br /> z-sº<br /> NEW YORK LETTER,<br /> New York, August 15.<br /> iſ T is curious to note how the taste of the<br /> American public differs from that of the<br /> British public. If the American and the<br /> British tastes were exactly alike, the New York<br /> branches of Macmillan and Co. and of Longmans,<br /> Green, and Co. would be still what they were<br /> probably intended to be when they were founded—<br /> merely distributing offices for the books produced<br /> by the London houses. As a matter of fact,<br /> both of these houses publish books in London<br /> which they do not publish in New York, and they<br /> also publish books in New York which they do<br /> not publish in London; and both houses are<br /> anxious to get the works of leading American<br /> authors for publication in New York. In other<br /> words, the American houses of Longmans, Green<br /> and Co. and of Macmillan and Co. are no longer<br /> merely branches of the London houses of the<br /> same name, but they are also American publishers<br /> on their own account.<br /> Both of them act also as American agents of<br /> other English publishers. Messrs. Macmillan<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> and Co., besides their own list of authors,<br /> are the American representatives of Messrs.<br /> George Bell and Sons (and therefore of the<br /> Bohn Libraries), of Messrs. A. and C. Black,<br /> and of the Clarendon Press. They also have<br /> taken most of the volumes published in London<br /> by Messrs. Seeley and Co., and by Messrs. J. M.<br /> Dent and Co., as well as many of those issued by<br /> Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co. In America they<br /> have undertaken the publication of the books<br /> issued and to be issued by the new Columbia<br /> University Press, which has been founded to do<br /> for Columbia College what the Clarendon Press<br /> does for Oxford. And this last alliance of theirs<br /> is only one of many which are rapidly making<br /> the American house of Macmillan and Co., the<br /> publishers having almost the closest relations<br /> with the professors of the American Universities.<br /> Within the past five years they have issued a<br /> great many treatises and text-books by instructors<br /> in American colleges. As a result of all this<br /> activity, the list of books advertised last year in<br /> New York by Messrs. Macmillan and Co. very<br /> greatly exceeded that of any other house. Pro-<br /> bably the sales of not a few of the books of<br /> British authorship were very small; but even the<br /> humblest of the volumes was actually published<br /> in America ; it was offered to the American<br /> public ; it had its chance of popularity.<br /> The course of Messrs. Longmans, Green, and Co.<br /> in America has been more conservative perhaps;<br /> but they also have been steadily seeking for<br /> American authors, and in two departments at<br /> least they have been eminently successful—ir.<br /> theology and in text-books for college use. Their<br /> first venture in the latter department was the<br /> excellent series of “Epochs of American History,”<br /> edited by Professor A. B. Hart. Their second<br /> was the “College Series of Histories of Art,”<br /> edited by Professor J. C. Van Dyke, who wrote<br /> the volume on painting himself, and who secured<br /> Professor Hamlin, of Columbia, for the volume on<br /> architecture, and Professor Marquand, of Prince-<br /> ton, for that on sculpture. Both Messrs.<br /> Longmans, Green, and Co., and Messrs. Macmillan<br /> and Co. publish in Great Britain text-books of<br /> every variety for school use; I think I am under-<br /> stating the case when I say that not one in a<br /> dozen of these British school-books has any<br /> chance of selling in the United States, where the<br /> educational conditions are wholly different. And<br /> when a sale in America is possible it is due<br /> generally to a very careful revision of the text by<br /> an American teacher to adapt it to American<br /> habits of speech and to American methods of<br /> teaching. Thus both the excellent grammar<br /> prepared by Mr. Salmon and the excellent<br /> geography also issued by Messrs. Longmans,<br /> L<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#446) ################################################<br /> <br /> 92.<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Green, and Co. have won their way into certain<br /> American schools.<br /> The latest American series to be undertaken by<br /> Messrs. Longmans, Green, and Co., is, perhaps,<br /> the most important of any yet announced by<br /> them. It is the result of the strong and wide-<br /> spread interest in the study of literature as litera-<br /> ture, which is one of the most characteristic of<br /> the recent developments of American education.<br /> It is a series of those English classics (both by<br /> American authors and by British) which are re-<br /> quired in the uniform entrance examinations in<br /> English at the majority of American universities.<br /> Certain of these works are used in the English<br /> local examinations, and have been edited more<br /> than once in England. But to American educa-<br /> tors these texts (and especially the most of those<br /> issued by the Clarendon Press) are unsatisfactory,<br /> because their editors neglected to bring out the<br /> literary side of the works they annotated, pre-<br /> ferring to dwell almost exclusively on the lin-<br /> guistic peculiarities of the authors. In the new<br /> series now in preparation by Messrs. Longmans,<br /> Green, and Co., special attention is paid to the<br /> literary merit of each work, to the position of its<br /> author in the history of literature, to the influences<br /> which moulded him, to the influence this work in<br /> turn exerted on other books; in other words,<br /> these English classics are to be edited as if they<br /> were primarily literature to be read and enjoyed<br /> first of all, and then, secondarily, to be explained<br /> and expounded. They are not to be edited as<br /> though they were dead matter to be dissected—<br /> merely as material to be examined on.<br /> The series will appear under the general editor-<br /> ship of Professor G. R. Carpenter, of Columbia<br /> College, and will, for the school year 1895-6,<br /> consist of the following works, which include the<br /> books prescribed for the college entrance exami-<br /> nations in 1896: Irving’s “Tales of a Traveller,”<br /> with an introduction by Professor Brander<br /> Matthews, of Columbia College; George Eliot&#039;s<br /> “Silas Marner,” edited by Mr. Robert W.<br /> Herrick, of the University of Chicago; Scott&#039;s<br /> “Woodstock,” edited by Professor Bliss Perry,<br /> of Princeton; Defoe&#039;s “History of the Plague<br /> in London,” edited by Professor Carpenter him-<br /> self; Daniel Webster’s “First Bunker Hill<br /> Oration,” edited by Professor F. N. Scott, of the<br /> University of Michigan; Shakespeare’s “Merchant<br /> of Venice,” with an introduction by Professor<br /> F. H. Stoddard, of the University of the City of<br /> New York; Macaulay’s “Essay on Milton,”<br /> edited by Mr. J. G. Crosswell, Head Master of<br /> the Brearley School; Shakespeare’s “A Mid-<br /> summer Night&#039;s Dream,” with an introduction by<br /> Mr. G. P. Baker, of Harvard ; and Milton’s<br /> “L’Allegro,” “Il Penseroso,” “Comus,” and<br /> “Lycidas,” edited by Professor W. P. Trent, of<br /> the University of the South. Subsequent volumes<br /> in the series, uniform with the above, will con-<br /> sist of the works prescribed for reading and study<br /> under the uniform entrance requirements of 1897<br /> and 1898, and will be edited by various scholars.<br /> and experienced teachers from the leading<br /> American colleges and secondary schools.<br /> Twenty years ago, and for fifty years before<br /> that, the American publishing house which had<br /> the closest connection with British authors, and<br /> which more especially issued the most British<br /> fiction, was the firm of Harper and Brothers.<br /> When the “Seaside Library’ began the era of<br /> piracy, and the old “courtesy of the trade ’’<br /> broke down, the publishing of the latest fiction by<br /> foreign authors was only doubtfully profitable to<br /> an honourable house forced to compete with<br /> dealers in stolen goods. So for twenty years now<br /> Messrs. Harper and Brothers have been giving<br /> their attention more and more to American<br /> authors, with the result that in a recent list of<br /> their “Latest Books” advertised in a literary<br /> weekly there were only four volumes of British<br /> authorship to nine of American, and to one<br /> translated from a foreign language. It may be<br /> noted also that of the nine books of American<br /> authorship, four have already been published in<br /> London—Mr. Smalley’s “Studies of Men,” Mr.<br /> Henry James’s “Terminations,” Mr. R. H. Davis’<br /> “Princess Aline,” and Mr. J. W. Moore’s “His-<br /> tory of the American Congress.” And two<br /> others are certain to be issued in London sooner<br /> or later, although I have not yet seen them<br /> announced : one of these is the very vigorous and<br /> striking story of Chicago life, Mr. Fuller&#039;s “With<br /> the Procession,” and the other is Mr. Howells&#039;<br /> literary autobiography, “My Literary Passions,”<br /> the story of Mr. Howells&#039; early likes and dis-<br /> likes in literature, and of the changes time has<br /> wrought in them of late.<br /> Within the past three or four years the house<br /> of D. Appleton and Co. has come forward as the<br /> chief purveyor of British fiction to the American<br /> public. In a recent advertisement of theirs,<br /> headed “Some Standard Fiction,” I counted<br /> twenty-four works by British authors, four by<br /> American, and four translated ; and from this<br /> count I omit three volumes by Maarten Maartens,<br /> not knowing whether or not to classify them also<br /> as British. Probably the size of this list is due<br /> to the energy of Mr. G. W. Sheldon, who has<br /> been the London agent of Messrs. Appleton for<br /> several years now. Although most of the other<br /> leading publishers seem to have found the paper-<br /> covered series at 50 cents, a volume unprofitable<br /> of late, and have given it up, Messrs. Appleton<br /> continue to issue, twice a month, the neat little<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#447) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 93<br /> brown books which they call the “Town and<br /> Country Library,” and in which they print most<br /> of the less important British novels which they<br /> arrange for. The more important British novels<br /> are issued in cloth covers at a dollar and a dollar<br /> and a half each. A dollar and a half is six<br /> shillings English money, and this seems just now<br /> to be the normal price for a work of fiction both<br /> in Great Britain and in the United States.<br /> Yet there is no lack of series at a dollar a<br /> volume and less. A dollar is the price of every<br /> number of Messrs. Harper and Brothers’ new<br /> series called “Harper&#039;s Little Novels,” of which<br /> the first five numbers were by American authors.<br /> The sixth was Mr. Benson’s “Judgment Books,”<br /> and the seventh is American again—Mr. Howells&#039;<br /> “A Beginning and an Ending.” Seventy-five<br /> cents. is the price of the volumes in the “Buck-<br /> ram Series” of Messrs. Henry Holt and Co., in<br /> which are included six books by Mr. “Anthony<br /> Elope” (including the “Prisoner of Zenda,”<br /> announced as in its seventeenth edition). More<br /> than half of the volumes in this Buckram series<br /> are by British authors, including Mr. Wells&#039;s<br /> “Time Machine” and Mr. Morrison’s “Neigh-<br /> bours of Ours.” This last has been re-named for<br /> the American market “Slum Stories of London,”<br /> and is thus a companion to another volume of the<br /> same series, Mr. J. W. Sullivan&#039;s strikingly<br /> realistic “Tenement Tales of New York.” Also in<br /> this buckram uniform is a volume of “Quaker<br /> Idyls,” by Mrs. S. M. H. Gardner. -<br /> Next year two British novelists will contribute<br /> Serial stories to important American magazines<br /> circulating widely in England. Mrs. Humphry<br /> Ward&#039;s new story will appear in the Century, and<br /> Mr. J. M. Barrie&#039;s “Sentimental Tommy’ will<br /> appear in Scribner&#039;s. And, oddly enough, short<br /> Serials by the foremost of American novelists,<br /> Mr. Howells, will also be published in both of<br /> these magazines at the same time.<br /> A recent paragraph informs us that “two-<br /> cent. literature, a Zulu Chief,” was asked for in<br /> a book-store the other day. It turned out that<br /> the asker really wanted a life of the martyred<br /> Haytian general, Toussaint L’Ouverture, although<br /> why he thought him a Zulu is not easily ex-<br /> plained. But “Toussaint L’Ouverture * does<br /> sound a little like “two-cent. literature,” curiously<br /> enough. Another book-store oddity was the<br /> memorandum from a student, who wanted “an<br /> ad valorem Shakespeare.”<br /> H. R.<br /> NOTES AND NEWS,<br /> HE death of Baron Tauchnitz, at Leipsig,<br /> on Aug. 14 last, removes a personality of<br /> great interest, not only to many living but<br /> also to the history of literature. Long before the<br /> Baron began the reprinting of English works there<br /> were reprints published in Paris and elsewhere in<br /> which the publishers exercised their legal rights<br /> of using literary property not their own for their<br /> own purposes without consideration for the pro-<br /> prietors.<br /> Baron Tauchnitz was the first to accompany<br /> the publication of English books abroad with a<br /> cheque to the author. Action so disinterested<br /> could not but call forth expressions of the most<br /> lively gratitude. No one, either then or after-<br /> wards, ventured to ask whether the cheque sent<br /> bore any proportion to the sale of the work; and<br /> under the circumstances, perhaps, no one ever<br /> will ask that question. It was enough that a<br /> man who might legally use a thing for nothing<br /> actually paid for it; and there can be little<br /> doubt that the growth of public opinion in favour<br /> of an international copyright and protection of<br /> literary property throughout the world has been<br /> largely due to this remarkable—even unique—<br /> honesty of Baron Tauchnitz.<br /> We have once or twice in these columns spoken<br /> of the injury which is done to all persons con-<br /> nected with literary property in this country by<br /> the practically free importation and sale of the<br /> Tauchnitz edition in this country. When we<br /> remember the hundreds and thousands of English<br /> and American travellers who every year return to<br /> England from the Continent, everyone of them<br /> bearing with him some two or three, some many<br /> copies of Tauchnitz books, everyone of which<br /> represents a corresponding loss to the trade, it is<br /> to be hoped that the matter will be taken up<br /> sooner or later seriously, and the importation<br /> stopped. This laxity on the part of the Customs<br /> House has, of course, nothing whatever to do<br /> with the Baron or his business. We hope it may<br /> be continued and carried on, for many genera-<br /> tions, in the same spirit of confidence, and even of<br /> gratitude, which has hitherto marked the history<br /> of the Tauchnitz series.<br /> In another column will be found a list of those<br /> members of the new House of Commons who<br /> have written books. There are fifty-four in<br /> number—about one in twelve. An analysis<br /> of their works shows that many have written in<br /> more than one branch of literature, while the des-<br /> cription of others is imperfect. Thus, the<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#448) ################################################<br /> <br /> 94<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Marquis of Lorne, who has written poems, and, I<br /> believe, one tale at least, is set down as author of a<br /> “Guide to Windsor Castle.” Thus allowing for<br /> this overlapping, so that one man may occur in more<br /> than one class, it is found that social and political<br /> economy takes twenty; travel, six; history, eight;<br /> philosophy and essays, nine ; education, four ;<br /> law, four; the army and navy, three ; colonies,<br /> three; trade, three ; fiction, six; literature, one;<br /> medicine, one; poetry, two.<br /> It has not been thought beneath the dignity of<br /> the St. James&#039;s Gazette to inquire into the<br /> Fiction of the Kitchen. Why should it be<br /> beneath the dignity of any paper to inquire into<br /> any branch of literature? “But the penny novel-<br /> ette is not literature.”<br /> do we draw the line P The writer in the St.<br /> James&#039;s Gazette has made, to begin with, a dis-<br /> covery of very considerable interest. He has<br /> found a literary manufactory; more than one;<br /> he suggests the existence of several.<br /> So far as the outsider can be initiated into the mysteries<br /> of the literary trade, it appears to be carried on in this way.<br /> There are a couple of dozen well-known literary emporiums<br /> where several practised hands—mostly women—are kept<br /> regularly at work at fairly remunerative wages. To these<br /> hands are distributed week by week a certain number of<br /> stock plots, situations, incidents, characters, and phrases,<br /> out of which they must manufacture a readable story for<br /> the parlour-maid class of readers. No doubt the master<br /> spirit of the establishment adds little graceful finishing<br /> touches, in the shape of mildly amorous poetry, before the<br /> production is finally placed upon the market; and these<br /> slight differences—imperceptible to a novice reader—will<br /> convey to the experienced customer the particular firm<br /> from which this or that literary ware emanates.<br /> Of what kind are the works which emanate<br /> from these firms ?<br /> A striking feature of this school of fiction is its well-<br /> intentioned, if peculiar, morality. Unlike the criminal<br /> literature so largely read by boys of the lower class, it is<br /> difficult, if not impossible, to find a single chapter or<br /> passage which is directly subversive to morality or virtue.<br /> Furthermore, a reviewer who is accustomed to the circula-<br /> ting-library novels written by progressive ladies for the<br /> delectation of their own sex, will be compelled to admit that<br /> they compare unfavourably with the fiction produced for<br /> Mary Ann in point of decency, propriety, and good taste.<br /> You may search the dull and decorous pages of these<br /> novelettes in vain for a single suggestive or coarse sentence<br /> or double entendre or vicious sentiment. Virtue is always<br /> triumphant—not, of course, in the first chapter, or what<br /> would become of the story ; and vice is as uniformly<br /> punished in the last chapter. It is in this false morality—<br /> a morality that is not answerable to the facts of life—that<br /> we discern its immoral influence upon the minds of imma-<br /> ture and ignorant persons. The stories purport, almost<br /> without exception, to treat of real life, and it is conse-<br /> quently a dangerous and fatal defect that the writers should<br /> be not only completely ignorant of the literary art which<br /> would enable them to present life artistically, but, what is<br /> of more significance, in a state of virgin innocence in<br /> Why not ? And where<br /> everything concerning the causes, nature, and consequence<br /> of men’s passions, the complex consequences of human<br /> action, and the laws of nature’s retribution.<br /> After all, the thing might be worse. A story<br /> which is always moral, which deals not with their<br /> own class but an imaginary class above their<br /> social station, may give the girl who reads it a<br /> momentary yearning after the impossible, or a<br /> transient discontent with what cannot be helped.<br /> I doubt whether any real or permanent harm is<br /> done to the self-respect or the principles of a girl<br /> by reading of the handsome guardsman and the<br /> girl whom he loves, but cannot marry. The<br /> housemaid knows very well that she is reading<br /> about a world that does not exist; very likely she<br /> waits upon the very class depicted, and she knows<br /> how different they are. And, if the characters do<br /> belong to an existing world, she cannot attain to<br /> it—a thing which she knows perfectly well.<br /> A great novelist, according to the Times, has<br /> appeared in the City of Chicago. I am glad to<br /> hear it, because, two years ago, I pointed out—<br /> without being believed—that there exists in<br /> Chicago a society of literary students who are<br /> working seriously and earnestly with the ambi-<br /> tion of producing something real. There is also<br /> at Chicago a rich and flourishing university, with<br /> a great many professors on a great many subjects,<br /> and a great many students. There are good<br /> schools in Chicago; there is a good literary paper<br /> in Chicago. There are libraries, museums, art<br /> collections, concerts, theatres, and, in fact, all the<br /> necessary aids to culture. When, in so great a city,<br /> we find a number of people steadily cultivating<br /> every form of art, it is pretty certain that, before<br /> long, one or more will come to the front. The<br /> man who has come is one Henry B. Fuller, and<br /> the name of his book is “With the Procession.”<br /> My prophecy was held up to scorn at the time,<br /> especially by those who still think that Chicago is<br /> a small collection of log huts, with a saloon or<br /> two, populated by gaunt men with revolvers and<br /> bowie knives. I can only hope that the book is<br /> as good as the Times correspondent thinks.<br /> The name of Mr. Needell, author of “Julia<br /> Karslake&#039;s Secret,” “The Wengeance of James<br /> Vansittart,” &amp;c., was accidentally omitted from<br /> the list of those present at the dinner given to<br /> the editor of this paper.<br /> WALTER BESANT.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#449) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE<br /> 95<br /> A UTHOR.<br /> JOHN KEATS,<br /> BoFN 29th OCTOBER, 1795.<br /> Lyrist, who—nursed not by Aonian flow,<br /> But rush and roar of London&#039;s wilderness,<br /> Ere scathed by scorn Tartarean—felt the stress<br /> That fired the Greek, the pearl’d Spenserean glow,<br /> And garden-glamour of Boccaccio,<br /> Roams he thro&#039; happier regions of redress P<br /> Whom the gods loved—by some divine caress<br /> Dower&#039;d with high song a hundred years ago.<br /> He has survived the critic’s venom&#039;d fang,<br /> The day-star of his fame has cleft the gloom,<br /> Around him no elusive phantoms loom,<br /> Nor knows he fruitless passion’s arrowy pang :<br /> Still peer the Roman violets round his tomb,<br /> Whose chant was sweeter than the bird’s he sang.<br /> C. A. KELLY.<br /> *-- ~ -*<br /> - * *-<br /> WHAT BOYS READ,<br /> Tº following is a list of the actual number<br /> of times which various books have been<br /> taken out of a house library at one of the<br /> great public schools during the past eight terms.<br /> Books taken out by sixth-form boys are not<br /> included. The figures are of interest as some<br /> clue to what boys read:—<br /> Henty ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2O2 i Mary Rowsell ............ I8<br /> Ainsworth ............... I44 || R. L. Stevenson<br /> Rider Haggard ......... 58 Q. &#039;&#039;&#039;&#039;&#039;&#039; 17<br /> Captain Marryat......... 56 | Whyte-Melville ......... I6<br /> Jules Verme............... 49 || Kingston R<br /> Dickens .................. 43 || Philips-Wolley “” “4<br /> Edna Lyall ............... 41 Rev. A. J. Church } 2<br /> Hume Nisbet 2 Charles Kingsley e I<br /> Sir W. Scott } * * * * * * * * * 5 | F. Cooper<br /> J. Grant l 2 Charles Lever y “&quot;“” II<br /> R. Boldrewood y ‘’’ ‘’’ 4 Sponge&#039;s Sporting Tour O<br /> R. M. Ballantyne } 2 R. D. Blackmore } I<br /> Lytton y ‘’’ ‘’’ 3<br /> Farrar } 2I<br /> J. Corbett, 5 &#039; &#039; &#039; &#039; &#039; &#039; &#039; &#039; &#039; &#039; &#039; &#039;<br /> No other author reaches double figures—not even<br /> Rudyard Kipling, though his books, it should be<br /> explained, have only been recently added to the<br /> library.—Westminster Gazette.<br /> * - - -*<br /> * * *-<br /> WHY THERE ARE FEW AMERICAN<br /> AUTHORS,<br /> HERE is probably no country in the world<br /> T where literature is held in greater esteem<br /> than in America. Many circumstances<br /> contribute to this result; leisure and opportunity<br /> for reading and study are secured by the climatic<br /> conditions, which enforce a period of comparative<br /> idleness in the cities during summer heat, and in<br /> the country during the rigours of winter. The<br /> isolated life of the well-to-do farmers, the limited<br /> social amenities in the villages and small towns,<br /> tend equally to a recognition of books as the best<br /> of company; while the natural intelligence and<br /> alertness of the whole people find an agreeable<br /> stimulus in the lighter forms of literature, and<br /> promote an easy perception of the material advan-<br /> tages to be derived from more serious application.<br /> Thus the soil is well prepared for the American<br /> author; he can appeal to a population of more<br /> than sixty millions, increasing annually by leaps<br /> and bounds, almost all able to read, eager to<br /> learn, anxious to be amused, and possessing to<br /> an unusual degree the means of gratifying their<br /> tastes. At a first glance it might be supposed<br /> that, with so fair a field to work in, the profession<br /> of authorship must be crowded to excess. But<br /> this is not the case, and the reasons are not hard<br /> to find.<br /> The immense size of the country and the high<br /> prices of labour and materials make the production<br /> and circulation of books a much more expensive<br /> affair than in England, so that the publishers are<br /> more chary about undertaking risks unless a large<br /> sale can be anticipated. Many a work which<br /> would readily find a publisher in England, if it<br /> were thought that a thousand or even a few<br /> hundred copies could be sold, would be declined<br /> without hesitation in America, and thus a young<br /> author finds it extremely difficult to get a chance<br /> of distinguishing himself. Nor do the magazines<br /> and periodicals, which play so important a part in<br /> American literature, afford an easier introduction<br /> to the public, for the vast scale of their operations<br /> necessitates the utmost vigilance on the part of<br /> the editors to maintain an enormous circulation,<br /> and with this object the safest course is to give<br /> the public their favourite authors at any cost.<br /> The young American author, then, finds his<br /> career blocked in every direction, whether he<br /> aspires to be a novelist, an essayist, or a writer<br /> on politics or science; if he can leap into fame it<br /> will be well with him, but the ring fence he has<br /> to surmount is stiff and forbidding ; probably<br /> Only under stress of circumstances will he face<br /> it, in default of an opening elsewhere. And this<br /> brings us to the principal cause of emptiness in<br /> the ranks of literature. It is notoriously hard<br /> to recruit an army in prosperous times, when<br /> better paid work is to be had for the asking; in<br /> the United States, in spite of bad years, there<br /> has been no such pressure of competition, no<br /> Such overcrowding in more remunerative occupa-<br /> tions as drives men and women in this country to<br /> accept the hard labour and small rewards of<br /> łiterary work. There is still an El Dorado across<br /> the Atlantic for the man of brains who chooses<br /> to employ them in commerce, manufactures, or<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#450) ################################################<br /> <br /> 96<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> **<br /> finance; every day witnesses some fresh develop-<br /> ment of industrial resources, involving boundless<br /> possibilities of wealth and work; what wonder<br /> if literature is less attractive as a profession than<br /> avocations which breed millionnaires P-(From<br /> “The Profession of Literature in America.”—<br /> Times).<br /> *- ~ 2-9<br /> * * *<br /> LITERARY MEN IN THE HOUSE OF<br /> COMMONS,<br /> HE following is a list of the men of letters<br /> in the new House of Commons. The list<br /> is compiled from the Times’ “New House<br /> of Commons °:—<br /> Acland, Right Hon. Arthur Herbert Dyke (R.). — Joint<br /> author of “Studies in Secondary Education,” of<br /> “Handbook in Outline of the Political History of<br /> England,” and of “Working Men Co-operators.”<br /> Arnold-Forster, Hugh Oakley (L.U.). — Author of “In a<br /> Conning Tower,” “The Citizen Reader,” and many<br /> school books. Contributed many letters to the Times<br /> on military and other subjects.<br /> Brookfield, Arthur Montagu (C.). — Author of<br /> Mortem,” “The Speaker’s A. B. C.,” and other psycho-<br /> logical and political works.<br /> Bowsfield, William Robert, Q.C. (C.).-Author of a work on<br /> the Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks Act.<br /> Broadhwrst, Henry (R.). — Author of Leasehold Enfran-<br /> chisement Bill, and the Sites for Chapels Bill, and<br /> Deceased Wife&#039;s Sister Bill 1884-5.<br /> Baden-Powell, Sir George Smyth, K.C.M.G. (C.).-Author<br /> of “New Homes for the Old Country,” “Protection<br /> and Bad Times,” “State Aid and State Interference,”<br /> and numerous articles on economic, financial, and<br /> colonial affairs.<br /> Bowles, Thomas Gibson (C.). — Author of “The Defence<br /> of Paris,” “Maritime Warfare,” “Flotsam and<br /> Jetsam,” &amp;c.<br /> Balfowr, Right Hon. Arthur James (C.).-Author of “A<br /> Defence of Philosophic Doubt,” “Essays and Ad-<br /> dresses,” 1893, and “Foundations of Belief, being<br /> Notes Introductory to the Study of Theology,” 1894.<br /> Bartley, George Christopher Trout (C.).-Author of “A<br /> Handy Book for Guardians of the Poor,” of “The Parish .<br /> Net,” “The Seven Ages of a Village Pauper,” “Schools<br /> for the People,” “One Square Mile in the East of<br /> London,” “The Provident Knowledge Papers,” &amp;c.<br /> Bwaton, Sydney Charles (R.).—Author of “ Handbook to<br /> Political Questions,” “Political Manual,” “Finance and<br /> Politics : an Historical Study,” “Handbook to the<br /> Death Duties,” &amp;c.<br /> Birrell, Augustine, Q.C. (R.).—Author of “Obiter Dicta,”<br /> of “Charlotte Bronte,” and of “Res Judicatae.”<br /> Bryce, Right Hon. James, P.C. (R.).-Author of “The Holy<br /> Roman Empire,” “Transcaucasia and Ararat,” “The<br /> Americall Commonwealth,” articles on subjects political,<br /> legal, and economical, in various magazines.<br /> Cameron, Robert (R.).—Writer and lecturer on literature,<br /> science, &amp;c. -<br /> Curzon, Right Hon. George Nathaniel (C.).-Author of<br /> “Russia, in Central Asia,” “Persia and the Persian<br /> Question.”<br /> Clarke, Sir Edward, Q.C. (C.).-Author of a Treatise on<br /> the Law of Extradition.<br /> “Post,<br /> Cooke, Charles Wallwyn Radcliffe (C.). — Author of a<br /> Work on Agricultural Holdings, and of “Four Years<br /> in Parliament with Hard Labour.”<br /> Colomb, Captain Sir John Charles Ready, K.C.M.G. (C.).-<br /> Author of “The Protection of Commerce,” “Naval and<br /> Military Resources of the Colonies,” “The Defence of<br /> Great and Greater Britain,” “Imperial Federation,<br /> Naval and Military,” &amp;c.; and has contributed to<br /> Blackwood, Fraser, and Nineteenth Century, &amp;c.<br /> Crombie, John William (R.).—Author of “Some Poets of<br /> the People in Foreign Lands.”<br /> Dilke, Sir Charles Wentworth (R.).—Author of “Greater<br /> Britain,” “The Fall of Prince Florestan,” “Position of<br /> European Politics.”<br /> Darling, Charles John, Q.C. (C.).-Author of “Scintillae<br /> Juris,” “Meditations in the Tea Room,” &amp;c.<br /> Drage, Geoffrey (C.).-Author of “German Criminal Code,”<br /> a translation with commentary of “Cyril,” a novel<br /> passed through seven editions, “Eton and the Empire,”<br /> “Eton and the Labour Question,” “The Unemployed,”<br /> and “The Problem of the Aged Poor.”<br /> De Worms, Right Hon. Baron Henry (C.).-Has published<br /> “Memoirs of Count Beust,” “The Austro-Hungarian<br /> Empire,” &amp;c.<br /> Farquharson, Dr. Robert (R.).—Author of medical works,<br /> including “A Guide to Therapeutics.”<br /> Green, Walford Davis (C.).-Author of “The Political<br /> Career of George Canning.”<br /> Hobhouse, Henry (L.U.).—Joint author with Mr. Justice<br /> Wright of “An Outline of Local Government and<br /> Local Taxation,” and works on the Local Government<br /> and Corrupt Practices Acts.<br /> Howorth, Sir Henry Hoyle (C.).-Author of “A History of<br /> the Mongols,” “A History of Chinghiz Khan and his<br /> Ancestors,” “The Mammoths and the Flood,” “The<br /> Glacial Nightmare and the Flood : a second appeal to<br /> common sense from the extravagance of some recent<br /> Geology,” &amp;c., editor of “The History of the Vicars<br /> of Rochdale,” of a large number of scientific memoirs,<br /> and numerous letters on political and other matters in<br /> the Times.<br /> Healy, Timothy Michael (A.-P.).-Author of “Why is there<br /> an Irish Question and an Irish Land League P” “A<br /> Word for Ireland,” &amp;c.<br /> Hogan, James Francis (A.-P.).-Various articles in Mel-<br /> bowrme Review, the Victoria Review, the Contemporary,<br /> Westminster Review, Chambers’s Jowrmal, and has<br /> published “An Australian Christmas Collection,”<br /> “History of the Irish in Australia,” “The Australian<br /> in London,” “The Lost Explorer,” “The Convict<br /> King,” and “Robert Lowe, Wiscount Sherbrooke.”<br /> Writes extensively to London Press on Colonial<br /> subjects.<br /> Hamson, Alderman Sir Reginald (C.).—Author of “A History<br /> of the Tea Trade.”<br /> Harwood, George (R.).—Author of “Disestablishment,”<br /> “The Coming Democracy,” and “From Within ’’ and<br /> “A Candidate&#039;s Speeches.”<br /> Heaton, John Henniker (C.).-Author of “The Australian<br /> Dictionary of Dates and Men of the Time.”<br /> Haldane, Richard Burdon, Q.C. (R.).—Author of “Adam<br /> Smith,” joint author and editor of “Essays in Philoso-<br /> phical Criticism,” and joint translator of “World as<br /> Will and Idea.” - -<br /> Hwmter, William Alexander, L.L.D. (R.).—Author of “Roman<br /> Law in the Order of a Code,” and of an “Introduction<br /> to Roman Law.”<br /> Johnston, William (C.).—Author of “Night Shade,” “Under<br /> which King,” &amp;c.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#451) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 97<br /> Jebb, Richard Claverhouse (C.).-Author of “The Attic<br /> Orators,” “Translations into Latin and Greek Verse,”<br /> “Bentley’ (in the “English Men of Letters ” series),<br /> an edition of the “Characters of Theophrastus,” an<br /> addition of “Sophocles,” and translation and “Lectures<br /> on Greek Poetry,” &amp;c.<br /> Lorne, Right Hon. Sir John Douglas Sutherland Campbell,<br /> Marquis of (L.U.).—Author of “Guide to Windsor<br /> Castle.”<br /> Labouchere, Henry (R.).—Editor and proprietor of Truth.<br /> Lubbock, Right Hon. Sir John, Bart. (I.U.).—Author of<br /> numerous works.<br /> Leng, Sir John (R.).-Author of “America in 1876,” and<br /> numerous pamphlets.<br /> McCarthy, Justin (A.-P.).-Author of “A History of Our<br /> Own Times,” “A History of the Four Georges,” and<br /> numerous novels.<br /> Macdona, John Cumming (C.).-Author of “Across the<br /> Andes,” &amp;c.<br /> Marks, Harry Hanamel (C.).-Author of “Small Change, or<br /> Leaves from a Reporter&#039;s Note-Book.”<br /> Maclean, James Mackenzie (C.).-Author of “Maclean’s<br /> Guide to Bombay.”<br /> Macneill, John Gordon Swift (A.-P.).-Author of “The Irish<br /> Parliament, What it was, and What it did,” “How the<br /> Union was Carried,” and a work on Irish peerages.<br /> C’Connor, Thomas Power (A.-P.).-A journalist, formerly<br /> editor of the Star, and now of the Swn and Weekly Swn,<br /> and author of “Tife of Lord Beaconsfield,” “ Gladstone’s<br /> House of Commons,” “The Parnell Movement,”<br /> “Charles Stewart Parnell: Memory,” &amp;c.<br /> Rickett, J. Compton (R.).-Author of “The Christ that is<br /> to be,” and “The Quickening of Caliban.” -<br /> Rwssell, Colonel Francis Shirley (L.U.). — Author of<br /> “Russian Wars with Turkey,” “Memoirs of the Earl<br /> of Peterborough,” &amp;c.<br /> Stanley, Henry Morton (L.U.).—Author of “How I Found<br /> Livingstone,” “Through the Dark Continent,” “The<br /> Congo and the Foundling of its Free State,” “In<br /> Darkest Africa.”<br /> Stuart, James (R.).—Published numerous works, articles,<br /> speeches, and pamphlets on educational, scientific, and<br /> Social questions.<br /> Sullivan, Timothy Daniel (A.-P.) — Author of “Poems,”<br /> “Green Leaves,” &amp;c.<br /> Trevelyan, Right Hon. Sir George Otto, Bart. (R.).—<br /> Author of “The Competition Wallah,” “A Life of<br /> Lord Macaulay,” “The Early Life of Charles James<br /> Fox,” &amp;c.<br /> Whittaker, Thomas Palmer (R.).-A Journalist, and con-<br /> tributed articles to Nineteenth Century, Dublin Review,<br /> Westminster Review, Macmillan’s Magazine, &amp;c.<br /> Webster, Robert Grant (C.).-Author of the “The Trade of<br /> the World,” “Shoulder to Shoulder,” &amp;c.<br /> Wylie, Alexander (C.).-Author of “Labour, Leisure, and<br /> Luxury,” &amp;c. -<br /> —”<br /> ---<br /> - *-<br /> ,--<br /> B00K TALK,<br /> UBLISHING houses are issuing their pros-<br /> pectuses for the autumn season, which<br /> gives an all-round promise of an output<br /> as useful as numerous, though, perhaps, some-<br /> what lacking in books of verse.<br /> Mr. Clark Russell will be represented by two<br /> three-volume novels—“Heart of Oak : a Three<br /> Stranded Yarn,” and “The Tale of the Ten ‘’;<br /> and Mr. Grant Allen by a volume of “Moorland<br /> Idylls,” all to be published by Messrs. Chatto and<br /> Windus. -<br /> John Oliver Hobbes&#039;s next novel, “The Herb-<br /> Moon,” will come shortly from Mr. Fisher Unwin;<br /> also a volume of stories by Mr. Clark Russell,<br /> called “For Honour and the Flag.”<br /> Perhaps one of the most interesting books of<br /> its kind to appear in the coming season will be<br /> the “Memoirs of Lady Eastlake,” edited by her<br /> nephew, Mr. Charles Eastlake Smith. The work<br /> will consist principally of extracts from the letters<br /> and journals of this talented lady, who, in her<br /> various capacities as author, artist, and art critic,<br /> kept a minute record of the events she took part<br /> in, and of the famous people she met. Fac-<br /> similes of Lady Eastlake&#039;s drawings will adorn<br /> the volume, which Mr. Murray is to publish.<br /> Miss Alice Balfour, sister of Mr. Arthur<br /> Balfour, has written a book describing a tour she<br /> made in South Africa. It is to be named<br /> “Twelve Hundred Miles in an Ox-Wagon,” and<br /> there will be illustrations from the author&#039;s own<br /> drawings. Mr. Edward Arnold is to publish the<br /> book in the autumn. -<br /> Another work which will come from the same<br /> publishing house about this time is Slatin Pasha&#039;s<br /> record of his experiences in Mahdiland. The<br /> illustrations will be by Mr. R. Talbot Kelly. The<br /> title is “Fire and Sword in the Sudan.”<br /> Among autobiographies of the forthcoming<br /> season will be that of Mr. Henry Russell, of<br /> “Cheer Boys, Cheer,” fame, which probably will<br /> be the title. The fact of his wide travels aud the<br /> many interesting acquaintanceships he enjoyed—<br /> Dickens and Charles Mackay, for instance—will<br /> ensure for Mr. Russell’s volume a keen expectancy<br /> in a very large circle.<br /> The volume of reminiscences by Mr. Frederick<br /> Locker-Lampson, which the poet had completed<br /> a short time before he died, will be published on<br /> an early date, edited by Mr. Augustine Birrell,<br /> Q.C., M.P.<br /> Miss Beatrice Harraden is returning to England<br /> to arrange for the publication of the new Califor-<br /> nian story she has just finished.<br /> Short stories by Mr. R. D. Blackmore, Mr.<br /> Crockett, Mr. Clark Russell, M. Jules Lemaître,<br /> and M. Jules Claretie, are to appear in a new<br /> illustrated annual which Messrs. Sampson Low<br /> will inaugurate this autumn. “Slain by the<br /> Doones’’ is the title of Mr. Blackmore&#039;s, which<br /> will have some affinity to “Lorna Doone.”<br /> Mr. J. M. Barrie&#039;s new book, “Sentimental<br /> Tommy,” will not appear until the autumn of<br /> 1896, as it is first to run serially in Scribner&#039;s<br /> Magazine, beginning in the January number.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#452) ################################################<br /> <br /> 98<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Another study of childhood will be Mrs. Hodgson<br /> Burnett&#039;s new story entitled “Two Little<br /> Pilgrims’ Progress,” to be illustrated by Mr.<br /> R. W. Macbeth, A.R.A., and published by Messrs.<br /> Warne. -<br /> The life of the Irish novelist, William Carleton,<br /> which is being prepared by Mr. David J.<br /> O&#039;Donoghue, will be published by Messrs. Downey<br /> probably this month. It is founded on an un-<br /> finished autobiography, which will now be made<br /> public for the first time, and it will have photo-<br /> graphs.<br /> A romance by Mrs. Egerton Castle, entitled<br /> “My Little Lady Annie,” will be published in<br /> the early autumn by Mr. Lane.<br /> Mr. Robert Barr&#039;s new works, to appear in the<br /> autumn, are “A Woman Intervenes,” and a volume<br /> of short stories entitled “Revenge.” Messrs.<br /> Chatto and Windus are the publishers. • ‘<br /> The autumn will probably see the publication<br /> of a volume of essays by Professor Huxley,<br /> representing his later activities, one article having<br /> been finished very shortly before he died.<br /> Mr. Henley is to edit a new library edition of<br /> the works of Byron, which Mr. Heinemann will<br /> publish.<br /> Mr. W. E. Gladstone&#039;s notes to authors upon<br /> their works have been by no means rare, and<br /> have sometimes made the fortune of the books<br /> referred to ; but the author of “A Forgotten<br /> Great Englishman’” must have been somewhat<br /> astounded at receiving a note written by Mr.<br /> Gladstone on the Monday when all the rest of<br /> England was wondering over the remarkable<br /> election returns. The note proves also a careful<br /> and even minute study of this fifteenth century<br /> book, for it refers to a statement in a quotation,<br /> thus, “The Life, combined with the fact you<br /> state, that Huss and Jerome both studied at<br /> Oxford, completely explains a very curious puzzle.”<br /> The book has already received very marked atten-<br /> tion from the reviewers, and this note will again.<br /> draw attention to a work that puts a great<br /> Englishman back into a niche in English history,<br /> after being lost sight of for four centuries. The<br /> “Dictionary of National Biography” is to have<br /> an article on his life, and Mr. James Baker&#039;s<br /> work has thus been thoroughly successful.<br /> “Sword and Song,” by R. Mounteney-Jephson,<br /> author of “Tom Bullkley of Lissington,” &amp;c., will<br /> be issued by Messrs. Simpkin Marshall and Co.<br /> early in October, price 6s., I vol.<br /> Mr. Joseph Pennell is publishing in book form<br /> the course of lectures he delivered at University<br /> College last winter on the art of illustration.<br /> A volume on Christina Rossetti and her work,<br /> by Mr. Mackenzie Bell, will be published soon by<br /> Messrs. Ward, Lock, and Bowden.<br /> B. Yeats figuring as leaders.<br /> Mr. George R. Sims has written of “Dagonet<br /> Abroad,” and the volume will appear immediately<br /> from Messrs. Chatto and Windus. The same<br /> publishers have in preparation a volume of “The<br /> Impressions of Aureole,” the diary, it is said, of a<br /> well-known society lady.<br /> An anonymous writer is publishing, through<br /> Messrs. Archd. Constable &amp; Co., an account of an<br /> imaginary excursion of the minor English poets<br /> to Parnassus, with W. Le Gallienne and Mr. W.<br /> Should the humour<br /> of the author of “All Expenses Paid” overstep<br /> tolerance he will be prepared to apologise.<br /> Dr. Conan Doyle’s “Stark-Munro Letters” will<br /> appear in bound form in a day or two.<br /> The Christmas number of the Illustrated<br /> London News will contain the only short story<br /> that Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson left at his death.<br /> It is entitled “On the Great North Road,” and the<br /> action takes place at the end of last century.<br /> Dr. George Macdonald&#039;s new romantic story,<br /> “Lilith,” will be published immediately.<br /> Mr. W. J. Hardy, F.S.A., is the author of<br /> “Lighthouses, their History and Romance,”<br /> which the Religious Tract Society will publish in<br /> a few days. -<br /> Mr. Gladstone, in addition to a lengthy intro-<br /> duction to the “People&#039;s Bible History”<br /> (Sampson Low), has written an introduction to<br /> the “Life of Sir Andrew Clark,” by Malcolm<br /> MacColl and W. H. Allchin, which is being<br /> prepared for publication by Messrs. Longmans.<br /> Besides “The Life and Times of Cardinal Wise-<br /> man,” the latter firm has also in preparation<br /> “The Life of Ford Madox Brown,” written by<br /> Ford Madox Hueffer.<br /> A monograph on Frances Mary Buss and her<br /> work in the cause of education, written by Annie<br /> E. Ridley, is to appear from Messrs. Longmans<br /> Green in the autumn.<br /> Colonel Olcott, president of the Theosophical<br /> Society, is writing a book of Reminiscences.<br /> “The Gurneys of Earlham,” by Mr. Augustus<br /> Hare, is definitely announced by Mr. George<br /> Allen for publication next month.<br /> Scarcely any books appeared in the earlier part<br /> of the month, but towards the end the activity<br /> suspended during the General Election period<br /> begins to return to the publishing world. These,<br /> however, may be noted in the August produc-<br /> tion: “Joan Haste,” by Rider Haggard (Long-<br /> mans Green); “Jacob Niemand,” by Robert H.<br /> Sherard (Ward and Downey); “A Comedy in<br /> Spasms,” by “Iota ?? (Hutchinson and Co.);<br /> “Nelson,” by John Knox Laughton, in English<br /> Men of Action Series (Macmillan); and “The<br /> Greater Victorian Poets,” by Professor Hugh<br /> Walker (Swan Sonnenschein).<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#453) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 99<br /> The book which attracted most interest, how-<br /> ever, was “M. Stambuloff,” by Mr. A. Hulme<br /> Beaman, in the Public Men of To-Day Series<br /> (Messrs. Bliss, Sands, and Foster). A recent<br /> contributor to the Saturday Review told how<br /> the slain Bulgarian statesman was sitting one<br /> night with his friends at a variety theatre; the<br /> revelry had reached its highest when he signalled<br /> to an official to bring him a document, which he<br /> promptly signed, exclaiming “I like contrasts&#039; &quot;<br /> It was a death warrant. To partly the same<br /> effect is the summary of the minister&#039;s character<br /> which Mr. Beaman, who was an intimate friend,<br /> gives thus:—“Taught in the hard school of want<br /> and adversity his nature was rugged as the<br /> mountains which were his youthful home and<br /> refuge. . In Stambuloff we see the strong<br /> man defending his house.”<br /> The Badminton Magazine is the title of a new<br /> shilling sporting monthly of a high class, which<br /> began with August. It is edited by Mr. A. E. T.<br /> Watson, and the contributors secured include<br /> distinguished people who are also noted in some<br /> line of sport and pastime. The magazine is pub-<br /> lished by Messrs. Longmans, Green, and Co.<br /> Besides starting a quarterly review devoted<br /> entirely to history, America has just added to its<br /> monthlies in the Philastine, issued from New<br /> York, its raison d’etre being “to lay the dust of<br /> convention, and drive out the miasma of degene-<br /> racy.” But why periodical ? is what the West-<br /> minster Gazette, boasting conquest at almost a<br /> single stroke on this side, cannot understand.<br /> “Phil May&#039;s Sketch Book” is the title of a<br /> volume of full-page cartoons by that artist, which<br /> Messrs, Chatto and Windus will publish soon.<br /> Mr. Clement Shorter is to edit a work about<br /> the Bronté Papers, which were bought in Ireland<br /> by Mr. Thomas J. Wise, the well-known London<br /> book-collector, from the aged husband of Char-<br /> lotte Brontë. They purport to be a “second<br /> series” of the Young Men&#039;s Magazine for various<br /> months of 1830 and 1831, and are penned in a<br /> handwriting too delicate for reading by the naked<br /> eye. Mr. Wise has lately edited, for private cir-<br /> culation, a complete collection, in two little<br /> volumes, of Shelley’s letters to Leigh Hunt, many<br /> of which are now published for the first time.<br /> Mr. H. G. Wells, whose highly imaginative<br /> work, “The Time Machine,” recently secured an<br /> encouraging meed of praise, has written a second<br /> book. It is entitled “The Wonderful Visit,”<br /> being satirically the life and impressions of a<br /> visitor from an unknown world.<br /> Mr. Morley&#039;s reverse in political fortune will<br /> afford him time to complete the Chatham bio-<br /> graphy for the “Twelve English Statesmen’’<br /> series. Whether he will add to the “English Men<br /> of Letters ” volumes meantime is doubtful, for<br /> politicians count upon his return to Parliament<br /> early next year; but he has in view an Irish<br /> historical work, dealing with the period of the<br /> Union, and based upon a large and important<br /> collection of State papers (1795-1805) which he<br /> examined while at Dublin Castle. Here it may be<br /> remarked that Mr. Tim Healy, M.P., is preparing<br /> a volume of his Reminiscences.<br /> Professor Ferri, a member of the Italian<br /> Parliament, has written a book on “Criminal<br /> Sociology,” which will appear in the autumn in<br /> the Criminology Series published by Mr. Fisher<br /> Unwin. Individual and social amelioration of<br /> the lot of the people he advances as the great<br /> cure for crime,<br /> A new edition of Wordsworth, by Professor<br /> William Knight, will form one of Messrs. Mac-<br /> millan&#039;s Eversley series. Eight volumes are to be<br /> devoted to the poems, three to the prose, three to<br /> the journals, and two to biography. Messrs.<br /> Reeves and Turner are employing Mr. Buxton<br /> Forman’s text in the new edition of Keats, which<br /> they are about to issue.<br /> The first edition of Mr. Mackenzie Bell’s<br /> “Spring&#039;s Immortality and Other Poems ” being<br /> exhausted, Messrs. Ward, Lock, and Bowden will<br /> publish shortly a second edition, prefixed to which<br /> will be a new poem addressed to Edmund Clarence<br /> Stedman.<br /> During Michaelmas Term, 1895, Dr. K.<br /> Lentzner will deliver in English five public<br /> lectures: one on Titerary Ethics, and four on<br /> The Danish Nursery-Story as an Art-Form.<br /> A new serial story by “John Strange Winter,”<br /> entitled “I Married a Wife . * begins in The<br /> Golden Penny on Sept. 7th, in which the popular<br /> author of “Bootles&#039; Baby” amusingly describes<br /> the possible results of matrimony on a regiment.<br /> This novel—which has been written at Birching-<br /> ton-on-Sea, where Mrs. Stannard has passed the<br /> Summer—is said to be the most vivacious its<br /> author has yet penned. Her last novel, “A<br /> Magnificent Young Man,” published a few weeks<br /> ago by Messrs. F. W. White and Co., has proved<br /> unusually successful, the second large edition<br /> being already nearly exhausted; and a similar<br /> success has attended its American issue by the<br /> J. B. Lippincott Company.<br /> The Queen has been graciously pleased to<br /> accept a copy of Sir William Charley’s new work<br /> in vindication of the House of Lords, entitled<br /> “The Crusade against the Constitution,” which<br /> was favourably criticised in the February number<br /> of the Author. The Prime Minister has written<br /> to congratulate Sir William Charley on “the<br /> distinguished honour” thus conferred upon the<br /> work. “I am sure,” he adds, “that it has been<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#454) ################################################<br /> <br /> IOO<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> very valuable in influencing opinion, and correcting<br /> current misconceptions.” -<br /> Headon Hill&#039;s new volume, entitled “The Divi-<br /> nations of Kala Persad, and Other Stories,” re-<br /> printed from the magazines, will be published<br /> early this month by Messrs. Ward, Lock, and<br /> Bowden. The same author&#039;s serial, “Guilty<br /> Gold,” just commenced in Pearson’s Weekly, is<br /> appearing simultaneously in the Melbourne<br /> Argus.<br /> * -- ~ -º<br /> r- - -,<br /> CORRESPONDENCE,<br /> I.—Re EVERY MAN HIs Own PUBLISHER.<br /> I.<br /> N the August number of The Author you ask,<br /> after printing my letter to the Westminster<br /> Gazette, “Are not the figures wrong? How<br /> could a publisher give 4s. for a 5s. book?”<br /> The figures, sir, are right enough. My trade-<br /> agents—I did not say publishers—pay me 4S. for<br /> each 5s. book (the public pay me 5s.). And<br /> there is no nonsense between us of either baker&#039;s<br /> or devil&#039;s dozens; they take and get no more<br /> than twelve copies to the dozen, and each<br /> quarter-day their cheque appears sharp to time<br /> with never a blessed halfpenny deducted on any<br /> plea. Were I in a publisher&#039;s hands, the outlook<br /> I’m thinking would scarcely be so cheerful.<br /> It does seem odd that an unadvertised and<br /> altogether unlog-rolled book, by an obscure<br /> author, should sell well pertinaciously year after<br /> year, since it is emphatically not a work of<br /> fiction, nor can it come under the designation<br /> either of a cookery book, or a volume of<br /> SerD10IlS.<br /> I can only state the facts; I cannot pretend to<br /> explain them.<br /> THE SAME OLD CANNY SCOT.<br /> II.<br /> “A Canny Scot’s” letter interested me very<br /> much, and if she would give a few more par-<br /> ticulars of her mode of action it might be of<br /> value to others beside myself. How did she get<br /> her book on to the booksellers&#039; counters? That<br /> is the difficulty in the case, as I apprehend.<br /> I often wonder why young authors do not try<br /> her plan. My first book was published so. It<br /> was a modest bit of local history, about 16,000<br /> words in length. A printer in our nearest town<br /> printed 500 copies in good type, and bound them<br /> neatly in paper for £8. I paid £I I Is. for adver-<br /> tisements in local papers and One London journal.<br /> Two or three local booksellers undertook to sell<br /> the book for me at a profit to them of twopence<br /> in the shilling. I kept account for some time of<br /> the copies sold, but then discontinued. About<br /> 200 copies had been disposed of when I last<br /> calculated the number. The price was 9d. each,<br /> of which 7; d. came to me. This gave me 36 5s.<br /> where with to meet 39 IIs. spent for printing<br /> and advertisements. A loss, of course, but not<br /> so great as if I had not been my own publisher;<br /> and, small as the book was, it paved my way to<br /> more profitable ventures. But in this case I<br /> knew my booksellers; should I have succeeded as<br /> well with strangers?<br /> NINGUNA.<br /> II.-A GERMAN AUTHORs&#039; CLUB.<br /> The “Club of the German Society of Authors”<br /> was founded a few years ago by that society to<br /> promote social intercourse among authors, artists,<br /> and men of science. The great majority of the<br /> members consist of Berlin writers, for instance,<br /> Herr von Wildenbruch, Herr Otto Eric Hartleben,<br /> and others; a goodly number are musicians,<br /> amongst them. Herr Capellmeister, C. A. Raida,<br /> who is not unknown in this country, and actors,<br /> as Herr Alexander, Herr Tiebscher, Herr Krauss-<br /> neck, &amp;c. At present the club occupies four<br /> pretty rooms on a first floor of the Kronen-<br /> Strasse, in the best quarter of Berlin. The rooms<br /> are open from IO a.m. till 2 a.m. Refreshments<br /> can be had at any time within these limits. Here<br /> it is that critics congregate after a first night, and<br /> one can hear the sharpest tongues of Berlin give<br /> judgment for or against the new piece. Smoking<br /> is not allowed in the library and reading room,<br /> nor is it permitted to take books from the former,<br /> or to make cuttings from the papers and maga-<br /> zines. Only members in possession of members’<br /> cards are admitted. They are allowed to intro-<br /> duce guests three times, writing their names in<br /> the strangers&#039; book before entering the rooms.<br /> The club fees amount to 5s. a quarter, on payment<br /> of which one receives the member’s card above<br /> mentioned. If anyone wishes to cease being a<br /> member, he must give notice in a registered letter<br /> three months before June 30. Dinners are given<br /> now and then, and every year a “feast ’’ is held<br /> under the auspices of the society for some benevo-<br /> lent fund; in the winter a ball is given. The<br /> principal object, however, is to provide a pleasant<br /> place of meeting free from every social restraint,<br /> where men can stroll in and out just as they<br /> please, and that this has been sucessfully attained<br /> no one can doubt that has ever been in the<br /> rooms. On the same floor is the bureau of the<br /> society, where manuscripts of all descriptions are<br /> handed in, for which the society endeavours to<br /> find a publisher or an opening in a paper or<br /> magazine.	https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/281/1895-09-02-The-Author-6-4.pdf	publications, The Author
280	https://historysoa.com/items/show/280	The Author, Vol. 06 Issue 03 (August 1895)	<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cspan%3E%3Cem%3EThe+Author%3C%2Fem%3E%2C+Vol.+06+Issue+03+%28August+1895%29%3C%2Fspan%3E"><span><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 Issue 03 (August 1895)</span></a>			<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</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>	1895-08-01-The-Author-6-3					53–84																		<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=6">6</a>											<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1895-08-01">1895-08-01</a>							3			18950801	C be El ut b or,<br /> (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors.<br /> Monthly.)<br /> C O N DU C T ED BY WA. L TER BES ANT.<br /> VoI. VI.-No. 3..]<br /> For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are<br /> signed or initialled the Authors alone are<br /> responsible. None of the papers or para-<br /> graphs must be taken as eaſpressing the<br /> collective opinions of the committee unless<br /> they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br /> Thring, Sec.<br /> *- - -4°<br /> HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all<br /> remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and<br /> requests that all members not receiving an answer to<br /> important communications within two days will write to him<br /> without delay. All remittances showld be crossed Union<br /> Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered<br /> letter only.<br /> Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on<br /> all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub-<br /> jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are<br /> returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS.<br /> *-- ~ +-º<br /> a- - -<br /> WARNINGS AND ADVICE.<br /> I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.-It is not generally<br /> understood that the author, as the vendor, has the<br /> absolute right of drafting the agreement upon<br /> whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out.<br /> Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In<br /> every form of business, this among others, the right of<br /> drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or<br /> has the control of the property.<br /> 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.–In selling Serial Rights remember<br /> that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that<br /> is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you<br /> object to this, insert a clause to that effect.<br /> 3. STAMP You R AGREEMENTs. – Readers are most<br /> URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements<br /> immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected<br /> for two weeks, a fine of £10 must be paid before the agree-<br /> ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every<br /> case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter<br /> which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The<br /> author may be assured that the other party to the agree-<br /> ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society,<br /> to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of<br /> members stamped for them at no ea&#039;pense to themselves<br /> eacept the cost of the stamp.<br /> 4. AsCERTAIN whAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES TO<br /> Both SIDEs BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an<br /> arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi-<br /> ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party<br /> WOL, WI.<br /> AUGUST 1, 1895.<br /> [PRICE SIXPENCE.<br /> refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he<br /> reserved for himself.<br /> 5. LITERARY AGENTs.-Be very careful. Yow cannot be<br /> too careful as to the person whom yow appoint as your<br /> agent. Remember that you place your property almost un-<br /> reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting<br /> the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience<br /> of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone.<br /> 6. CoST OF PRODUCTION.——Never sign any agreement of<br /> which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part,<br /> until you have proved the figures.<br /> 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERs.-Never enter into any cor-<br /> respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad-<br /> vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced<br /> friends or by this Society.<br /> 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever,<br /> bind yourself down for future work to anyone.<br /> 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or<br /> responsibility whatever without advice.<br /> Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a MS. has been re-<br /> fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises<br /> they may put forward, for the production of the work.<br /> II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American<br /> rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any<br /> agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the<br /> publisher, unless for a substantial consideration.<br /> 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper,<br /> either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright,<br /> without advice.<br /> 13. ADVERTISEMENTs. --Keep some control over the<br /> advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in<br /> the agreement.<br /> 14. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any<br /> other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy, .<br /> charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with<br /> business men. Be yourself a business man.<br /> Society&#039;s Offices :-<br /> 4, PoETUGAL STREET, LINCOLN&#039;s INN FIELDs.<br /> *- - -*<br /> HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br /> I. VERY member has a right to ask 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 /> business or the administration of his property. If the advice<br /> sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member<br /> has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the<br /> case is such that Counsel’s opinion is desirable, the Com-<br /> mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this<br /> without any cost to the member.<br /> 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br /> and publisher&#039;s agreements do not generally fall within the<br /> experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br /> G 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#408) ################################################<br /> <br /> 54<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually<br /> engaged upon such questions for us.<br /> 3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past<br /> accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in<br /> order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree-<br /> ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively<br /> so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any<br /> agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor-<br /> mation thus obtained may prove invaluable.<br /> 4. If the examination of your previous business trans-<br /> actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should<br /> take advice as to a change of publishers.<br /> 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro-<br /> posed document to the Society for examination.<br /> 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in<br /> the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish-<br /> ing firm in the country.<br /> 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you<br /> are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are<br /> reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing<br /> the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen-<br /> dence of the writer.<br /> 8. Send to the Editor of the Awthor notes of everything<br /> important to literature that you may hear or meet with.<br /> 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of<br /> members’ agreements and their preservation in a fireproof<br /> safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con-<br /> fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who<br /> will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:—(1)<br /> To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To<br /> stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon<br /> them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments<br /> due according to agreements.<br /> *-- ~ *-*<br /> a- - -s.<br /> THE AUTHORS SYNDICATE.<br /> EMBERS are informed :<br /> 1. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate takes charge of<br /> the business of members of the Society. That it<br /> submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree-<br /> ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene-<br /> rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business<br /> details.<br /> 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured<br /> will be forwarded upon detailed application.<br /> 3. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate works only for those<br /> members of the Society whose work possesses a market<br /> value.<br /> 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations<br /> whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia-<br /> tions are placed eaclusively in its hands, and that all<br /> communications relating thereto are referred to it.<br /> 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by<br /> appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days’<br /> notice should be given.<br /> 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi-<br /> cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent<br /> to defray postage.<br /> 7. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate does not invite MSS.<br /> without previous correspondence ; does not hold itself<br /> responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that<br /> in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray<br /> postage.<br /> 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for<br /> lectures by some of the leading members of the Society;<br /> that it has a “Transfer Department ’’ for the sale and<br /> purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register<br /> of Wants and Wanted * is open. Members are invited to<br /> communicate their requirements to the Manager.<br /> There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services<br /> will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It<br /> is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the<br /> Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in<br /> the Syndicate.<br /> -*<br /> zºº&#039; - *-*.<br /> NOTICES.<br /> HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the<br /> Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br /> of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very<br /> heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br /> many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br /> 6s. 6d. Subscription for the year.<br /> The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and<br /> communications on all subjects connected with literature<br /> from members and others. Nothing can do more good to<br /> the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive,<br /> and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this<br /> work send their names and the special subjects on which<br /> they are willing to write P<br /> Communications for the Author should reach the Editor<br /> not later than the 21st of each month.<br /> All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether<br /> members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate<br /> to the Editor any points connected with their work which<br /> it would be advisable in the general interest to publish.<br /> Members and others who wish their MSS. read are<br /> requested not to send them to the Office without previously<br /> communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable<br /> despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in<br /> which they are received. It must also be distinctly under-<br /> stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances,<br /> undertake the publication of MSS.<br /> The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at<br /> 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary<br /> for information, rules of admission, &amp;c.<br /> Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br /> have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do<br /> this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker&#039;s<br /> order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the<br /> trouble of sending out a reminder.<br /> Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br /> warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a<br /> most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding<br /> for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they<br /> would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five<br /> years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest<br /> or dishonest ? Of course they would not. Why then<br /> hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them-<br /> selves into literary bondage for three or five years P<br /> Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are<br /> requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15<br /> per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble<br /> of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the<br /> pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding<br /> is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be<br /> added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands<br /> at £9 48. The figures in our book are as near the exact<br /> truth as can be procured; but a printer’s, or a binder’s,<br /> bill is so elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be<br /> arrived at.<br /> Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br /> in the “Cost of Production” for advertising. Of course, we<br /> have not included any sums which may be charged for<br /> inserting advertisements in the publisher’s own magazines,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#409) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 55<br /> dr in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too<br /> often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from<br /> sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket,<br /> by inserting any number of advertisements in his own<br /> magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are<br /> who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those<br /> who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it.<br /> *-<br /> LITERARY PROPERTY.<br /> I.—INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.<br /> T a meeting of the Committee, held on<br /> Monday, July 8, the following resolution<br /> was passed:—“Resolved that the Com-<br /> mittee of Management of the Incorporated Society<br /> of Authors taking advantage of Mr. George<br /> Haven Putnam’s presence in this country, hereby<br /> convey to him their recognition and appreciation<br /> of the services that he has rendered to the cause<br /> of international copyright in conjunction with<br /> Mr. R. Underwood Johnson and the American<br /> Committee.”<br /> To this Resolution Mr. Pritnam has sent the<br /> following reply:-‘‘I am writing to acknowledge<br /> your courteous favour of the 9th inst., with the<br /> report of the Resolution passed by the committee<br /> of the Society of Authors in recognition of the<br /> services rendered by myself in furthering the<br /> completion of an international copyright arrange-<br /> ment between the United States and Great Britain.<br /> I can only express my full sense of the compliment<br /> that has been conferred upon me by so representa-<br /> tive and honourable a body as the Society of<br /> Authors, and the pleasure that it gives to me to<br /> understand that the work I was in a position to<br /> do in behalf of a recognition of literary property<br /> that should be independent of political boun-<br /> daries has been appreciatively understood by the<br /> members of your Society.—G. H. PUTNAM.”<br /> II.-CANADIAN COPYRIGHT.<br /> Mr. Hall Caine, who sails on a visit to<br /> America in September, has been invited by the<br /> Committee to act as the representative of the<br /> Society in Canada. He will confer with certain<br /> Canadian statesmen, and will lay before them the<br /> actual facts of the case and the unanimous opinion<br /> of all the persons in this country as to the vital<br /> importance of preserving an International Copy-<br /> right for all English-speaking countries.<br /> A Parliamentary return has been published<br /> giving the amounts received from Canada since<br /> 1877 as duties collected on foreign reprints of<br /> British copyright works. The total, less charges<br /> for collection expenses, since that year, i.e., in<br /> eighteen years is 35278 98., or an average of<br /> 3293 4s. 54d. per annum. Anybody may have<br /> the shillings—who has got the pounds? Of<br /> late years the collectors seem to have been<br /> more active. Thus, in the year ending June 30,<br /> 1890, they collected £970 7s. ; in 1891, 2919 8s. ;<br /> in 1892, 3533 13s. I Id, ; in 1893, however, they<br /> dropped to £364 7s. 2d.; in 1894, 29276 1s. 4d.<br /> Taking the average of £293 4s. 54a, per annum<br /> —call it £300—this represents, at 12# per cent.<br /> a trade amounting to £24OO per annum. Is it<br /> really worth while after all to imperil international<br /> copyright for so paltry a sum as 32400 per<br /> annum ?<br /> III.-CANADIAN PUBLISHERs.<br /> A communication has been received from the<br /> Rev. William Briggs, D.D., Book Steward of the<br /> “Methodist Book Publishing House,” Toronto,<br /> calling attention to their current list of new<br /> books, and mentioning that their complete list<br /> numbers nearly 200 works. Dr. Briggs says that he<br /> credits the Society with ignorance rather than<br /> with a desire to conceal the facts when it speaks<br /> of “Canadian booksellers who may call them-<br /> selves publishers.” Very good. It is, indeed,<br /> far from the intention of the Society to con-<br /> ceal the facts. But one may point out, first,<br /> that a list of 200 books of all kinds is not a<br /> very long list; and, next, that Dr. Briggs has not<br /> told us of any other Canadian publisher who has<br /> so respectable a list. One does not suggest that<br /> there are no other such publishers; but one<br /> would like to know. The current list forwarded<br /> contains a varied assortment of works. There are<br /> five books of history; four books of verse, one on<br /> Art; one upon medical science; seven of fiction—<br /> two by an English writer; three of natural<br /> history; four of travel; and the rest on religious<br /> subjects. -<br /> IV.-CONTRIBUTORS AND SERIAL RIGHTs.<br /> Contributors to magazines and papers are<br /> reminded that they sell serial rights only, where<br /> no special stipulation is made. A correspon-<br /> dent sends a printed form of receipt, headed<br /> “Purchase of Entire Copyright.” He must<br /> substitute for the last two words before signing<br /> it, unless, of course, he has already agreed to<br /> sell the whole copyright, the words “First<br /> Serial Right.” In most cases, of course, the<br /> serial right is all that the MS. is worth ; but<br /> provision must be made for possibilities, and in<br /> no case should the author be led to believe that<br /> while he offers the serial right, the publisher can<br /> claim the whole copyright after publication, and<br /> without previous agreement. -<br /> Eº<br /> º:<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#410) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> THE SPIRIT OF DR, JOHNSON.<br /> R. H. D. TRAILL’S paper in the<br /> Fortnightly Review is amusing, but un-<br /> fortunately he has been led astray by<br /> a spirit of deception. The voice is the voice of<br /> Dr. Johnson, but the sentiments are undoubtedly<br /> those of Mr. Cave, sometime publisher. For,<br /> whereas the question which now concerns authors<br /> is that of their own independence, which can<br /> never be achieved until the production of a book<br /> means a recognised system, on such lines as leave<br /> no room, either for secret profits, or for the over-<br /> reaching of an author, or for the suspicion of<br /> such practices; until it means an agreement based<br /> upon figures understood by both sides, and giving<br /> the property over to be administered also on<br /> terms which are understood by both sides. So<br /> long as the author has to go to a publisher and<br /> humbly ask him for an agreement, the meaning<br /> of which he is not to understand, so long will<br /> literature be dependent and held—so far—in the<br /> contempt which belongs to dependence. The<br /> spirit of the late Mr. Cave, however, plainly<br /> perceiving the real point, goes off on a quite<br /> different point. He pretends that it is proposed<br /> to abolish publishers altogether, and in this way<br /> diverts attention from the real point.<br /> I do not know whether anyone has proposed such<br /> a measure. Certainly no one in this society has<br /> done such a silly thing. It is, for instance, quite<br /> conceivable that any successful author might<br /> become his own publisher—Ruskin showed the<br /> way—by the simple method of keeping a clerk<br /> or secretary. As for talk about the trouble of<br /> sending backwards and forwards to printers,<br /> binders, &amp;c., that is rubbish. Besides, every<br /> ăuthor has got to send proofs backwards and<br /> forwards as it is. The production of the ordi-<br /> nary book is a matter of the merest routine;<br /> there is no trouble at all about it. I have myself<br /> produced a great many, and I know what I am<br /> talking about. Five minutes&#039; talk with printer<br /> and another with binder—that is nearly all. It is<br /> a question of the merest routine. It is also quite<br /> concervable that half-a-dozen successful authors<br /> might unite to keep a common clerk for the<br /> distribution of their books. Nothing would be<br /> easier, and of course it will be done before long.<br /> But the publisher will still remain, however many<br /> authors so unite, until, or unless, the booksellers<br /> themselves unite and provide a mind to think<br /> and act for them. To the publisher will belong,<br /> for instance, the great literary enterprises; the<br /> encyclopædias, atlases, dictionaries of all kinds,<br /> works which require the services of many men of<br /> letters and the advance of large capital; to them<br /> also will belong the whole literature of the past;<br /> to them will belong the magazines and journals;<br /> to them, perhaps—but this is not certain—will<br /> belong the whole of the educational books. I<br /> say “perhaps,” because it is quite conceivable<br /> that the educational books will be removed into<br /> other channels altogether, and will be published<br /> by other hands on a very different plan, which is<br /> already under discussion. On this point we shall<br /> probably hear more. There will also remain to<br /> publishers that very large and lucrative branch<br /> which provides prize books, story books, &amp;c., for<br /> children. Other branches will remain, because,<br /> although the soi disant Johnson, otherwise the<br /> Spirit of Cave, pretends that it would be possible<br /> yet wicked to destroy the publisher, nobody has<br /> ever yet thought it either possible or even desirable<br /> to attempt such a step.<br /> I certainly think that a writer of Mr. Traill&#039;s<br /> experience and scholarship might have detected<br /> the imposture. Thus, it is pointed out to me by<br /> one also of some knowledge in English literature<br /> I. That Dr. Johnson was the most earnest champion of the<br /> rights of authors, and the most passionate enemy of the<br /> injustices of booksellers, and of an imperfect copyright law,<br /> that ever lived in England.<br /> 2. That he was familiar with every detail of the book-<br /> making and bookselling businesses.<br /> 3. That the booksellers he dealt with stood on an entirely<br /> different footing to that occupied by the publisher of to-day;<br /> that he wrote his “Poets” for a co-operative society of<br /> booksellers who sold their own books over their own<br /> counters, and that the only exception to this rule of business<br /> ever mentioned by him (so far as I know) relates to the<br /> publications of the Clarendon Press—and there his<br /> endeavours appear to have been used to reduce the earnings<br /> of the middleman. -<br /> 4. That all this (the portrait of the flesh and blood<br /> Johnson) may be found in twenty places in Boswell.<br /> 5. That the Dr. Johnson of the Fortnightly article is a<br /> bogey in both senses; that he is another man, with other<br /> leanings and other opinions; that he has forgotten all his<br /> special knowledge, and talks the dangerous nonsense of one<br /> who is only half informed.<br /> To this I must add that, as usual, Mr. Traill’s<br /> spirits go hopelessly wrong over the figures.<br /> What, for instance, does this mean? It is the<br /> so called Spirit of Johnson who speaks: “They will<br /> always need the services of some trader with capital<br /> enough to undertake the venture and to lie out of<br /> his money till its slow returns come back to him.”<br /> As for capital, how much is possessed by the<br /> new publisher P. How much is required to pro-<br /> duce a book P. For the greater part nothing. Dr.<br /> Johnson would know, probably well, that under<br /> the present conditions of trade, no capital is<br /> expended, not a farthing, on most of the books<br /> published. Or, if any, then, the small difference<br /> between the first returns and the actual cost.<br /> But as to “lying out of his money,” and the<br /> slow returns; publishers could not exist by books<br /> demanding large capital and bringing in slow<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#411) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. - - 57<br /> returns. These books are only brought out by<br /> great firms; they may be admirable books. It<br /> is in the issue of such works that some pub-<br /> lishers do good service to literature; but they<br /> do not live by them, nor do they in general<br /> reckon them as profit-making ventures.<br /> The figures themselves are quite simple and<br /> cannot be repeated too often. The real Dr. John-<br /> son would have known them at once.<br /> Again, we take an ordinary 6s. book, not<br /> because, as the Spirit of Cave calling himself<br /> Johnson says, “as if a 6s. novel was the whole of<br /> literature,” but because the 6s. book is a very<br /> common form for essays, biographies, and belles<br /> lettres of all kinds as well as for fiction. If any<br /> One will find us a more convenient unit than the<br /> Ordinary 6s. book we shall be glad to take it.<br /> Now the figures that follow were obtained by<br /> the Secretary of the Society and others working<br /> in the same direction four or five years ago; they<br /> have been published ; they have never been<br /> seriously disputed.<br /> Quite recently they have been obtained by Mr.<br /> Hall Caine from six publishers, all of whom<br /> agreed in the main with each other and with us.<br /> Very well; the ordinary 6s. book—meaning<br /> from seventeen to twenty sheets—i.e., from<br /> 70,000 to IOO,OOO words in small pica type, of<br /> about 260 words to a page, without illustrations,<br /> on good paper and in good plain binding, costs<br /> for an edition of 30OO copies no more than a<br /> shilling a copy with advertising, unless there is<br /> reason for knowing that the demand will increase,<br /> when the increased amount spent in advertising<br /> must be spread over. Of this cardinal fact there<br /> can be no doubt or dispute whatever.<br /> The sale of the book to the trade is at 4s. 2d.,<br /> less 5 per cent. “for the account,” and thirteen<br /> to the dozen on ordering so many. This means<br /> 3s. 7+}d. for every copy. We generally reckon this<br /> as an average of 3s. 6d., which gives some allow-<br /> ance for press copies and for bad debts. It is,<br /> however, too low, because the booksellers, after<br /> the first run, chiefly order single copies. However,<br /> take it as 3s. 6d., with this understanding. We<br /> now have this simple sum :<br /> Cost of the book, Is.<br /> Price of the book to the trade, 3s. 6d.<br /> Profit on the book, 2s. 6d.<br /> This has to be divided between author and<br /> publisher.<br /> I. At a royalty of IO per cent. (quite a common<br /> royalty formerly), we have :<br /> Author receives 74d. a copy;<br /> Publisher receives 22#d. a copy.<br /> 2. At a royalty of 15 per cent. :<br /> Author receives Io; d. a copy ;<br /> Publisher receives 194d. a copy.<br /> 3. At a royalty of 20 per cent :<br /> Author receives 144d. a copy;<br /> Publisher receives 153d. a copy.<br /> 4. At a royalty of 30 per cent. :<br /> Author receives 21; d. a copy.<br /> Publisher receives 83d. a copy.<br /> But, says the publisher, there are all my office<br /> expenses. Quite so. There are also the author&#039;s<br /> office expenses. And there are the bookseller&#039;s<br /> office expenses. Is it not colossal impudence that<br /> the middleman should demand to have his office<br /> expenses paid, and should refuse to consider those<br /> of the other two—the real workers? Now, to<br /> return to a case noted in last month&#039;s Author.<br /> A certain publisher is reported to have said (1)<br /> that he could not make more than 7d. a copy for<br /> himsel/, after all office eaſpenses were paid, out of<br /> a book; and (2) that things had got to such a<br /> pass that a publisher would soon refuse a<br /> successful author altogether. At this time,<br /> this very man, on his own showing of 7d. a.<br /> copy—a figure which cannot be accepted—ha<br /> just made a good deal more than £10oo in<br /> three or four months by producing one successful<br /> book. Yet he wanted more But the respect-<br /> able and the honourable publisher says that<br /> he does not say or pretend such things, or do<br /> such things. Very likely. Why does he not<br /> write to the papers, then, and disclaim such<br /> men P<br /> The question of office expenses, if it is to be<br /> considered at all, must be considered fairly. The<br /> author has expenses of all kinds, so has the<br /> bookseller, so has the publisher. As regards the<br /> last he can only prove his claim by showing his<br /> books. Thus, we have, in general terms, apart<br /> from each book:<br /> I. His rent. With the new publisher, the rent<br /> of two little rooms.<br /> 2. His accountants, clerks, and travellers. With<br /> the new publisher, two office boys and one traveller,<br /> or a share of one traveller.<br /> 3. His office expenses—as light, fire, servants,<br /> postage, &amp;c.<br /> If his expenses under these items amount to<br /> so much, these expenses divided among all his<br /> books in proportion to the price will give<br /> the actual “office expenses &quot; of each copy.<br /> In a great house this must be a very minute<br /> fraction.<br /> Our friend who wept and wailed over the seven-<br /> pence which he got for doing nothing at all,<br /> estimated his office expenses at 5a, a copy. This<br /> means that, on the book referred to which sold,<br /> say, to take an extreme case, 50,000 copies,<br /> its own share of office expenses of distribution<br /> amounted to over £1 OOO. Credat Judaeus / In<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#412) ################################################<br /> <br /> 58 THE AUTHOR.<br /> these absurdities, however, we are landed when-<br /> ever we accept from such publishers figures<br /> without understanding what they mean, and which<br /> are advanced by them in the full knowledge that<br /> they will not be understood.<br /> *m- a. º.<br /> a- - -,<br /> NEW YORK LETTER.<br /> New York, July 15, 1895.<br /> HERE have been not a few discussions in<br /> the columns of the Author of points of<br /> etiquette, editorial and journalistic; but<br /> there is one question which I have never seen<br /> raised in your pages. It is this: What should a<br /> correspondent do when he reads in the journal<br /> to which he contributes a paragraph against<br /> which he feels that he ought to protest ? The<br /> immediate cause of my making this query here is<br /> that I found in the June number of the Author a<br /> word—only a single word, it is true—against<br /> which I am moved to protest. A letter from Mr.<br /> John Bloundelle Burton (addressed to the editor<br /> of a New York paper, not of the highest rank) is<br /> reprinted, and to it is prefixed a note in which<br /> somebody says that the person to whom the letter<br /> was addressed “appears to have indulged in an<br /> outbreak of abuse that is not common even on<br /> the other side of the Atlantic.” Is not this a slur<br /> unworthy the pages of a journal like the Author,<br /> which is constantly trying to cultivate the good-<br /> will of America. P I know nothing of the attack<br /> which the writer of the letter complained of;<br /> but along acquaintance with the literary papers<br /> of Great Britain and of the United States has led<br /> me to the conclusion that there is little to choose<br /> between them—so far as courtesy to authors is<br /> concerned. Most of them are courteous on both<br /> sides of the water. Few of them are abusive.<br /> Of these few, I think, more are to be found in<br /> London than in New York; and I have detected,<br /> I fancied, more rancour and more venom in the<br /> British abuse than in the American. Of course,<br /> this may be due to my point of view; and it is<br /> quite possible that an Englishman as familiar<br /> with the American papers as I am with the<br /> British might not agree with me. And, as<br /> I said before, abuse is not common in either<br /> country.<br /> Of all the American writers of fiction who have<br /> made themselves known to British readers in the<br /> past half-dozen years, no one has been more<br /> heartily welcomed than Miss Mary E. Wilkins.<br /> It may be interesting, therefore, to note that Miss<br /> Wilkins has recently made a new departure, and<br /> has achieved an unexpected success. She has<br /> just won the prize of £400 offered by the<br /> Bacheller Syndicate for the best detective story<br /> not exceeding 12,OOO words in length. Her story<br /> is called “The Long Arm.” A second prize of<br /> £1oo was awarded to a tale called “The<br /> Twinkling of an Eye,” by Mr. Brander Matthews.<br /> Both stories are to be published by a leading<br /> newspaper in every one of the chief American<br /> cities. In New York they will appear in the<br /> Herald, which has given an interesting account<br /> of the particulars of the competition.<br /> The circular sent out to competitors thus<br /> characterised the class of fiction desired: “We<br /> are seeking clean stories which will interest the<br /> average newspaper reader, and which can be pub-<br /> lished to advantage in instalments of about 2000<br /> words each. We hold that a very high quality of<br /> art is consistent with these requirements. The<br /> novelty and ingenuity of the plot, and the literary<br /> and constructive art developed in its treatment,<br /> are considerations which will probably most<br /> influence the minds of the judges in reaching a<br /> decision. The judges will be gentlemen of un-<br /> questionable fairness and competency. The date<br /> fixed for the close of the competition was May 1,<br /> 1895.” About the beginning of April the manu-<br /> scripts in Mr. Irving Bacheller&#039;s private office<br /> were as thick as the leaves of Wallombrosa.<br /> They came in from all parts of the globe. Three<br /> thousand stories in all were received. All were<br /> sent in anonymously. Then came the work of<br /> sorting and selection. All the stories were read<br /> in the first instance by Mr. Bacheller and a staff<br /> of experienced coadjutors. Fifty, which were con-<br /> sidered the best, were handed to Mr. John H.<br /> Boner, of the Literary Digest. Out of these he<br /> choose thirteen, which were then turned over to<br /> Mr. Hamilton W. Mable, of the Outlook, for final<br /> adjudication. When the sealed envelopes were<br /> opened the authors of the successful stories were<br /> for the first time made known. There was no<br /> possible chance of favouritism. Every manu-<br /> script, in accordance with the conditions, was<br /> typewritten, and was sent without the author&#039;s<br /> name. The accompanying sealed envelope con-<br /> tained the sole clew to the authorship. So high<br /> was the merit of the best of the selected stories<br /> (after the two prize winners) that a very large<br /> proportion of them have been purchased by the<br /> Bacheller Syndicate for use after “The Long<br /> Arm&quot; and “The Twinkling of an Eye” have<br /> been published. -<br /> Mark Twain is about to start on a lecturing<br /> tour around the world. Sailing from the Pacific<br /> Coast in August, Mr. Clemens will read and<br /> lecture in the Sandwich Islands, Australia, New<br /> Zealand, Tasmania, Ceylon, Madras, Calcutta,<br /> Lahore, Bombay, Mauritius, South Africa,<br /> England, Scotland, and Ireland, finishing his .<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#413) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 59<br /> little excursion by a few readings from his own<br /> works in the chief cities of the United States. It<br /> is an open secret that Mr. Clemens lost most of<br /> his own fortune—and some also of his wife&#039;s—<br /> in the disastrous failure of Charles L. Webster<br /> and Co. He had also sunk many thousands of<br /> dollars in an invention from which he is not likely<br /> to get a cent back. His tour is certain to be<br /> enormously profitable, for Mark Twain is one of<br /> the wonders of the platform. No one living tells<br /> a story better than he, or has a more engaging<br /> personality before an audience. He is a master<br /> of the art of delivery, of diction, as the French<br /> call it. I hear a rumour also that a complete<br /> library edition of all his works is in contemplation.<br /> That he is the author of the Joan of Arc serial<br /> now running in Harper&#039;s Magazine seems to be<br /> generally admitted. It is pleasant to record that<br /> the dramatisation of “Pudd’nhead Wilson’’ made<br /> by Mr. Frank Mayo has also been successful on<br /> the stage. The American copyright law allows a<br /> novelist to reserve the right to dramatise his<br /> story. The British copyright law does not give<br /> the novelist this right, although the decision in<br /> the “Little Lord Fanntleroy&quot; case will hereafter<br /> make the path of the pirate thorny and doubtful.<br /> Whenever any British author feels like de-<br /> nouncing the necessity of manufacture in the<br /> United States, which is a condition of American<br /> copyright, he should first recall the fact that in<br /> One respect at least the American copyright law<br /> is more favourable to the Englishman than the<br /> British law is to the American. In Great Britain<br /> the American novelist cannot legally reserve the<br /> right to dramatise his story; and in Great Britain<br /> the American dramatist has no rights at all,<br /> unless he sees to it that his play is performed in<br /> England before it is performed in America,<br /> which forces him to spend anywhere from £20 to<br /> 350 in an absurd special performance. Now the<br /> British dramatist has full protection in the<br /> United States, and the British novelist has sole<br /> right to dramatise his own story or to authorise a<br /> dramatisation of it.<br /> That this is the case is fortunate for Mr. Du<br /> Maurier, who is in receipt of the weekly royalties<br /> from the three or four companies recently per-<br /> forming Mr. Paul M. Potter&#039;s adaptation of<br /> “Trilby.”<br /> author, and if there were the rage for “Trilby’’<br /> in Great Britain which there is in the United<br /> States, I doubt very much whether he would be<br /> in receipt of several hundred pounds a month for<br /> the authorisation to perform a stage version of<br /> his tale. The interest in “Trilby’’ seems to be<br /> unabated. Two parodies of the novel have been<br /> published—both of them beneath contempt ; and<br /> two burlesques of the play have been acted. The<br /> WOL. WI.<br /> If Mr. Du Maurier were an American<br /> music publishing house of Dibson and Co. has<br /> just issued an album of “Trilby Songs, Words,<br /> and Music.” The author of “Ben Bolt” has<br /> been called again to mind; he is still alive—and<br /> a member of congress. His name is Thomas<br /> Dunn English; and if there are any British<br /> admirers of Poe who are really familiar with the<br /> facts of Poe&#039;s career, the name will recall to<br /> them the long quarrel of Poe and English—and<br /> also the interesting circumstance that Poe once<br /> brought a libel suit against English and recovered<br /> damages. But this is a digression from “Trilby.”<br /> The editors of the Critic of New York have<br /> prepared and published a pretty little pamphlet<br /> of forty-eight pages called “Trilbyana : The<br /> Rise and Progress of a Popular Novel,” being a<br /> review of Mr. Du Maurier&#039;s “Trilby,” a criticism<br /> of the drawings, a notice of the play, and an<br /> account of the various entertainments founded<br /> upon the book. The songs “Ben Bolt,” “Mal-<br /> brouck,” “Au Clair de la Lune,” &amp;c.; a review<br /> of Charles Nodier&#039;s “Trilby, le Lutin d’Argyle,”<br /> and many other items of interest, mostly reprinted<br /> from the Critic; portraits of Du Maurier, a view<br /> of his house on Hampstead Heath, and a repro-<br /> duction of his first contribution to Punch, con-<br /> taining likenesses of himself and Mr. Whistler.<br /> It is announced that Mr. Du Maurier’s new novel<br /> will be the chief serial for Harper&#039;s Monthly<br /> during the year 1897, but it is still doubtful<br /> whether or not the author-artist will be his own<br /> illustrator.<br /> One of the books announced for early publica-<br /> tion by Macmillan and Co. in New York (and<br /> probably also in London) is a volume containing<br /> the very interesting lectures on art which Mr.<br /> John Lafarge delivered at the Metropolitan<br /> Museum a year or two ago. Mr. Lafarge is one<br /> of the most Original of American painters, and<br /> his work is so highly esteemed in France that he<br /> was requested to make a special collection of his<br /> pictures for exhibition at the Champ de Mars this<br /> year. He is also one of the inventors of the very<br /> beautiful stained glass, now one of the most<br /> characteristic developments of recent American<br /> art. That he is a delightful writer all will admit<br /> who remember his letters from Japan, published<br /> in the Century three or four years ago; and that<br /> he can lecture as well as write this forthcoming<br /> volume will show.<br /> Mr. Laurence Hutton has spent part of the<br /> spring in Florence and part of the summer in<br /> Venice. His three articles on the “Literary<br /> Landmarks of Florence, of Rome, and of<br /> Venice,” will appear in Harper&#039;s Monthly during<br /> the autumn. They will be greatly enlarged<br /> before they are reprinted, each in a little book by<br /> itself, uniform with the “Literary Landmarks of<br /> H<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#414) ################################################<br /> <br /> 6o<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Edinburgh.” They will all be illustrated by Mr.<br /> Frank W. Du Mond, whom Harper and Brothers<br /> sent to Europe specially for this purpose. Mr.<br /> Hutton expects to arrive in London before the<br /> end of the summer; and early in the autumn a<br /> little book of his on “Other Times and Other<br /> Seasons” will be published in the pretty little<br /> series called “Harper&#039;s American Essayists,” now<br /> extending to more than a dozen volumes, of which<br /> only Mr. Howells’ “Criticism and Fiction” and<br /> Dr. Waldstein’s “Ruskin.” have yet been pub-<br /> lished in England. H. R.<br /> [The writer of the paragraph containing the<br /> word “even,” to which objection is taken by<br /> “H. R.,” begs to state that he was not speaking<br /> of the literary papers, which are perhaps more<br /> courteous in America than in this country, but of<br /> the ordinary Press. If “H. R.” will, for instance,<br /> read a few numbers of a certain Irish-American<br /> paper published in Boston, he will find that the<br /> word “even &#039;&#039; is fully justified.]<br /> * * ** –<br /> º-<br /> NOTES FROM PARIS,<br /> M* ARTHUR MEYER, of Le Gaulois,<br /> has suggested that at the next Universal<br /> Exhibition in Paris, to be held in 1900,<br /> a special section should be reserved for literary<br /> men, and that a special building, to be called “Le<br /> Pavillon des Lettres,” should be erected for their<br /> convenience. I understand—for I never read Le<br /> Gaulois—-that various prominent men of letters<br /> have been interviewed on their opinion as to the<br /> feasibility of this scheme, and that for the most<br /> part they are favourable to the idea of making<br /> “exhibitions of themselves.” I do not quite under-<br /> stand how this exhibition will be managed, Sup-<br /> posing that the idea be carried out, as seems<br /> probable. Will the various literary men of cele-<br /> brity be on view to the visitors to the exhibition<br /> at certain fixed hours in the day? Shall we see<br /> them at work or at play, or, it may be, as they<br /> take their meals? Since the curiosity of the public<br /> as to the persons and personalities of celebrated<br /> authors is to be gratified, let it be gratified in full.<br /> I, for my part, will be a constant visitor to the<br /> Pavillon des Lettres. I should like to see<br /> Alexandre Dumas at breakfast, and to find out,<br /> de visu, whether he eats his eggs hard-boiled or<br /> soft. I should like to see Jean Richepin at work,<br /> and to assure myself whether it is true—as I<br /> read in an American journal the other day—that<br /> when he writes he dresses in Scarlet, and con-<br /> stantly rolls his eyes and smites his forehead. I<br /> should like to see whether George Ohnet uses a<br /> steel-mib or a quill, and how often Alphonse<br /> Daudet lights his cigar whilst writing, say, a<br /> thousand words.<br /> As the exhibition is to be an international one,<br /> I suppose foreign men of letters would also be<br /> invited to take up their residence during its<br /> duration in the Pavillon des Lettres. Each<br /> country would have its section. I am sure that<br /> the English section would be visited with great<br /> interest. The lady novelists who analyse with<br /> such minuteness of observation the sex question,<br /> would enjoy as great a success of curiosity as did<br /> the Tunisean dancers at the last exhibition. The<br /> prolific producer who can work two typewriters<br /> simultaneously (one with his hands and the other<br /> with his toes), and at the same time dictate to a<br /> shorthand writer, so that at once he can turn out,<br /> say, a short story, an analytical critique, and an<br /> incisive political leader, would greatly enhance<br /> our credit as an industrial nation.<br /> The critics, I presume, would be placed in<br /> separate rooms in each section; this as much for<br /> the purposes of classification as for the mutual<br /> safety of themselves and the authors proper.<br /> Personally, I should oppose any suggestion<br /> tending to have them secured in cages, but that<br /> will be a matter for the committee to decide. If<br /> anything of a spectacular nature were to be<br /> arranged in connection with the Pavillon des<br /> Lettres, one might have a series of very effective<br /> tableaua vivants, as, for instance, “The Authors<br /> thrown to the Critics,” which would remind one<br /> of Rome at its worst. The English section would<br /> be particularly interesting by its critics&#039; depart-<br /> ment, especially the English authors. The veil<br /> of anonymity would at last be raised, the British<br /> man of letters would at last see his—(well, what P)<br /> —face to face. Some rather startling discoveries<br /> would, I fancy, be made; for instance, in the way<br /> of authors, who, not objecting to turn an honest<br /> penny and by way of clearing the field of possible<br /> competitors, would be found, not amongst their<br /> confrères, but among the critics.<br /> Mme. Sarah Bernhardt has been offered a sum<br /> of £32,000 to write her memoirs. The offer<br /> emanates from a syndicate of American publishers.<br /> Two editions of the book would be prepared. One,<br /> luxuriously illustrated by the best French artists,<br /> would be issued to subscribers at £8 the copy,<br /> and the syndicate calculates that at least 5000<br /> amateurs would subscribe. This edition would be<br /> followed by a cheaper one for the general public.<br /> Mme. Bernhardt has not definitely accepted this<br /> offer, and in any case—so she at present declares<br /> —she will publish nothing until she retires from<br /> the stage. As one cannot imagine her retiring<br /> from the stage, it will be a long time—if she abide<br /> by her declaration—before these memoirs willcome<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#415) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 6 I<br /> to light. In the meanwhile two newspapers have<br /> offered very large sums for serial rights. One<br /> is a French and the other an American news-<br /> paper. Mme. Bernhardt is said to be spending<br /> her holiday at Belle Isle, sorting papers, with the<br /> help of two secretaries, with a view to a selection<br /> of materials for this work.<br /> The offer must be of very recent date, because,<br /> as I related in last month&#039;s Author, I was<br /> assured by Mme. Bernhardt, about two months<br /> ago, that she had no present intention of writing<br /> her memoirs, as had been stated in an interview<br /> with her. No doubt the announcement that a<br /> biography of this lady was in preparation sug-<br /> gested the idea of the deal to the syndicate, and<br /> I can answer for the fact that the biographer<br /> in question, far from feeling any mortification<br /> at this annexation of his idea, is delighted to have<br /> been indirectly the cause of this flight of double-<br /> eagles in the direction of the little house on the<br /> Boulevard Pereire, where to his knowledge, owing<br /> to disastrous seasons, hostile critics, and so on,<br /> they will be doubly welcome.<br /> I certainly did not attend the inauguration of<br /> the monument to Henri Murger, and I am very<br /> much surprised that anybody can have been<br /> foolish enough to subscribe a penny towards the<br /> perpetuation of the memory of an author whose<br /> teachings were simply detestable. Murger&#039;s<br /> glorification of “La Vie de Bohème,” his glorifica-<br /> tion of laziness, disorder, and physical and moral<br /> dirtiness, has done more harm amongst foolish<br /> young men and women than any book that, I<br /> know of. Murger was himself an example of its<br /> pestilent influences, and died, bald, blear-eyed,<br /> and brainless at the age of thirty-eight. Daudet<br /> has given a description of him and of some of<br /> his foolish acolytes, as he saw them, a year or<br /> two before Murger&#039;s death at the Café des<br /> Martyrs. Most of Murger&#039;s admirers, who tried<br /> to live according to the idiotic modus vivendi<br /> which he had expounded, died premature deaths,<br /> sapped in every limb, or went mad, or com-<br /> mitted suicide. And thousands of girls, who<br /> might have lived to become happy mothers and<br /> respected wives, were lured to follow Mimi in her<br /> foolish career and ended as sadly, owing to the<br /> fashion set in that most mischievous “Vie de<br /> Bohème.” It is a regrettable fact that its evil<br /> influence still exercises itself, and it is to be<br /> feared that this monument to its author may<br /> increase and extend this evil influence.<br /> I am delighted, on the other hand, to hear that<br /> at last a monument is to be raised to Florian, in<br /> his native town. When shall we have in Paris<br /> monuments to Maupassant, to Balzac, or to<br /> Victor Hugo P The statute to Florian will be<br /> executed by M. Adrien Gaudez. A large com-<br /> VOL. VI.<br /> some such remark as this :<br /> President.<br /> mittee, composed of littérateurs and artists,<br /> mainly of Southern extraction, have the matter<br /> in hand, and are organising performances of one<br /> of Florian&#039;s works at the Comedie Française to<br /> raise part of the necessary funds. The monument<br /> will be raised near Alais, on the banks of the<br /> Gardon river.<br /> I had written “on the banks of the Gardon<br /> river” when it struck me that a monument can<br /> only stand on one bank of a river; and now that<br /> I come to think of it, I ought to have written<br /> “On one of the banks of the Gardon river,” for,<br /> of course, the Gardon has two banks. Yet it is a<br /> locution, is it not, this “on the banks,” where<br /> only one bank is meant? “The little cottage on<br /> the banks of the Thames,” “the ruined chapel on<br /> the banks of the Arno,” and so on. But those of<br /> us who write for the Author must be nothing if<br /> not grammatical. An eye is upon us, and nearly<br /> every month I receive from a press-cutting<br /> agency extracts from a society paper, containing<br /> “The italics are ours,<br /> the grammar is Mr. Sherard’s.” My anonymous<br /> critic never points out where my grammar differs<br /> from that of the professors of the art, but the<br /> stigma is there all the same. All things considered,<br /> I think that I will amend the last sentence in the<br /> preceding paragraph to “The monument will be<br /> raised near Alais, on one of the two banks of the<br /> Gardon river.”<br /> A number of booksellers’ clerks were sentenced<br /> the other day to long sentences of imprisonment,<br /> by the Eighth Chamber of Correctional Police,<br /> for wholesale larcenies to the prejudice of their<br /> employers. Some stole the books out of their<br /> masters’ shops, others resold these same books to<br /> those who had been robbed of them. One of the<br /> prisoners endeavoured to justify himself in a<br /> rambling statement about the special ethics of the<br /> bookselling trade, and muttered something about<br /> authors, royalties, manuscripts, and other irrele-<br /> vancies. He was very properly silenced by the<br /> What possible comparison can there<br /> be between a manuscript and a printed book, or,<br /> for the matter of that, between an author and a<br /> publisher ?<br /> I wish most strongly to advise journalists and<br /> literary men who may be offered positions on<br /> English papers published on the Continent to<br /> make full inquiries as to the nature of their<br /> duties, the amount of work that will be required<br /> of them, the relative value of money in the town<br /> where their salaries are to be paid, and finally as<br /> to the financial standing of the paper, before<br /> accepting any such offer and expatriating them-<br /> selves. Neglect of such precaution may involve<br /> a man in very serious difficulties. I have on my<br /> table a letter from a young journalist who recently<br /> H 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#416) ################################################<br /> <br /> 62<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> came from England to occupy the position of<br /> sub-editor on an English paper published on the<br /> Continent. He was engaged on a salary of £Io<br /> a month, which, as prices go in the town where he<br /> is living, is about equal to £6 a month in England,<br /> He has to work from ten o’clock at night till<br /> seven o&#039;clock in the morning, and this in a stuffy,<br /> badly ventilated room. He is allowed one night<br /> off every week. He writes to tell me that his<br /> health is breaking down under the continual<br /> strain and from the unhealthy conditions under<br /> which he lives. This salary is not paid regularly.<br /> This month he had to apply for it six times, and<br /> it was only paid—six days after it was due—when<br /> he had commenced legal proceedings for its<br /> recovery. In the meanwhile he was without<br /> money, and the last day he was without food, and<br /> his landlord, whose rent was overdue, had begun<br /> to threaten to expel him. I believe that all<br /> requisite information as to the points on which a<br /> journalist, who is offered a position abroad,<br /> ought to satisfy himself, can be obtained from<br /> the secretary of the Institute of Journalists.<br /> Young French writers have every reason to<br /> congratulate themselves on the presence of<br /> M. Poincaré at the head of the Ministry which<br /> specially concerns itself with literature and art.<br /> His recent creation of knighthoods in the Legion<br /> of Honour show him to be guided less by routine<br /> than by discrimination. He appears to be in-<br /> clined to reward literary talent in all its forms,<br /> and to be specially actuated by the desire to en-<br /> courage young authors. His latest nomination<br /> is that of Paul Margueritte, a son of the gallant<br /> general of that name who fell at Sedan, who<br /> distinguished himself at first by certain novels of<br /> a moral order, and is looked on as the Theuriet<br /> of the future. M. Poincaré can now no longer be<br /> accused of exclusive patronage of the naturalists<br /> and symbolists.<br /> Amongst other promotions and nominations in<br /> M. Poincaré&#039;s list for July 14th, one notices that<br /> Sardou has been raised to a commandership,<br /> whilst Paul Bourget and André Theuriet have<br /> been made officers of the Legion of Honour.<br /> Sardou&#039;s titles to literary distinctions are not<br /> quite clear in my mind, but both Bourget&#039;s and<br /> Theuriet&#039;s promotion are well deserved and right;<br /> Bourget&#039;s on the principle that to him that hath<br /> shall be given, Theuriet’s because Adhemar<br /> Theuriet, commonly known as André Theuriet, is<br /> the very type and model of a hard-working man<br /> of letters. I sometimes think of Anthony<br /> Trollope in connection with him ; they had<br /> characteristics in common, though Theuriet is an<br /> artist, which Trollope was not.<br /> Besides Paul Margueritte, M. Poincaré has<br /> bestowed the coveted red ribbon on Maurice<br /> Rollinat, Gustave Guiches, and Catulle Mendés,<br /> Most people were surprised to hear that Mendés<br /> was not a legionary. I hope that his red ribbon<br /> may make him happy. He is certainly a very<br /> great artist, and as a producer, indefatigable.<br /> Some of his mere newspaper articles are little<br /> literary gems. I can remember a prose elegy on<br /> the young poet Ephraim Mikhaël, written by<br /> Mendés, which was better than anything that<br /> Bossuet ever wrote. On the other hand, Mendés<br /> has largely made a bad use of his genius. I<br /> know nobody who more deliberately and per-<br /> sistently has glorified what is ugly and vile in<br /> woman and in man, and there can be no doubt<br /> that he has done a great amount of harm by his<br /> writings. In England we should probably have<br /> seen him at the Old Bailey, here we see him in<br /> the Legion of Honour.<br /> Maurice Rollinat’s nomination delights me. I<br /> made his acquaintance fourteen years ago, just<br /> after he had been “created ” by Madame Bern-<br /> hardt, and “produced” at a Figaro soirée by<br /> Albert Wolff. At that time he was a realist<br /> amongst realists—the Zola of poetry. Indeed,<br /> Zola afterwards borrowed the subject of one of<br /> his poems for prose treatment in “La Terre.”<br /> He had a special hankering after the morbid and<br /> the horrible, as displayed in his ode entitled<br /> “Tropmann,” which is supposed to be a confession<br /> by that murderer of the exquisite delights which<br /> he experienced in preparing and executing his<br /> abominable crimes. The first night on which I<br /> met Rollinat, we dined together as the guests of<br /> a dear and an unhappy friend of mine, and after<br /> dinner the poet recited his “Tropmann,” and<br /> made our blood run cold. At that time he<br /> looked very ill. I fancied him bordering on con-<br /> sumption and insanity. He told us he could eat<br /> nothing, and that he was killing himself with<br /> abuse of tobacco. He said that his pipe never<br /> left his lips. I felt sorry, as anyone could see<br /> that there was excellent work left in him. Some<br /> weeks later, I heard that Maurice Rollinat had<br /> turned his back for good on Paris, and had<br /> decided to live in the country—a life that I have<br /> always longed to lead myself. The excellent<br /> effects of this change were not long in mani-<br /> festing themselves. The taste for the morbid<br /> evaporated in the fresh air; sanity returned<br /> hand-in-hand with health. I never saw a<br /> case of more complete literary reformation.<br /> Some delicious prose sketches were its first<br /> manifestation; since there has been but a march<br /> forward. In the meanwhile, Rollinat has also<br /> made himself famous as a musical composer, a<br /> gift which is rare amongst poets, who, singers<br /> indeed, have not often any ear for the grosser<br /> musics.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#417) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 63<br /> I am sorry to say that I know little about<br /> Gustave Guiches, though his name is familiar to<br /> me. I have read next to nothing of his writings.<br /> His prose is always a serried mass, without lights,<br /> and like Alice, in “Alice in Wonderland.” I<br /> don’t care for story-books in which there is no<br /> conversation. He is an analyst and a psycho-<br /> logist, and now he is of the Legion of Honour,<br /> and that—except that all his confrères appear<br /> very pleased at the distinction conferred upon<br /> him—is about the sum of my knowledge in the<br /> matter of Mr. Gustave Guiches.<br /> I am not certain which of the two, author or<br /> publisher, had a right to complain of the other<br /> in the following case, which has just been brought<br /> to my knowledge. The author is a well-known<br /> writer, and like many well-known writers is often<br /> without a coin to toss with. The publisher is a<br /> successful man of business, with plenty of<br /> capital. Some time ago, the author got the idea<br /> of a book which was sure to have a very large<br /> sale, the sort of book at which any publisher<br /> would jump. Indeed, when it was afterwards<br /> announced that this book was in preparation, the<br /> publishers, both in London and New York, did<br /> jump, and assailed the author with offers for the<br /> manuscript, when completed. In the meanwhile,<br /> however, the author had asked the publisher<br /> referred to if he would care for the book, and the<br /> publisher had assented, and though no contract<br /> was signed, it was arranged by letter that after<br /> the expenses of production had been paid, the<br /> author should receive a royalty of 16% per cent.,<br /> half any American rights, and on handing in the<br /> manuscript a sum of £50 on account of royalties.<br /> Should the manuscript be unsatisfactory the<br /> publisher was to pay the author a solatium of<br /> 29.1o. The author set to work to collect his<br /> materials, spending money in out-of-pocket<br /> expenses and devoting time which might have<br /> been more wisely spent in filling the domestic pot-<br /> au-feu. A consequence was, as bad luck pur-<br /> sued the author, that one day not only was the<br /> said pot empty, but the bailiffs were in the house,<br /> and there was every prospect that the author<br /> would lose every stick, every book, which he<br /> possessed. In this stress he wrote to the pub-<br /> lisher, explained his circumstances, and what<br /> had brought them about, and asked for an<br /> advance of half the sum which was to be paid on<br /> delivery of the manuscript, engaging to finish<br /> the work within a month. The publisher refused<br /> any advance. The author then wrote to him to<br /> ask him to release him from his agreement, as he<br /> had received many other offers for the same book,<br /> and knew that on signing an agreement for its<br /> publication with one or another of these pub-<br /> lishers, he could receive much more than the small<br /> sum which was necessary to save his home from<br /> the huissiers. The publisher wrote back that he<br /> would certainly not release the author from his<br /> Agreement (which he spelt with a capital A),<br /> that should he take the “astonishing step ’’ of<br /> offering the book to any other publisher, he (the<br /> writer) would “most reluctantly be compelled to<br /> put the matter in the hands of his Solicitor.”<br /> The author, not in fear of the Solicitor (with a<br /> capital S), but in ignorance of his own rights, and<br /> anxious to act “on the square,” accordingly aban-<br /> doned his plan for realising what was necessary<br /> to save his home, and was promptly sold up and<br /> turned out into the street, without a bed to lie on<br /> or a book to console himself with. Furthermore,<br /> during the sale various of his manuscripts,<br /> including all his notes for the book in question,<br /> were lost. They were probably included in a<br /> “lot * of waste paper, and fetched perhaps two-<br /> pence. As I said at the outset, I do not know<br /> which of the two, author or publisher, has a right<br /> to complain of the other. I hear, however, that<br /> the publisher feels very sore against the author.<br /> RoBERT H. SHERARD.<br /> 123, Boulevard Magenta, Paris.<br /> July 18.<br /> *-<br /> AUSTRALIAN NOTES,<br /> &amp; 4 OLF BOLDERWOOD &quot; (T. B. Browne)<br /> the Australian novelist, has finally<br /> relinquished his duties as a police<br /> magistrate, and has left—or is leaving—Albany<br /> for Melbourne, where he will devote himself<br /> entirely to literature.<br /> The native Australian is credited with the<br /> possession of a good deal of astuteness in affairs<br /> relating to his own well-being, and probably for<br /> that reason he avoids literature as a pursuit.<br /> Kendall, the New South Wales poet, was a native<br /> of the colony; Fergus Hume is a Victorian—or<br /> New Zealander; Mrs. Campbell Praedis (I think)<br /> a Queenslander; and Mrs. Bliss (who has pub-<br /> lished one or two novels) is also a native of the<br /> Northern colony.<br /> There are a large number of Australian poets, as<br /> Mr. Douglas Sladen, who prepared “A Century<br /> of Australian Song” can certify; but few or none<br /> of these depend upon verse writing for a liveli-<br /> hood.<br /> $º<br /> º<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#418) ################################################<br /> <br /> 64<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> NOTES AND NEWS.<br /> ERE are two questions very pertinent to<br /> the present moment when the “office<br /> expenses” of author and bookseller are<br /> for the first time introduced into the subject of<br /> agreements. I give them special prominence, and<br /> beg readers to consider the subject and to give me<br /> their opinions.<br /> “Is an author&#039;s house ‘a place of business” on<br /> which an author can demand reduced rates as a<br /> shopman can in a shop P” “An author spends<br /> £2OO on travel, on books, on type-writing, on<br /> copying, on work put out, &amp;c. He sells his book<br /> outright say, for £500 ; or he draws an income for<br /> three years of say £300 upon it. Need he pay<br /> income tax on more than £300 in the first case<br /> or on more than £220 a year in the second case ?”<br /> Of course, it stands to reason that if a pub-<br /> lisher&#039;s office expenses, which used to be roughly<br /> calculated—one knows not why—at 10 per cent.<br /> on the returns, are to be taken into account, so<br /> must an author&#039;s, and so must a bookseller&#039;s.<br /> For my own part I think that the office expenses<br /> of neither Ought to be considered, for the simple<br /> reason that the publisher undertakes to produce<br /> and to distribute and to collect on certain terms.<br /> For his services he is paid; he performs his<br /> services with his machinery. He has nothing else<br /> to do with the book. So the bookseller, and so<br /> the author. The last of the three creates the<br /> book by his own knowledge, his own industry,<br /> his own genius. Very likely he does not live by<br /> writing books. One hopes that he does not. It<br /> would be therefore difficult to estimate the share<br /> of “office expenses * belonging to the book.<br /> What solicitors call “out of pocket expenses”<br /> which are often very heavy, should of course all<br /> he charged upon the book for the author if<br /> “office expenses” are to be admitted at all.<br /> But with what face publishers demand “office<br /> expenses &quot; which they deny to booksellers cannot<br /> be understood.<br /> Here is a point of morals. We are not expected<br /> to know persons in any class of life whose trans-<br /> actions have been proved to be dishonest. It<br /> is considered incumbent on every honourable<br /> man to cease from knowing or dealing with such<br /> persons. It is admitted that our self-respect is<br /> concerned in the matter. Very well. Now let<br /> me relate a simple anecdote. It is not an anec-<br /> dote of a living man but of a dead man, who was<br /> a man of letters. I told this man of what was<br /> certainly a very disgraceful trick played upon an<br /> author by a certain person. There were the papers:<br /> there was no doubt possible. I asked my friend<br /> what he thought of the man who could do<br /> such things. “Why,” he replied, “the fellow is<br /> nothing better than a common rogue.” Well,” I<br /> told him, “that fellow is your own personal friend.”<br /> The next day I met them walking together<br /> arm-in-arm—my friend, who always considered<br /> himself a strictly honourable person, and the man<br /> he had called, and thought, a common rogue.<br /> There had been no explanation, and there was no<br /> defence. I asked myself then if that was right.<br /> I ask myself again now, if that was right. Now,<br /> unless we bring into literary affairs the same<br /> standards of morals and honour as are demanded<br /> in every other honourable profession, I do not know<br /> how we shall ever succeed in raising our own pro-<br /> fession to the same rank and level, say, of the<br /> Bar. The first thing demanded of an honourable<br /> profession, whether the church, the army, the<br /> law, medicine, or literature, is a standard of<br /> honour among its members; and here was my<br /> friend walking about arm-in-arm, in familiarity<br /> and friendship, with a man whom he had him-<br /> self, the day before, stigmatised as a “common<br /> rogue.”<br /> Perhaps the most delightful of all books is a<br /> well written book of new travels in new countries.<br /> There are not many new countries left in the<br /> world: we must be contented with finding new<br /> corners. Then it is always pleasant to read of<br /> human and other creatures in the last-found new<br /> corner. We must not read the day before<br /> yesterday&#039;s book of travels: it becomes for the<br /> most part insipid after a single season; it must<br /> be to-day’s travel, or a book of travels at least<br /> two hundred years old. The present day’s book<br /> of travel is, I suppose, Mr. Trevor Battye&#039;s<br /> “Icebound in Kolguev,” at least it is so to me,<br /> for I have just laid it down with a sigh of regret<br /> that there was no more of it. The Author is not<br /> a review, but it has always been my privilege as<br /> editor, if I light upon a delightful book, to<br /> say so. I light upon very few, because, as one<br /> who has a great deal to do, I have very little time<br /> for reading new books. Mostly, at the present,<br /> my spare time is occupied with looking up odd<br /> prints about London Town.<br /> I beg to call attention to the best list of<br /> pensions on the Civil List that has ever been<br /> published. It is the best because, first, it repre-<br /> sents many branches of Literature, Science, and<br /> Art; and next because there is only one name<br /> which has no business on there. When the grant<br /> was first made it was intended solely as a reward<br /> for distinction in Literature, Science, and Art.<br /> Most unfortunately, a clause was added to include<br /> those persons whom the Sovereign might desire<br /> to distinguish, or words to that effect. But this<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#419) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 65<br /> clause operates in two ways. It enables the<br /> Prime Minister to give pensions to persons<br /> wholly unconnected with Literature, Science, and<br /> Art ; and it enables him to grant pensions to<br /> the sons and daughters of persons distinguished<br /> in Literature, Science, and Art. This year while<br /> there is only one name unconnected with the<br /> purposes of the grant, there are six ladies,<br /> widows or sisters of very eminent literary persons.<br /> Could not the wording of the resolution be<br /> slightly altered in effect as follows: “That this<br /> Grant is to be bestowed upon persons who have<br /> attained distinction in such literary, scientific, or<br /> artistic work as is not in itself remunerative, or<br /> upon the wives, sisters, or daughters of persons of<br /> distinction in Literature, Science and Art, and<br /> upon no other persons?”<br /> A correspondent sends me a note on his own<br /> case. It is this; and it is not uncommon. He is<br /> educating himself; he is devoted to the study of<br /> literature; and he wants instruction. He says<br /> there is no institution where literature and Com-<br /> position are taught. He suggests that such an<br /> institution might be very useful. I think it<br /> would. In order to make people love good<br /> literature we must teach them what to look for ;<br /> that can only be done by making them study good<br /> models and teaching them how to write. We<br /> shall be swelling the ranks of bad writers ? Not<br /> at all. The reading public will take care of that<br /> for us. We shall only create disappointment P On<br /> the contrary. Our evening class would teach<br /> people what are the qualifications necessary for<br /> success. I am not in the least afraid of what is<br /> called “flooding the market.” You can only<br /> flood the market by producing too much good<br /> work; and of that there will never be any danger<br /> —not the least danger.<br /> An American asks why our New York corre-<br /> spondent, in speaking of literary papers, ignores<br /> the Critic. * H. R.” says (July 1st), that the<br /> “only American representative of the weekly<br /> review is the Nation, for the admirable Dial of<br /> Chicago is a semi-monthly.” I think that “H. R.”<br /> had in his mind such papers as the Spectator<br /> and the National Observer, which are political<br /> and social first and literary next. The Nation<br /> is the only American paper which corresponds<br /> to these. I suppose that this was also in my<br /> own mind or I should have added a note about<br /> the Critic. I said some time ago, and I repeat<br /> it, that it is impossible to get a day-by-day know-<br /> ledge of American literature without taking in<br /> the Critic. I read it regularly; I find it more<br /> appreciative than many of our own papers; I do<br /> not discern in it the scurrilous abuse of writers<br /> which marks personal animosity, a thing too<br /> common in our own organs ; on the contrary, I<br /> have always found in the Critic the desire to be<br /> fair; and—one may, however, be mistaken on this<br /> perfectly unimportant point—the writers in the<br /> Critic do seem to me to read the books which<br /> they review. I am glad that “H. R.” has given<br /> me this opportunity of recommending English<br /> readers, who want to know what goes on in<br /> American literature and what Americans think<br /> about our books, to send for the New York Critic.<br /> Mr. Jerome&#039;s case is important to all literary<br /> men. He had established himself in a quiet house<br /> at St. John&#039;s Wood, where there are many such<br /> houses, with a garden, and a study looking out<br /> upon the garden, and situated in a cul de sac,<br /> removed from organs, street noise, and traffic.<br /> In a word, he had found a quiet spot where he<br /> could work undisturbed. He has now been<br /> turned out of this by the new railway excavations.<br /> He has to look about and to find, if possible, some<br /> other place as quiet and as suitable for literary<br /> work. This is a very serious business; it may<br /> take a long time; it will certainly involve much<br /> loss of time and worry. They offered him the<br /> usual compensation of rent. He claimed, very<br /> properly, such compensation as would represent<br /> to some extent the real nature of the loss. He<br /> invited several well-known men of letters to<br /> testify to the substantial character of this loss.<br /> And he has recovered an award which is at least<br /> substantial, whether it fully compensates or not.<br /> The case is interesting to us, if only because it<br /> helps to make the world understand what we<br /> have been maintaining so long, that literature is<br /> a serious profession, not only recognised by the<br /> income tax assessors, who discovered the fact long<br /> ago, but also by arbitrators when compensation is<br /> considered for interruption and vexatious loss of<br /> time; and so, gradually, and in course of time,<br /> coming to be recognised by the world at large.<br /> The verbatim report of the dinner given to the<br /> editor of this paper by the members of the Society<br /> is published in this number of the paper. I am<br /> pleased to give a more permanent setting to<br /> certain facts and opinions expressed in the<br /> speeches than they could obtain in the daily<br /> papers, and I trust that they will produce good<br /> fruit. I am also relieved from a certain natural<br /> modesty in the matter, because the Chairman<br /> orders the publication.<br /> - WALTER BESANT.<br /> es:<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#420) ################################################<br /> <br /> 66<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> CIVIL LIST PIENSIONS,<br /> PARLIAMENTARY paper has been issued<br /> giving the following list of pensions<br /> granted during the year ended June 20,<br /> 1895, and charged upon the Civil List:—<br /> Dr. Christian Ginsburg, in recognition of the<br /> value of his researches into Biblical and Hebrew<br /> literature, 31.5o.<br /> Miss Hester Pater and Miss Clara Pater, in<br /> consideration of the literary merits of their late<br /> brother, Mr. Walter Pater, 250 each.<br /> Mrs. Mary Eugénie Hamerton, in consideration<br /> of the literary merits of her late husband, Mr.<br /> P. G. Hamerton, 29 IOO.<br /> Mr. William Watson, in consideration of the<br /> merit of his poetical works, 31OO.<br /> Teresa, Lady Hamilton, in consideration of the<br /> public services of her late husband, Sir R. G. C.<br /> Hamilton, K.C.B., 3150.<br /> Mary Agnes, Lady Seeley, in consideration of<br /> the literary merits of her late husband, Sir J. R.<br /> Seeley, K.C.M.G., Regius Professor of Modern<br /> History in the University of Cambridge, 2100.<br /> Mrs. Edith L. Pearson, in consideration of the<br /> literary merits of her late husband, Mr. Charles<br /> Henry Pearson, £IOO.<br /> Marie, Lady Stewart, in consideration of the<br /> services of her late husband, Sir Robert Stewart,<br /> in the cultivation of music in Ireland, £50.<br /> Mr. George Augustus Sala, in consideration of<br /> his services to literature and journalism, 38 Ioo.<br /> Mr. Alexander Bain, in consideration of his<br /> services in the promotion of mental and moral<br /> science, 38 IOO.<br /> Dr. Jabez Hogg, in consideration of his scientific<br /> and medical services, 375.<br /> Mr. George Frederick Nicholl, in consideration<br /> of his merits as an Oriental scholar, £75.—Total,<br /> £1,200.<br /> *— - --&gt;<br /> BANQUET TO SIR WALTER BESANT,<br /> EARLY three hundred ladies and gentle-<br /> men representing literature in all its<br /> branches foregathered in the King&#039;s Hall<br /> of the Holborn Restaurant, on June 26, to con-<br /> gratulate Sir Walter upon the distinction of<br /> knighthood conferred upon him by Lord Rose-<br /> bery. Sir W. Martin Conway presided.<br /> The following is the list of those present at the<br /> dinner:—<br /> Herbert Allingham, John R. Adamson, Herbert<br /> J. Allingham, Sir Edwin Arnold, Mrs. Alhusen,<br /> A. W. a Beckett, Professor Edmund Atkinson, A.<br /> St. John Adcock, E. A. Armstrong, the Hon. Mr.<br /> Justice Ali, Lady Besant, C. F. Clifford Borrers,<br /> Philip Eustace Besant, A. Digby Besant, Robert<br /> Bateman, J. Bloundelle-Burton, Mackenzie Bell,<br /> Herbert Bentwinch, M. Powis Bale, Madame<br /> Belloe, Miss Marie Belloe, F. E. Beddard, E. A.<br /> Reynolds Ball, Sir Henry Bergne, J. M. Barrie,<br /> Mrs. Oscar Beringer, Bret Harte, Lewis Brock-<br /> man, Rev. Professor Bonney, Mrs. Hodgson<br /> Burnett, William Black, Robert Barr, Mrs. Barr,<br /> A. Trevor Battye, C. Black, Oswald Crawfurd,<br /> Sir W. T. Charley, Mrs. Connor Leighton, C. H.<br /> Cook, Moncure D. Conway, Miss Ella Curtis,<br /> Miss E. Charlton, Hall Caine, Mrs. and Miss<br /> Roalfe Cox, Miss R. Challice, A. C. Catmour,<br /> W. Morris Colles, Mrs. Colles, F. Norreys<br /> Connell, Miss May Crommelin, Rev. A. Church,<br /> Rev. Henry Cresswell, Ralph Hall Caine, Miss<br /> Margaret Cross, C. J. Cross, Horace Cox,<br /> PIerbert Cornish, John Coleman, Miss Cusins,<br /> A. W. Dubourg, C. F. Dowsett, George du<br /> Maurier, Miss Owsey, Austin Dobson, Mrs.<br /> Ruston C. Esher, Ruston C. Esher, T. Mullet<br /> Ellis, J. N. Ford, Harold Frederic, A.<br /> Eleming, Rev. Richard Free, R. E. Forrest,<br /> Miss Isabel Fitzroy, Mrs. Gerard Ford, John<br /> Foster Fraser, Basil Field, Miss Hain Fris-<br /> well, G. H. Fortescue, Rev. A. J. Foster,<br /> B. C. Farjeon, G. Manville Fenn, Charles<br /> Grant, Horace G. Grover, Mrs. E. A. Gordon,<br /> Mrs. J. E. Gordon, Mrs. Aylmer Gowing,<br /> Upcott Gill, Gen. F. Goldsmid, Dr. Goodchild,<br /> Sir H. Gilzean-Reid, Annabel Gray, Sarah<br /> Grand, F. Gribble, W. Oliver Hodges, Reginald<br /> Hansell, R. C. Hobbes, Sydney Hodges, E. Grant<br /> Hooper, E. W. Hornung, Anthony Hope, Rev.<br /> E. C. Hawkins, Miss Eleanor Holmes, H. Rider<br /> Haggard, Miss Mabel Hawtrey, A. W. Horner,<br /> Miss Mary Hughes, Charles Heneage, James<br /> Hill, T. R. F. Holmes, Col. A. Harcourt, Miss<br /> S. E. Hall, Dr. Harley, J. W. Houghton, Jerome<br /> EC. Jerome, C. T. C. James, R. B. S. Knowles,<br /> Paul King, Rev. S. Kinns, C. F. Keary, C. A.<br /> Kelly, E. A. Leaf, John M. Lely, Frederick Les-<br /> singham, Miss Lessingham, A. H. W. Lewers, F.<br /> Legge, Mrs. Lefroy, H. F. Lester, Charles Lowe,<br /> Rev. Dr. Lansdell, Robert Leighton, Mrs. Line-<br /> ham, W. J. Lineham, J. E. Muddock, Miss K.<br /> Macdonald, W. H. Maas, S. B. C. McKinney,<br /> Charles Merrick, Surgeon-Major McGregor,<br /> H. C. Moore, Hugh R. Mill, Mrs. Millie, Frank-<br /> fort Moore, Cyril Mullett, Mowbray Marras,<br /> George Moore, Mrs. Newell, Rev. M. Marshall,<br /> Helen Mathers, J. C. M&#039;Cartie, Miss N. North-<br /> croft, J. J. Nunn, Mrs. Newell, Henry Norman,<br /> Mrs. Osprey, E. Phillips Oppenheim, Miss M. A.<br /> Pool, Mrs. A. Phillips, Mrs. N. Parker, J. N.<br /> Pyke Nott, Captain H. L. Pilkington, W. H.<br /> Pollock, D. H. Parry, Miss E. Pitcairn,<br /> C. F. Rideal, Dr. Phil Reeves, John Rae,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#421) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 67.<br /> Miss Mabel Robinson, Mrs. Harcourt Roe, W. H.<br /> Rideing, Mrs. Rideing, Miss E. C. Rickards,<br /> Douglas Sladen, Sydney C. Scott, Col. Sutherland,<br /> Mark Sale, J. Ashby Sterry, Reginald Wynne<br /> Simpson, G. W. Shelden, W. Baptiste Scoones,<br /> A. A. Sykes, J. F. Sullivan, Mrs Sedgwick, A. T.<br /> Story, Miss Myra Swan, J. A. Stewart, Annie S.<br /> Swan, S. Squire Sprigge, W. G. Thorpe, Mrs. Alec.<br /> Tweedie, H. R. Tedder, A. W. Tuer, Miss Trevor,<br /> Basil Thomson, Basil Tozer, G. Herbert Thring,<br /> E. M. Underdown, Rev. Charles Voysey, Mrs.<br /> Owen Visger, A. P. Watt, A. S. Watt, Rev. C. H.<br /> Middleton Watts, J. Warriner, Mus.D., Dr. Leon<br /> Williams, Sydney F. Walker, Humphrey Ward,<br /> C. J. Wills, Mrs. Wallace, D . Wallace, Mrs.<br /> Woolaston White, Mrs. M. Woods, Arnold White,<br /> W. William Williams, Walter Wren, Percy White,<br /> I. Zangwill.<br /> In addition there were the representatives of<br /> the leading papers, and the guests brought by the<br /> above.<br /> The dinner committee report that they had<br /> received letters expressing sympathy with the<br /> object of the dinner and regret on account of<br /> unavoidable absence from the following—two or<br /> three sent in at the last moment whose names are<br /> in the foregoing list:-Sir Robert Ball, Sir Henry<br /> Bergne, Rev. Canon Bell, Rev. Dr. William<br /> Bright, Professor Church, P. W. Clayden, F.<br /> Howard Collins, Christabel Coleridge, Mrs.<br /> Clifford, the Hon. John Collier, Lily Croft, Violet<br /> Greville, Dr. Richard Garnett, Thomas Hardy,<br /> Rev. Prebendary Harry Jones, Professor Hales,<br /> Isaac Henderson, E. H. Lecky, H. W. Lucy,<br /> Sir Herbert Maxwell, Florence Marryatt,<br /> Gilbert Parker, T. P. O&#039;Connor, Arthur Pinero,<br /> Mrs. Parr, Sir Frederick Pollock, Herr Poorten-<br /> Schwartz, A. R. Roper, Charlotte Riddell, Sir<br /> Benjamin Richardson, Gabriel Setoun, W. M.<br /> Maxwell Scott, Rev. Professor Skeat, Sir Herbert<br /> Stephen, Henry M. Stanley, J. L. Veitch,<br /> and Theodore Watts.<br /> The CHAIRMAN read a letter from the Presi-<br /> dent of the Society, Mr. George Meredith, in<br /> which, after expressing regret at his inability<br /> through ill-health to be present, he said: “I<br /> dare not put the strain upon myself, in spite of<br /> my desire to testify personally, as written words<br /> can but poorly do, to my great esteem for your<br /> ante-penultimate chairman, considering both his<br /> unexampled services to the profession of letters,<br /> and his literary quality. A title is more than a<br /> thing of air when it stands for the nation’s<br /> acknowledged debt to the man consenting to bear<br /> it, the distinction of whom, in the present case,<br /> will be a perpetual reminder of his labours on<br /> behalf of young authors, and his devotion to the<br /> interests of his fellow craftsmen. Most heartily<br /> VOI. VI.<br /> do I applaud him, with envy of his admirable<br /> persistency, his constant good temper and spirit<br /> of fairness to opponents in the struggle. If any<br /> further elements go to the making of a champion,<br /> he possesses them, for he has won the gratitude<br /> which breathes of its cause of existence, and the<br /> honour which only a common national accord can<br /> give.” (Cheers.) -<br /> Mr. HALL CAINE then rose to propose the toast<br /> of the evening. He said: Before I attempt to dis-<br /> charge the duty which has been so kindly la d upon<br /> me, permit me to supplement the admirable letters<br /> which you, Sir, have just read by a message that<br /> I have received since coming into this hall from a<br /> venerable man of letters whose name must com-<br /> mand reverence and affection in any company of<br /> English authors—Imean John Ruskin. From his<br /> home at Coniston Mr. Ruskin telegraphs: “I am<br /> in true sympathy with you to-night. Convey my<br /> respectful greetings to all present, who are doing<br /> well - deserved honour to Sir Walter Besant,<br /> to whom please give my heartfelt congratula-<br /> tions.” He then said: Sir Martin Conway, ladies<br /> and gentlemen, -In your name, and in the name<br /> of the Society of Authors, I have the honour and<br /> privilege to propose a toast which needs no words<br /> to awaken our warmest feeling, no eloquence to<br /> fire our enthusiasm—the health of Sir Walter<br /> Besant. In drinking the health of Sir Walter<br /> Besant we drink to a novelist of old and assured<br /> renown, of high aims and noble achievements—a<br /> novelist who has given the world of his best, and<br /> never yet written a line which modesty or morality<br /> could wish him to blot. In drinking the health<br /> of Sir Walter Besant we drink to a social reformer<br /> who has brought solace and cheer through so<br /> many years to so many thousands; who has<br /> kindled good impulses of benevolence and charity,<br /> and thrift and self-help; and has been so happy<br /> as to see, while he is still in the meridian of life,<br /> a practical realisation of one of his imaginary<br /> pictures in the People&#039;s Palace of London. But<br /> there is a claim which comes closer than these,<br /> and, in drinking the health of Sir Walter Besant,<br /> we drink to the father of the profession of<br /> literature in our time as a profession, and to the<br /> first cause and founder of the Society of Authors.<br /> Ladies and gentlemen, during the quarter of an<br /> hour in which with your permission I stand here<br /> to try to give expression to the feelings which<br /> have brought us together, I will confine myself to<br /> this aspect of Sir Walter&#039;s claim upon our<br /> gratitude. Only those who have been at the<br /> pains to inquire can know how recently it is that<br /> writing came to be considered in a pecuniary view.<br /> Men wrote in the old days and sometimes they<br /> were paid for writing, but apart from the drama,<br /> in which the labourer has always been thought<br /> I<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#422) ################################################<br /> <br /> 68<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> worthy of his hire, the world took the view that<br /> the man who wrote anything was paid by the<br /> act of writing, and that the earnings thence<br /> ensuing were the pay of the bookseller for<br /> the act of selling. It was not until the time<br /> of Dr. Johnson that there was any real<br /> recognition of the rights of literary property,<br /> or any reasonable laws for their protection.<br /> From that time onward to our own day the rights<br /> of literary property have had to be wrested step<br /> by step and inch by inch both from the public,<br /> who have clung to the false idea that the only<br /> property which an author holds in his writing is<br /> the satisfaction of its fame, and from the book-<br /> sellers, who have more naturally but not more<br /> justly maintained that they are the patrons of<br /> literature and the masters of the men who write<br /> their books. In that long struggle of more than<br /> a hundred years, a struggle which has never<br /> ceased for one moment, however friendly the<br /> relations of author and publisher may happily<br /> have been, no labours on our side have been so<br /> strenuous, so continuous, or one-tenth part so<br /> successful as those of the distinguished comrade<br /> in whose honour we are gathered here to-night.<br /> It is, Sir, as you know better than we do, a<br /> familiar pleasantry, that the Society of Authors<br /> is only an agreeable synonym for the Society for<br /> the Protection of the Distressed Literary Person.<br /> We are by no means concerned to repudiate that<br /> benevolent character. The distressed literary<br /> persons are the only spirits in prison about whom<br /> it is necessary for such a society to concern<br /> itself. The literary persons who are not dis-<br /> tressed usually find themselves in the more<br /> enviable position of Paul and Silas, whose<br /> gaolers are on their knees to them as often as<br /> there is the slightest danger of their going out.<br /> But we are bold to claim for Sir Walter Besant<br /> that in founding the Society of Authors, and in<br /> directing the line of its conduct, he has done a<br /> great service to literary people of every class and<br /> country by carrying forward the rights of literary<br /> property one long step farther towards just and<br /> equitable international law. The right of an<br /> author, Sir, in the book he writes is surely a<br /> stronger right than that of the man who pays<br /> money for the house he occupies; it is a right<br /> of creation, and by its nature it should never<br /> cease. But an author has never yet been much<br /> hetter than the life tenant of his own property<br /> When copyright was established the machinery<br /> of book production was primitive and unwieldy,<br /> and it was held (and, I think, properly held), that<br /> to make an author&#039;s right perpetual was to pre-<br /> vent books from becoming cheap and being uni-<br /> versally diffused. But times have changed since<br /> then, Sir, and that argument is not now of much<br /> avail; it is no longer necessary that printers<br /> should turn themselves into literary Robin Boods.<br /> and rob the rich to give to the poor; books can<br /> be printed at very low prices, and with very great.<br /> rapidity, the reading public has enormously in-<br /> creased and is constantly increasing, and by help-<br /> ing to break down unnatural forms of literature,<br /> such as the three volume novel, by showing that an<br /> author&#039;s account lies as much in great sales of cheap<br /> books as in limited sales of dear ones, by constant<br /> insistence on the principle that an author has a<br /> right all over the world to the property he<br /> creates in his writings, Sir Walter Besant has<br /> paved the way for that perpetuity of copyright<br /> which is the natural and inevitable, and I will sa,<br /> the near, end of all legislation about books. It<br /> may, perhaps, be said that these, after all, are<br /> services which touch only the meaner side of the<br /> literary life. It is true that the part of an<br /> author&#039;s life which is concerned with his rights,<br /> his gettings, and his spendings is not so noble as<br /> that which is concerned with his duties, his<br /> efforts, and his aims; but only the most childish<br /> affectation or the most foolish otherworldliness<br /> will prompt an author to say that it is not a<br /> necessary and an honourable part. Johnson used<br /> to say of Millar, the bookseller, “I respect Millar,<br /> sir; he has raised the price of literature.” And<br /> in like manner we may say of our guest, that we<br /> honour Besant, for he has increased our pay. If<br /> he has done that he has done more than increase<br /> our material comforts; he has, in the best sense,<br /> enlarged the possibilities of the literary calling,<br /> and made it the one profession in the world which<br /> is not limited either as to the condition or the sex<br /> of its members—a profession in which neither<br /> money nor influence is essential to success, and<br /> wherein high talents and absolute genius can<br /> afford to rise from the lowest class to the<br /> highest distinction. Ladies and gentlemen, if<br /> our guest has done all this, he has paid the penalty.<br /> Tor eight years the prevailing weather of<br /> his daily life must have been good fisherman&#039;s<br /> weather—that is to say, a bit of a breeze. He<br /> has walked on steep headlands where his foot<br /> might slip, and where he has had to breathe<br /> pretty hard. He has been made the target for<br /> many shots. His arithmetic has been questioned,<br /> and his knowledge of the rule of three has been<br /> entirely denied. All this was fairly to be ex-<br /> pected from the class that was fighting against<br /> him. But it was also fair to expect that the<br /> other class, the class for which he fought, the<br /> authors, would have seen that it was cruel and<br /> inhuman to withhold the sympathy and encou-<br /> ragement, and commendation which were the<br /> rightful reward of such long unceasing labour,<br /> such sacrifice of personal comfort and even per-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#423) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 69<br /> sonal profit, and (good as his work has always<br /> been) such willing deduction from the vigour of<br /> mind which might have gone into his books. I<br /> am afraid it must be admitted that this has not<br /> always been the case. Though the Society of<br /> Authors is a standing assurance of the progress<br /> of Sir Walter Besant&#039;s ideas on literary property,<br /> and though this dinner to-night and this dis-<br /> tinguished company are proof of the loyalty<br /> with which the greater body of literary people<br /> have supported him, the fact remains that at<br /> every step he has had to encounter both the apathy<br /> of many in whose interest he has laboured, and<br /> occasionally their active and most powerful oppo-<br /> sition. There have been the lusty literary pugi-<br /> lists who have told our guest that his Society for<br /> the Protection of the Distressed Literary Person<br /> would only have the effect of maintaining a race<br /> of literary invalids, and preventing the survival<br /> of the fittest. Then there have been the<br /> pampered literary aristocrats, who having become<br /> eminent and prosperous by literature, and having<br /> no other reason for their existence, have told the<br /> public with every accent of woe that authorship<br /> is the worst paid of all callings, that a man had<br /> better be a bricklayer than an author, that he<br /> had better buy a porter&#039;s knot, and hang around<br /> the docks, or borrow 4d. and set up a besom in<br /> the hope of being allowed to sweep a crossing.<br /> Against such malcontents our guest has never<br /> failed to show that even in pounds, shillings, and<br /> pence literature is a profession which pays most<br /> of us as much as we deserve, and a few of us<br /> more than we have a right to expect, that it is a<br /> profession of which in no company, and in no<br /> country, we have cause to feel ashamed, and that<br /> it is only hypocrisy and cant and shallow pride that<br /> can prompt anybody to make a show of kicking<br /> down the ladder by which he has risen to his place<br /> With such opposition no wonder if our guest<br /> had sometimes lost heart, and therefore we all<br /> rejoice the more at that splendid recognition of<br /> his services to the profession of letters which is<br /> the first cause of our gathering to-night. The<br /> Queen has knighted Walter Besant, but his<br /> nature and life were already knightly. The<br /> Minister who recommended his knighthood has<br /> the distinction among others with which he now<br /> lays down office of being the first to honour an<br /> actor since Sir William Davenant, and perhaps<br /> the first to honour an author, solely for author-<br /> ship, without suspicion of political leaning or yet<br /> private friendship (if we except the exceptional<br /> case of the late Poet Laureate), since Disraeli<br /> offered a peerage to Carlyle. Itrust I am betray-<br /> ing no confidence when I tell you that Lord Rose-<br /> bery in his letter to our guest, with that graceful<br /> courtesy which never fails him, assigned as a chief<br /> reason for the title he recommended that such<br /> services to the honour and dignity of literature<br /> called loudly for the recognition of the State. It<br /> is well known that Sir Walter Besant himself has<br /> often claimed for literary people that State recog-<br /> nition which has been freely given to distinguished<br /> men in every other walk of life. As we all remember,<br /> his claims have gone far. When he was one day<br /> charged with thinking that all literary men ought .<br /> to be made knights, he answered: “Not at all;<br /> I think some of them ought to be made dukes.”<br /> And now his own decoration, though it has been<br /> so gratefully accepted by the public, has awakened<br /> in certain quarters all the usual objections to the<br /> decoration of literary people. As this is a matter<br /> which concerns us very closely, I will ask you to<br /> let me touch upon it briefly if you can bear with<br /> me for about two minutes more. We have heard<br /> Once more that to decorate men and women of<br /> letters would be to tempt them to take sides in<br /> politics, to curry favour with ministers and so to<br /> forget the claims of their own true calling. It is<br /> a sufficient answer to this, that there is no reason<br /> on earth why we may not be politicians as well as<br /> authors, and that in another profession, the pro-<br /> fession of the law, the way to the position of a<br /> judge or yet of a Lord Chancellor is often the<br /> channel of political partisanship, but that, except<br /> On one notorious occasion, nobody ever dreamt of<br /> thinking that the high duties of the English<br /> bench or the Woolsack had been for a moment<br /> obscured by thoughts of party politics. We<br /> have also heard again that as men and women<br /> of great genius do not find their audience quickly<br /> or perhaps at all during their lifetime, it must<br /> usually occur that the distinctions conferred by<br /> the State, under the guidance of a semi-demo-<br /> cratic minister, must be those of the second-rate<br /> people only, the temporarily popular novelist, the<br /> fashionable and flashy thinker. This is the com-<br /> mon argument of the people who have not been<br /> at the most ordinary pains to inquire into the<br /> facts, and the answer is that though it is true that<br /> the greatest man is never more than a stone&#039;s<br /> throw from his contemporaries, and (as Landor<br /> says) they generally throw it; though it is true<br /> that no great man has ever reached the utmost<br /> standard of his greatness in the crowd of his own<br /> age, it is not true, in this country, at all events,<br /> that any entirely great man has been mistaken<br /> for a little one by the generation in which he<br /> lived, or yet failed (though his life was as short<br /> as Keats&#039;s or as long as Wordsworth&#039;s) of some<br /> sort of substantial recognition while he was still<br /> alive. Authors, sir, are not pearls which ripen<br /> only in the obscurity of their shells. Shakspeare<br /> was probably the most popular writer of the<br /> seventeenth century, as Scott has been the most<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#424) ################################################<br /> <br /> 70 THE AUTHOR.<br /> popular writer of the nineteenth century, and<br /> only an autocrat premier could have gone far<br /> astray in distributing his favours in England<br /> at any time during the past three hundred years.<br /> We have also been told that, as the State<br /> will never reward unacknowledged greatness and<br /> can do no more than ratify the greatness that<br /> is already acknowledged by the world, it can only<br /> give its titles as misers leave their legacies—just<br /> where they are not wanted; that a title adds<br /> nothing to the distinction of a really great author;<br /> that an author, unlike a judge or a governor,<br /> requires no title to lift him above the people, but<br /> is happiest and best when left in his natural posi-<br /> tion of the familiar friend of his readers, coming<br /> closer to them than a sister, closer than a brother,<br /> and that anything which separates him from them,<br /> anything that takes him from the hearths and<br /> homes of the people, is not an honour but an<br /> injury; not a distinction, but as an evidence of<br /> vanity, even something of a disgrace. This is<br /> probably the strongest objection to the decora-<br /> tion of the author, for it applies to the author<br /> alone, and no doubt it was this that chiefly<br /> influenced Charles Dickens when he determined<br /> to remain Charles Dickens to the end. But while<br /> it is true that the might, majesty, and dominion<br /> of an author are not conferred by any title, while<br /> it is true that nothing and nobody, neither the<br /> Queen nor any of her ministers, can add to the<br /> wealth of a writer who holds the rich reversion<br /> of the love of the people, and while it is also<br /> true that there would be something incongruous<br /> in talking of Thomas Carlyle as Lord Ecclefechan,<br /> and something absolutely offensive in thinking<br /> of Robbie Burns as Sir Robert Burns, and<br /> perhaps something silly in the idea of Wiscount<br /> Oliver Goldsmith and Lord Charles Lamb, it is<br /> no less true that titles are good or bad in relation<br /> to the men who bear them and the public who<br /> accept them, and that Walter Scott did not<br /> moult a feather when he became Sir Walter<br /> Scott, and now our distinguished guest of this<br /> evening, our second Sir Walter, has not lost an<br /> ounce of our affection and admiration by becom-<br /> ing Sir Walter Besant. And so, ladies and<br /> gentlemen, with one consent we rejoice at the<br /> distinction that has been conferred upon our<br /> guest, first, for his own sake, because he has<br /> worked long and loyally for the honour and<br /> dignity of our calling; next, for the sake of<br /> authorship, because it has thereby publicly proved<br /> in the face of mankind and of all other professions<br /> that a man of literary genius may properly be a man<br /> of rank; and, finally, for the sake of our society,<br /> which has at length asserted its right to recogni-<br /> tion in obtaining the recognition of the State and<br /> triumphed in the triumph of its founder and chief.<br /> Sir WALTER BESANT, in responding, said: Sir<br /> Martin Conway, ladies, and gentlemen, I have to<br /> thank you all for the great honour of this even-<br /> ing. You will believe me when I say that I have<br /> not words at command adequate to my sense of<br /> this honour. Especially, however, I have to<br /> thank Mr. Hall Caine for making it quite clear to<br /> you all that it is not for my writings that Lord<br /> Rosebery has conferred upon me the honour of a<br /> knighthood. I should be very proud indeed—<br /> nothing could make me more proud—by being<br /> thought worthy of a knighthood in letters. But<br /> if I were made a knight in recognition of any<br /> writings of mine, then I should have to look<br /> round and ask where are the men and women<br /> of the higher ranks. Where, one would ask,<br /> should we find the Baronets, the Barons, the<br /> Earls of letters ? Where, for instance, is His<br /> Grace the Duke of Boxhill? Where is the Earl<br /> of Wessex P. Where, the Lord of the Hebrides P<br /> Where, the Lady of the Beleagured City ? Where,<br /> the Countess of Otterbourne? Where, my Lady<br /> Fauntleroy P. Where, my Lady Elsmere? Where,<br /> the Earl of Man P. Where, my Lord Thrums?<br /> Where, the Baron of Sker P Where, my Lord of<br /> the Quartier Latin P Where, Lord Conan Doyle?<br /> Where, the Earl of Brattleboro’, Vermont ?<br /> Where was the Marquis of Samoa while he lived P<br /> I have spoken, you see, of novelists alone. We<br /> might ask similar questions as to the poets, the<br /> historians, the dramatists, the essayists. The<br /> honour, Sir, I must beg to insist upon in the<br /> strongest terms is, in fact, conferred upon this<br /> Society itself; it is a recognition of this Society;<br /> it is, to use Lord Rosebery’s own words, offered<br /> for services rendered to the dignity of literature.<br /> And these services would be foolish and futile—a<br /> mere beating of the air with useless hands—were<br /> it not for our own organisation. Sir, we may be<br /> Radical or Tory, or what we will; but let us<br /> remember—what Mr. Hall Caine invited us to<br /> consider—that Lord Rosebery is the first Prime<br /> Minister who has ever givenathought to the dignity<br /> of literature; the first who has ever recognised<br /> that literature is a profession at all. We may not<br /> vote for him at the next General Election—the<br /> thing has, happily, no connection with politics—<br /> but let us not forget this service—the recogni-<br /> tion by the foremost Englishman of the moment,<br /> the Prime Minister, of the fact that to literature<br /> belongs dignity, and that those who aim at pre-<br /> Serving and increasing that dignity are trying at<br /> least to do good and honourable work, and work<br /> Worthy of recognition. Since this is so, I will ask<br /> you to bear with me for a little, while I try to<br /> speak of what we have attempted and what we<br /> hope to achieve.<br /> The first thing, and the second thing, and the<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#425) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 7 I<br /> main thing, is to achieve the independence of the<br /> author. Now, I do not wish to make this an<br /> occasion for any attack upon any persons what-<br /> ever, or for any kind of bitterness. If I men-<br /> tion plain truths it is not in accusation; we<br /> may remember that a very bad condition of<br /> things may gradually grow up without any<br /> blame being attached to any person. There-<br /> fore, let us refrain this evening from that<br /> censure or that indignation which is sometimes<br /> necessary. And further, in order to remove any<br /> thought of attack or censure, I will ask you to<br /> consider the position of the author—the man<br /> who lived by literature—not at present, but—<br /> say—sixty years ago.<br /> It was a very bad time for literature; England’s<br /> great men were either beginning or ending; the<br /> general standard of work was miserably low; the<br /> general run of writers were miserably poor; part<br /> of their misery—the worse because they were<br /> unconscious of it—was that they were not<br /> ashamed to write begging letters of the most<br /> abject kind. I had in my hands the other day a<br /> whole sheaf of such letters written by one whose<br /> work is still read and quoted, and his language<br /> was that of a simple unshamed mendicant.<br /> It is not a question whether this man was<br /> honestly treated—he may have been ; the point<br /> is that he could without shame and degradation<br /> assume such an attitude and write such letters as<br /> make one sick and sorry and ashamed to read.<br /> And since these things were not done in secret,<br /> but were talked about with scorn, the effect on<br /> public opinion was to bring the calling of literature<br /> into profound contempt. It was called, as it literally<br /> was, a beggarly profession; young men were<br /> exhorted to break stones in the road rather than<br /> take it up. Everyone had stories of Grub-street:<br /> mone too abject to throw stones and contempt at<br /> men of letters; nay, in Fleet-street itself the<br /> disreputable wits would be seen over their cups<br /> and in their poverty. They were—sixty years ago<br /> —horribly poor and most horribly dependent.<br /> When they were not cursing their masters with<br /> fierce and biting epigrams, they were shedding<br /> tears over the unbounded generosity that tossed<br /> them an unexpected guinea.<br /> Consider next, if you please, how this dependence<br /> was brought about. Barristers have never<br /> lived in such contempt and dependence: why<br /> should men of letters ? Well, this condition of<br /> things was mainly brought about by the<br /> remarkable fact that of the three persons con-<br /> cerned in the production of literature—the author<br /> —the man in the middle—and the bookseller —<br /> the man in the middle had got the whole of the<br /> business into his own hands, and he kept all the<br /> information to himself: he would not tell what<br /> a book cost to produce ; nor what he got from<br /> the bookseller; nor what the author was able to<br /> get for himself. He wrapped up the business in<br /> profound secrecy. Both to bookseller and to<br /> author he talked only in vague terms of his<br /> enormous risks and the certainty of losing by<br /> every book which he produced. No one knew ;<br /> the author was absolutely ignorant of his own<br /> affairs, and if he ventured to ask a question, or<br /> to inquire into the meaning of his accounts, the<br /> man in the middle first indignantly asked<br /> whether he meant to say that he was cheated, and,<br /> next, threatened to take no more of his work.<br /> How then could the independence of the<br /> author be achieved? First, and above all, by<br /> getting at a knowledge of the facts, and, in<br /> order to arrive at those, by clearing our minds of<br /> prejudice and misinformation. On the one hand,<br /> for instance, we had to begin by teaching people<br /> that a book is really not an inexhaustible<br /> mine ; nor is it, on the other hand, like a<br /> dynamite shell, charged with deadly risk. Its<br /> production, in a word, seldom entails more<br /> than a very small risk; its circulation seldom<br /> produces more than a small return. This<br /> we had to learn for ourselves first and to<br /> teach afterwards. We had then to begin our<br /> work by ascertaining exactly what is meant by<br /> production, by risk, by return, by circulation, and<br /> by trade price. We have now discovered those<br /> figures; we have put them into the hands of our<br /> members and the general public. They were at<br /> first vehemently, and if I may just for this once<br /> use a strong adverb, they were most impudently,<br /> denied. They have now been most clearly proved<br /> to be as correct as such figures can be. We have<br /> therefore broken down the barriers of ignorance<br /> which have been so carefully erected; we have<br /> shown what is really meant by every method of<br /> production; we have enabled authors to under-<br /> stand that it is the public—the world at large—<br /> and not a publisher, whose servants they are ; we<br /> have made it possible to take the patronage of<br /> the author entirely out of the hands of the<br /> middleman, and to place it entirely in the hands<br /> of the public; we have made it possible to take<br /> the whole command and the whole control of<br /> current literature out of the hands of the middle-<br /> man and to place it in the hands of the author,<br /> who is the creator, the producer, and the sole<br /> Owner. I do not say that this glorious revolution<br /> has actually been effected, but it has been begun<br /> —it has been begun, and it will go on; it will go<br /> on : we have opened the eyes of literary men and<br /> Women, and no one can shut them again : the<br /> end, though it may be retarded for a while, is<br /> certain—it is, I say, as certain as the rising of to-<br /> morrow&#039;s sun.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#426) ################################################<br /> <br /> 72 THE AUTHOR.<br /> This is not, mind, and never has been, a<br /> question of guineas : we have been accused, over<br /> and over again, of sordid aims, of encouraging<br /> greed, and other pretty things—chiefly by the<br /> failures in literature : it is not, I repeat, a ques-<br /> tion of guineas : it is simply a question of<br /> independence. The man of letters has always<br /> been believed by the world to be a bookseller&#039;s<br /> hack. When the world sees, as it can already<br /> see, not one here, and one there, standing erect<br /> in independence, but a whole class, we shall hear<br /> no more talk about booksellers’ hacks, or about<br /> the contempt of literature. I say again that<br /> it is not a question of guineas, though guineas<br /> may be concerned with it. Whether an author<br /> makes much or little is not our concern; it is our<br /> concern that he should feel first that he is not a<br /> bookseller&#039;s hack, nor anybody&#039;s servant; next,<br /> that he can have the estate which he creates<br /> administered for himself, and not for the man in<br /> the middle, with honesty and justice; that he<br /> shall no longer be degraded by having to accept<br /> whatever crumbs are thrown him ; that he shall<br /> no longer have to accept with meekness whatever<br /> accounts are tendered him; that he shall no<br /> longer have to sign away the whole of his<br /> property for a song. It is our concern that the<br /> owner of the property should offer, not submit,<br /> his literary estate to a paid manager ; that he<br /> should know exactly what he is prepared to give his<br /> agent for his work; that he should know exactly<br /> what work the agent does for his money. There<br /> are somethings, remember, that hopelessly degrade<br /> a class or a man. Among these things are help-<br /> lessness under injustice; dependence on the<br /> caprice of an employer; and inability to obtain<br /> redress of wrongs. For the sake of that dignity<br /> of literature, which Lord Rosebery recognises,<br /> we will sweep these disabilities away. In a<br /> word, we mean to reverse the position entirely.<br /> The bending back and out-stretched hand of—-<br /> shall we say, sixty years ago?—never seen now,<br /> is it P−shall be transferred from the author to<br /> the middleman ; henceforth, it shall be the<br /> middleman who will be found weeping on the<br /> kerb over the generosity of the author. Now all<br /> these things are possible when we understand the<br /> facts and the figures, and none of these things<br /> are possible so long as the facts and the figures<br /> are concealed from us.<br /> Another thing. The acquisition of this know-<br /> ledge arrives at a most opportune moment. T<br /> mean that the recent changes in the conditions of<br /> literature made this knowledge more than ever<br /> necessary. The vast extension of our Empire<br /> and of the United States, the growth of our<br /> Colonies, the passing of this International Copy-<br /> right Act, have opened out to literature a field<br /> far wider, and an influence far more extensive,<br /> than anything ever known in history. Not only<br /> is population increasing, but readers are increas-<br /> ing far more rapidly. Books, which are still too<br /> dear for most people to buy, pass from hand to<br /> hand; books break the monotony of the dullest<br /> station; books cheer the sick bed; reading is the<br /> universal recreation; everywhere we must have<br /> books—books—books. There are, again, spring-<br /> ing up everywhere free libraries. What do the<br /> people read P Who are their favourites ? Well,<br /> I have made this subject one of some personal<br /> investigation, and I think we shall all be agreed<br /> that when we find the people choosing as their<br /> favourite authors such writers as Scott, Marryat,<br /> Macaulay, and Dickens, which is literally the<br /> case—I cannot speak of living writers in this<br /> goodly presence—the popular taste is not so very<br /> bad after all.<br /> Have you ever, let me ask, tried to realise the<br /> meaning of such an audience as a writer now<br /> popular commands P. Have you ever tried to under-<br /> stand how many readers a man now living may<br /> command? If figures mean anything you may<br /> try to realise the meaning of millions. But you<br /> cannot—nobody can—it is impossible to realise a<br /> very large number. But try to think of the faces<br /> rather—try to realise the faces of those who sit<br /> listening while the author speaks. His theatre<br /> is the round world itself; at his feet sit nearly<br /> all who speak the English language—all those<br /> who read—say, a half of the whole number—say,<br /> only sixty millions. See them sitting there ! Ilook<br /> at the white faces upturned to catch the words !<br /> If the author only whispers he shall be heard in<br /> every corner of this immense theatre, See, Isay, the<br /> upturned faces; mark how the light falls upon<br /> them, and how the waves of laughter, and of pity,<br /> and of terror, pass across that boundless ocean of<br /> human faces. Look farther—as far as your eye<br /> reaches there are faces—faces—faces ! Millions<br /> and millions and millions of faces ! No end to<br /> them. Good Heavens ! What can a writer ask<br /> for more than to give his message, if he has one,<br /> to so great an audience, with his single voice so<br /> to move the world P<br /> Well! But we cannot all speak to the whole<br /> world. That is true. So the young fellow<br /> who enters the army will not probably end by<br /> commanding that army. And the young fellow<br /> who was called this morning to the Bar will not<br /> probably end as Lord Chancellor. Yet it is good<br /> to think that these possibilities exist. It glorifies<br /> a profession that one may become in it a Field<br /> Marshal or a Dord Chancellor. In like manner<br /> it glorifies our profession to feel that it contains<br /> such a magnificent prize as the possibility of<br /> speaking to all the world. It is a prize far, far<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#427) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 73<br /> greater—far, far more desirable—than any other<br /> profession can offer. For not only will the future<br /> writer so speak to the whole world, but he will<br /> live in the love and honour of the whole world.<br /> And shall—I ask you most earnestly—shall this<br /> glorious and splendid profession continue to lie in<br /> servitude and dependence P Shall the conqueror<br /> of the whole world’s love continue to live in a<br /> shameful dependence upon his own servant P<br /> A third reason why the acquisition of this know-<br /> ledge is necessary at this time is—that there has<br /> arisen during the last quarter of a century, a<br /> large and still increasing class of writers about<br /> whose works not the most daring audacity can<br /> pretend that there is any risk. Such writers<br /> belong to every branch of literature. If, for<br /> instance, we think of historians we are reminded<br /> of Freeman, Froude, Seeley, and J. R. Green.<br /> I say every branch, because one of the charges<br /> brought against us is that we think all literature<br /> is fiction. There cannot be the least, not the<br /> slightest, risk in producing the books of these men.<br /> They are essayists, poets, novelists, theologians,<br /> educational writers; specialists, professional, and<br /> technical writers. This army of writers whose<br /> books mean a certainty of success now numbers<br /> in this country alone many hundreds. These<br /> authors, if they knew the truth, which many of<br /> them do not know, would understand that they<br /> have only to choose an agent, not to submit their<br /> MSS. and to ask humbly for terms. Others—<br /> beginners—may wait to receive proposals as to<br /> their works; these writers have the administration<br /> of their estates entirely in their own hands. They<br /> are, in fact, complete masters of the situation. It<br /> remains with them to offer terms, not to accept<br /> terms; to send in an agreement, not to wait for<br /> OL162.<br /> This increase of writers, whose books are<br /> certain to succeed more or less, is partly, of<br /> course, another of the results of the free library.<br /> Of these there are now almost enough in the<br /> country to guarantee against risk every book of<br /> any importance. This is a new and hitherto<br /> unconsidered fact, which, like all the other older<br /> facts connected with literary property, has somehow<br /> been overlooked, if not studiously concealed.<br /> I say, then, that this independence of ours is<br /> within our reach ; we have only to hold out our<br /> hands and take it ; if we do not our successors<br /> will. The publication of these simple figures is<br /> nothing short of a death blow to the old system<br /> of darkness and concealment.<br /> Let us turn for a few minutes to the future.<br /> What will happen next in the profession of<br /> literature? First of all we are gradually<br /> developing the sense of community and the<br /> necessity of union. In this direction we have<br /> already advanced very creditably, but the necessity<br /> of union—the absolute necessity—wants to be<br /> impressed upon us, and felt by us, more and more.<br /> By union, remember, we do not forfeit any<br /> individual work or rights. As at the Bar, where<br /> union has been long complete, we shall go on<br /> working every man for himself; but we shall be<br /> jealous for the honour of our profession; we shall<br /> understand that if we are again separated into<br /> individuals the old danger will return ; the old<br /> servitude will be again imposed. By our union we<br /> shall control in the immediate future the whole of<br /> the material side of current literature—i.e., we<br /> shall control our own property—is that too much<br /> to demand P−the price of books; the placing of<br /> books—already we keep quantities of books out<br /> of dishonest hands; the form of agreements;<br /> the advertisement of books. I want to see this<br /> material side of current literature completely<br /> in our own control—in our own hands. I,<br /> myself, do not expect to live long enough to see<br /> the fulness of this glorious revolution, but many<br /> in this room will—for it will come—it is a part<br /> of that end which I have said already is as<br /> certain as to-morrow’s sun.<br /> Where, then, have we left our friend the pub-<br /> lisher P. We agreed that to-night we would have<br /> nothing said in bitterness. I am very glad to say,<br /> therefore, that we shall put the publisher into a<br /> far better position than he holds at present. For<br /> we shall remove the old reproach of secrecy:<br /> the old inevitable jealousy : the old suspicion of<br /> over-reaching : which came from the practice of<br /> secrecy. We shall make it thereby possible for a<br /> publisher to take his place in the estimation of the<br /> world, not as a rich man only, always with this<br /> atmosphere of jealousy and suspicion, but as a<br /> great merchant prince. The large houses, which<br /> have capital, will carry on the work of issuing the<br /> great and costly enterprises of literature : the<br /> encyclopaedic dictionaries, the special histories,<br /> and the rest. They will also have the whole<br /> of the past literature in their own hands. Nor<br /> will it be any shame, but rather the reverse,<br /> for the best intellect of the day to work for them.<br /> and in their pay. Most of the current literature,<br /> however, will be conducted for the authors by<br /> agents who will not publish on their own account.<br /> The publisher, like the author, with the increased<br /> dignity of letters, will rise far higher in the<br /> estimation of the world. What dignity, what<br /> reputation, can belong to a calling at which is<br /> perpetually hurled the reproach, whether deserved<br /> or not, in many cases most undeserved, but still<br /> inseparable from the calling under peresent<br /> conditions, of secrecy for the purpose of over-<br /> reaching P<br /> The next thing is—if you will suffer me to<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#428) ################################################<br /> <br /> 74 THE AUTHOR.<br /> preach for five minutes—that while we have shown<br /> authors how they may act together for the common<br /> good without any injury to themselves, we have<br /> to make them feel that they should, in their utter-<br /> ances concerning each other, obey the same rules<br /> of courtesy as belong to the Bar. One of the<br /> evil results of the former darkness was the absurd<br /> and suicidal hatred of poet towards poet; of nove-<br /> list towards novelist; nay, of histºrian for histo-<br /> ian—witness the life-long hatred of Freeman for<br /> Froude. It arose partly from ignorance of the<br /> vast fields open to writers: everyone thought of<br /> London—of the West End—of clubland—as if the<br /> world of thought, and learning, and reading, was<br /> all concentrated there. We are now beginning—<br /> only just beginning—to understand that there is<br /> no reason for any hatred or jealousy at all. There<br /> is room in this great world of ours for every<br /> author of power, whether he is poet, novelist,<br /> historian, philosopher or artist, or scientific<br /> professor. Rudyard Kipling does not kill Barrie,<br /> and Hall Caine is not injured by Conan Doyle;<br /> Austin Dobson is none the worse for William<br /> Watson. Quite the contrary; the more good<br /> writers there are the better it is for each. The<br /> demand for good work is maintained; a thirst<br /> for reading is increased. The recognition of<br /> this great fact ought to lead to the discontinu-<br /> ance of the bad old practice, once common among<br /> authors, and by no means yet extinct, of criti-<br /> cising, i.e., slashing each other. Let us agree in<br /> future, if we cannot speak well of another author,<br /> to hold our tongues about him. Silence is some-<br /> times the very wisest form of criticism. And our<br /> enemies, you may be very certain, desire nothing<br /> better than to see us like so many cats, spitting<br /> at each other. Let us, in fact, make a stand for<br /> professional courtesy.<br /> Let me next, if I may be allowed, say a few<br /> words as to the future of the Society itself.<br /> First, it is not enough to ascertain and to<br /> publish the facts of our position — we must<br /> continue on guard over that position with un-<br /> ceasing watchfulness. The price we must pay<br /> for independence is the continual watch and<br /> guard over it. We must never relax in that<br /> watch and guard; we must always have a centre<br /> —an office—an outward and visible sign of<br /> organisation ; a place whither cases can be<br /> brought and treated. For the same reason, we<br /> must continue to cultivate the spirit of common<br /> action for a common cause. Now, your Chairman<br /> has, I know, many useful plans in his head for<br /> the advancement of the Society. I desire to<br /> advance three things which seem to me very<br /> pressing and urgent. They are these. First,<br /> it is very much to be desired that we should<br /> be able to bring certain cases into court. For<br /> instance, there are still firms—believed by<br /> those who do not know them to be honourable<br /> firms—which falsify every account they issue<br /> —charging large sums of money which they<br /> have not paid, and overcharging the amounts<br /> which they have paid. We have already submitted<br /> a case of this kind to counsel for opinion, and<br /> have obtained a very clear and decided opinion to<br /> the effect that there is no judge on the bench who<br /> would tolerate such falsification on any grounds<br /> possible to conceive. We desire, therefore, to<br /> bring such a case of falsified accounts into the<br /> courts of law. This is very difficult, because, of<br /> course, we must be able to furnish proofs, by evi-<br /> dence of printers and others. We have had in our<br /> hands cases by the dozen in which there was no<br /> doubt possible as to the falsification of every item<br /> —to anybody who knew the meaning of figures;<br /> but there was wanting either the evidence of<br /> printers or the consent of the author to proceed.<br /> Still we may hope for such a case, sometime or<br /> other, complete in all its parts. When we do get<br /> it, the question will arise whether it should be<br /> treated as a civil or a criminal charge. The moral<br /> effect of placing a highly respectable firm in the<br /> dock, charged with falsifying accounts, would be<br /> really most beneficial. .<br /> The second point that presses is the preparation<br /> of model agreements. The time has come when we<br /> might prepare agreements which would give the<br /> agent or distributor such payment as shall be<br /> thought perfectly fair. In this work I think we<br /> may fairly expect the co-operation of those<br /> publishers who do not falsify accounts, and do<br /> not try to cover up and conceal things.<br /> The third point—one most urgently needed—<br /> one to which I invite your very earnest attention—<br /> is the establishment of a Pension Fund. Nothing<br /> of the kind exists in literature. It is horribly<br /> needed. The rank and file among us cannot, from<br /> the nature of the case—even if we had what we<br /> ought to have—we cannot save much money.<br /> There falls upon us in the fulness of time an old<br /> age with infirmities, but without means, with<br /> failing powers, and without resources. The<br /> instances which have come under my own know-<br /> ledge, partly when I sat upon the Council of the<br /> Royal Literary Fund, and partly from the cases<br /> brought before the Society, which does not pretend<br /> to relieve distress, have been most painful—most<br /> terrible. Of course, what we are doing in the<br /> extension of knowledge has already led to great<br /> improvement in the material position of the<br /> writer. But progress is necessarily slow. People<br /> have gone on so long believing that literary<br /> property was either common property or something<br /> could be—conveyed—by anyone who wished.<br /> There are societies like that for the Promotion of<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#429) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 75<br /> Christian Knowledge, which have, in the past, at<br /> least, acted as if the author had no rights what-<br /> ever over his own property. Some years ago we<br /> exposed the sweating of these good Christian<br /> people. We sent copies of this exposure to all<br /> the bishops. With one exception, not one of the<br /> bishops seemed so much as to understand that<br /> the author had any right at all except to take<br /> what was offered him, Well, this kind of<br /> ignorance is slowly disappearing before the more<br /> general recognition of literary property which we<br /> never cease to demand. Until, however, Arch-<br /> bishops and Bishops will be ashamed to tolerate<br /> the sweating of the author, and even after, there<br /> will continue to be oppression, and there will con-<br /> tinue to be failing powers, and there will con-<br /> tinue to be poverty. Many a poor gentlewoman<br /> have I heard of in these late years; many a<br /> writer who has done good and faithful work<br /> all her life for her employers—always, alas !<br /> “employers,” and never “agents”—who has found<br /> herself at the end unable to work and with no<br /> money saved. She has to eat the bread—the bitter<br /> bread—of dependence, and to drink the water<br /> —the bitter water—of charity. We would, if we<br /> could, relieve that lady; we would give her, when<br /> the time for stopping work arrived, such a pension<br /> as would make her independent of charity. The<br /> plans for raising such a fund have long been<br /> drawn up; they only wait for workers.<br /> It is, lastly, my highest hope that in such work<br /> as this—and in everything else that belongs to<br /> the Dignity and Honour—and Glory—of Litera-<br /> ture—I, a humble Craftsman, whose only real<br /> distinction is that I am, like you, a Craftsman<br /> in Letters, a Brother in the Craft, a Member<br /> of the Guild, a Worker in the Fraternity, may<br /> live to take a larger part in that cause, and<br /> to do more work for that cause than in the<br /> past.<br /> In proposing the toast of “The Chairman,”<br /> Mr. HENRY NORMAN said: You will believe that<br /> I feel myself honoured by the pleasant duty that<br /> lies before me. Apart from the pleasure I have<br /> felt in taking part in this dinner — given in<br /> honour of Royal recognition of the profession of<br /> letters—I should at any time be delighted to<br /> propose the health of my friend Sir Martin<br /> Conway. It is customary, I have been told, in<br /> this country at any rate, when called upon in<br /> such a capacity, to deprecate one&#039;s fitness for the<br /> task, and to wish modestly that it had fallen<br /> upon a better, a gifted man, and the practice<br /> of opening one&#039;s mouth with something in the<br /> nature of a confession of his personal short-<br /> comings, his physical disabilities, and his mental<br /> limitations, is almost the inevitable prelude of<br /> the English speaker. Ladies and gentlemen, I<br /> shall venture to lay aside this custom on the<br /> present occasion. In my case all these painful<br /> facts will be abundantly plain before I sit down,<br /> and though I naturally wish that I were a better<br /> man—as who would not ?—I should be very loth<br /> indeed to lose this opportunity of expressing my<br /> gratification at the honour which has alighted,<br /> most auspiciously, most aptly, upon the head of<br /> Sir Martin Conway. His claim to recognition—<br /> if I may use the word “claim &quot; in connection<br /> with a man who has certainly never made one—<br /> is undoubted upon several grounds, but I shall<br /> allude to only two of them to-night. He is a<br /> young man still ; many more honours may be<br /> expected to fall upon him—political, literary,<br /> social, and atheletic—and it would be unfriendly<br /> if at so early a stage I were to exhaust<br /> his blushes. There is first—I rank it first to-<br /> night—his work for the Society of Authors. I<br /> have the privilege of serving with him upon the<br /> Committee of Management, and I am sure my<br /> fellow-members will bear me out in saying that a<br /> better chairman it would be impossible to have.<br /> Ladies and gentlemen, some of you here present,<br /> I venture to think, have good reasons to be<br /> grateful to that committee. Whether because of a<br /> peculiar vice of yours which has recently been<br /> ruthlessly exposed—reference to which leads me<br /> to express the hope that those of you who, like<br /> myself, have sat next to a great author, have at<br /> least managed to secure your own share of a good<br /> dinner—or whether, as I prefer to think, because<br /> of the inevitable friction in all human affairs, the<br /> entente cordiale between author and publisher is<br /> Occasionally — in the words of an American<br /> humourist—spilt. When that catastrophe happens<br /> you fly for help to your Society, and the members<br /> of the committee receive a private communication<br /> from the secretary requesting them to assemble at<br /> an early date to discuss the case of Mr., Mrs., or<br /> Miss Author against Messrs. Publisher and Co.<br /> Then, in a dark room, in a dingy street, which<br /> has nothing suggestive of the laurels of literature<br /> except its name, a Star Chamber, a Vehmgericht,<br /> council of ten sits upon your woes. When these<br /> are genuine—when you have had the consummate<br /> Sagacity to read your agreements before signing<br /> them—it proceeds next to sit upon the publisher,<br /> and, in almost every case it has taken up, with<br /> success. But publishers—I am sorry there are<br /> none of them present to receive my humble<br /> homage—are not invariably in the wrong. We<br /> British authors are happy in having at our<br /> doors a group of publishers of the highest in-<br /> tegrity, judgment, and business ability — men to<br /> whom the best interests of literature are every<br /> bit as sacred as they are to ourselves. Now, Sir<br /> Martin Conway, in his capacity of chairman of<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#430) ################################################<br /> <br /> 76<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> that Star Chamber of which I have spoken, holds<br /> his scales of justice absolutely level. The weights<br /> that he handles are never plugged with putty;<br /> he never sticks a piece of tallow upon the bottom<br /> of the scoop; in the expressive language of the<br /> street, “there ain’t a bit of bogey in him.” I<br /> submit with absolute confidence, ladies and gentle-<br /> men, that Sir Martin Conway&#039;s connection with<br /> this committee is an adequate first ground for<br /> our respect and regard, and for any external<br /> honour he may receive. I pass to our chairman&#039;s<br /> second claim. It is one entirely personal to<br /> himself. Speaking as a man who has travelled<br /> somewhat himself—just enough, I trust, to justify<br /> Shakespeare&#039;s remark that “a good traveller is<br /> something at the latter end of a dinner,” I do<br /> not hesitate to say that Conway has a unique<br /> record. He has been quite original. It has been<br /> given to other men to remove mountains, but this<br /> momentous feat seems to pale before the seven-<br /> leagued walks from peak to peak, across a whole<br /> chain, of my friend Conway. Only one man has<br /> ever done it before—and that was Fingal, who<br /> stepped from mountain to mountain in the<br /> Western Islands of Scotland, accompanied by<br /> his two hounds, and reaching the mainland,<br /> flung their leash over an enormous rock. Sir<br /> Martin Conway&#039;s hounds have been his faithful<br /> Gurkhas, and this Himalyan Fingal has ex-<br /> plored the great Indian range in its most snowy<br /> fastnesses. The result has been one of the most<br /> beautiful and valuable books of recent years;<br /> full of the careful observation of the born<br /> geographer, the splendid enthusiasm of the<br /> climber, the trained appreciation of the mind of<br /> one who combines the man of action with the<br /> artist and the thinker. Only recently has been<br /> placed before us yet another example of these<br /> talents in “The Alps from End to End.” Having<br /> reviewed this book, you, who know so well the<br /> habits of reviewers, will not be surprised to learn<br /> that I am keeping it to read on my holiday, and<br /> I am certain that, I shall find in it the most<br /> charming and the most invigorating literature.<br /> For literature it is ; with his special intellectual<br /> equipment Sir Martin Conway could never write<br /> the mere book of travel or of mountaineering.<br /> Personally our chairman is known to you all.<br /> In friendship I have found him as firm as the<br /> rocks he scales. His future is certain to be even<br /> more distinguished than his past. A once famous<br /> poem, not so well known now-a-days as it should<br /> be, begins with these words:—<br /> “Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb<br /> The steep where Fame&#039;s proud temple shines afar<br /> Sir Martin Conway is a living contradiction of<br /> that sentiment. It is not hard for him to climb,<br /> and those who know him best look forward con-<br /> | &gt;&gt;<br /> fidently to see him scale peak after peak, “till life’s<br /> last sun tips his last hill with gold.” Ladies<br /> and gentlemen, I have done. I dare say no<br /> more lest he threaten me with the ice-axe,<br /> which I feel sure is in his pocket at this moment,<br /> and without which he is too scientific to attempt<br /> to mount even an omnibus, and lest, anxious to<br /> escape from an atmosphere of admiration too<br /> warm for his ice-hardened constitution, he decide<br /> to leave this room and flee, not by the door, not<br /> by the windows, but by the roof, and produce his<br /> axe to chip a foothold among the mural decora-<br /> tions. Let us fill our glasses, and be thankful<br /> that it is not Alpine goat’s milk with which we<br /> fill them. I give you the health of Sir William<br /> Martin Conway, chairman of the committee of<br /> the Society of Authors, explorer of the Himalayas,<br /> Fingal of the Alps, first Knight of the Order of<br /> the Edelweiss. And I beg to be allowed to couple<br /> with it the health of that charming and gracious<br /> lady, who plays so large a part in his success at<br /> home, and suffers so courageously and patiently<br /> his adventurous absence abroad, Lady Conway.<br /> June 26, 1895.<br /> * - a --&gt;<br /> TRUTH IN FICTION.<br /> I<br /> N the July number of the Author Mr. Sherard,<br /> in his letter from Paris—which is always<br /> entertaining—says: “A man who tells<br /> stories professionally must, it seems to me, lose,<br /> to a certain extent, the perception of truth.”<br /> And he adds, “I should like to have other<br /> opinions on the subject.”<br /> The opinions of three great authors, of very<br /> different dates, at once suggest themselves.<br /> Perhaps Mr. Sherard will hold that they support<br /> his view. But it is evident that these writers<br /> did not agree with him in thinking that the tales<br /> related by professional story tellers are not true,<br /> which Mr. Sherard implies.<br /> ARISTOTLE.<br /> It is evident, from what has been said, that it<br /> is not the place of a poet to relate the things<br /> that have taken place, but what might have<br /> taken place in accordance with probability or<br /> necessity. For the historian and the poet do<br /> not differ only in writing in verse or in prose ;<br /> but in this, that one relates what has taken place,<br /> and the other what might have taken place. For<br /> which reason poetry is more philosophical and<br /> more serious than history. For poetry relates<br /> rather what is universal, but history what is<br /> personal. (De Arte Poetica X.)<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#431) ################################################<br /> <br /> T/IE AUTHO/8. 77<br /> RABELAIS.<br /> I, your humble servant, desiring still more to<br /> increase your entertainment, now offer you<br /> another book of the same stamp; only even more<br /> just and worthy of your credence than the former.<br /> For I have never told a lie, nor asserted a thing<br /> that was not true. I speak of these things as<br /> Saint John in the Apocalypse, “Quod vidimus<br /> testamur.” (Pantagruel, Livre II. Prologe de<br /> l&#039;Autheur.)<br /> FIELDING.<br /> Notwithstanding the preference which may be<br /> vulgarly given to the authority of those romance<br /> writers who entitle their books, “The History of<br /> England, the History of France, of Spain, &amp;c.” it<br /> is most certain that truth is to be found only in<br /> the works of those who celebrate the lives of great<br /> men, and are called biographers. With us<br /> biographers the facts we deliver may be relied on,<br /> though we often mistake the age and country<br /> wherein they happened; for, though it may be<br /> worth the examination of critics, whether the<br /> shepherd Chrysostom, who, as Cervantes informs<br /> us, died for the love of the fair Marcella, was ever<br /> in Spain, will anyone doubt but that such a silly<br /> fellow hath really existed P. Is not such a book as<br /> that which records the achievements of the<br /> renowned Don Quixote more worthy of the name<br /> Qf a history than even Mariana’s P for, whereas the<br /> latter is confined to a particular period or time,<br /> and to a particular nation, the former is the his-<br /> tory of the world in general, at least that part<br /> which is polished by laws, arts, and sciences; and<br /> of that from the time it was first polished to this<br /> day ; nay, and forwards as long as it shall so<br /> remain. (Joseph Andrews, Book III., I.)<br /> HENRY CREssWELL.<br /> II<br /> In response to Mr. Sherard’s invitation, 1<br /> would say :—<br /> I. It is well to distinguish between the moral<br /> untruthfulness due to bluntness of sensitiveness<br /> or callowness of sympathy, and the mental un-<br /> trustworthiness characteristic of blindness of<br /> insight, obtuseness of judgment, or blurredness<br /> of memory. But, it seems to me, in proportion<br /> to the sanity or genius of the writer, whether of<br /> “fiction ” or of fact, will result the truthfulness<br /> of his perception and the trustworthiness of his<br /> conception. -<br /> 2. An inherently untruthful character or un-<br /> trustworthy mind may be previously responsible<br /> for the writing of untrue fiction; and this would<br /> be alike in its unreliability, whether it took the<br /> popular form of novel-writing, play-making, or<br /> so-called history, biography, and so on.<br /> 3. In such a case the writing may serve as an<br /> expedient safety-valve, as it were, leaving the<br /> inherent nature more reliable in ordinary life;<br /> though its extraordinary expresssion may tend<br /> to render the reading public less reliable ac-<br /> cordingly. - &amp;<br /> 4. But of course, even when the veracity may<br /> be above dispute, the verity may prove beneath<br /> respect; being born of the author&#039;s honest though<br /> unreliable fancy, begotten of fallacy, and fostered<br /> by unwise popularity.<br /> 5. If, however, the fiction be born of just<br /> observation or of true imagination, in due con-<br /> ception, it is merely another name for the higher<br /> or inner truth of extraordinary life; and its<br /> creator is a true apostle of truth, even when his<br /> disciples happen to be too few, too indifferent, or<br /> too poor to repay his publishing expenses<br /> PHINLAY GLENELG.<br /> III.<br /> Is there any means by which further opinions<br /> on this subject can be obtained ; not, of course,<br /> from authors, who are hardly in a position to<br /> judge impartially of their merits or demerits, but<br /> from that large and often long-suffering class<br /> the relatives of authors?<br /> It would be exceedingly interesting if a con-<br /> siderable number of those persons could be<br /> induced to give their testimony, adding, of<br /> course, to which of the two rival schools their<br /> particular author belonged—namely, whether to<br /> that founded on observation and imagination,<br /> or to that far more popular one founded on an<br /> inventive fancy.<br /> Imagination I take to mean the power of<br /> imaging in the mind, as in a mirror, how certain<br /> characters will think and act in certain circum-<br /> stances—in other words, the power of drawing<br /> the complete circle from the arc. There is no<br /> guessing in such a matter, and there is no inven-<br /> tion. All depends on perception of truth. On<br /> this perception, coupled with keen observation, it<br /> appears to me that writers of the first class of<br /> fiction, headed by George Eliot, depend entirely.<br /> If the exercise of the faculty of perception of<br /> truth tends to the wearing of it out—like a watch<br /> —most miserable is the man whose work is based<br /> upon it, for he will suffer degradation first, and<br /> his work will show degradation in due course.<br /> The second large class of fiction founded on an<br /> inventive fancy has none of the restrictions of the<br /> first. The writer, bound by no iron laws of life, no<br /> constraining bias and limitation of character,<br /> exercises a fairy-like gift of conjuring up a world<br /> in which we do not live, peopled with beings not<br /> of like passions with ourselves, who can be made<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#432) ################################################<br /> <br /> 78 THE AUTHOR.<br /> to act according to the writer&#039;s will, and even to<br /> point morals approved by him. Of these books<br /> the admiring reader says, not “How true!” but<br /> “EIoW beautiful | *<br /> It would be of great interest to learn which<br /> class of authors is the more truthful or untruth-<br /> ful in ordinary life.<br /> MARY CHOLMONDELEY.<br /> IV.<br /> The question asked by Mr. R. H. Sherard as<br /> to the “writing of fiction disposing an author<br /> to untruthfulness in ordinary life,” is one of which<br /> I have often thought. My opinion is, that it<br /> does not. I think truth-speaking in ordinary<br /> life depends upon personal character wholly apart<br /> from the romantic and imaginative bent of the<br /> mind. Is it possible to suppose that Scott or<br /> Ringsley sacrificed the truth of their lips to their<br /> “pen of the ready writer.” What were the<br /> personal characters of Cervantes or of Coleridge,<br /> whose “Ancient Mariner” and “Christabel”<br /> were fiction in verse, or of Disraeli the younger,<br /> the most flowery of writers ? True, a romancist<br /> may throw a halo around ordinary things. He<br /> may dilate upon facts in a style of fluency and<br /> illumination which makes his hearers say, “He is<br /> romancing !” But the truth germ is there. His<br /> enlargement of it shows only the difference<br /> between the man who can think, or write, or talk<br /> on a certain subject, and the man who cannot.<br /> If the novelist be naturally truthful the line<br /> between fact and fiction in his own mind will be<br /> strong as a cable, though fine as a hair, and all<br /> the stronger, because he realises that facts are his<br /> foundation, and that he must sift and mould<br /> them to his use. A clear head is demanded for<br /> writing fiction. This clear head helps to keep clean<br /> the lips of the naturally truthful man. The natu-<br /> rally untruthful man will be untruthful still.<br /> The brilliant talker may throw into his eloquence<br /> gesture or inflexion which guides the branching<br /> off from fact to fancy. I hold that the motto<br /> “Truth before Life &quot; may be that of a novelist<br /> in the private and ordinary life of business, duty<br /> and humdrum routine which fall more or less to<br /> the share of all, whether theologian or novelist,<br /> to whom God and his mother have given the gift<br /> of truth and the love of it. Such will delight<br /> the more keenly in the pictures of his brain, the<br /> fairyland where he meets his own congenial<br /> acquaintances, and throws over them “the light<br /> that never was on sea or land” to gain his own<br /> purpose in using his gift without abusing it.<br /> MARY ELIZ. STEVENSON.<br /> CORRESPONDENCE,<br /> I.—Co-OPERATION.<br /> NLY to-day for the first time has your<br /> Author come into my hands. After read-<br /> ing Mr. Hall Caine&#039;s clear exposition of<br /> the relationship existing between authors, pub-<br /> lishers, and booksellers, the thought occurs to me,<br /> might not the producers of literature do, with<br /> advantage to themselves and the public, what<br /> Government servants have done for themselves<br /> —break the back of monopoly by setting up<br /> business, like co-operative stores, and, working<br /> with their own employés, manage the publication<br /> in its various branches P. Thus freed from the<br /> greed of those who prey upon authors, literary<br /> men would reap the full harvest their seed might<br /> yield, according to its quality, times, and seasons.<br /> Yet I cannot doubt that this view of the<br /> subject has already received a full share of atten-<br /> tion from lights so brilliant as those which illu-<br /> minate the Author. E. W. HEWARD.<br /> II.—PAPER CovKRs.<br /> Permit me to submit to the “Society of<br /> Authors” a suggestion as to a mode of pub-<br /> lishing which I think ought to have a trial in<br /> this country. My remarks apply of course more<br /> to books of science, travel, biographies, &amp;c., than<br /> to fiction.<br /> My suggestion is to issue such works in two<br /> forms, viz., paper cover and cloth. Of an edition<br /> of 500 I should, for instance, issue 350 in paper<br /> and 150 in cloth. The copies in paper cover I<br /> should offer to the bookseller on sale or return<br /> for three months at a certain discount, a larger<br /> discount being offered for outright orders.<br /> It is not advisable to send cloth copies on sale,<br /> as in most instances the cloth case would be<br /> somewhat damaged and the loss considerable,<br /> while if a paper copy is returned somewhat the<br /> worse in outer appearance the cover can be re-<br /> placed at a nominal cost.<br /> From a business point of view the “on sale&quot;<br /> system seems at first sight unhealthy, but I think<br /> its disadvantages will be outweighed by obvious<br /> advantages, as I shall endeavour to show.<br /> By the proposed system the cost of production<br /> will be considerably reduced, the saving being<br /> effected on the items for binding and advertising.<br /> The saving on the binding is indisputable.<br /> By enabling the bookseller to show the book to<br /> every possible purchaser among his clientéle the<br /> publisher brings it more effectively under the<br /> notice of the book-buying public than by far the<br /> more expensive method of advertising, and I<br /> venture to predict that many a copy of a new<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#433) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 79<br /> book will be sold in this way, which would remain<br /> on the publishers’ hands under the present system<br /> of book distribution.<br /> The two questions: Will the bookseller<br /> consent to receive the books on sale, and the<br /> necessary trouble with them 2 and, Do English-<br /> men not object to books in paper covers ? deserve<br /> consideration.<br /> As to the first, I have no doubt that any book-<br /> seller who takes an interest in his work, and<br /> does not altogether trust to the publishers&#039; adver-<br /> tisements and underselling his colleagues for the<br /> sale of his books, will be glad to receive and<br /> endeavour to sell these books, his risk being<br /> confined to the carriage of them.<br /> As to the second, cloth cases can easily be<br /> obtained from the publisher, and the books can<br /> be bound in them at a very small price for<br /> buyers who object to paper copies, and do not<br /> bind their books according to their own taste.<br /> It is not generally known that the above-<br /> mentioned system is the recognised system in<br /> Germany, and has no small share in the educa-<br /> tional success of that country. I have myself, as<br /> a bookseller, obtained on sale and sold a good<br /> many expensive German books which I could not<br /> have risked buying outright. In conclusion, I<br /> should like to say that I shall be glad to give<br /> more details to any member of your Society who<br /> might think the experiment, if experiment it can<br /> be called, worth trying. TH. WołILLEBEN.<br /> III.-AN AFTER-DINNER GROWL.<br /> May I enter a protest—a vigorous one—against<br /> the systematic begging at dinners of the Society<br /> of Authors P. To be pestered for tips when one&#039;s<br /> soul is elevated by words of wisdom is distinctly<br /> aggravating, and should be quite unnecessary.<br /> If a fee for attendance must be paid—and<br /> apparently it must, for if one hesitates the waiter<br /> plaintively whispers, “This is all I get, Sir &quot;-<br /> it would add to one&#039;s comfort if it were included<br /> in the price of the dinner ticket. Maybe the big<br /> guns at the top table are not thus beset, but you<br /> should have heard the anathematising last night<br /> amongst the multitude ANDREW W. TUER.<br /> Leadenhall Press, E.C., June 27, 1895.<br /> IV.-AT HIs own ExPENSE.<br /> Why should he not, if he is a new writer and<br /> has his name to make P I would not give<br /> eighteenpence for the opinion of any publisher or<br /> publisher&#039;s reader in England on the chances of a<br /> book by a new writer finding favour with the public.<br /> I say this with no intention of disparaging their<br /> powers of judgment, for I would not give sixpence<br /> for my own opinion, and I have been a journalist<br /> and tale-writer, in a small way, for many years,<br /> and an insatiable devourer of general literature<br /> from a very early age.<br /> I hold that a new writer is justified in getting<br /> to his public by any means at his command, and<br /> that only to the verdict of that public should he<br /> pay the slightest attention. A fig–indeed, a fig-<br /> seed—for individual opinions whether they be<br /> those of publishers, editors, or critics, and I hope<br /> a time is coming when every author will have to<br /> justify his faith in his own works by bearing the<br /> expense of obtaining a public verdict. A. B.<br /> – rºcº-<br /> W.—EveRY AUTHOR HIs Own PUBLISHER.<br /> As I myself have for six years been publishing<br /> and selling the only book 1 ever had it in me to<br /> write, my experience may interest your readers.<br /> In 1889 a publisher (and sinner) gave me<br /> £9 15s. (ostensibly £IO) for right to publish<br /> several thousand copies, which in less than two<br /> months were sold. He then renewed his magni-<br /> ficent offer, which I rejected. •<br /> In 1889 I printed and bound the fourth<br /> edition, which a London publisher sold for me at<br /> (to him) a fair profit. Two thousand copies went<br /> fast, and then came the fifth edition, for which<br /> this same publisher offered me “375 down on<br /> the day of publication.” I warmly thanked him<br /> for nothing, and then and there resolved to print,<br /> bind, publish, and sell my own book. Every<br /> author I know warned me against this “risk,”<br /> saying the producer of a book couldn&#039;t possibly<br /> be the seller as well. To my anxious inquiry,<br /> “Why not P’’ I only got for answer the rather<br /> ladylike reply, “Because he can’t.” I treated it<br /> as a sum in arithmetic, and set to work to<br /> “prove’’ it. I published the fifth edition at<br /> great expense. It had never dawned upon me to<br /> have stereos made. The sale was a grand success,<br /> and I am now going to publish the twelfth<br /> edition. I may say that at the sixth or seventh<br /> edition a firm of publishers offered kindly to be<br /> my trade agents, and to give me 4s. On a 5s. book;<br /> their cheques are exact to the day, and their<br /> accounts accurate to a penny piece; and my trade<br /> agents accept twelve to the dozen, squarely and<br /> honestly, and have no nonsense about baker&#039;s or<br /> devil&#039;s dozens of thirteen. Nothing could be more<br /> lovely or businesslike. I have had no money to<br /> spend on advertisements; each book has adver-<br /> tised itself. No one has “ log-rolled ” me (I wish<br /> to goodness they would !) and all newspapers<br /> have boycotted me.<br /> Mr. Ian Maclaren should read this if you are<br /> kind enough to insert it—for at the recent<br /> authors&#039; dinner he said, “An amateur author is<br /> one who publishes at his own expense—a thing<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#434) ################################################<br /> <br /> 8O<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> which the most inexperienced Scot would not do.”<br /> I, Sir, am a most inexperienced Scot—of the<br /> feminine gender, too!—and yet for six years<br /> have boiled the pot with something in it, by<br /> having faith enough in my own work to take all<br /> the risk, worry, and labour of producing and<br /> selling my own book. It has been an undoubted,<br /> and is a growing, success; so much so, that this<br /> twelfth edition is to be of 5000 copies.<br /> A CANNY SCOT.<br /> From the Westminster Gazette (June 7).<br /> [Are not the figures wrong How could a<br /> publisher give 4s. for a 5s. book P. But the moral<br /> is plain.—ED.]<br /> VI.-CopyRIGHT PROPRIEToRS AND ILLUSTRATED<br /> Journ ALISM.<br /> I have observed with some satisfaction the<br /> prominence which you have given to the impor-<br /> tant copyright decision in the case of “Gambier<br /> Bolton v. Cecil Aldin and others,” tried in the<br /> Court of Queen’s Bench on the IIth ult.<br /> Having acted for Mr. Gambier Bolton in this<br /> action, and also for Mr. Franz Hanfstaeng1 in the<br /> litigation with the papers, arising out of the<br /> “Living Picture * representations at the Empire<br /> Theatre, I think it right to point out that the<br /> great importance of Mr. Bolton&#039;s victory arises<br /> from its having clearly distinguished the decision<br /> in the House of Lords with reference to sketches<br /> of the Living Pictures which appeared in the<br /> Daily Graphic, from the more common cases of<br /> direct copying, whether from a picture or photo-<br /> graph, which are now declared to be in no sense<br /> permitted piracies, notwithstanding that they may<br /> not reproduce all the features of the original<br /> work.<br /> This is a matter of vital importance to all who<br /> are concerned in securing the rights of copyright<br /> owners ; and it deserves to be emphasised at the<br /> present time, because from the interested views<br /> put forward by some of the papers as to the<br /> effect of the House of Lords decision, there was<br /> some danger of a licence to pirate generally being<br /> claimed in the sacred name of illustrated jour-<br /> nalism, and this could not have failed to affect<br /> the protection given to authors, as well as artists,<br /> against mischievous piracies in various other<br /> forms.<br /> As there has been so much misunderstanding<br /> about the net results of the Hanfstaeng1 copyright<br /> litigation, you will perhaps allow me to put these<br /> shortly for the benefit of those of your readers<br /> who are interested in international copyrights.<br /> The points established may be summarised from<br /> an article in the Art Journal as follows:<br /> I. Extinction of the necessity of registration<br /> in England in the case of works first published<br /> abroad, and vice versa.<br /> 2. Establishment of the Berne Convention as<br /> the real guide in international matters, in lieu of<br /> any local laws.<br /> 3. Declaration that the rights of publishers<br /> depend on place of publication, and not on<br /> “making” of the protected work.<br /> 4. Assertion of the principle, in cases of in-<br /> fringement, that “competition is no test.”<br /> 5. Declaration that the lawfulness of part of<br /> an unauthorised representation of a protected<br /> work will not excuse the incorporation in such<br /> representation of that which is clearly unlawful.<br /> HERBERT BENTWITCH.<br /> Corporation Chambers,<br /> Guildhall Yard, E.C.,<br /> 20th June, 1895.<br /> *- a -º<br /> e-<br /> BOOK TALK.<br /> R.S. AYLMER GOWINGPS book of<br /> poems, called “Sita, and Other Poems,”<br /> mostly adapted for recitation, contains a<br /> small collection of verses on contemporary events.<br /> Many of them are highly spirited and effective.<br /> Let, however, the author speak for herself. The<br /> following lines are entitled “Tennyson”:<br /> ALL glorious with the mystery sublime<br /> Thy eyes shall fathom soon,<br /> Night’s bosom pillows thee, O son of Time !<br /> In splendours of the moon.<br /> Cometh thy daybreak—there shall be no night<br /> In that far heaven, untrod<br /> By course of quenching suns or stars, whose light<br /> Shall be the face of God.<br /> True seer, from thy heart the lamp of faith<br /> Glowed clear through storm and shine,<br /> And clothed the fearful majesty of Death<br /> In robes of grace divine.<br /> And thine the hand of might, the tender touch<br /> That makes our pulse thine own<br /> IBy love’s enchantments, for thou hast loved much.<br /> And grief’s excess hast known.<br /> Sweet singer, by thy voice of human love<br /> And sorrow, pure and strong,<br /> Teach us to find our God, while thou, above,<br /> Art singing a new song,<br /> Mr William Alfred Gibbs has produced a<br /> thing rare in these days—a tale in verse, “Arlon<br /> Grange.” His book (Provost and Co., Henrietta-<br /> street) is beautifully printed, bound, and illus-<br /> trated. These pages are not critical, because<br /> criticism is impossible in our brief limits, and<br /> the hastily pronounced brief judgment of half<br /> a dozen lines on a work not read by the judge,<br /> which has cost the author months or years of<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#435) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 8 I<br /> work, is generally futile when it applauds and<br /> impudent when it assails. We can always, how-<br /> ever, find room for the poet to speak for himself.<br /> The following lines are detached from the text:<br /> “When Love doth pace<br /> The lustrous floor of Heaven,<br /> He casts no shadow in that radiant place.<br /> “But when on Earth<br /> He stands beneath the sun,<br /> His mortal form to shadow giveth birth.<br /> “Thus shadow lives<br /> Wherever love doth dwell;<br /> Thus passing Love to grief its semblance gives.<br /> “With wings unfurled,<br /> Love soars again to Heaven—<br /> His mortal shadow scares him from the world.<br /> “Say, shall we slight<br /> His presence whilst he stays,<br /> Or blame the sunshine for its partial light P<br /> “Ah no he flies,<br /> To take our thoughts to Heaven,<br /> And spread its radiant floor before our eyes.<br /> “Then welcome Love,<br /> Tho&#039; shadow follows thee; -<br /> Parted on earth, we meet again above.”<br /> “Paganus,” another name as the title page<br /> informs us, has published “Poems of Paganism”<br /> or Songs of Ilife and Love. (London: The Rox-<br /> burghe Press.) The remarks made above in the<br /> Poem of “Arlon Grange” apply to this little<br /> volume of short poems. There is no room for a<br /> criticism, and a brief judgment would be futile.<br /> They are mostly love songs. We shall hear more<br /> of the poet of whom it may at least be said that<br /> he possesses a musical ear and a great command<br /> of rhyme and metre. Shall we quote the verses<br /> called “Linus to Lyterses?”<br /> What of the past, Lyterses P<br /> What of the gathered years P<br /> Time, with his tender mercies,<br /> Leaves not a stain of tears.<br /> Where are the joys that bound us P<br /> Where are the songs we sung P<br /> Where the warm hands that crowned us<br /> Kings, when the world was young P<br /> Weary of life immortal<br /> Linus in languor nods,<br /> Dreaming of death’s dream-portal,<br /> Panting to sleep with gods.<br /> Go, little gush of verses,<br /> Over Time&#039;s barren bars<br /> Whisper to lone Lyterses,<br /> “Linus still seeks the stars.”<br /> “Lyra Piscatoria.”—This little book deserves<br /> to be noticed in conjunction with that which<br /> follows—Mr. Bickerdyke&#039;s—the one in the prose<br /> of fishing, the other in its poetry. The poet who<br /> chooses to call himself Cotswold Isys says on the<br /> title page that this volume contains “Original<br /> Lyrics on Fish, Flies, Fishing, Fishermen, and<br /> all the British Freshwater Fish.”<br /> of the Tench :<br /> O LADY of the lake whereon<br /> The water lilies blow,<br /> Or oozy deeps bay out the banks<br /> Of rivers soft and slow !<br /> No gay coquette e&#039;er looked so fair<br /> Clad in her satin green;<br /> No nun behind her nunnery walls<br /> So shy or seldom seen .<br /> Let him sing:<br /> No lady finger&#039;s ruby gem<br /> Can match thy glowing eyes;<br /> Thy satin robe of emerald sheen,<br /> Her vesture far outvies;<br /> Yet while she loves her grace to show<br /> And all her charms display,<br /> Thou, shy and modest water nymph<br /> Dost shrink from light of day.<br /> Mr. John Bickerdyke&#039;s new book, “The Boat.<br /> Cruise on the Broads,” is not a story, nor is it an<br /> essay. It is, on the other hand, a little handbook<br /> of information about that curious land-and-water<br /> country known as the Broads. It seems to con-<br /> tain every kind of guidance for those who are<br /> going to make a holiday on the Broads. Their<br /> numbers increase every year. Everyone who goes<br /> there will have to take this book with him. The<br /> publishers are Bliss, Sands, and Foster.<br /> Another of the many pleasant gossipy books.<br /> about various parts of London is “Soho and its<br /> Associations,” edited from the MSS. of Dr.<br /> Rimbault by Mr. George Clinch. Soho began<br /> to be built towards the end of the seventeenth<br /> century; it was for a long time a fashionable<br /> place of residence, and much frequented by lite-<br /> rary men and artists on account of its quiet, and<br /> its close proximity to the fields. The associations<br /> connected with Soho are both numerous and<br /> interesting. Thus in Gerard-street alone—<br /> whose name they are proposing to alter, with the<br /> usual reverence for things ancient—we find the<br /> names of Charles, Lord Gerard, first Earl of<br /> Macclesfield, after whom it was named by Henry,<br /> Prince of Wales, son of James the First, who<br /> had here a place of exercise; the Earl of Scar-<br /> borough, who had here his town house ; John<br /> Dryden, who lived here from 1687 to 1700, where<br /> he died—the house, as Dryden says, “is Gerard-<br /> street, the fifth door on the left hand, coming<br /> from Newport-street. James Boswell had lodgings<br /> here, so had Charles Kemble ; Edmund Burke<br /> lived here; and David Williams, the founder of<br /> the Royal Literary Fund, lived here. (Dulau<br /> and Co., Soho-square.)<br /> Mrs. B. M. Croker, whose works are steadily<br /> gaining ground, has two serials running in foreign<br /> papers, one in the Berlin Poste, the other in the<br /> Indépendence Belge. So far every one of her<br /> books has appeared in German, both in serial and<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#436) ################################################<br /> <br /> 82 THE AUTHOR.<br /> in book form. This is not a distinction granted<br /> to every novelist.<br /> A new and revised edition of Mrs. Alfred Bald-<br /> win’s “Story of a Marriage,” has just been pub-<br /> lished by Messrs. J. M. Dent &amp; Co.<br /> Canon W. Sparrow-Simpson will issue imme-<br /> diately, through Mr. Elliot Stock, an English<br /> translation of the “Tragico-Comoedia de Santo<br /> Vedasto,” from the MS. in the library at Arras,<br /> with an extended introduction. The work will be<br /> uniform with “Carmina Vedastina,” recently<br /> published by the same editor.<br /> |Miss M. G. McKinloch has an article in the<br /> current number of The Month (Burns and Oates)<br /> on the “Revels and Pageants of Ancient Edin-<br /> burgh.”<br /> “The Nature and Origin of Man” is the ambi-<br /> tious title of a little work which Mr. Elliot Stock<br /> is publishing for S. B. G. M&#039;Kinney. It is note-<br /> worthy that the standpoint of the writer enables<br /> him to regard Goethe and Rudyard Kipling as<br /> inspired teachers.<br /> Mr. Joseph Hatton has written a new novel,<br /> which is to appear in serial form exclusively in<br /> the People for Great Britain, and in Leslie&#039;s<br /> Weekly Illustrated for the United States. It will<br /> commence Aug. 4, and will appear simultaneously<br /> in America, New Zealand, the Transvaal, Tas-<br /> mania, and Melbourne. It is a story of the<br /> French Revolution, the title “When Greek meets<br /> Greek,” and the period between the taking of the<br /> Bastille and the fall of Robespierre. The volume<br /> edition will be published at the end of the year<br /> |by Hutchinson&#039;s in London, and Lippincott&#039;s in<br /> Philadelphia.<br /> “Tom Chester&#039;s Sweetheart : A Tale of the<br /> Press,” is one of the newest of the shilling novels,<br /> from the press of Messrs. Hutchinson. It<br /> appeared in the midst of the excitement of the<br /> General Election, but has sold two large editions<br /> notwithstanding. Mr. Hatton has utilised some<br /> of his journalistic experiences in the story, which<br /> deals with the adventures of an elderly gentleman,<br /> who thought any fool could edit a newspaper, and<br /> tried it. The book might be transferred almost<br /> without alteration, save for conversion into<br /> dialogue into a most admirable Comedy-farce.<br /> “Comrades,” by Annabel Grey, is now in the<br /> press and will be shortly published by Mr. Henry<br /> Drane, Salisbury House, Salisbury-square, E.C.,<br /> at 68. It is a novel dealing with high and low<br /> life, politics, passion, society, secret societies, and<br /> Nihilism.<br /> Mrs. Alec Tweedie&#039;s article on a “Danish<br /> Butter Factory,” in the Fortnightly for May,<br /> met with such warm praise from the Press that<br /> she has enlarged it considerably with English<br /> information, useful to all who are interested in<br /> dairying, and Mr. Horace Cox has published the<br /> pamphlet at 6d. It bids fair to be as successful<br /> as “A Girl’s Ride in Iceland,” by the same<br /> author, which in its third edition is selling on the<br /> bookstalls at Is.<br /> At last the Gibbon cupboard is to be unlocked<br /> by Lord Sheffield. Mr. Murray announces that<br /> he will in the autumn issue the unpublished<br /> writings of the historian of the “Decline and<br /> Fall.” These include his journals, written<br /> mainly in French, and relating to his work and<br /> travels during 1762-4; his correspondence with<br /> members of his family, his friend Lord Sheffield,<br /> and other celebrities, political and social, of the<br /> time; and the seven different autobiographies.<br /> The Lord Sheffield of to-day will edit the work,<br /> and write a preface to this collection of un-<br /> doubtedly interesting material which his an-<br /> cestor received in trust from the great Gibbon.<br /> A volume of biographical studies of the great<br /> astronomers, by Sir Robert Ball, will be pub-<br /> lished by Messrs. Isbister in the autumn. It<br /> will be illustrated.<br /> Mr. Frederick Wedmore has written a work on<br /> “Etching in England,” which will come from<br /> Messrs. Bell, who will also publish in the autumn<br /> Dr. G. C. Williamson&#039;s book on Richard Cosway.<br /> Mr. E. W. Naylor is the author of “Shake-<br /> speare and Music,” which Messrs. Dent are to<br /> issue shortly. -<br /> A new volume of poems by Mr. Frederick<br /> Tennyson, brother of the late Poet-Laureate, is<br /> to appear in the autumn.<br /> The terrible death of Stambouloff will have<br /> caused greater interest to attach to his biography<br /> by Mr. A. Hulme Beaman, which is to be the<br /> next volume in Messrs. Bliss, Sands, and Foster&#039;s<br /> “Public Men of the Day” series. Its appearance<br /> will now be delayed somewhat, as a closing chapter<br /> will be added, and as the author is abroad.<br /> Mr. Austin Dobson&#039;s poems are to be issued by<br /> Messrs. Kegan Paul in a limited edition in two<br /> volumes. The same publishers also announce for<br /> publication his “The Story of Rosina,” in a style<br /> uniform with “The Ballad of Bean Brocade,” and,<br /> like it, illustrated by Mr. Hugh Thomson. Mr.<br /> Dobson has written an introduction, and Mr.<br /> Berbert Railton drawn illustrations for a new<br /> edition of T. Hood’s “Haunted House,” which the<br /> publishing house of Messrs. Lawrence and Bullen<br /> is preparing.<br /> Mr. Rudyard Kipling is not now going to bring<br /> out his volume of ballads until next spring. His<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#437) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 83<br /> new lot of jungle stories will, however, appear<br /> this autumn. Mr. Kipling disowns the alleged<br /> existence of the original of Mulvaney at San<br /> Francisco, but says that if Private McManus is a<br /> real person and can telltales to back his claim, “we<br /> will allow that he is a good enough Mulvaney for<br /> the Pacific Slope, and wait developments.”<br /> A work on English gardening, by the Hon.<br /> Alicia Amherst, will be published immediately by<br /> Mr. Bernard Quaritch. Illustrations will be<br /> given of old English gardens, parterres, &amp;c., and<br /> there will be a bibliography of works on the<br /> subject from 1516 up to the present.<br /> A volume of fables left by Stevenson will see<br /> the light in the autumn. His novel “ St. Ives,”<br /> of which only two chapters remained unfinished<br /> when death intervened, will follow. The<br /> “Wailima Letters,” which will practically be an<br /> autobiography of the Samoan Stevenson, is to have<br /> a preface and an epilogue by Mr. Sidney Colvin,<br /> and, as frontispiece, an etching of the novelist by<br /> Mr. William Strang from an Australian portrait.<br /> Next month will see the appearance of Ian<br /> Maclaren&#039;s new book, “The Days of Old [or is it<br /> o’Auld 2) Langsyne.”<br /> Miss Montresor has named her new work “The<br /> One Who Looks On,” which Messrs. Hutchinson<br /> will issue in the autumn, and her future plans<br /> include a serial for one of the monthlies, entitled<br /> “Monsieur Morezes.” Miss Adeline Sergeant&#039;s<br /> “Out of Due Season” will appear from Mr.<br /> Heinemann in a fortnight&#039;s time. “The Way of<br /> a Maid,” by Katherine Tynan, will be published<br /> soon by Messrs. Lawrence and Bullen. Mrs.<br /> Hungerford’s new three-volume novel, “The Pro-<br /> fessor&#039;s Experiment,” will be issued next month<br /> by Messrs. Chatto and Windus. Mrs. Hodgson<br /> Burnett will in all probability bave a new book<br /> out before the end of the year.<br /> As the result of requests made since the appear-<br /> ance of the Dean Stanley biography for more of<br /> his letters, a volume of these is in preparation,<br /> which will contain, by permission, many written<br /> to Her Majesty the Queen; also those to the late<br /> Master of Balliol, to Dr. Vaughan, Mrs. Arnold,<br /> Mrs. Drummond, and Sir George Grove. Selec-<br /> tions from the Dean’s poems, hymns, and occa-<br /> sional verses will also be given.<br /> Another volume of letters long-expected is<br /> announced by Messrs. Macmillan, namely, “The<br /> Letters of Matthew Arnold, 1848-1888,” collected<br /> and arranged by Mr. George W. E. Russell. In<br /> a prefatory note Mr. Russell remarks that, “for<br /> those who knew Matthew Arnold, the peculiar<br /> charm of his letters lies in this—that they are,<br /> in a word, himself.”<br /> Mr. W. Clark Russell has written for the<br /> Autonym Library a volume of stories styled<br /> “Cornered,” which will appear in the autumn.<br /> His twenty-years-old novel, “Is He the Man,”<br /> has been re-issued during the past month, with a<br /> preface modestly begging that it be regarded as a<br /> product of an immature stage.<br /> Hitherto Mr. Charles Lowe has been known<br /> chiefly as a first authority on things Prussian, in<br /> politics and war. He has now written a novel,<br /> laid in his special field; it is called “A Fallen<br /> Star,” and treats of the Scots in Prussia. Mr.<br /> Lowe, of course, is himself a Scotsman. The<br /> volume will be issued shortly by Messrs. Downey,<br /> T&#039;or the edition of the works of Poe, which<br /> Messrs. Lawrence and Bullen are to issue in the<br /> autumn, the editors, Mr. Edmund Clarence<br /> Stedman and Professor George Edward Wood-<br /> berry, have fortunately obtained the final correc-<br /> tions made by the author on the margins of an<br /> early edition. Much fresh matter is, it is said,<br /> included in this new collection, which will be<br /> fully illustrated. So tardily, by the way, is the<br /> appeal for subscriptions towards erecting a monu-<br /> ment over Poe&#039;s grave, at Baltimore, being<br /> answered, that the expedient of growing roses on<br /> the spot and charging fancy prices for them has<br /> been suggested as an aid to the fund.<br /> A volume of “Selected Papers on Browning ”<br /> is to be published by Mr. George Allen. Dr.<br /> Edward Berdoe will write the introduction. The<br /> contributors include Bishop Westcott, Professor<br /> Corson, Rev. H. J. Bulkeley, Rev. W. Robertson,<br /> Rev. J. J. Kirkman, Mrs. Ireland, Miss Beall,<br /> Miss Marx, and others.<br /> The history of the publishing house of Messrs.<br /> Blackwood is being written by Mrs. Oliphant in<br /> a form of so much detail that three volumes are<br /> necessary. The first will appear in the autumn.<br /> Mr. William Morris&#039;s new work “The Well at the<br /> World&#039;s End,” is to have four woodcuts, designed<br /> by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, and will be published<br /> by Messrs. Reeves and Turner. Mr. Morris&#039;s<br /> prospectus at the Kelmscott Press includes a<br /> volume of verse by Mr. Theodore Watts; “The<br /> Cronycles of Syr John Froissart,” reprinted from<br /> Pynson’s edition, 1523, and edited by Mr. H.<br /> Sparling; an edition of Shakespeare by Dr. F. J.<br /> Furnivall: and “‘Christabel’ and Other Poems<br /> of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,” edited by Mr. F. S.<br /> Ellis. -<br /> Some particulars of Mr. du Maurier&#039;s next book<br /> have been supplied by Mr. J. Henry Harper to a<br /> Tribune interviewer. The opening chapters will<br /> deal with French school life; English life, “both<br /> fashionable and rowdy,” will then be brought in;<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#438) ################################################<br /> <br /> 84<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> and after exploiting the artistic world of Antwerp<br /> and Dusseldorf, the scene will recur to England in<br /> conclusion. It is to be illustrated, but whether<br /> by Mr. du Maurier himself will depend on his<br /> health. This story, with “plenty of liveliness and<br /> and some tragedy,” is to be ready for the pub-<br /> lishers about Dec. 1896, will be longer than<br /> “Trilby,” and will first appear in Harper&#039;s<br /> Magazine.<br /> To give “pen-pictures of life in our great<br /> universities &#039;&#039; is the object of an Anglo-American<br /> series which Messrs. Putnam’s Sons have in hand.<br /> The volumes will consist of college tales and<br /> fictions, after the fashion of Mr. W. K. Post&#039;s<br /> “Harvard Stories,” published some time ago.<br /> Mr. John Seymour Wood is responsible for “Yale<br /> Yarns,” which is to start the series.<br /> In his “History of Punch,” to be published in<br /> the autumn by Messrs. Cassell, Mr. M. H. Spiel-<br /> mann promises “for the first time an accurate<br /> recital of the origin of Punch.” Mr. Athol<br /> Mayhew claimed in his recently-issued similar<br /> work called “A Jorum of Punch,” that his<br /> father, Henry Mayhew, was projector, proprietor,<br /> and first editor of the paper. Mr. Spielmann, in<br /> a vigorous correspondence in the Daily Chronicle<br /> with Mr. Loxton Hunter, defines Mr. Mayhew’s<br /> position as simply that of “one of the three<br /> literary co-editors appointed at the beginning, until<br /> the sole editorship was vested in Mark Lemon.”<br /> Mr. W. H. Hudson, F.Z.S., is publishing<br /> ...through Messrs. Longmans Green a volume on<br /> “British Birds,” which, besides being elaborately<br /> illustrated, will have a chapter on structure and<br /> classification from the pen of Mr. Frank E. Bed-<br /> dard, F.R.S.<br /> An entertaining and informative volume on<br /> -bookhunting may be looked for from Mr. W.<br /> Roberts, editor of the Bookworm. It will be<br /> published in the autumn, liberally illustrated, and<br /> entitled “The Bookhunter in London,” as a com-<br /> spanion work to Octave Uzanne’s “The Book-<br /> hunter in Paris” (“Physiologie des Quais de<br /> Paris”).<br /> A work on the leading forms of literature<br /> represented in the Scriptures has been written<br /> by Mr. R. G. Moulton, Professor of English<br /> literature in the University of Chicago, entitled<br /> “The Literary Study of the Bible.” It will be<br /> published by Messrs. Isbister; also a volume<br /> which the same author has edited and written an<br /> introduction for—namely, “Four Years of Novel<br /> Reading: An Account of an Experiment in Popu-<br /> larising the Study of Fiction.”<br /> The past month had but a thin production<br /> of books. Mr. Trevor-Battye&#039;s “Icebound on<br /> Rolguev * (Archibald Constable and Co.), and<br /> Mr. Wandam’s book on “French Men and French<br /> Manners” (Chapman and Hall)—the real Parisian,<br /> he says, loves Paris as he would love his mis-<br /> tress—not his bride ; and Professor Dowden&#039;s<br /> “New Studies in Literature,” were the most<br /> important. In the last days of June the volume<br /> of “Dictionary of National Biography,” con-<br /> taining the Parnell notice, was published, and<br /> attracted considerable attention. The biographer<br /> of the Irish statesman is Mr. Barry O&#039;Brien.<br /> Nordau’s “Conventional Lies,” an anterior work<br /> to “Degeneration,” but hitherto procurable only<br /> in a pirated American edition, was published in<br /> authorised form by Mr. Heinemann in the middle<br /> of last month.<br /> Captain Younghusband is giving precedence<br /> in publication to his work on “The Siege and<br /> Relief of Chitral,” which Messrs. Macmillan will<br /> publish as soon as possible. His book on his<br /> travels in Manchuria, the Desert of Gobi, Tur-<br /> kestan, the Himalayans, and the Pamirs, will,<br /> however, appear in the autumn from Mr. John<br /> Murray’s house, entitled “The Heart of a Con-<br /> tinent.” Mr. Murray will also publish a work<br /> of travel by Mr. F. St. J. Gore, of Magdalen<br /> College, Oxford, the title of which is “Lights<br /> and Shades of Indian Hill Life.”<br /> Messrs. Macmillan have projected a “Foreign<br /> Statesmen º’ series, to resemble in form their<br /> “Twelve English Statesmen.” Professor Bury,<br /> of Trinity College, Dublin, is editor.<br /> Mr. Irving B. Richman, Consul-General of the<br /> United States to Switzerland, is the writer of a<br /> Swiss study, which Messrs. Longmans Green are<br /> to publish soon, called “Appenzell: Pure Demo-<br /> cracy and Pastoral Life in Inner-Rhoden.”<br /> The publication of Sir Henry Colvile&#039;s Uganda<br /> book, “The Land of the Nile Springs,” is now<br /> announced by Mr. Edward Arnold for the early<br /> autumn.<br /> “Interviews with the Immortals” is an amus-<br /> ing little paper-bound volume by “Ananias Green.”<br /> Ananiasis a journalist and interviewer. He inter-<br /> views Mr. Micawber, Mr. Sam Weller, Mr. Mark<br /> Tapley, and “the Micawber Congress.” The little<br /> work is full of fun and go; it is political in its<br /> aims, and it is dedicated to the memory of Home<br /> Rule. (Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.)<br /> An excellent photograph of the dinner given to<br /> Sir Walter Besant has been taken by the Stereo-<br /> scopic Company. The likenesses of the great<br /> majority of the guests are very good indeed.<br /> Anyone desiring a copy can obtain same from the<br /> London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company,<br /> 54, Cheapside, E.C., for the price of 5s.	https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/280/1895-08-01-The-Author-6-3.pdf	publications, The Author
279	https://historysoa.com/items/show/279	The Author, Vol. 06 Issue 02 (July 1895)	<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.+06+Issue+02+%28July+1895%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 Issue 02 (July 1895)</a>			<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</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>	1895-07-01-The-Author-6-2					29–52																		<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=6">6</a>											<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1895-07-01">1895-07-01</a>							2			18950701	C be El u t b or,<br /> (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors.<br /> Monthly.)<br /> C O N DU CTED BY W.A. L TER BES A N T.<br /> VoI. VI.-No. 2.]<br /> JULY 1, 1895.<br /> [PRICE SIXPENCE.<br /> For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are<br /> signed or initialled the Authors alone are<br /> responsible. None of the papers or para-<br /> graphs must be taken as eaſpressing the<br /> collective opinions of the committee unless<br /> they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br /> Thring, Sec.<br /> HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all<br /> remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and<br /> requests that all members not receiving an answer to<br /> important communications within two days will write to him<br /> without delay. All remittances show.ld be crossed Union<br /> Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered<br /> letter only.<br /> Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on<br /> all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub-<br /> jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are<br /> returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS.<br /> e- “ -<br /> WARNINGS AND ADWICE,<br /> I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.—It is not generally<br /> understood that the author, as the vendor, has the<br /> absolute right of drafting the agreement upon<br /> whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out.<br /> Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In<br /> every form of business, this among others, the right of<br /> drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or<br /> has the control of the property.<br /> 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.—In selling Serial Rights remember<br /> that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that<br /> is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you<br /> object to this, insert a clause to that effect.<br /> 3. STAMP You R AGREEMENTS. – Readers are most<br /> URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements<br /> immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected<br /> for two weeks, a fine of £Io must be paid before the agree-<br /> ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every<br /> case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter<br /> which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The<br /> author may be assured that the other party to the agree-<br /> ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society,<br /> to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of<br /> members stamped for them at no ea pense to themselves<br /> eaccept the cost of the stamp.<br /> 4. AscERTAIN what A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES TO<br /> BOTH SLDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an<br /> arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi-<br /> ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he<br /> reserved for himself.<br /> 5. LITERARY AGENTs.—Be very careful. Yow cannot be<br /> too careful as to the person whom you appoint as your<br /> agent. Remember that you place your property almost un-<br /> reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting<br /> the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience<br /> of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alome.<br /> 6. CoST OF PRODUCTION.--Never sign any agreement of<br /> which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part,<br /> until you have proved the figures.<br /> 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.–Never enter into any cor-<br /> respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad-<br /> vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced<br /> friends or by this Society. r<br /> 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever,<br /> bind yourself down for future work to anyone.<br /> 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or<br /> responsibility whatever without advice.<br /> IO. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a M.S. has been re-<br /> fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises<br /> they may put forward, for the production of the work.<br /> II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American<br /> rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any<br /> agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the<br /> publisher, unless for a substantial consideration.<br /> 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper,<br /> either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright,<br /> without advice.<br /> I3. ADVERTISEMENTS. —- Keep some control over the<br /> advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in<br /> the agreement.<br /> I4. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any<br /> other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy,<br /> charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with<br /> business men. Be yourself a business man.<br /> Society’s Offices :-<br /> 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN&#039;s INN FIELDs.<br /> *- -**<br /> - * ~s<br /> HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br /> I. VERY member has a right to ask 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 /> business or the administration of his property. If the advice<br /> sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member<br /> has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the<br /> case is such that Counsel’s opinion is desirable, the Com-<br /> mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this<br /> without any cost to the member.<br /> 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br /> and publisher&#039;s agreements do not generally fall within the<br /> experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br /> D 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#384) ################################################<br /> <br /> 3O<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually<br /> engaged upon such questions for us.<br /> 3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past<br /> accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in<br /> order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree-<br /> ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively<br /> so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any<br /> agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor-<br /> mation thus obtained may prove invaluable.<br /> 4. If the examination of your previous business trans-<br /> actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should<br /> take advice as to a change of publishers.<br /> 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro-<br /> posed document to the Society for examination.<br /> 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in<br /> the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish-<br /> ing firm in the country.<br /> 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you<br /> are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are<br /> reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing<br /> the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen-<br /> dence of the writer.<br /> 8. Send to the Editor of the Author notes of everything<br /> important to literature that you may hear or meet with.<br /> 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of<br /> members’ agreements and their preservation in a fireproof<br /> safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con-<br /> fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who<br /> will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:—(1)<br /> To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To<br /> stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon<br /> them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments<br /> due according to agreements.<br /> *- - --&gt;<br /> THE AUTHORS&#039; SYNDICATE,<br /> EMBERS are informed :<br /> I. That the Authors’ Syndicate takes charge of<br /> the business of members of the Society. That it<br /> submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree-<br /> ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene-<br /> rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business<br /> details.<br /> 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured<br /> will be forwarded upon detailed application.<br /> 3. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate works only for those<br /> members of the Society whose work possesses a market<br /> value.<br /> 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations<br /> whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia-<br /> tions are placed eaclusively in its hands, and that all<br /> communications relating thereto are referred to it.<br /> 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by<br /> appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days’<br /> notice should be given. .<br /> 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi-<br /> cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent<br /> to defray postage.<br /> 7. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate does not invite MSS.<br /> without previous correspondence ; does not hold itself<br /> responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that<br /> in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray<br /> postage.<br /> 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for<br /> lectures by some of the leading members of the Society;<br /> that it has a “Transfer Department’’ for the sale and<br /> purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register<br /> of Wants and Wanted * is open. Members are invited to<br /> communicate their requirements to the Manager.<br /> There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services<br /> will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It<br /> is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the<br /> Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in<br /> the Syndicate.<br /> *~ * ==*<br /> -*.<br /> NOTICES.<br /> HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the<br /> Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br /> of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very<br /> heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br /> many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br /> 6s. 6d. subscription for the year.<br /> The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and<br /> communications on all subjects connected with literature<br /> from members and others. Nothing can do more good to<br /> the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive,<br /> and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this<br /> work send their names and the special subjects on which<br /> they are willing to write P<br /> Communications for the Author should reach the Editor<br /> not later than the 21st of each month.<br /> All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether<br /> members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate<br /> to the Editor any points connected with their work which<br /> it would be advisable in the general interest to publish.<br /> Members and others who wish their MSS. read are<br /> requested not to send them to the Office without previously<br /> communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable<br /> despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in<br /> which they are received. It must also be distinctly under-<br /> stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances,<br /> undertake the publication of MSS.<br /> The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at<br /> 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary<br /> for information, rules of admission, &amp;c.<br /> Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br /> have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do<br /> this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker&#039;s<br /> order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the<br /> trouble of sending out a reminder.<br /> Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br /> warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a<br /> most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding<br /> for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they<br /> would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five<br /> years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest<br /> or dishonest? Of course they would not. Why then<br /> hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them-<br /> selves into literary bondage for three or five years P<br /> Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are<br /> requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15<br /> per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble<br /> of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the<br /> pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding<br /> is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be<br /> added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands<br /> at £948. The figures in our book are as near the exact<br /> truth as can be procured; but a printer&#039;s, or a binder’s,<br /> bill is so elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be<br /> arrived at.<br /> Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br /> in the “Cost of Production” for advertising. Of course, we<br /> have not included any sums which may be charged for<br /> inserting advertisements in the publisher&#039;s own magazines,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#385) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 31<br /> or in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too<br /> often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from<br /> sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket,<br /> by inserting any number of advertisements in his own<br /> magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are<br /> who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those<br /> who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it.<br /> *-- ~~~<br /> sº-sº&quot; ºr *s<br /> LITERARY PROPERTY.<br /> I.—ADDRESS BY MIR. HALL CAINE.<br /> * OLLOWING the annual meeting of members<br /> F of the Retail Newsagents’ and Booksellers&#039;<br /> Union, which was held yesterday morning<br /> at Stationers&#039; Hall, Ludgate-hill, under the<br /> presidency of Mr. C. Roberts (Brompton), a mass<br /> meeting of the trade was held in the evening in<br /> the same hall, for the purpose of hearing an<br /> address by Mr. Hall Caine, “upon his experience<br /> of the present unfair conditions existing in the<br /> bookselling trade.” There was a large attendance,<br /> members being present from all parts of the<br /> country. Letters regretting inability to be present<br /> were read by the general secretary (Mr. E.<br /> Gowing Scopes) from Sir George Newnes, who<br /> was absent on a political mission on the Con-<br /> tinent ; from Mr. B. Quaritch, and Mr. Mudie. A<br /> telegram was also received to a similar effect<br /> from Mr. Zangwill on account of ill-health.<br /> Mr. Hall Caine, who was received with<br /> applause, stated that there was no better maxim<br /> than the old and trite one that union was<br /> strength, and there was no body of men who had<br /> more reason to remember it than the booksellers<br /> of the United Kingdom. Therefore he began by<br /> congratulating them on the organisation of book-<br /> sellers which they had met that night to inaugu-<br /> rate. Never in the history of English booksellers<br /> had there been more need for organisation,<br /> because the condition of the trade of the book-<br /> seller had hardly ever been so bad. It was not<br /> to be accounted for on any of the ordinary<br /> principles of commercial law. On the one hand<br /> they had an enormous increase of population<br /> during the past half-century, an enormous increase<br /> of wealth, and an enormous increase of the<br /> reading public ; and, on the other hand, they had<br /> an appalling decline in the number of booksellers<br /> throughout the kingdom. More than that, the<br /> past half century had witnessed a complete<br /> change in the character of the bookseller&#039;s<br /> business. Fifty years ago the bookseller was a<br /> seller of books only. His shop was lined with<br /> books, his counters were covered and his windows<br /> were filled with them. Bookselling was a lively<br /> industry in those days. It existed by itself, and<br /> was a profitable and an honourable, and even a<br /> dignified and distinguished business. That con-<br /> *<br /> dition was a thing of the past. There were<br /> hardly a score of such book shops remaining in<br /> the provinces. The other book shops were small-<br /> wares or fancy goods shops first, and book shops<br /> afterwards. No longer did books line the walls,<br /> cover the counters, and fill the windows.<br /> Children&#039;s dolls and air balls, ladies’ purses and<br /> hand-bags, inkstands and Japanese fans had<br /> usurped the places which knew the new books<br /> mo more. The bookseller was not to blame. He<br /> would rather sell books than nick-nacks if he<br /> were able to do so and to exist. It was not from<br /> choice that he had descended from the estate of<br /> bookseller to that of the keeper of a little<br /> Moorish bazaar. He would tell them that, as a<br /> dealer in new books, he could not exist, and that<br /> he was compelled to supplement his bookselling<br /> business with these humbler auxiliary aids.<br /> Yet more books were sold to-day than at any<br /> previous time. The sales of the classic literature<br /> in cheap editions were now very great indeed, and<br /> the sales of new books, of new novels for example,<br /> were beyond comparison larger than in the best<br /> days even of Dickens. Where lay the mischief<br /> that was crushing the local booksellers out of<br /> existence P<br /> CONCERNING THE DISCOUNT BOOKSELLER,<br /> Ten or more years ago a number of booksellers<br /> in the heart of London began to sell new books<br /> to the public at the great discount of 25 per<br /> cent. They had an enormous success, because<br /> they made large businesses with a rapid turn-<br /> over. But the heart of London was the only<br /> scene for such an enterprise. To the local book-<br /> seller such terms were impossible. He could not<br /> give 25 per cent. discount and keep a roof over<br /> his head. His customers demanded that discount<br /> on pain of leaving him. He gave it in some<br /> cases, and so died hard. Many of his class were<br /> thus crushed out of life, but not until they had<br /> inflicted a heavy blow on the great discount<br /> houses of London. These houses were not as a<br /> whole so prosperous now as they were a few<br /> years ago. They had suffered severely in exter-<br /> minating the local bookseller. (Hear, hear.) No<br /> system of bookselling that was centralised in<br /> London would ever work for the book trade as<br /> the old local bookselling system worked; large<br /> as the increase in the sales of books had been<br /> during the past half century, it was not at all Com-<br /> mensurate with the increase in population and in<br /> the taste for reading. The old bookseller with<br /> his local shop was the only agency yet found<br /> that seemed to be at all capable of making the<br /> |book trade of to-day what it ought to be. (Hear,<br /> hear.) With the whole book trade feeling the<br /> injury which was said by many to have been<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#386) ################################################<br /> <br /> 32 THE AUTHOR.<br /> inflicted by the discount business a remedy had<br /> been suggested. This was the net-book remedy.<br /> So far as he understood it, the proposal was that<br /> a new book should be sold met at the published<br /> price, and that the bookseller should be allowed<br /> 20 per cent. for selling it. But here, again, the<br /> local bookseller was at a disadvantage in Com-<br /> petition with his London fellow tradesman. The<br /> 20 per cent. which was enough for the London<br /> bookseller was not enough for the local bookseller,<br /> with his greater expenses of “laying down &#039;&#039; and<br /> his smaller sales. The net-book system had much<br /> to recommend it, but it needed the readjustment<br /> of its terms. (Applause.)<br /> “ UNBRIDIED GREED&#039; contROVERSY. —<br /> REMAIRECABLE FIGURES.<br /> This first explanation of the decline of the book<br /> trade (that it had suffered from the big discount<br /> businesses) touched points with which he was not<br /> entirely competent to deal, but the other explana-<br /> tion of that decline, the popular explanation, the<br /> explanation which had been making so much<br /> noise of late, was one on which he might quite<br /> modestly but confidently claim to be as good an<br /> authority at this moment as any other man what-<br /> ever. Continuing, Mr. Hall Cane said: It is<br /> being circulated very industriously that the book-<br /> trade is declining because authors have been<br /> THE<br /> Squeezing the publishers, who in turn have had<br /> to squeeze the booksellers. The charge appears<br /> to have taken shape in the speech of my friend<br /> and comrade Edmund Gosse, but it has been<br /> backed up by the extraordinary letters of Mr.<br /> Fisher Unwin, Mr. Burleigh of the Associated<br /> Booksellers, and other wise and well-informed<br /> persons in the Times, Daily News, and else-<br /> where. May I be so bold as to say that during<br /> the past few months it has been my painful duty<br /> to forget more about the financial relations of<br /> author and publisher than it has yet fallen to Mr.<br /> Gosse&#039;s much happier lot to learn ? But I have<br /> remembered enough to give you to-night certain<br /> exact figures which neither Mr. Gosse, nor Mr.<br /> Fisher Unwin, nor any of their brother critics<br /> and publishers will be quite so courageous as to<br /> question, because they are the figures of pub-<br /> lishers themselves, the best publishers, supplied<br /> to me for my personal use in another connection,<br /> but honestly and properly available for the<br /> rebutting of a damaging and unfounded charge.<br /> We are told that the “unbridled greed” of the<br /> author is killing the book trade; but these are<br /> the exact facts. A 6s. novel costs to print<br /> and bind about Is. a copy; if produced in<br /> good numbers, it can be done for a penny<br /> less; it sometimes costs a penny more. To<br /> advertise a successful novel a publisher may<br /> spend two pence a copy, but where he knows his<br /> business, and where the sales are in twenties and<br /> thirties of thousands, he does not usually spend<br /> nearly so much. The author&#039;s royalties on a<br /> 6s. novel vary from 15 per cent. to 25 per<br /> cent., and in only two known instances have<br /> authors received more. This royalty is on the<br /> published price, but usually with the condition<br /> that thirteen copies count as twelve. Thus the<br /> payment of the most highly-paid of English<br /> novelist—two novelists excepted—is 1s. 4d. per<br /> copy. So the writing, printing, binding, and<br /> advertising of a popular 6s. novel has cost 2s. 6;d.<br /> That is the gross outlay.<br /> PUBLISHERs&#039; PROFITs.<br /> Now, what is received for the book P I will<br /> quote from a paper in the handwriting of one of<br /> our great publishers. The full price paid for a<br /> 6s, book is 4s. 2d. less 5 per cent, thirteen copies<br /> as twelve, namely, 3s. 8d. The lowest wholesale<br /> price paid is 4s. less 7% per cent. or Io per cent.,<br /> thirteen as twelve, namely, 3s. 4d. Therefore,<br /> the average earnings to the publisher who has<br /> distributing agencies of his own are 3s. 6d., or a<br /> fraction under. Thus the profit to the publisher<br /> on a successful 6s. book, which pays 25 per cent.<br /> to the author, is I Id. a copy. But the smaller<br /> local bookseller does not buy at even 3s. 8d.<br /> Being a purchaser of small numbers, and often<br /> requiring credit, he buys from one of the great<br /> distributing agencies, and pays from 4s. to 4s. 2d.<br /> for his 6s. book. Now, this book—upon which<br /> he must pay carriage from London—he is<br /> expected to sell, and often does sell, at 4s. 6d.<br /> in order to keep pace with his brother publisher<br /> in the heart of London. These are the figures,<br /> I believe the exact figures. I have not quoted<br /> them from one authority only, but from at least<br /> six excellent authorities, all publishers; and none<br /> of my authorities will question my right to use<br /> them, for they were supplied in the open spirit of<br /> men who had nothing to conceal or fear. But the<br /> figures show—first, that the local bookseller&#039;s<br /> profits are reduced to the miserably inadequate<br /> sum of 3; d. ; next, that the author&#039;s earnings<br /> reach the modest sum of Is. 4d. ; again, that the<br /> printing and binding of a book costs no more<br /> than Is. ; and finally, that the gross cost of pro-<br /> ducing a book is often as low as 2s. 6; d., and the<br /> expense of distributing it is often as high as<br /> Is. 7#d, After this we ought to hear no more of<br /> the “unbridled greediness” of authors, and of<br /> the accusation that authors are squeezing the<br /> booksellers. While Is. 7#d. is the cost of dis-<br /> tributing a 6s. book to the local booksellers, the<br /> public and the trade may know where the shoe<br /> pinches. (Loud applause.)<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#387) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 33<br /> SU GGESTED REMEDIES.<br /> For this ruinous condition, asked Mr. Hall<br /> Caine, what was the remedy ? The first and<br /> easiest remedy lay in the hands of the more suc-<br /> cessful author. He did not squeeze the retail<br /> bookseller, and neither was it to his interest<br /> that anybody else should squeeze him. In his<br /> agreements he ought to be assured that the book-<br /> seller should have his book at a living wage.<br /> (Loud applause.) This condition had been<br /> offered to him by more than one of the best<br /> publishers, and he should most certainly see that<br /> it formed a clause in any agreement he should<br /> make in the future, (Renewed applause.) That<br /> would mean, as far as it went, the reduction of<br /> the earnings of the middlemen. (Hear, hear.)<br /> The next remedy lay with the booksellers them-<br /> selves. By uniting their forces they might go in<br /> a body to the publishers, and say, “Give us a<br /> profit upon which we can exist.” That, he under-<br /> stood, was what they intended to do. The effect<br /> of this protest, if it succeeded, would be to reduce<br /> the number of the middlemen. Books would<br /> have to pass through fewer hands. Either the<br /> “new” publisher himself or his wholesale dis-<br /> tributing agency would eventually have to go.<br /> If they asked him which, he could not hesitate to<br /> reply the “new” publisher. (Applause.) The<br /> distributing agencies (agencies like Messrs. W. H.,<br /> Smith and Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.)<br /> were often the only real publishers. They were<br /> the only people who were doing the useful and<br /> necessary work of distribution, except in the<br /> few instances of the active publishers who were<br /> distributing for themselves both at home and<br /> abroad. They were earning their wages, and<br /> neither the book trade nor the authors could have<br /> the slightest desire to disturb them. But cer-<br /> tainly their protest would exterminate certain of<br /> the “new” publishers, men who rented two rooms<br /> somewhere, and without machinery of any visible<br /> kind, and almost without visible capital, carried<br /> on noisy and apparently profitable businesses by<br /> the sole help of the great and powerful distri-<br /> buting agencies.<br /> A MODERN IN WIENTION.<br /> The third remedy lay deeper down, and might<br /> appear to be more dangerous to touch. It was<br /> a remedy which they would employ as a last<br /> resource, and with the consciousness of its risks<br /> and difficulties—he meant the remedy of doing<br /> without the publisher altogether. It was not for<br /> them to undervalue the real live publisher, though<br /> they thought his relations both with authors and<br /> with booksellers stood in need of reconsideration.<br /> (Cheers.) But there were just two parties neces-<br /> sary to the production of a book—the man who<br /> made it, and the man who sold it to the public.<br /> The publisher was a modern invention. He did.<br /> not exist, as such, in England as recently as the<br /> days of Dr. Johnson. Authors then talked of<br /> writing for the booksellers, not for the publishers,<br /> and they must not suppose that bookseller and<br /> publisher were equivalent terms. A bookseller in<br /> Johnson&#039;s time was what he still was—a man who<br /> sold books over his counter, not a publisher who<br /> distributed books which other people were to sell.<br /> There was no middleman in those days to stand<br /> between the man who wrote the book and the<br /> man who sold it to the public. And it was to<br /> this excellent condition that they might be com-<br /> pelled to return in part, if not altogether. (Loud<br /> cheers.) Bookselling was in a thriving state<br /> then, and, Grub-street notwithstanding, authors<br /> were not so often starved out of existence as they<br /> were now. (Hear, hear.) It had hardly ever<br /> been in a thriving state since. It was now in a<br /> more deplorable condition than at any time, per-<br /> haps, since the great failure which involved Scott<br /> in ruin. He had shown them where the money<br /> went which was made by books, and he urged them<br /> to reflect whether it might not be to the advan-<br /> tage of the only two parties essential to the pro-<br /> duction of books that they might sometimes come<br /> closer together. If they could do so—if they<br /> could dispense with the services of the interme-<br /> diaries, they must both be gainers by the change.<br /> The author could afford to give the bookseller a<br /> profit such as he has never had in the history of<br /> English bookselling, and yet keep a greater profit<br /> for himself than he had ever been paid in the<br /> history of English publishing. Booksellers and<br /> authors would be dividing the profits not of one<br /> middleman merely, but of two middlemen. Mr.<br /> Longman looked with amused indifference towards<br /> any attempt to dispense with the third estate in<br /> the republic of letters. But they, on their part,<br /> were disposed to believe that the publisher could<br /> occasionally be dispensed with ; and now that the<br /> booksellers of the kingdom were banding together<br /> in this Association, the means of touch with the<br /> trade (which hitherto was a scattered one only<br /> to be reached by the expensive machinery of<br /> travellers) was becoming simple and easy. And<br /> if an author might publish his book for himself,<br /> if by help of a business representative, a clerk,<br /> and a cashier, he might send it direct from the<br /> printer and bookbinder to the shop of the book-<br /> seller, he would not only put more into the book-<br /> seller&#039;s pocket and more into his own pocket on<br /> each copy sold, but he would enormously increase<br /> the chances of sale by vitalising the trade of book-<br /> selling, by restoring it to the condition of a living<br /> industry, and by insuring a wider distribution.<br /> (Loud cheers.)<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#388) ################################################<br /> <br /> 34<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> MR. RUSKIN’s ExPERIENCE.<br /> Their friends outside, their publishing friends,<br /> would do their best to smile and say that these<br /> were revolutionary measures. But they were not<br /> so revolutionary as they might appear to be.<br /> A few weeks ago he had the pleasure of discussing<br /> them with Mr. Ruskin, who many years ago<br /> foresaw the crisis in which they were now placed,<br /> and made an effort of his own to escape from it.<br /> What the merits were of Mr. Ruskin’s remedy it<br /> was not for him to say. The only remark he would<br /> make was that in an endeavour to abolish the<br /> publishers Mr. Ruskin created another publisher.<br /> (Hear, hear.) That was an obvious and immi-<br /> nent danger of any reform on the lines he had<br /> indicated. The other middleman always lay in<br /> wait for the reformer who rose up to exterminate<br /> the middleman. No doubt Mr. Ruskin had<br /> reason to be entirely satisfied with the results of<br /> his own experiment, but the great reform of the<br /> bookselling trade, if it ever came about, would<br /> go deeper than that, deeper than any discussion<br /> of net prices and discounts, or any settlement of<br /> the vexed question of thirteens—it would go to<br /> the very root of the existence of the publisher<br /> himself, as publisher apart from bookseller. If this<br /> reform should be attempted in a large way, if any<br /> considerable body of popular English authors<br /> should try to follow Mr. Ruskin’s lead with more<br /> technical knowledge and experience, whatever<br /> success or failure attended them, the responsi-<br /> bility for the change would rest with the<br /> publishers themselves. The publishers would<br /> have provoked it by starving the local bookseller<br /> out of existence, and by throwing the blame of<br /> that act upon the authors, and loftily threatening<br /> to “send them back to Grub-street.” Both book-<br /> sellers and authors were finding out that the real<br /> earnings of books were stopped midway between<br /> the producer and consumer, and that the services<br /> of the publisher in the fortunes of books were<br /> often the meanest sort of bogey set up to frighten<br /> them. Far be it from them to say that the<br /> publisher had not done and was not still doing<br /> in some cases excellent service to literature and to<br /> the trade of bookselling. He had suggested and<br /> fostered many noble literary enterprises; he had<br /> helped many worthy authors to recognition and<br /> recompense; and he had, by wise and merciful<br /> methods of business promoted the growth of the<br /> bookselling industry in many places. Far be it<br /> from them to undervalue the work of the real<br /> publisher, who, through many years, perhaps<br /> many generations, had gathered about his house<br /> a vast machinery of book distribution, and was in<br /> touch with the public and with the Press. But<br /> they need show no quarter to certain other types<br /> of publishers, who had no visible reason for their<br /> existence except that they passed a book on from<br /> the printer and bookbinder to the agency that<br /> was to distribute it. At all events he con-<br /> gratulated them heartily on their efforts at<br /> organisation, and he assured them that where<br /> their interests lie as booksellers there lay<br /> their interests as authors. Booksellers and<br /> authors must stand shoulder to shoulder. If he<br /> might dare to speak in general terms for his own<br /> craft it was not for their good that the local<br /> bookseller was being starved out of existence.<br /> (Applause.) It was to their interest that the<br /> bookseller, both in the country and in London,<br /> should work for a living wage—(applause)—that<br /> he should be encouraged to buy books in order<br /> that he might sell them ; that he should be able<br /> to exist by selling books alone and not by selling<br /> gimcracks and nick-nacks, and that his shop<br /> should be nowadays what it was in the days of<br /> their fathers and grandfathers—the centre of the<br /> intellectual life of the locality in which it was<br /> placed. (Loud applause.)<br /> Mr. E. Gowing-Scopes, the general secretary,<br /> at the invitation of the Chairman, entered into an<br /> explanation of the proposed Booksellers&#039; Union.<br /> He had, he declared with apparent modesty, been<br /> for some time an “agitator’’ in the trade, one of<br /> the greatest needs and desires of which was to<br /> remove the burden of discount, If they had<br /> strength of purpose enough to combine together,<br /> no publishing house could stand against them and<br /> rob them of the profits which honestly belong to<br /> them. At that meeting representatives were pre-<br /> sent from every great centre in Great Britain—<br /> from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Bradford,<br /> Leeds, and of the great centres of the industry.<br /> That night they had made a step in the right<br /> direction, for they had found a great author like<br /> Mr. Hall Caine who was bold enough to stand up<br /> and say, if they could not induce those who stood<br /> between them to help them, that then they would<br /> stand shoulder to shoulder together as author and<br /> bookseller, and manage their own affairs. Under<br /> such circumstances a book might be produced at<br /> five shillings—at a fairer price to the public, for<br /> after all, six shillings was a big lump for the<br /> public to pay for a book which costs one shilling<br /> to produce—and at the lesser price bring a better<br /> profit to the author and to the seller. It seemed<br /> to him wrong that a publisher, who did merely<br /> mechanical work, should take as great a share of<br /> profit as the author who worked on a novel one or<br /> two years and took all the risks of success or<br /> failure. It appeared, indeed, as if there was an<br /> opening for an authors&#039; union. (Laughter and<br /> applause.) He hoped to see the union for which<br /> they had long waited successfully established. He<br /> hoped also to induce Mr. Caine to help them to<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#389) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 35<br /> form an author&#039;s committee that should act<br /> in conjunction with the National Association of<br /> Booksellers, and he knew that at least four or<br /> five of the leading authors were willing to combine<br /> with Mr. Caine in the effort he was ready to<br /> undertake.<br /> Mr. C. Roberts moved, “That in the opinion of<br /> this meeting it is expedient to form a National<br /> Association of Booksellers for the purpose of<br /> of acting upon the scheme suggested for the aboli-<br /> tion of the discount system.” Mr. J. C. Mather<br /> seconded the resolution, which was carried with<br /> acclamation.—Daily News, June 5.<br /> II.-LECTURING IN AMERICA.<br /> I observed a passage in last month’s Author<br /> which speaks of the gains to be made by lecturing<br /> in America. It is a subject upon which there<br /> has been a great deal of exaggeration, and I think<br /> that a few words upon it may not be amiss—<br /> the more so as my name was coupled with the<br /> remarks.<br /> Anyone who goes to America with the intention<br /> of seeing the place and the people, and counts on<br /> no more from his lectures than the payment of his<br /> expenses, will have a most enjoyable experience.<br /> He will come back with enlarged ideas, with a<br /> pleasant remembrance of hospitality received and<br /> with new friendships, which he will hope to retain<br /> until they are old ones.<br /> But if he goes with the primary idea of making<br /> money he will be disappointed. Thackeray and<br /> Dickens made money, and when we have another<br /> Thackeray and Dickens they may do the same;<br /> but the British lecturer whose credentials are<br /> more modest will find that the margin left over,<br /> after his expenses are paid, is probably a less sum<br /> than he could have easily earned in his own<br /> study.<br /> In the extract to which I refer from your<br /> American correspondence, the sum of 500 dollars<br /> a lecture is mentioned. This is nonsense. Taking<br /> an average a fifth part of it would be nearer the<br /> mark, which is no more than could be obtained<br /> from the better class provincial societies in Great<br /> Britain. For argument’s sake, however, let us<br /> put the American average at 125 dollars. When<br /> the agent&#039;s commission of 15 per cent, and the<br /> high travelling and hotel expenses have been paid,<br /> the lecturer will probably have from 80 to 85<br /> dollars clear. Allow him four lectures a week,<br /> and we have from 320 to 350 dollars as his gain<br /> Two months of this will leave him something<br /> under 3000 dollars. From this he has to sub-<br /> tract his double passage-money, and about a<br /> month extra spent in the journey and prepara-<br /> tions. If the balance will exceed what he would<br /> WOT. WI.<br /> earn in the same period by his pen, it is then<br /> worth his while to go to America for money.<br /> If any brother author should go, however, I<br /> strongly recommend him to put his affairs in the<br /> hands of my friend, Major J. B. Bond, in whom<br /> they will find a very sympathetic comrade as well<br /> as a keen business manager. My own trip to<br /> America was one of the most pleasant experiences<br /> of my life, but if it had been the wish to earn<br /> more than I could have done at home which had<br /> attracted me thither, I should certainly have been<br /> disappointed. This would be a merely personal<br /> and unimportant matter, were it not that the<br /> mention of exaggerated sums in your pages<br /> might mislead and cause disappointment to some<br /> of your readers. A. CONAN DOYLE,<br /> Grand Hotel Belvedere, Davos-Platz,<br /> Switzerland.<br /> III.-A HUMOROUS AGREEMENT.<br /> Here is a pleasing offer: “I will take the<br /> entire responsibility of the production, advertis-<br /> ing, &amp;c., of the work if you will agree to be<br /> responsible for 375 copies at 3s. 6d., or whatever<br /> number is needed to bring the total sales up to<br /> this quantity, if it has not been reached within<br /> six months after the date of publication; the<br /> publishel price to be 6s.” This offer is supple-<br /> mented by an explanation to the effect that an<br /> edition of 500 or 750 copies will be printed, and<br /> that “the royalty”—he says “the ” royalty, but<br /> does not explain what—will not begin for the<br /> author until the second edition is reached. How<br /> would the publisher stand in case of 700 copies,<br /> or the whole of the first edition, going off P<br /> - 38 s. d.<br /> He would receive from the author ... 65 12 6<br /> From the trade ........................... 56 17 6<br /> 38.122 Io o<br /> From which we must deduct the cost of produc-<br /> tion. Probably, therefore, he would receive from<br /> £40 to £50 against the author&#039;s nil. - ..<br /> But, if he chose to keep back the book for six<br /> months, and then offered it for sale, he might<br /> clear the whole of the guarantee money, together<br /> with the proceeds of the sale. -<br /> This is a very humorous method of publishing.<br /> As for the second edition one need say nothing,<br /> because the amount of royalty is not stated, and<br /> because it is so extremely problematical. There<br /> is nothing fraudulent in such an offer: nothing<br /> to prevent any man making such an offer. He<br /> may argue that he guards against loss of money<br /> paid, and that as the book is very unlikely, from<br /> his own experience of such books as he publishes,<br /> to go into a second edition, or to sell many copies,<br /> E<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#390) ################################################<br /> <br /> 36<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> he means to pay himself for his personal trouble,<br /> which means a quarter of an hour&#039;s talk with the<br /> printer and for the use of his office, by laying his<br /> hand upon everything. Now and then he may<br /> light upon a prize; but very, very seldom. Do<br /> prizes come the way of this kind?<br /> IV.--THE OLD TRICK.<br /> Over and over again we have exposed the tricks<br /> of certain so-called publishers who live by making<br /> the unfortunate aspirant who falls into their hands<br /> pay for his book. The following is generally the<br /> order of events.<br /> 1. The writer sends up his MS.<br /> 2. He immediately receives back a letter in<br /> which the firm state that their reader has pro-<br /> nounced so favourably on the MS. that they are<br /> prepared to offer the “following exceptional<br /> terms.” The author is to pay £120, viz., 38o<br /> down, and £40 on receiving the last proof. For<br /> this they will produce an edition of 1250 copies;<br /> É. the author two thirds of the proceeds; and<br /> ring out future editions as they are demanded.<br /> The author to have half profits. The price to be 6s,<br /> 3. The author cannot afford £120. He says so.<br /> They reply instantly, that in consideration of the<br /> merit of the MS., they will knock off £30.<br /> Observe that all this is a mere form; the same<br /> reply is sent to everybody, the only alteration is<br /> in the figures. As for future editions they know<br /> very well that there will be, in all probability, no<br /> sale at all; their reader has not read it; and they<br /> are not going to print I 250 copies, or anything<br /> like it. In encouraging the author to believe that<br /> there will be this demand, they are deceiving him.<br /> Should there be anyone who has fallen into the<br /> pitfall and paid money on these representa-<br /> tions, perhaps he will send up the papers to the<br /> Secretary, who may be able to get some of hi<br /> money back for him. *<br /> W.—THE CANADIAN CoPYRIGHT QUESTION.<br /> When a person adopts false premises he is sure<br /> to arrive at absurd conclusions, and this has<br /> happened with Mr. Lancefield of the Copyright<br /> Association. He assumes as follows:–<br /> (1) That our copyright laws are for the benefit<br /> of printers and publishers, and not for the pro-<br /> tection of native authors, artists, and musicians,<br /> and the advancement of learning here, and that<br /> when a conflict arises between the interests of<br /> the instrumentalities employed and those of<br /> authors and artists themselves, the interests of<br /> the latter should be ignored and destroyed.<br /> (2) That where it may pay to print and<br /> publish books, music, &amp;c., for a market of<br /> 2OO,OOO,OOO (the British Empire and foreign<br /> countries of the convention) or 65,000,000 (the<br /> |United States) it will also pay to print and<br /> publish for a market of 5,000,000 (Canada).<br /> (3) That because the civilised nations of the<br /> world have recognised the supreme right of an<br /> author to control the work of his own brain<br /> irrespective of all foreign printers and publishers,<br /> and because the terms of the international con-<br /> vention as to foreign printing and publishing do<br /> not suit half a dozen publishing houses and<br /> newspapers of Canada, the interests of Canadian<br /> art and literature must be sacrificed for all time<br /> by withdrawing Canada from the benefits of the<br /> convention and thus effect complete isolation of<br /> this country.<br /> (4) That if we had the Copyright Act<br /> demanded by the publishers, all of the 131<br /> English and United States novels picked out by<br /> Mr. Lancefield as recently made, there would<br /> also have been made in Canada instead of the<br /> three, as actually the case.<br /> (5) That the Imperial Government, for selfish<br /> ends, tricked Canada, and forced the benefits<br /> derivable from the Berne Convention on our<br /> authors and artists against the earnest protests<br /> of the Canadian Government and the Minister of<br /> Justice.<br /> (6) That we have been unfairly deprived of our<br /> rights to legislate as to copyright, granted to us<br /> by the British North America Act of 1867.<br /> (7) That it is in the interests of the British<br /> author that cheap American reprints shall be<br /> excluded from Canada, so that he may be sure<br /> of getting IO per cent. on the higher prices to be<br /> extracted from the Canadian public by our pub-<br /> lishers.<br /> (8) That, as the United States are playing a<br /> game of “grab,” as Mr. Lancefield puts it<br /> Canada must pursue the same ignoble course,<br /> and that Canada must be isolated (although the<br /> United States, by foreign treaties, are not), until<br /> the Americans grant us reciprocity (as suggested<br /> by Mr. Lancefield) in their infinitely better book<br /> market.<br /> These are some of the assumptions we must<br /> swallow to adopt the platform of the Copyright<br /> Association of Canada.<br /> It must be distinctly understood that all the<br /> shouting has hitherto been done by half a dozen<br /> Canadian publishing houses and newspapers, and<br /> that this association comprises some twenty-six<br /> members, more than half of whom are inactive<br /> and indifferent; while there are 340 printing and<br /> publishing houses in the Dominion who do not<br /> care enough to pay 5 dollars to join the associa-<br /> tion. So much then for the labour cry and the<br /> deputations which besieged Sir John Macdonald<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#391) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR, 37<br /> and Sir John Thompson in the interests of pub-<br /> lishers and the labour party.<br /> As to printing and binding in Canada, there<br /> are very few authors who make enough out of<br /> Canada alone to pay for printing, binding, and<br /> commissions, the market is so limited; many of<br /> us can speak feelingly on this subject; so it is<br /> absurd to suppose that under any circumstances<br /> our publishers would print and bind more than<br /> 15 per cent. of the 131 novels referred to as<br /> printed in England and the United States, only<br /> three of which, as Mr. Lancefield bitterly com-<br /> plains, were made in Canada, and not even that<br /> much would they make if they had to pay the<br /> author say 500 or IOOO dollars royalty. Our<br /> publishers will take no chances or make tenders,<br /> as United States publishers do; they desire<br /> only to select the most catchy of the<br /> British or foreign novels on their own conditions<br /> and at their own prices. We have yet to learn<br /> that a fair offer was ever made to a British author<br /> by a Canadian publisher and that such offer was<br /> refused.<br /> Nothing can be more untrue than that the<br /> mother country wronged Canada in the matter of<br /> the Berne Convention. On the contrary, a vast<br /> benefit was conferred on native art and literature,<br /> and, moreover, the assent of the Canadian<br /> Government was freely given. See Sir John<br /> Thompson’s “Despatch on Canadian Copyright,”<br /> May, 1894.<br /> In 1887, when Canada became a party to the<br /> convention, the benefits likely to accrue to<br /> native art and literature were clearly recognised,<br /> and it was not till half a dozen publishing houses<br /> and newspapers found that the interests of<br /> foreign printers were postponed by the conven-<br /> tion to those of authors and artists the world over<br /> that the shouting commenced and the Printers’<br /> Copyright Act of 1889 was forced on the Govern-<br /> ment.<br /> It is also untrue that Canada has been deprived<br /> of any rights granted the in matter of copyright<br /> under the British North America Act of 1867.<br /> This Act was known to be subject to the Colonial<br /> Ilaws Walidity Act of 1865 (Imp.), whereby no<br /> Colonial Act can amend or repeal an Imperial Act<br /> conferring privileges within Canada, as was well<br /> understood.<br /> It must be kept in mind that the whole dispute<br /> is with reference to the printing of cheap novels<br /> and serial novels in newspapers, of the “Dodo&quot;<br /> and “Trilby’’ class, and of European and<br /> American musical works. Were it not for the<br /> shouting of half a dozen publishing houses and<br /> newspapers and the falsely-alleged interests of<br /> trades and labour councils in the matter, even<br /> Mr. J. D. Edgar, M.P., would admit that the<br /> vast market opened up by the Berne Convention<br /> afforded such facilities for the growth and re-<br /> muneration of Canadian art and literature that<br /> we are under lasting obligations to the mother<br /> country. John G. RIDouT.<br /> Toronto. — Toronto Globe, June 12, 1895.<br /> *-* ~ *<br /> -- - -,<br /> NOTES FROM PARIS.<br /> F I may be allowed to say a few words pro<br /> I domo, I should like to contradict the report<br /> that I am writing “the story of Daudet&#039;s<br /> youth.” This I did to the best of my ability<br /> about a year ago. What I am writing, in collabo-<br /> ration with M. Alphonse Daudet, is a story of the<br /> great novelist&#039;s youth, the story of some adven-<br /> tures which he had on the Rhone when he was<br /> quite a lad, in company of his little cousin Léonce.<br /> As Mme. de Genlis would have called this book,<br /> had she been writing it, it is the story of “Alphonse<br /> and Léonce ; or, the Victims of Imagination.” This<br /> work was finished on Wednesday last, after a<br /> sitting of five hours, the day previous to Daudet&#039;s<br /> departure to Champrosay, where he means to set<br /> hard at work upon his new novel: “Ie Soutien<br /> de Famille.”<br /> M. Daudet has specially asked me to deny that<br /> he ever made the offensive statement, concerning<br /> English women, which was attributed to him by a<br /> Parisian reporter. It appears that this reporter<br /> was one of the many whom Daudet was unable to<br /> receive. He wrote his interview all the same,<br /> like a true new journalist, and put the offending<br /> words into Daudet&#039;s mouth. What Daudet really<br /> said, to another reporter, was that he preferred<br /> the way in which French ladies dressed.<br /> There is no doubt that the Parisian élégante<br /> does dress with better taste, especially in point of<br /> selection of colours, than her English sister, and<br /> that this is so is the just punishment of English<br /> snobbishness. Almost all our élégantes think it<br /> indispensable to dress in Paris, and are supplied<br /> with the leavings of the French ladies. Go with<br /> a Parisienne to some big dressmaker&#039;s in Paris,<br /> and ask to be shown the latest fashions, and it<br /> is ten to one that you will see some very ugly<br /> materials. “Oh, don’t look at that,” the dress-<br /> maker will say, “that is for our foreign customers.”<br /> So the unhappy foreigh customers get served with<br /> what no Parisienne would wear, and go about<br /> imagining themselves dressed in the height of<br /> Barisian fashion. It serves them right. Let the<br /> Englishwoman dress at home, and let the foolish<br /> French dressmaker be.<br /> Zola is working very hard at “Rome.” He is<br /> down at Médan, “cloistered in work,” as he<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#392) ################################################<br /> <br /> 38<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> writes me in a note which I have just received<br /> from him. He has begged his friends not to<br /> come near him, “at least, not for another fortnight,<br /> until the fever has assuaged itself.” I suppose<br /> that we shall not see him again until the begin-<br /> ning of July, when he will preside over the<br /> monthly meeting of the Société des Gens de<br /> Lettres. -<br /> Monsieur de Goncourt is working at the third<br /> volume of his series on Japanese painters. This<br /> kind of work he considers rest, as compared to<br /> the effort required for the production of a novel.<br /> But he has by no means definitely abandoned the<br /> novel, and I believe has it in mind to write a<br /> book which shall be the confirmation of his<br /> theories. He is a wonderful old man, as<br /> energetic as most men thirty years his junior,<br /> and full of work. I sometimes doubt the<br /> sincerity of his unvarying apparent discontent.<br /> . The vegetarians must not ask M. Maxime<br /> JBouchor, the poet and dramatist, to speak well of<br /> their theories. Monsieur Boucher converted him-<br /> self to vegetarianism some months ago, and very<br /> nearly died in consequence. He is now making<br /> up for lost time with beefsteaks à la Tartare and<br /> other most carnal delights. Francisque Sarcey,<br /> on the other hand, has become a confirmed<br /> vegetarian, and, with the enthusiasm of the<br /> convert, tries to win others over to this régime,<br /> He says that since he gave up eating meat his<br /> capacity for work has doubled.<br /> At a literary re-union the other night, there<br /> being many leading novelists present, I asked<br /> whether the practice of writing fiction disposed<br /> an author to untruthfulness in ordinary life.<br /> The general opinion was that this was not the<br /> case, but this I am inclined to doubt. I should<br /> like to have other opinions on the subject. A<br /> man who tells stories professionally must, it<br /> seems to me, lose, to a certain extent, the percep-<br /> tion of truth. -<br /> Maurice Barrés has recently returned from<br /> Spain and the T3alearic Islands. He says that<br /> Daudet is most popular in Spain, and that at<br /> Majorca, his “La Derniére Classe” is familiar to<br /> everybody. It has been adapted to local condi-<br /> tions. It is a Balearic schoolmaster who gives<br /> the last lesson to his class in the Balearic patois<br /> before the law enforcing Spanish in these islands<br /> as the language in which the children are to be<br /> taught at the schools has been promulgated.<br /> Daudet was very happy when he heard this, for<br /> he has always been greatly attached to these<br /> islands, and has often told me that it was the<br /> dream and ambition of his life to end his days<br /> there. -<br /> Max Nordau, the author of “Degeneration,” is<br /> at present at work on a novel, “I shan’t write<br /> another philosophical work for some years,” he<br /> said to me. “I don’t want to be nailed down to<br /> any speciality.” When his novel is finished he<br /> will write a play, and then perhaps another novel.<br /> I should say that there is a great deal of work in<br /> Max Nordau yet. He is only forty-six; and as<br /> hale a man as one can wish to see. He began<br /> writing when he was twelve years old, and made<br /> money with his pen when he was fourteen. At<br /> the age of eighteen he was keeping all his family,<br /> and indeed was earning as much as a thousand<br /> francs a month, quite a fortune for Pesth<br /> Monsieur Jules Lémaître was yesterday elected<br /> to the French Academy by twenty-one votes, at<br /> the first ballot. Nine votes were given to<br /> Monsieur Jules Delafosse. We had expected<br /> that the latter would have ten votes, but the<br /> election of Monsieur Jules Lémaître was a fore-<br /> gone conclusion. I hear that the solitary<br /> academician who voted at both ballotings for<br /> Emile Zola was Monsieur Paul Bourget. De<br /> Lesseps&#039;s seat could not be filled, and this elec-<br /> tion has been put off till next December.<br /> Monsieur Charmes just missed his election by one<br /> vote, and, from what I hear, is likely to be elected<br /> in December. He has contributed but little to<br /> the literature of his country, and is known<br /> rather as a politician and student of history than<br /> as a man of letters. His great work has been a<br /> publication entitled “Le Comité des Travaux<br /> historiques et scintifiques.”<br /> Monsieur Jules Lémaitre is what the French<br /> call un heureua. He has succeeded in everything<br /> which he has attempted. Stay, I think that there<br /> is one ambition which he has as yet been unable<br /> to realise, and that is that though he has often<br /> tried to write a novel, he has never written one<br /> which has attracted any attention. But as a<br /> critic, as a poet, and as a dramatic author, he has<br /> achieved very great success. His criticisms of<br /> living writers are excellent, though perhaps he<br /> was rather too severe on George Ohnet. He<br /> was born in 1853, and went through the Ecole<br /> Normale without having his originality stamped<br /> out of him. His first book, a volume of poems<br /> entitled “Les Petites Orientales,” was published<br /> in 1883, and since then he has come to the<br /> front as a critic, a poet, and a dramatic author,<br /> although not as a writer of fiction. Besides<br /> “Tues Petites Orientales’’ he has written another<br /> volume of poems entitled “Médaillons.” His<br /> dramatic criticisms in the Journal des Débats are<br /> celebrated as masterpieces of their kind. His<br /> plays “Revoltée,” “Le Deputé Leveau,” “Les<br /> Rois,” “L’Age Difficile,” and “Pardon,” have<br /> all been great successes, and “Billets du Matin,”<br /> “Figurines,” “Les Rois,” “Serenus,” and “Dix<br /> Contes” are read, though not without disap-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#393) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 39<br /> pointment, by those who want to find in this uni-<br /> versally successful man of letters a successful<br /> writer of fiction also.<br /> “Gyp,” otherwise Madame La Comtesse de<br /> Martel, sends me a delightful book of dialogues,<br /> entitled “Les Gens Chics,” full of biting satire<br /> on the cosmopolitan society which has of late<br /> years ousted the old French society from its<br /> place. The book, which forms the third volume<br /> of Charpentier&#039;s admirable “Collection Poly-<br /> chrome,” is illustrated with numerous coloured<br /> illustrations by the inimitable “Bob.” “Gyp”<br /> is the creator of the dialogue story, and far and<br /> away the best living writer of this form of fiction.<br /> The more she writes the more witty she seems<br /> to become, and a truer picture of certain phases<br /> of Parisian high life than those given in this book<br /> it would be difficult to imagine. Messrs. Char-<br /> pentier and Fasquelle must be complimented on<br /> this “Collection Polychrome” of theirs. The<br /> volumes are admirably produced at a price which<br /> leaves one wondering “how it can be done for the<br /> money.” The first volume of the series, illus-<br /> trated in colours, was “Un Siecle des Modes<br /> Féminines,” with pictures of four hundred<br /> toilettes. This was followed by Gautier’s “Emaux<br /> et Camées,” and now we have “Gyp’s” “Les<br /> Gens Chics.” The selection, as may be seen, is a<br /> wide one.<br /> I am very sorry to hear that that excellent<br /> publisher, M. Charpentier, is in great trouble.<br /> His son is reported to be at death&#039;s door. Every-<br /> body who has come into contact with this gentle-<br /> man will sympathise with him in his distress.<br /> A new poet has recently revealed himself to<br /> the Parisians. This is M. Lionel des Rieux,<br /> the author of the recently published volume of<br /> poems, “Les Amours de Lyristès,” admirably<br /> produced at the office of Le Mercure de<br /> France. This little book has attracted con-<br /> siderable attention in literary Paris, and at many<br /> houses recently I have heard it discussed,<br /> Personally M. des Rieux seems to be unknown<br /> to most literary people, and I believe that he<br /> leads a very retired life, entirely given up to his<br /> work. Under these circumstances one may expect<br /> great things of him in the future; indeed, I<br /> hear that he has an important work in pre-<br /> paration.<br /> I have always admired Victor Hugo&#039;s pro-<br /> ductivity. Since I have been working with<br /> Daudet on this new book my admiration has<br /> increased. Daudet supplied me with foolscap<br /> paper which came from the stock left behind by<br /> Victor Hugo. He never used any other. It is<br /> rough mediaeval paper, and paper on which it<br /> was almost impossible to write. I tried every<br /> variety of steel pen from the “J” downwards, but<br /> WOL, WI.<br /> had the greatest difficulty on making any pro-<br /> gress whatever. But for a kind of superstition<br /> which made me think it good policy to work on<br /> Victor Hugo&#039;s paper, I should have asked for<br /> cream-laid. I cannot imagine how the poet<br /> could remain serene and composed whilst his pen<br /> struggled with the fibrous jungle of the paper.<br /> Possibly he chose such paper on purpose, in order<br /> that his composition should be slow and delibe-<br /> rate, as a sort of Mexican curb on a too ready<br /> pen.<br /> Max Nordau uses very smooth paper, the kind<br /> called “foreign note,” I believe, and writes with<br /> a steel pen and violet ink. His manuscript is ex-<br /> ceedingly fine and small, so small as almost to<br /> need a magnifying glass. The whole MS. of<br /> “Degeneration ” consists of less than two hundred<br /> pages, whilst some of his longer novels are con-<br /> tained in sixty pages of manuscript. He keeps all<br /> his manuscripts bound up, as they return from<br /> the printers. Daudet, like Du Maurier, writes in<br /> copybooks, Zola on unruled sermon paper. The<br /> new writer writes with a type-writer on foolscap<br /> sheets.<br /> How the English reader does seem to delight<br /> in the sufferings of others I hardly pick up a<br /> popular paper without seeing some description<br /> of prison life or of punishment, whilst most of the<br /> short stories which I read end in somebody&#039;s con-<br /> viction or hanging. I really think that this form<br /> of Sadism is more immoral than the outspoken<br /> immorality of the French, and far more injurious.<br /> And I regret deeply to see the heroification of<br /> the detective which is so fashionable in English<br /> fiction. For the detective is ipso facto a con-<br /> temptible person, who ought to be allowed to<br /> slink, and peer, and listen in obscurity. There<br /> is no making of a hero in him.<br /> RoBERT H, SHERARD.<br /> I 23, Boulevard Magenta, Paris.<br /> June, 1895.<br /> *-* -º<br /> g- &gt; -<br /> NEW YORK LETTER,<br /> New York, May 25.<br /> HE Editor of the Author recently quoted<br /> from Mr. Walter Blackburne Harte&#039;s<br /> “Meditations in Motley” a paragraph<br /> that it was “a most lamentable thing that, in<br /> spite of all the literary activity and the intel-<br /> lectual restlessness of our time, there are not<br /> probably more than half a dozen writers in the<br /> United States who follow literature, pure and<br /> simple, as a profession; and it is noteworthy<br /> that among these there are neither poets nor<br /> essayists.” In commenting on this, the editor<br /> Fº<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#394) ################################################<br /> <br /> 4O<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> declared that we in America had no quarterly<br /> reviews, and that such weekly reviews as the<br /> Spectator and the Saturday Review “simply do<br /> not exist in America.”<br /> There are, perhaps, half a dozen quarterly<br /> reviews published in the United States of one<br /> type or another. Most of them are dull, and<br /> few of them pay their contributors. The best of<br /> them is the Sewanee Review, edited by Prof.<br /> W. P. Trent, which is excellent. The only<br /> American representative of the weekly review is<br /> the Nation, for the admirable Dial of Chicago is<br /> a semi-monthly.<br /> If literature be taken to mean the actual<br /> writing of books and not the editing of magazines,<br /> or journalism of one sort or another, or teaching<br /> or lecturing, then I think Mr. W. B. Harte is<br /> not far out in his assertion. Mr. Howells, Mr.<br /> James, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Bret Harte, Mr.<br /> Aldrich, Mr. Stockton, Mr. Cable, Mr. Clemens<br /> (“Mark Twain’’) are authors pure and simple,<br /> not editors or lecturers or professors; and by<br /> literature pure and simple they support them-<br /> selves now. Mr. Howells, Mr. Aldrich, and Mr.<br /> Stockton were editors for years, and Mr. Clemens<br /> made money as a lecturer first, losing it after-<br /> wards as a publisher. Mr. Charles Dudley<br /> Warner and Mr. Laurence Hutton are connected<br /> with Harper’s Monthly, Mr. Gilder with the<br /> Century, Col. Higginson with Harper&#039;s Bazaar,<br /> Mr. Eugene Field with the Record of Chicago,<br /> Mr. A. S. Hardy with the Cosmopolitan, Mr.<br /> Harold Frederick with the New York Times,<br /> Mr. H. W. Mabie with the Outlook, Mr. H. C.<br /> Bunner with Puck, Mr. W. J. Stillman with the<br /> London Times, Mr. Henry Harland with the<br /> Pellow Book. Dr. Edward Eggleston besides<br /> writing novels writes short histories; Mr. John<br /> Fiske lectures and also writes school books; Mr.<br /> Whitcomb Riley lectures, or rather reads from<br /> his own writings; so does Mr. Hopkinson Smith,<br /> who is also a successful painter in water-colours.<br /> Mr. Stedman is a stockbroker, Mr. Thomas Nelson<br /> Page is a practising lawyer, Mr. Weir Mitchell is<br /> a practising physician, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt<br /> is in the Civil Service, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge is<br /> in the United States Senate. Fourteen of the<br /> members of the Authors’ Club are attached to<br /> Columbia College here in New York, and a dozen<br /> other members belong to other universities here<br /> and there throughout the country.<br /> This brief list will not, of course, answer the<br /> question propounded by the editor of the Author,<br /> as to how an American man of letters, not being<br /> a popular novelist, manages to live. But it<br /> makes clear what is a fact, that the American man<br /> of letters, not being a teller of tales, cannot<br /> support himself by literature pure and simple.<br /> r—-<br /> *<br /> He may have inherited money as Motley had,<br /> and Prescott, and Parkman. He may be a<br /> college professor as Longfellow was, and Lowell.<br /> He may be an editor of a newspaper as Bryant<br /> was. He may be a lecturer as Emerson was. He<br /> may live with extreme frugality as Whittier did,<br /> and so support himself by the sale of his poems<br /> to the periodicals. He may be a stockbroker as<br /> Mr. Stedman is or a bank-examiner as Mr. John<br /> Burroughs is. But by literature pure and<br /> simple he will find it very difficult to support<br /> himself, unless he is a writer of popular novels or<br /> of popular plays.<br /> But is there anything in this state of affairs at<br /> all peculiar to the United States now P Has<br /> there ever been a time anywhere when literature<br /> pure and simple supported an author, who had<br /> no wealthy patron, no place under Government, no<br /> pension, no connection with a university ? I<br /> doubt if such a time has ever been ; and I doubt<br /> if it would be good for literature if it should<br /> come to pass now. Here in America, just now<br /> there are any number of openings for a quick-<br /> witted man of letters ; I think there are more in<br /> proportion here than there are in England.<br /> Journalism, as such, has of course nothing to do<br /> with literature as such ; the aims of the two<br /> callings are wholly distinct ; and the practice of<br /> the one sooner or later unfits a man for the<br /> practice of the other, yet the dividing line<br /> between them often seems almost invisible ; and<br /> many authors earn their living by newspaper<br /> work.<br /> Again, the line between the daily newspaper<br /> and the weekly journal is hard to draw ; and so<br /> is that between the weekly journal and the<br /> monthly magazines. Never have there been more<br /> periodicals in the United States than now ; and<br /> many of them are prosperous, and the best of<br /> them are very liberal paymasters—as every<br /> British author who has written for them can<br /> testify. If Poe were alive now his wares would<br /> never lack a market, and perhaps with prosperity<br /> his character would have stiffened into manliness.<br /> (This is a digression—but an excursus may be<br /> the most instructive passage of a sermon; I<br /> cannot resist the temptation to remark here that<br /> there is unending nonsense talked in England<br /> about Poe and his hard luck. The fact is that a<br /> study of Poe&#039;s career and of the conditions of<br /> literature in America at the time will convince<br /> any disinterested reader that Poe was his own<br /> only enemy. He impressed people favourably at<br /> first, and they were always willing to help him ;<br /> and then, before long, he threw away his chance.)<br /> Messrs. Macmillan and Co. have just begun a<br /> series of monthly novels in one volume in paper<br /> covers at fifty cents. These novels are all copy-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#395) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 4 I<br /> righted, and are many of them by American<br /> authors. Mr. Marion Crawford, Mrs. Humphrey<br /> Ward, and Mr. Kipling are among the novelists<br /> whose recent books will appear in this series.<br /> Some surprise is felt among other publishers here<br /> that the Macmillans should establish so cheap a<br /> series now, when there is no longer a need to<br /> compete with the pirates. The Scribners, it is<br /> understood, will not this summer make any<br /> additions to their fifty cent yellow-covered<br /> series, which contains the best of Mr. Stockton’s<br /> tales, and of Mrs. Burnett&#039;s. The Harpers seem<br /> to have also abandoned their fifty cent paper<br /> series of American novels, called “Harper&#039;s<br /> Quarterly Library,” at least the volume for<br /> February has not appeared yet. The paper-<br /> covered series of Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., and<br /> of Longmans, Green, and Co., are not pushed<br /> with vigour, probable because both these impor-<br /> tant publishing houses have discovered that the<br /> conditions of the book trade being what they are<br /> there is but little profit in trying to sell a copy-<br /> righted book at fifty cents.<br /> The conditions of the book trade are still very<br /> unsettled. The enormous stock of pirated books<br /> left on hand at the passage of the Copyright Act<br /> four years ago is apparently nearly all worked<br /> off; but the stereotype plates exist, and these are<br /> in use. Now the large “dry-goods stores,” some-<br /> times called “department stores,” which are<br /> “universal providers,” have been enlarging their<br /> book departments and cutting prices right and<br /> left. On a very popular book the price is some-<br /> times cut below cost. I saw “Trilby’’ the other<br /> day advertised at 97 cents, the regular price being<br /> I dollar 75 cents, This sort of thing is likely to<br /> hurt the regular bookseller. It is to be noted,<br /> however, that the book department of these<br /> department stores, at first a mere adjunct to the<br /> other departments, and serving only as a means<br /> of tempting purchasers inside the building, is<br /> now gaining in importance and is therefore in the<br /> hands of men who really understand the book<br /> trade. One department store here in New York<br /> has just engaged a new manager for its book<br /> department at a salary of two thousand pounds<br /> a year; and it gives up to books a space on the<br /> ground floor about a hundred feet square. It<br /> also spends large sums in advertising. It may<br /> interest to see how friendly the advertiser is with<br /> the newspaper reader (this firm pays the writer<br /> of its advertisements four thousand pounds a<br /> year !) Here is a recent advertisement of theirs:<br /> GETTING BETTER AND BETTER<br /> Good storekeeping means progress. Yesterday&#039;s best<br /> isn’t well enough for to-morrow. But it is easy to go from<br /> one height to a greater if the business has a springy, full-<br /> of-life step. Do you keep track of what is going on here?<br /> Interesting, surely; you can make it profitable if you<br /> care to. -<br /> WE’vE A NEW Book STORE,<br /> Not yet full grown, but far enough along so you can see<br /> what the intent is, and how great and good it is likely<br /> to be.<br /> We mean to keep the books any reader of healthy tastes<br /> will want—all of them. Easy to get at-easy to see—<br /> welcoming you to see them. And we mean to so choose<br /> and so price the books that they’ll tempt you to buy.<br /> Let this one lot—HANDY CLASSIC EDITIONs of the most<br /> noted works in English literature—give you a notion of our<br /> new way with books. These “classics &quot; are all beautifully<br /> printed on good paper and bound in full embossed cloth<br /> with silver stamping.<br /> volume—we say I2 cents.<br /> inches.<br /> A Book of Golden Deeds.<br /> By C. M. Yonge.<br /> Black Beauty. By Anna<br /> Sewell.<br /> Coming Race, The. By<br /> Lord Lytton.<br /> Crown of Wild Olive. By<br /> John Ruskin.<br /> Dreams. By Olive Schreiner.<br /> Lady of the Lake. Scott.<br /> Light of Asia. By Arnold.<br /> Epictetus. Discourses of,<br /> and the Encheiridion.<br /> Ethics of the Dust. By<br /> John Ruskin.<br /> Greatest Thing in the World,<br /> and other Addresses. By<br /> Henry Drummond.<br /> Heroes and Hero Worship.<br /> By Carlyle.<br /> *House of Seven Gables,<br /> The. By Nathaniel Haw-<br /> thorne.<br /> Lamb’s Essays of Elia.<br /> *Scarlet Letter,<br /> Publisher&#039;s price 35 cents the<br /> This is a part list.<br /> Average thickness, # of an inch.<br /> Size 4 × 6<br /> Lucile.<br /> dith.<br /> Mornings in Florence. By<br /> John Ruskin.<br /> IBy Owen Mere-<br /> *Mosses from an Old Manse.<br /> By Nathaniel Hawthorne.<br /> Paul and Virginia.<br /> Pleasures of Life, The. By<br /> Sir John Lubbock.<br /> *Poe, Edgar Allan. Poems.<br /> Queen of the Air. By John<br /> Ruskin.<br /> Sartor Resartus. By Thomas<br /> Carlyle.<br /> The. By<br /> Nathaniel Hawthorne.<br /> Sesame and Lilies. By<br /> John Ruskin.<br /> Story of an African Farm.<br /> By Olive Schreiner.<br /> Thoughts from the Emperor<br /> Marcus Aurelius Anto-<br /> ninus.<br /> Vicar of Wakefield. By<br /> Lamb&#039;s Last Essays of Elia. Oliver Goldsmith.<br /> *Longfellow, Henry W. *Whittier, John Greenleaf.<br /> Early Poems. Early Poems.<br /> *Lowell, James Russell,<br /> Early Poems.<br /> Of course there is no copyright on any of these<br /> books. I have marked with a star the volumes<br /> by American authors now out of copyright. Most<br /> of those by British authors are also out of copy-<br /> right in England. H.<br /> *— — —”<br /> •-<br /> AUSTRALIAN NOTES.<br /> \ | ARCUS CLARKE, the Australian novelist,<br /> whose work, “For the Term of His<br /> Natural Life,” is looked upon as the<br /> greatest Australian novel yet published, died in<br /> poor circumstances. He was for some years<br /> librarian of the public library, Melbourne. His<br /> wife, who survived him, holds a small Govern-<br /> ment appointment in Melbourne. She is said to<br /> have received little or nothing from “His Natural<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#396) ################################################<br /> <br /> 42<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Life,” which Clarke either sold outright, or<br /> allowed to pass away from him in some way.<br /> Literature in Australia has not been an<br /> encouraging occupation so far. Clarke died<br /> young and poor; Gordon, the poet, shot himself<br /> because he could not meet a £30 bill that was<br /> coming due ; Kendall, the poet, after a hard life,<br /> died very poor; Bracken, the New Zealand poet,<br /> has been a newspaper editor, canvassed for a life<br /> insurance company, and various other things.<br /> At the present time, with the exception of “Rolf<br /> Bolderwood,” Ada Cambridge, Hume Nisbett,<br /> and a few others, most Australian writers have<br /> evacuated the South, and are mostly to be found<br /> in London.<br /> a- * ~ *<br /> MAID MARIAN&#039;S DEAD,<br /> Maid Marian&#039;s dead, you say. A sadder cheer<br /> Possesses all the pleasant wood of Shere,<br /> The cushat moans upon her elder-bush,<br /> The lavrock’s out o&#039; tune to-day : the thrush<br /> He sings a new song to the woodmen’s ear.<br /> We trample underfoot dead leaves and sere,<br /> All unafraid skim by the fallow deer,<br /> Never a horn’s note wakes the woodland hush<br /> Maid Marian’s dead.<br /> Yet must I deem her merry ghost walks here,<br /> Fitly bedight in the green forest-gear,<br /> While shadows of wild deer before her rush,<br /> And Robin by her treads the grasses lush,<br /> While England loves these lovers who shall fear<br /> Maid Marian’s dead P<br /> NORA. HoPPER.<br /> *— — —”<br /> r- - -<br /> NOTES AND NEWS,<br /> E publish in another column, by permis-<br /> sion of the speaker, Mr. Hall Caine&#039;s<br /> address to the booksellers. Few things<br /> have ever created so much interest and excitement<br /> in the publishing world, and the reason is not far<br /> to seek. Hitherto the publisher has very carefully<br /> kept the secrets of his trade from both authors<br /> on the one hand, and booksellers on the other.<br /> Let us regard this secrecy merely as a good stroke<br /> of business, if you please. The author has found<br /> out, however, the whole of the Secrets, and has<br /> published them. Certain publishers made it their<br /> business, impudently, to deny the author&#039;s figures,<br /> The booksellers, especially, were led to believe<br /> that they were wrong. Now, Mr. Hall Caine has<br /> made a separate investigation for himself, and has<br /> obtained figures from publishers which agree with<br /> our own. After this it will be difficult to deny<br /> their accuracy. Now, the objections raised in the<br /> papers against Mr. Hall Caine&#039;s conclusion seem<br /> to be the following:<br /> I. That he spoke to retail newsagents and not<br /> to booksellers. Perhaps. But every bookseller in<br /> the country has now got his figures, so that it<br /> comes to the same thing.<br /> 2. That he was not strong enough against the<br /> discount houses, nor strong enough in favour of<br /> the net price.<br /> One thing at a time. Surely it was enough for<br /> one evening to give the figures which he pre-<br /> sented. Besides, there is not as yet unanimity<br /> against discount booksellers or in favour of a net<br /> price.<br /> 3. That he talked as if the only books were<br /> those which sell 20,000 each.<br /> The objection does not seem carried out by the<br /> text. But it must be remembered that there were<br /> six books in the year which sold between them<br /> 180,000 copies, a substantial slice of the year&#039;s<br /> trade.<br /> 4. That the estimate of production was too low<br /> for any book with a sale less than 20,000. Mr.<br /> Edward Marston, in the Daily Chronicle, raised<br /> this objection. Now, it is extremely unfair to<br /> take “The Manxman&quot; as a model of the 6s.<br /> novel. It is a book of 27; sheets, 439 pp., and<br /> 5OO words to a page, and 219,500 words—a book<br /> much larger than the average one, or three volume<br /> uovel.<br /> I take at random three other 6s. novels.<br /> a. One contains 20 sheets, 320 pp., at 250<br /> words to the page, viz., 80,000 words in<br /> all, rather over one-third of “The<br /> Manxman.”<br /> /3. The second contains 19 sheets, 300 pages,<br /> at 250 words to a page, viz., 75,000<br /> words.<br /> y. The third contains 18; sheets, 293 pages,<br /> 250 words to a page, or 73,000 words.<br /> If now any one will refer to the “Cost of Pro-<br /> duction” he will find that a book of 17 sheets,<br /> or 272 pp., at about 258 words to a page, for a<br /> first edition of 30OO copies, would cost II+d., or<br /> say, one shilling without advertising. Following<br /> editions of 3000 copies can be produced at less<br /> than IOd, each.<br /> 5. That this talk about the cost of production<br /> is merely the outcry of a few novelists who think<br /> they are not getting enough.<br /> That is not so : it is the outcry of all the men<br /> and women who write books: it means that they<br /> want to know all the particulars in the manage-<br /> ment of their own property.<br /> It is not a question of what we get: it is a<br /> question of what the property is worth : it is<br /> also a question of what the distributor should be<br /> paid for his services.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#397) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. is<br /> 6. Idle talk about publishers’ “risks.” We<br /> are talking, here, of books which carry no risk<br /> with them.<br /> Since this is all that can be said against Mr.<br /> Hall Caine, we may read his address over again<br /> in confidence; and, in our own interests, we may<br /> learn it by heart and commit it to memory.<br /> Some eight years ago a certain literary paper<br /> reviewed a “Life of Richard Jefferies,” written by<br /> myself. The reviewer spoke kindly of the bio-<br /> graphy, for which reason I do not mention the<br /> name of the paper. But, it said, if anyone in<br /> ten years&#039; time were to take up the “Life of<br /> Jefferies &#039;&#039; he would ask in astonishment, “Where<br /> are the documents or writings of this man P’” It<br /> was really one of the most unfortunate predictions<br /> ever offered. Nearly that time has now elapsed.<br /> What do we see P Fancy prices for all Jefferies&#039;<br /> early editions, reprints of his books, a constant<br /> stream of quotations from them, and a growing<br /> and widening circle of readers; a second biography<br /> of him—that by Mr. H. S. Salt ; and now the most<br /> dainty little book in the world—just issued—a<br /> collection of “Thoughts” from his writings. The<br /> publishers are Longmans. I hope that every<br /> lover of the country, even if he is not already a<br /> lover of Jefferies, will make a note of this book.<br /> It is concentrated Jefferies. Oh! the wonderful<br /> writer | The eyes that saw through and through<br /> The soul open to the voices of the flowers, the<br /> trees, the grasses, the skies, the clouds ! There<br /> has never been any worshipper of Nature like<br /> unto Richard Jefferies since poets first began.<br /> A note has been received by me concerning a<br /> Certain person who owes an author a somewhat<br /> considerable sum of money, which he will not pay,<br /> taking no notice of letters sent to him. The infor-<br /> mation is sent with a request that the case may be<br /> published in the Author. But, it is said, the<br /> author refuses to take steps on religious grounds.<br /> Then what is the good of publishing the case in<br /> the Author 2 . The time has gone by when we<br /> published real cases under initials in order to<br /> prove to people the abuses which exist. If we<br /> publish such a case as this, it must be as part of<br /> the whole case, as taken up by our lawyer. Where<br /> religious scruples come in it is difficult to discover.<br /> A man owes money; he does not dispute the<br /> debt; he answers no letters; he takes no notice.<br /> Evidently the only sequel possible is the lawyer.<br /> If the author is not prepared for the intervention<br /> of the lawyer, why does he ask for the money at<br /> all? ... And should not religious scruples point<br /> out that to let a scoundrel rob with impunity is<br /> equivalent to encouraging him to rob others? and<br /> surely that would be a very irreligious thing to<br /> do.<br /> The Secretary of the Society has again asked<br /> me to call attention to the fact that a safe has<br /> been purchased for the storing of the agreements<br /> of members of the Society. All agreements will,<br /> of course, be kept absolutely private and confi-<br /> dential. There are, however, two advantages in<br /> placing the documents in the hands of the Secre-<br /> tary: First, the advantage accruing to the member<br /> in the knowledge of their secure preservation;<br /> and, secondly, the advantage accruing to the<br /> Secretary from the knowledge he obtains of the<br /> different methods and principles of the different<br /> publishers.<br /> Certain members of the Society who resigned<br /> at the end of last year have returned to their<br /> allegiance, stating that they have been unable to<br /> act without the advice of the Society. This is<br /> very satisfactory, and shows how necessary the<br /> Society must be to most of those who live by<br /> literature.<br /> One may be thought to be insisting too strongly<br /> on the enormous increase of readers during the<br /> last few years. Let us look back a little. In<br /> the year 1837 there were 20,984 committals<br /> in England and Wales. Of this number only<br /> I 91 could read and write well. Of the rest<br /> some could read a little; the rest could not read<br /> at all. This proportion represented the condition<br /> of the class from which these criminals came—<br /> the agricultural and lower class of working people.<br /> To put it roughly, 200 out of 20,000 (or I per<br /> cent. only) could read and write well. The popu-<br /> lation of England and Wales was then about<br /> 2O,OOO,OOO. Setting aside 4,OOO,OOO for the better<br /> educated, there were left in this country only I<br /> per cent. in 15,000,000 who could read and write<br /> —only, that is to say, 15,OOO persons. These<br /> I5,OOO,OOO have now grown to 3O,OOO,OOO and<br /> they can all read. What do they read P Most<br /> of them only a newspaper. But they are getting<br /> village libraries, and they will soon read a great<br /> deal, because village life is dull, and reading will<br /> become for a time—and as a stepping-stone—the<br /> principal recreation.<br /> The astonishing circulation of many novels of<br /> the day seems, but is not, without precedent. If,<br /> for instance, we find novels of the day going into<br /> their fiftieth, hundredth, even hundred and<br /> twentieth edition, let us compare what was done<br /> with “Waverley.” Lockhart tells us that the first<br /> edition of IOOO copies appeared on July 7, 1814;<br /> the second before the 3rd of August; the third in<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#398) ################################################<br /> <br /> 44<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> October; the fourth in November ; the fifth in<br /> January, 1815; the sixth, of 1500 copies, in June,<br /> 1816; the seventh of 2000, in October, 1817; an<br /> eighth, of 2000, in April, 1822; that up to the<br /> edition of 1829, I I,000, at a guinea, were disposed<br /> of; and that up to the time of Lockhart&#039;s writing<br /> 40,000 copies of the edition of 1829 had gone.<br /> So that the circulation of “Waverley” up to the<br /> year 1836 or so was 51,000 copies. At that time<br /> the population of Great Britain and Ireland was<br /> about fifteen millions. It is now 40,000,000, and<br /> with its colonies it is about 60,000,000. A<br /> modern book therefore, to be in as great demand<br /> by 1895 as “Waverley” was by the year 1836,<br /> should have sold 200,000 copies. Well; but<br /> Scott&#039;s novels were priced at a guinea; those of<br /> the modern novelist at 6s. ; if price controls<br /> circulation, an equivalent to the popularity of<br /> Scott’s “Waverley” would in these days mean<br /> about 600,000 copies. And this total has not, so<br /> far as I know, been reached by any living man.<br /> WALTER BESANT.<br /> *- A --&gt;<br /> º- ~~<br /> FROM “GREEK SONNETS.”<br /> I.—THE THEATRE OF DIONYSUs, ATHENs.<br /> Here let me stand, where Sophocles has stood;<br /> Lo the blue sky, the mountains, and the main<br /> I hear the call of GEdipus again,<br /> Re-echoing thro’ this marble solitude :<br /> Chained to his rock I see Prometheus brood,<br /> Faint falls Alcestis&#039; fugitive refrain,<br /> And the birds chant their unforgotten strain,<br /> Flashed from the Rhodian minstrel&#039;s “airier mood.<br /> O to have listened when the Argives’ song<br /> Orestes’ stately trilogy unrolled,<br /> And o&#039;er the awe-struck crowd surged deep and strong,<br /> Their mighty rhythmic descant manifold,<br /> Or wailed the Persae, till the sunset-gold<br /> Sank the free waves of Salamis among.<br /> C. A. KELLY.<br /> II.—NAxos.<br /> What cry tempestuous thrilled the ecstatic air,<br /> And pierced false Theseus&#039; bosom thro&#039; and thro’,<br /> As fraught with doom, his black-sailed galley flew<br /> From her he spurned, the fairest of the fair?<br /> Catullus’ chant has deified despair :<br /> On Pluto&#039;s rock the faithless chief shall rue<br /> Those amorous lips, those eyes AEgean blue,<br /> And lucent gold of Ariadne’s hair.<br /> A glamour, o&#039;er gray cliffs and valleys lone<br /> Breathed from a vanished presence, broods around :<br /> Lo the proud sea where Chabrias’ star outshone !<br /> From those wild peaks what revelries resound !<br /> Thro&#039; yon green boskage glints Iacchus crowned,<br /> So dreams the minstrel, but the gods are gone.<br /> C. A. KELLY.<br /> * “Folk have called me Rhodian, do you know?”<br /> Aristophanes&#039; Apology,<br /> OPENING OF THE BRONTÉ MUSEUM,<br /> (Saturday, May 18, 1895.)<br /> P the old perpendicular main street,<br /> paved with worse material than good<br /> intentions, past the queer little shops<br /> and the Black Bull of immortal memory, until we<br /> find ourselves in the midst of such a crowd as<br /> probably Haworth has never before seen. Brontë<br /> worshippers have been asked to bear witness to<br /> the faith that is in them, and they have responded<br /> in no uncertain voice. In front of an unassuming<br /> doorway, with the mystic No. 2 upon it in white<br /> letters, standing upon an unpretentious arm-<br /> chair, a gentleman is reading the speech which<br /> Sir Wemyss Reid should have delivered in person,<br /> had not ill-health compelled him to be absent.<br /> By dint of edging our way step by step into the<br /> heart of the crowd, we manage to catch the words<br /> “neighbourhood — forefront — literature— bleak<br /> moors,” but we are told afterwards that the<br /> speech will “look well in print.” We cheerfully<br /> await the continuity which those five words seem<br /> somewhat to lack.<br /> After the speech, the door is formally opened,<br /> and some few of those in front admitted to the<br /> museum. The museum is small, and the crowd<br /> is large; hence a considerable amount of waiting<br /> is necessary. An English crowd, surrounded on<br /> all sides by house-walls, and being slowly broiled,<br /> as in a crater, by the captive sunbeams, is not<br /> always good - tempered ; but this crowd is,<br /> singularly so. A diversion is created by the<br /> appearance of Dr. Wright, an invaluable con-<br /> tributor to Bronté lore, who finds it no easy task<br /> to gain the doorway, even under escort of a bland,<br /> white-ribboned official. We are glad to see him.<br /> After a time he who, august in blue, guards the<br /> door proclaims that strangers shall take prece-<br /> dence over inhabitants, as the latter can see the<br /> museum any day. We live exactly five miles<br /> away, across the hill, and are wont to haunt<br /> Haworth like a familiar spirit, but our conscience<br /> unhesitatingly proclaims us a stranger. We<br /> enlist the services of a policeman in our imme-<br /> diate rear on behalf of a pilgrim from a distant<br /> land, and together we manage to reach the door,<br /> The Haworth morality, we regret to say, is lax;<br /> not a few of the villagers enter with us, hoping to<br /> pose as strangers; they have forgotten, however,<br /> that the guardian constable knows every face in<br /> the neighbourhood, and they are ignominiously<br /> pushed into a little room on the right. We<br /> chuckle, and pass up the stairs, into the museum<br /> itself. An oft-repeated cry assails our ears,<br /> “Pass on quickly, please; we can&#039;t keep the<br /> people outside waiting too long,” so that our<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#399) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 45<br /> inspection of the relics is of necessity hasty and<br /> incomplete. Our impression, however, is that the<br /> collection is a distinctly good one, and we learn<br /> that shortly it will be added to considerably.<br /> There are many copies, and some originals, of the<br /> Bronté letters, a few striking portraits in oil by<br /> Branwell Brontë, numerous personal possessions<br /> of the family, and odds and ends of all kinds.<br /> Particularly do we wish to linger above a white<br /> lace collar that once belonged to Charlotte; but<br /> how can we, with the haste-cry ringing in our<br /> ears P. We shall come here on a quiet day and<br /> sentimentalise upon that bit of lace; there is<br /> about it an inexpressible pathos, which only these<br /> scraps of personal apparel seem able to attain.<br /> Out once more into the street, and across to<br /> the defaced parish church, rich in the gaudiness<br /> of modern windows, memorial only in respect of<br /> one small tablet, just without the chancel,<br /> recording the death of Charlotte Bronté. There is<br /> a window also to the glory of God and the Brontë<br /> family, presented by an American citizen ; we<br /> metaphorically shake hands with that American<br /> citizen, but we feel that there was earnest need<br /> for an emergetic Bronté Society in England here.<br /> Then to the Black Bull, thronged with thirsty<br /> and a-hungered worshippers. A Yorkshire tea<br /> spread in the big room upstairs, and everyone<br /> in the most delightful of hail-fellow-well-met<br /> humour. The local band enlivening the pro-<br /> ceedings by waltz tunes, and other harmonious<br /> frivolities. Cream is scarce and the bread and<br /> butter gives out ; but no one minds in the least.<br /> Afterwards, a well-filled pipe and a ramble among<br /> the ever-dear moors, harsh of aspect, but tender<br /> with a lover&#039;s tenderness when once you win<br /> inside their mystery.<br /> At six we adjourn to a packed meeting in<br /> the capacious schoolroom. Alderman John Brigg<br /> is in the chair, and sits it gracefully. The<br /> Established Clergy are conspicuous by their<br /> absence—both from the platform, and, so far as<br /> we can judge, from the audience—but Canon<br /> Clarke, of Dewsbury, does his best to atone for<br /> this by giving us an admirable speech. Other<br /> speeches follow, but candour compels us to admit<br /> that the meeting has suffered by the absence of<br /> many excellent people who were expected to be<br /> present. Dr. Wright, when he comes in at fifth<br /> wicket down is of course interesting, and gives us<br /> not a few reminiscences which might with advan-<br /> tage have appeared in his book; but, in our<br /> opinion, he rendered too much honour to Ireland,<br /> and too little to their true inspiration, when<br /> dealing with the origin of the Bronté works.<br /> Mr. Joe Normanton, a local celebrity, rises at<br /> a later stage, and the raciness of the soil is about<br /> his lips. He exposes a blot on the escutcheon of<br /> the Rev. Patrick Brontë ; this otherwise exem-<br /> plary pastor, it seems, “spliced ” Mr. Normanton<br /> and his spouse some thirty or forty years ago,<br /> and Mr. Normanton finds it hard to forgive,<br /> though he may excuse.<br /> But the speech par earcellence of the evening<br /> comes, like good wine, at the close of the banquet.<br /> It is Mrs. Scatcherd, of Morley, we believe, who<br /> rises to ask if no ladies are to be allowed to speak,<br /> and who is forthwith invited, with genial if tardy<br /> courtesy, to mount the platform. And it is good<br /> to have waited to the end. With exquisite<br /> sarcasm she points out that they are here to-night<br /> to honour three women, and that no woman has<br /> as yet lifted her voice. With exquisite pathos<br /> she dwells on that too little appreciated book,<br /> “Wuthering Heights.” And we who love<br /> “Wuthering Heights” detect in the speaker&#039;s<br /> voice that trembling and hint of inward tears<br /> which we know so well; and it is hard to deter-<br /> mine whether Mrs. Scatcherd&#039;s pluck, or the true<br /> ring of her sentiment, is more to be admired.<br /> Out again into the heart of the moors, with a<br /> half gale blowing into the teeth of a dying sunset.<br /> Tºp there on the brow a lone farmhouse, and over<br /> the moor that deathless cry of “Cathy | Cathy<br /> Cathy | * Yes, we know how to love, we people<br /> of the moors.<br /> Finally, back to the Bull, which is almost<br /> deserted now. A seat, for sentiment&#039;s sake, in<br /> the original Branwell armchair, whisky (Irish<br /> whisky, again for sentiment’s sake), and a pipe.<br /> And added thereto, perchance, a feeling that it is<br /> risky for a mere writer of books to undertake to<br /> “write up&quot; a function.<br /> One last word. Two items in the day&#039;s pro-<br /> ceedings are much to be deplored. Firstly, some<br /> ill-timed allusions to politics were mingled with<br /> the nobler issue. Secondly, not a few of the<br /> visitors thought it necessary to appear “bedecked<br /> and bedraped” in the fashionable monstrosities<br /> of the hour, as though they were attending a<br /> regatta or a military tournament. Surely the<br /> Three Sisters would have welcomed quieter, and<br /> more careless, garb.<br /> But it has been a good day, and a good-tem-<br /> pered day, and even errors of taste must be con-<br /> doned. The grand upshot of it all is, that us who<br /> are Yorkshiremen, born of the moors, thank the<br /> gods for their mercies.<br /> HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE.<br /> *-* –”<br /> -*<br /> THE DINNER TO THE EDITOR,<br /> Tº: dinner was held on June 26. A report<br /> of part of the speeches will be presented<br /> in the August number.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#400) ################################################<br /> <br /> 46<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> THE “SPEAKER,” AND THE AUTHORS&#039;<br /> SOCIETY.<br /> N June 15 there was permitted to appear in<br /> the columns of the Speaker an article<br /> directed against this Society, which for<br /> unmannerly insinuations—there is no other word<br /> —and ridiculous figures would be difficult to beat.<br /> The following are a few specimens of the spirit<br /> in which the paper is written :<br /> 1. The writer says that the secretary is not aware<br /> of the existence of any other book than the novel.<br /> He either conceals or is ignorant of the publica-<br /> tion of a book by the Society some years since, in<br /> which the cost of producing nearly every kind<br /> of book was considered. The cases which are<br /> individually brought to the secretary cover every<br /> possible branch of literature. But where he<br /> writes of a novel he confines his attention to a<br /> novel.<br /> 2. “The Society,” he says, “is a self-elected<br /> English Academy.” It is, of course, nothing of<br /> the kind. Its sole function is the defence of<br /> literary property. The writer does not know<br /> even what the French Academy attempts. That<br /> body has nothing whatever to do with literary<br /> property.<br /> 3. It is in defence of literary property that the<br /> Society have collected and published their figures.<br /> They were published five years ago, and were<br /> collected, and tested, and proved very carefully<br /> before publication. Those obtained by Mr. Hall<br /> Caine the other day were actually furnished to him<br /> by publishers. And they agree with ours. More-<br /> over, printers have declared themselves ready to<br /> work on the basis of these figures, not in<br /> “immense editions” only as this writer ignorantly<br /> affirms, but in moderate editions. Tenders for<br /> the work have been brought to the secretary on<br /> much lower terms.<br /> 6. The writer says that our figures apply only<br /> to editions of 20,000. This shows that he has<br /> not even opened the pages of our book, where<br /> editions of different numbers are separately<br /> estimated.<br /> 7. Now let us turn to his own figures. He<br /> says that if a publisher orders an edition of 15OO<br /> copies to begin with they will cost him 2s. 9}d.<br /> each. Observe that he is so ignorant of the sub-<br /> ject as to suppose that all books cost the same.<br /> He pays no attention to length, size, type, paper, or<br /> anything. No, they all cost the same: all 28.9%d.<br /> each. Next, if you turn to our figures, you will see<br /> that the estimates are drawn up each for a cer-<br /> tain book of so many pages, so many lines to a<br /> page, such and such type, and a certain sum<br /> assigned for paper and for advertising. There<br /> can be no mistake about our estimates.<br /> Now, look again at our figures. (See “Cost of<br /> Production,” p. 27.) The book quoted is one of<br /> 17 sheets, or 272 pages, at about 258 words to a<br /> page; i.e., an average six-shilling book.<br /> The cost of the first edition of 1500 copies,<br /> with advertising, is Is. 6d. per copy, against<br /> this writer&#039;s absurd estimate of 2s. 9}d. each.<br /> The cost of the second edition and following<br /> editions of 1500 copies is Io; d. per copy. His<br /> estimate, therefore, is actually double our own<br /> for the first edition.<br /> But this man, who is writing on figures which<br /> he does not understand, is himself unable to work<br /> out the simplest sum. He says that a royalty of<br /> I5 per cent. On a six-shilling book is Iod. It is<br /> not ; it is Io; d.-a very considerable difference<br /> in a large sale. He says further that a royalty<br /> of 25 per cent. is “rather more than 16d.<br /> per copy.” It is, indeed. It is 18d.—only a<br /> difference of a trifle of £50 in a sale of 6000<br /> copies! -<br /> 8. Next consider his facts. He says that Mr.<br /> Hall Caine should remember that his publishers<br /> “found the capital for the production of his<br /> book, and risked that capital on the chance of<br /> success.” This is quite the old-fashioned way of<br /> talking—the loose and ignorant way. What are<br /> the plain facts of the case?<br /> (1.) The finding of the capital. The produc-<br /> tion of a book only moderately successful need<br /> not require the advance of any capital at all.<br /> The printers, paper makers, and binders are all<br /> paid after the first and largest returns of the<br /> book. This is a simple arrangement — one<br /> supposes the universal arrangement—of which<br /> the writer has never heard.<br /> (2.) The so-called risk. There are some<br /> hundreds of writers, historians, poets, essayists,<br /> novelists, concerning whose works the word<br /> “risk” cannot be used. It is an insult to speak<br /> of their writings as bearing any risk. Of course,<br /> if a publisher is such a fool as to print an<br /> edition of a million copies when only five<br /> thousand will sell there is risk, but we speak<br /> of publishers as men of sanity and common<br /> sense. The writer speaks of novel publishing as<br /> a “very risky’ business. “Not one in ten,”<br /> he says, “furnishes the publisher with more<br /> than a bare percentage on his capital.” What<br /> stuff is this Not one in ten ? Why, setting<br /> aside the things produced at the author&#039;s own<br /> expense, the new novels of the day produced<br /> by responsible firms are nearly all books which<br /> are certain to pay, not only their expenses, but,<br /> as well, to leave a comfortable margin. That<br /> they all pay large sums cannot, of course, be<br /> claimed. If they were not all nearly certain to pay<br /> something they would certainly not be published.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#401) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR,<br /> 47<br /> As we have said, over and over again, the<br /> business of the Society of Authors is not to<br /> attack publishers, although it has constantly been<br /> accused of doing so. Its business is simply to<br /> defend literary property. In order to do so it<br /> ascertains the facts and figures as to publication,<br /> and publishes these facts and figures. This<br /> exposure is, one understands, extremely disagree-<br /> able to certain publishers, because the Society<br /> converts into an open and honest business what<br /> was formerly kept cose and secret. But why does<br /> the Speaker object to openness and honesty P<br /> *-<br /> e-<br /> BOOK TALK,<br /> RS. KATHERINE MACQUOID will<br /> begin a new serial story, to run for six-<br /> teen or twenty weeks, at the beginning<br /> of this month. It will appear in the provincial<br /> newspapers which subscribe to Tillotson&#039;s syndi-<br /> Cate.<br /> The Consolidated Board of Trustees of the<br /> New York Public Library—the Astor, Lenox,<br /> and Tilden Foundations—have elected their<br /> officers. President, John Bigelow; first Vice-<br /> President, Bishop Potter; second Vice-President,<br /> John S. Kennedy; Treasurer, Edward King;<br /> Secretary, George L. Rives. No action has yet<br /> been taken as to the site of a library. The<br /> President, who was at one time United States<br /> Ambassador to France, is the author of the “Life<br /> and Letters of Benjamin Franklin,” the “Life<br /> of Bryant’’ the poet, the “Life of Molinos,” the<br /> “Life of Tilden,” and many other historical and<br /> political works. He is now seventy-seven years<br /> of age. His son, Mr. Poultney Bigelow, is at<br /> this time a resident in London. -<br /> The “Following of Christ” is a collection of<br /> passages from modern writers, selected and<br /> arranged by Charles L. Marson, curate of St.<br /> Mary’s, Somers Town, N.W. The Rev. Canon Scott<br /> Holland supplies an introduction or preface. The<br /> note struck by the latter is that our times no<br /> longer produce “supreme individualities, robust,<br /> complete, severe.” Even the giants of the day,<br /> now fast vanishing, have been “feverish, excited,<br /> with a touch of extravagance.” What have we<br /> now P “A crowd of lesser men, obviously clever.<br /> Reen, alive, interesting, but all more or less on a<br /> level.” In other words, not the whole of a man’s<br /> work is at the man&#039;s highest, but only bits here<br /> and there. These bits, picked out and arranged,<br /> form the “Following of Christ.” (Elliot Stock.)<br /> º “The Furled Banner,” by Heather Gray, is a<br /> tender, pathethic little religious story. It does<br /> not take long to read it. Nor does it take long<br /> to touch the heart and bring the tears to the eyes.<br /> (Elliot Stock.)<br /> “Cromwell’s Soldier’s Bible.” This is a<br /> notable little reprint. It is a copy of the “Pocket<br /> Bible&quot; supplied to every soldier in Cromwell’s<br /> army. Not a complete Bible, but a collection of<br /> passages selected as likely to be most useful to a<br /> soldier on a campaign. It is a book which any-<br /> one who has ever considered the history of that<br /> time should purchase.<br /> The “Teacher&#039;s Prayer,” by Zillah Dugdale<br /> (Elliot Stock and the Sunday School Union).<br /> This little book is written as much for Sunday<br /> school scholars as Sunday school teachers. It is,<br /> as might be expected, a deeply religious story.<br /> It is also well written, and shows a high level of<br /> thought and feeling.<br /> “Turquoise and Jade,” by D. M. B. (Maid-<br /> stone : Young and Cooper), is a collection of<br /> rondeaux, sonnets, triolets, &amp;c. Let the poet<br /> Speak.<br /> MOTHER-HOOD.<br /> The mystery of dawning mother-hood<br /> Dwelt in her eyes and lingered in the air<br /> She hourly breathed, was painted in the fair<br /> Transparency of cheek and brow : she stood,<br /> Gazing upon the world, for her imbued<br /> With newer beauty, greater good than &#039;ere<br /> Her mind had compassed—sweet beyond compare<br /> Were life and love—at length she understood.<br /> Dreams of the future, fancies of the past,<br /> Held her in bondage, while they set her free,<br /> Though still herself, she also had to be<br /> The mother of her child—to hold so fast<br /> To faith and truth, that round it she might cast<br /> The shelter of her perfect purity.<br /> A novel by Sir Walter Besant has been pur-<br /> chased with all rights by Messrs. Chapman and<br /> Hall. The work will run serially in Chapman&#039;s<br /> Magazine before publication in volume form. It<br /> will probably appear in 1897. The same writer&#039;s<br /> other engagements, up to 1898 inclusive, are for<br /> the Pall Mall Magazine, the Tillotson&#039;s Syndi-<br /> cate, and for Messrs. Chatto and Windus.<br /> Mr. R. H. Sherard’s new novel, “Jacob<br /> Niemand,” will be published early in July by<br /> Messrs. Ward and Downey. Mr. Sherard is at<br /> present engaged on a story of the Napoleonic<br /> wars, entitled “With the Great Commander,”<br /> which will be published in the autumn.<br /> M. Daudet&#039;s new book, “Premier Voyage—<br /> Premier Mensonge,” written in collaboration with<br /> Mr. R. H. Sherard, will first appear in serial<br /> form in an English and American magazine.<br /> Arrangements have already been made for its<br /> subsequent publication in book form both in<br /> England and America.<br /> Mr. M. H. Spielman&#039;s History of “Punch&quot; will<br /> appear in the autumn. It will contain about a<br /> hundred and twenty portraits, illustrations, and<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#402) ################################################<br /> <br /> 48<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> facsimiles. There will be two editions, one of<br /> I6s., and the other an Edition de Luare at two<br /> guineas. The publishers are Cassell and Co.<br /> Mr Bloundelle-Burton’s new novel, “In the<br /> Day of Adversity,” will begin this month in The<br /> Family Circle, and will also appear simul-<br /> taneously in the Melbourne Argus. Another<br /> story by the same author will commence shortly<br /> in the People. -<br /> A new edition of Hall Caine’s “Recollections<br /> of Rossetti” is announced for publication shortly<br /> by Mr. Elliot Stock.<br /> We have to record the death of F. Percy<br /> Cotton, the husband of one of our members<br /> (known as Ellis Walton), and cousin of the late<br /> Mrs. Mortimer Collins. He had set Collins&#039; chief<br /> lyrics to music, and edited a large collection of<br /> his poems, published by their friend, the late Mr.<br /> George Bentley. It is noticeable that Mrs. Collins<br /> and Mr. Cotton were about the first to confide a<br /> joint literary grievance to the management of the<br /> Society of Authors, and that the case—an impor-<br /> tant one—was carried through successfully.<br /> Some little time ago we had occasion to refer to<br /> a new novel, “The House of the Strange Woman,”<br /> which Messrs. Henry and Co. were publishing for<br /> Mr. Norreys Connell, the author of “In the<br /> Green Park.” Since then Mr. Connell has<br /> blossomed into playwright, and his first<br /> dramatic effort — a one-act piece — has been<br /> accepted by Mr. Arthur Bourchier for early<br /> production at the Royalty Theatre. Mr. Bour-<br /> chier will appear in Mr. Connell’s play himself,<br /> and speaks of bis part as one of the strongest<br /> he has ever come across. Mr. Connell is not<br /> altogether innocent of mumming himself, having<br /> appeared, amongst other plays, in Ibsen&#039;s<br /> “Ghosts &#039;&#039; and Zola’s “Rabourdin.” What<br /> with Mr. Jerome, Mr. Zangwill, Mr. Philpotts,<br /> and now Mr. Connell, it would seem that all the<br /> “new humourists” were going stage-struck. Mr.<br /> Barry Pain is the only one who has escaped.<br /> Admiral Sir Henry Keppel sits down at the<br /> venerable age of eighty-six to write his Reminis-<br /> cences. Mr. Bentley will publish the book in the<br /> winter.<br /> Colonel Kenney-Herbert, the author of “Fifty<br /> Breakfasts,” has written two new books to cor-<br /> respond with it, namely, “Fifty Lunches” and<br /> “Fifty Dinners.” They will be published shortly<br /> by Mr. Edward Arnold. Mr. Arnold, by the<br /> way, is opening an office in New York.<br /> Mr. Walter Cranston Larned is the author of<br /> a book on “The Churches and Castles of<br /> Mediaeval France,” which Messrs. Sampson Low<br /> announce for immediate issue.<br /> Mrs. Stevenson&#039;s last story, “ Woodrup&#039;s<br /> Dinah: a Tale of Nidderdale,” has been brought<br /> out by Messrs. Hutchinson and Co. in their<br /> Homespun Series in an edition of Io,000 copies—<br /> cloth and paper covers.<br /> Mr. Rudyard Kipling will issue a new volume<br /> of poems in the autumn.<br /> At the annual meeting of the London Library,<br /> on the 13th ult., it was agreed to adopt the com-<br /> mittee’s recommendation for the reconstruction<br /> of the premises at a cost of about £17,000, pro-<br /> vided that £5000 be first obtained by subscrip-<br /> tions. A letter was read from the Prince of<br /> Wales, in which his Royal Highness entirely<br /> approved of the scheme for providing an adequate<br /> building for the books, he being “well aware of<br /> the deep interest the Prince Consort took in the<br /> library, and how invaluable it has proved itself<br /> to be to all who are in any way connected with<br /> histºry and literature.”<br /> Lady Sophia Palmer will be glad to receive at<br /> Blackmoor, Petersfield, on Sept. 1, or as soon<br /> after as possible, any letters of interest written<br /> by her father, the late Lord Selborne. This is<br /> for the preparation of the volumes of “Memorials<br /> of Lord Selborne,” which, as we announced last<br /> month, Messrs. Macmillan will publish.<br /> A book on “Politics in Russia,” by Mr.<br /> Herbert Thomson, of the Free Russia Society,<br /> will be published next autumn.<br /> Mr. Albert F. Calvert&#039;s work on “Exploration<br /> of Australia’’ will be published shortly by Messrs.<br /> George Philip and Son. It will be a companion<br /> volume to his “The Discovery of Australia.”<br /> A work on “The Greater Victorian Poets,” by<br /> Professor Hugh Walker, of St. David&#039;s College,<br /> Lampeter, is being published by Messrs. Swan<br /> Sonnenschein. Also one called “Literary Types,”<br /> the author of which is Mr. E. Beresford Chan-<br /> cellor.<br /> The pronounced feature of the June output was<br /> the large number of biographical works. Most<br /> important of these—it is, indeed, the book of the<br /> month—was “The Life of Sir James Fitzjames<br /> Stephen’” (Smith, Elder, and Co.), by his brother,<br /> Mr. Leslie Stephen. Beginning with articles in<br /> the Morning Chronicle in 1851, Stephen de-<br /> veloped, alongside his legal work, a prolific<br /> journalism. On the Saturday Review he wrote<br /> with Freeman, Maine, John Morley, Harcourt,<br /> Goldwin Smith, and the late Lord Justice Bowen<br /> as colleagues; for the Pall Mall Gazette he<br /> wrote I I2O articles in thirteen years, besides<br /> letters, &amp;c.; and to the Cornhill Magazine and<br /> Fraser he also contributed. In Judge Stephen&#039;s<br /> eyes John Stuart Mill seemed “not so much cold-<br /> blooded as bloodless,” “too much of a calculating<br /> machine, and too little of a human being,” for<br /> “Fitzjames could only make a real friend of a<br /> man in whom he could recognise the capacity for<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#403) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 49<br /> masculine emotions as well as logical acuteness.”<br /> The other notable books in this line to appear<br /> were “The Life of General Sir Edward Bruce<br /> Hamley, K.C.B., K.C.M.G.,” by Alex. Innes<br /> Shand (Wm. Blackwood and Sons); “Sonya<br /> Kovalevsky,” by Anna Carlotta Leffler, Duchess<br /> of Cajanello (Fisher Unwin); “Colonel Sir<br /> Robert Sandeman,” by Mr. T. H. Thornton (John<br /> Murray); Mr. Stuart J. Reid’s “Lord John<br /> Russell’’ (Sampson Low); and “The Princess of<br /> Wales,” by Mary Spencer-Warren (Newnes).<br /> Bret Harte&#039;s new volume, entitled “Clarence,”<br /> which Messrs. Chatto and Windus will shortly<br /> publish, will complete the trilogy of which “A<br /> Waif of the Plains &#039;&#039; and “A Ward of the Golden<br /> Gate ’’ are the other parts.<br /> A new “Life of Hans Christian Andersen,”<br /> which will be illustrated by drawings from<br /> original sketches by himself, is being published<br /> by Messrs. Lawrence and Bullen.<br /> Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson has stated to a<br /> San Francisco interviewer that her late husband’s<br /> manuscripts are awaiting examination by his<br /> cousin, Mr. Graham Balfour, who was in China<br /> when Stevenson died. They include the “Weir<br /> of Hermiston,” which the novelist had only<br /> begun, and also some poems.<br /> A translation of St. Juirs’s “The Tavern of the<br /> Three Virtues,” illustrated by Daniel Urrabieta<br /> Vierge, is in preparation for early publication by<br /> Mr. Fisher Unwin. Mr. Edmund Gosse writes<br /> au introduction, criticising the work of the<br /> famous artist.<br /> Mr. George Murray, F.L.S., the new keeper of<br /> botany in the Natural History Department of the<br /> British Museum, is publishing, through Messrs.<br /> Macmillan, an “Introduction to the Study of Sea<br /> Weeds.”<br /> The rarity of the books, and the fact that they<br /> were excellent types of binding, induced good<br /> prices at the sale, at Sotheby’s, of a selection from<br /> the library of the late Earl of Orford. The copy<br /> of the Second Folio” Shakespeare,” (1632), in the<br /> Original calf binding, which brought 2148 at<br /> George Daniel&#039;s sale thirty years ago, now sold<br /> for £540. “Ile Nouveau Testament,” translated<br /> by Huré (1712), a beautiful example of Le<br /> Mounier&#039;s binding, which realised £51 seventeen<br /> years ago, was here purchased for £345. The<br /> proof sheets of Scott’s “The Pirate” sold for<br /> £86; 384 I was got for Walpole&#039;s own copy of<br /> “Boswell&#039;s Tour to the Hebrides with Dr. John-<br /> son &#039;&#039;--the more valuable because of the states-<br /> man&#039;s autograph notes to it; while Walpole&#039;s<br /> “Hieroglyphic Tales’ (1785), one of six copies<br /> printed for the author&#039;s private amusement,<br /> realised £37. Catherine de Medici&#039;s copy of<br /> Ariosto’s “Orlando Furioso.” (1556), was sold for<br /> 3130; “Le Pastissier François &#039;&#039; (Amsterdam,<br /> I655) for £IOO ; and Rousseau&#039;s own copy of<br /> “Julie, ou La Nouvelle Heloise ’’ (1761), 356.<br /> For Isaac Casaubon&#039;s copy of the first edition of<br /> Bacon’s “Twoo Books of the Proficience and<br /> Advancement of Learning ” (1605), in brown<br /> morocco, 349 was paid. Altogether the 340 lots<br /> in the sale realised £26 IO.<br /> |Mr. Eden Phillpotts is publishing in book<br /> form, at the price of 6s., his humorous study<br /> entitled “The Laughing Philosopher,” which has<br /> been appearing In Black and White for a con-<br /> siderable time.<br /> Mr. Stopford Brook is collaborating with<br /> another Irishman, namely, Mr. A. P. Graves, on<br /> a new Anthology of Irish Verse. The work will<br /> be published in the autumn by Messrs. Dent.<br /> Among more immediate publications from this<br /> house will be Mr. James Ashcroft Noble&#039;s<br /> “Impressions and Memories.”<br /> Two new Ruskinian books are announced by<br /> Mr. George Allen. The first to appear will be<br /> “Studies in Both Arts,” which will contain ten<br /> plates, some being in colour, from unpublished<br /> drawings by Ruskin, accompanied by selected<br /> passages from his writings. In the autumn will<br /> be published “The Principles of Art according to<br /> John Ruskin,” compiled by Mr. William White,<br /> of the Ruskin Museum. This book will also<br /> contain some hitherto unpublished writings of<br /> Mr. Ruskin on the pictures he got for the St.<br /> George&#039;s Guild.<br /> Mr. Gilbert Parker&#039;s works are to be issued in<br /> a uniform edition by Messrs. Methuen ; so are<br /> Miss Emily Lawless’s.<br /> The occasion of Sir Henry Irving&#039;s knighthood<br /> appears timeous for a popular edition of the<br /> biography of the great actor by Mr. Percy<br /> Fitzgerald. It is to be revised and brought up<br /> to date, and Messrs. Chatto and Windus will<br /> issue it shortly, price Is.<br /> A series of essays by Mr. Brander Matthews<br /> on “Books and Play Books,” is in the press of<br /> Messrs. Osgood, McIlvaine, and Co. M. Sarcey,<br /> R. L. Stevenson, Mark Twain, Zola, and Mr.<br /> Andrew Lang are among the personal subjects<br /> of the essayist, who also writes on the dramati-<br /> sation of novels, and “the whole duty of critics<br /> Messrs Osgood also publish at once a story by<br /> Miss Alma Tadema, called, “The Crucifix.”<br /> Mrs. F. A. Steel’s “Red Rowan,” the Queen<br /> serial, will be published this summer by Messrs.<br /> Macmillan. Her story of the Indian Mutiny, for<br /> which she has made a long visit to India and<br /> lived beside the native survivors, will occupy her<br /> for about two years.<br /> IMr. Whistler is putting together material for<br /> a second volume of “The Gentle Art of Making<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#404) ################################################<br /> <br /> 50<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> Enemies.” Mr Heinemann will publish it in a<br /> style uniform with the first.<br /> “The Life and Times of Cardinal Wiseman,”<br /> which Mr. Wilfrid Ward has written, and Messrs.<br /> Longmans will publish shortly, has reminiscences<br /> of its subject by Cardinal Vaughan, Mr. Glad-<br /> stone, and Lord Acton. It also contains letters<br /> from Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Gladstone, Dr.<br /> Döllinger, Cardinal Manning, Lord Houghton,<br /> Pugin, and other famous men.<br /> The Duchess of Cleveland is engaged in writing<br /> the Life of Lady Hester Stanhope, the niece and<br /> confidant of Pitt, whose career doubtless furnishes<br /> excellent material for an interesting book. Lady<br /> Hester had, it is said, a great affection for Sir<br /> John Moore, and after his death, and that, also<br /> at Corunna, of her favourite brother, society<br /> became odious to her, and England saw her no<br /> more after 1810. Four years later she went to<br /> reside permanently among the half-savage tribes<br /> of Mount Lebanon, living there for about a<br /> quarter of a century. Kinglake devotes a chapter<br /> to her in “Eothen,” and Dr. Meryon, her<br /> physician, published her “Memoirs and Travels&#039;’<br /> in six volumes, fifty years ago.<br /> Mr. Charles Hannan, author of the Chinese<br /> novel “A Swallow’s Wing,” has written a volume<br /> of stories, mostly laid in the far East. Messrs.<br /> Constable and Co. will publish it in the autumn.<br /> Mr. Laurence Hutton is writing upon “The<br /> Literary Landmarks of Venice, Florence, and<br /> Rome,” but the book will not appear for some<br /> months. Those of Paris will possibly have a<br /> volume devoted to them afterwards, in further<br /> continuation of the series Mr. Hutton began with<br /> his “Literary Landmarks of London.”<br /> Mr. Stead’s novel, “A Modern Maid in Modern<br /> Babylon,” is expected to appear on the 6th inst.<br /> Mr. William Morris’s “The Life and Death of<br /> Jason,” which will appear shortly from the<br /> Kelmscott Press in a style uniform with<br /> “Beourilf,” is to have two woodcuts by Sir<br /> Edward Burne-Jones.<br /> The literature of the Burns Centenary, which<br /> occurs a year hence, is shadowed forth by the<br /> announcement of a four-volume “Centenary.<br /> Edition,” to be published by Messrs. T. C. and<br /> E. C. Jack, Edinburgh. Volume I will be “Poems<br /> Bublished by Burns; ” the second, “Posthumous<br /> Poems; ” the third, “Songs; ” while the fourth<br /> will contain “Songs, Doubtful Pieces, Addenda,<br /> Glossarial Index, and General Index.” Mr.<br /> William Hole, R.S.A., will illustrate the work with<br /> about twenty-four etchings. The plan also<br /> includes a library édition de lua.e. The volumes<br /> will be issued at intervals of three months.<br /> Mrs. M. C. Leighton and Mr. Robert Leighton,<br /> the authors of “Convict 99,” “Michael Dred,<br /> Detective,” and other popular stories which have<br /> added to the success of Answers, are writing<br /> another serial for that publication. The first<br /> chapters are to appear on March 19, and the<br /> novel is to be entitled “In the Shadow of Guilt.”<br /> In “A Fisherman&#039;s Fancies,” by F. A. Doveton,<br /> is a book of tales and sketches. We have on<br /> more than one occasion published in these<br /> columns some of Mr. Doveton’s graceful verses.<br /> Be now comes before us in prose, and that of a<br /> very readable and entertaining kind. It is well<br /> known that the best introduction to a graceful<br /> style in prose is the acquisition of a graceful<br /> style in poetry. The book is published by Elliot<br /> Stock.<br /> *~ * →<br /> FRELIMINARY PROSPECTUS OF THE<br /> ELIZABETHAN STAGE SOCIETY.<br /> HE Elizabethan Stage Society is founded to<br /> T give practical effect to the principle that<br /> Shakspere should be accorded the build of<br /> stage for which he designed his plays.<br /> Furthermore, in Shakspere&#039;s day, and at no<br /> other period of English literature, the best work<br /> of the best men appeared upon the boards,<br /> showing that the conditions which then obtained<br /> at the theatre were peculiarly adapted to the<br /> greatest drama.<br /> An additional gain with this method of playing<br /> is that, though the costume may be costly, there<br /> is no occasion to renew it for every play, as<br /> archaeology in costume was little if at all studied<br /> at the period to be revived, so that, there being<br /> no scenery, the bill can be changed at no further<br /> cost than the rehearsals. A theatre specially<br /> built on the plan of the 16th century—not a very<br /> costly building—is much to be wished for.<br /> In 1893, “Measure for Measure&quot; was revived<br /> in a way to illustrate this principle, under the<br /> direction of Mr. William Poel, by the Shakspere<br /> Reading Society.<br /> The Elizabethan Stage Society will commence<br /> its work with a revival of “Twelfth Night, or<br /> what you will,” given under Mr. Poel&#039;s direction,<br /> for one performance only, exclusively to members<br /> and guests. It is expected this performance will<br /> take place early in June. Time and place will be<br /> duly announced to members.<br /> The society’s revivals will have the use of the<br /> stage fittings of the 16th century stage, prepared<br /> for the revival of “Measure for Measure,” and of<br /> a valuable wardrobe mainly purchased at the sale<br /> of M. Barthe. Capt. Hutton, F.S.A., will kindly<br /> advise on matters of old swordsmanship: while<br /> for old music it is intended to obtain the services<br /> of Mr. Arnold Dolmetsch.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#405) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 5 I<br /> A subscription of £1 1s. constitutes member-<br /> ship for the year. And the year dates from the<br /> foundation of the society to Oct. 1, 1896, and then<br /> to each following Ist day of October.<br /> All interested in the work are invited to become<br /> members. Communications may be addressed<br /> to ARTHUR DILLON.<br /> 52, Talgarth-road, West Kensington, W.<br /> *— a 2-2<br /> a- - -s.<br /> CORRESPONDENCE,<br /> I.—EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITY.<br /> T is not of a publisher that I have to complain.<br /> Whatever may be the sins of publishers, I<br /> have always found those with whom I have<br /> had to deal courteous gentlemen and excellent men<br /> of business. Nor is it of an editor: my relations<br /> with my brethren in the profession, however<br /> superior their status to my own, have invariably<br /> been pleased. I am a worm who has been crushed<br /> by a board of directors, and who seeks to turn<br /> against them. -<br /> In the year 1893 I was tempted by whatever<br /> demon may be responsible for the beguilement of<br /> those among us who take an interest in politics to<br /> construct a squib on the subject of Home Rule,<br /> which I labelled “Interviews with the Immortals.<br /> By Ananias Green.” While in search of the best<br /> means of firing it off, it occurred to me that an<br /> article of mine on “Ireland under Her Own<br /> Government’’ had appeared in the National<br /> Review of March, 1886, and that large portions<br /> thereof had been conveyed from the Review, with<br /> flattering comments, into the columns of a paper<br /> called England. I ventured to approach Mr.<br /> Cecil Walsh, who was then editor of England, on<br /> the subject of my “Interviews.” I told him that<br /> I did not propose to part with the copyright, as<br /> it was my intention to publish my work in<br /> book form as near as might be to the time of the<br /> next General Election; but that I would offer<br /> the “Interviews&quot; for publication in England<br /> on very moderate terms. I asked Mr. Walsh<br /> whether he would like to see my manuscript, and<br /> whether he would promise to return it to me as<br /> early as possible, if not accepted. Mr. Walsh re-<br /> plied that he would be pleased to read my manu-<br /> script, and would take care of it. He also asked me<br /> to name a price for publication in England, I<br /> reserving the right of reproduction. I sent him<br /> my work, and named my price. Towards the<br /> end of 1893 I wrote to remind him that I was<br /> waiting an answer. Mr. Walsh replied that he<br /> was also waiting one—having sent on the work<br /> to his directors. He added that he was doing<br /> his best to get the matter settled forthwith, and<br /> would let me know the result as soon as he<br /> possibly could. When I wrote again to Mr.<br /> Walsh it was only to learn that these dilatory<br /> directors had not yet made up their minds. A<br /> year passed without any decision being arrived<br /> at by them, and last autumn there appeared to<br /> be a prospect (now lost) of disposing of my<br /> “Interviews” in another quarter. I wrote to Mr.<br /> Walsh to say so, and to request the return of<br /> my long-detained MS. Mr. Walsh was very<br /> sorry, but his directors were out of town, and he<br /> was still without knowledge of the course they<br /> had decided on. He remarked that he feared I<br /> must think him guilty of great discourtesy, but<br /> assured me it was not his fault. I have no<br /> reason to doubt his word, nor have I any com-<br /> plaint to make of Mr. Walsh’s behaviour, which<br /> was characterised throughout by the courtesy T<br /> might expect from a brother editor.<br /> Shortly before the meeting of Parliament in<br /> January, I wrote again to Mr. Walsh, when he<br /> replied that he was leaving England, and recom-<br /> mended me to apply to a person whom he<br /> described as the Secretary of the “English<br /> Publishing Company.” I wrote to this person,<br /> and received a somewhat cavalier reply to the<br /> effect that Mr. Walsh had left them and that my<br /> correspondent, the Secretary, would have “to<br /> begin de novo.” I wrote again and again, and<br /> received no answer at all. Then I addressed a<br /> letter formally to “the Editor of England,” in<br /> which I stated that I had received no reply to my<br /> former letters inquiring whether the manuscript<br /> of my work had been lost or not. I made a claim<br /> for compensation in the event of its loss, and<br /> added that, failing a reply in a week&#039;s time, I<br /> proposed to consult the Secretary of the Society<br /> of Authors, of which Society I am a member.<br /> Still no answer. I wrote at the end of a week to<br /> the Secretary, who took up my case with the<br /> promptness and courtesy to be expected from<br /> him.<br /> I need not enter into details of the subsequent<br /> proceedings, but will briefly state the result of<br /> them.<br /> I am advised by the Society that if I bring<br /> an action in the County Court (as I wished<br /> to do), against the people of England, I shall<br /> probably get small damages, and shall perhaps<br /> be dragged from one court to another by the<br /> elaborate machinery of appeals which our legal<br /> system provides. The Society was kind enough<br /> to offer me aid in prosecuting my case in the<br /> County Court. I declined it with thanks, ex-<br /> plaining that I could afford to fight my own<br /> battle in that court, but dreaded the risk of<br /> being put to heavy expense by means of appeals.<br /> I offered to bring a County Court action at my<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#406) ################################################<br /> <br /> 52 THE AUTHOR.<br /> own cost, if the Society would undertake the risk<br /> of subsequent appeals—the question of the<br /> responsibility of a journal for the loss of a work<br /> the editor had promised to take care of seeming<br /> to me an important one to authors generally,<br /> The Society did not accept my offer, wherefore I<br /> infer that it shares my dread of being subjected<br /> to the process of bleeding to death by appeal. I<br /> do not blame the Society; if I cannot get justice<br /> once and for all in the County Court, it is the law<br /> that is to blame. Charles Reade, in “Hard Cash,”<br /> made the Yankee inventor, Fullalove, describe<br /> our courts of law as shops where justice was sold<br /> “dear, but prime.” I have not enough hard cash<br /> at my command to warrant me in testing the<br /> truth of Fullalove&#039;s statement.<br /> Not having got my manuscript back (sent to<br /> England in September, 1893), I am now busy<br /> in reconstructing my work from the first rough<br /> draught. I have not even received from the<br /> England people an expression of regret for the<br /> loss of my property, the breach of their late<br /> editor&#039;s warranty, and the trouble they have put<br /> me to. It need hardly be added that from such<br /> persons I have not received the offer of a farthing<br /> of compensation.<br /> If I were a tailor or a bootmaker, and a possible<br /> customer had deprived me of a coat or a pair of<br /> |boots after promising to buy or return them, I<br /> suppose I should have a good claim for damages,<br /> and the case would not have gone beyond the<br /> County Court. But, as I live by my pen, I must<br /> either put up with the loss of my property or run<br /> the risks I have referred to. Of the two courses<br /> it seems the wiser to make the people of England<br /> a present of my lost labour and property, also of<br /> their unredeemed pledge to take care of the<br /> manuscript. -<br /> Whether their conduct has been either gentle-<br /> manly or business-like, I leave it to others to<br /> determine.<br /> But they might at least have repaid me the<br /> stamps I sent to cover the return postage of<br /> my MS.<br /> TIEITH DERWENT,<br /> Author of “A Daughter of the Pyramids,”<br /> - “Circe&#039;s Lovers,” &amp;c.<br /> II.-PARALLELISM.<br /> Mr. Coulson Kernahan has sent me his beautiful<br /> little book, “God and the Ant.” The parallelism<br /> to which—rather too hastily, perhaps—I called<br /> attention in the April Author, proves, though in<br /> certain details, singular enough, to lie wholly on<br /> the surface. It may, however, be worth while to<br /> note that both Mr. Kernahan’s prose allegory—<br /> if I may call it an allegory—and my sonnet were<br /> the result of the suggestions of a dream, or, at<br /> least, of sleep. I fancy that the number of<br /> authors who turn their slumbers to literary<br /> account is already large, and is likely to become<br /> larger.<br /> My poor sonnet received rather unusually<br /> severe treatment from the printers and proof-<br /> reader. Skin for skein—in spite of rhyme—is<br /> decidedly unkind. Triumphs, of course, should<br /> be triumph. Only a goose could do justice to<br /> that line as it was made to stand—a posy of<br /> sibilants. FREDERICK LANGBRIDGE.<br /> III.-BYRONIC MISQUOTATION.<br /> I love my Byron, and do not like to see him<br /> misquoted, even by an American Ambassador at<br /> an Authors&#039; dinner. This is what the poet wrote:<br /> Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, -<br /> Survey our Empire, and behold our home !<br /> My criticism is aimed at the first line only ;<br /> the second, apart from the transposition of the<br /> verbs, was altered for topical reasons; and I am<br /> not, at present, concerned with the rights and<br /> Wrongs of such a procedure, though my opinion<br /> is strong on the point. I cannot, however, allow<br /> “bear the ocean&#039;s foam ” to pass without protest.<br /> The whole meaning, and most of the beauty, of<br /> the line is damaged by the alteration. In short,<br /> Such mangling is utterly inexcusable.<br /> I trust my warmth will be excused In other<br /> respects the Ambassador, judging by the printed<br /> report, spoke admirably. How Byron would have<br /> applauded this sentence : “I don’t think that the<br /> land can hold the mind of man; it must embark<br /> upon the sea, and it must be wafted as the gales<br /> may blow, freely, unhesitatingly.” -<br /> His Excellency is evidently no landlubber, no<br /> amateur yachtsman, more at home on the American<br /> equivalent of Ryde Pier than on the Atlantic, in<br /> fine no Luxurious slave<br /> Whose soul would sicken o&#039;er the heaving wave ;<br /> he speaks fair words of the deep sea, and is clearly<br /> a man of large intellect and wide sympathies;<br /> but, to conclude, he really should endeavour to<br /> avoid misquoting the great poet who not only<br /> wrote incomparably in praise of the ocean, but<br /> was himself, from his earliest childhood, a genuine<br /> and unaffected Ocean lover.<br /> And I have loved thee, Ocean and my joy<br /> Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be<br /> Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy<br /> I wanton’d with thy breakers—they to me<br /> Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea<br /> Made them a terror—’twas a pleasing fear,<br /> For I was as it were a child of thee,<br /> And trusted to thy billows far and near,<br /> And laid my hand upon thy mane—as I do here<br /> HUBERT GREENE.	https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/279/1895-07-01-The-Author-6-2.pdf	publications, The Author
278	https://historysoa.com/items/show/278	The Author, Vol. 06 Issue 01 (June 1895)	<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.+06+Issue+01+%28June+1895%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 Issue 01 (June 1895)</a>			<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</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>	1895-06-01-The-Author-6-1					1–28																		<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=6">6</a>											<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1895-06-01">1895-06-01</a>							1			18950601	C be El u t b or,<br /> (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors.<br /> Monthly.)<br /> CONDUCTED BY SIR wal.TER BESANT.<br /> VoI. VI.-No. 1.]<br /> JUNE 1, 1895.<br /> [PRICE SIXPENCE.<br /> For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are<br /> signed or initialled the Authors alone are<br /> responsible. None of the papers or para-<br /> graphs must be taken as eacpressing the<br /> collective opinions of the committee unless<br /> they are officially signed by G. Herbert<br /> Thring, Sec.<br /> *- - --&quot;<br /> - - -<br /> HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all<br /> remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and<br /> requests that all members not receiving an answer to<br /> important communications within two days will write to him<br /> without delay. All remittances showld be crossed Union<br /> Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered<br /> letter only.<br /> Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on<br /> all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub-<br /> jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are<br /> returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS.<br /> *- A -<br /> •- w -<br /> WARNINGS AND ADVICE.<br /> I • RAWING THE AGREEMENT.--It is not generally<br /> understood that the author, as the vendor, has the<br /> absolute right of drafting the agreement upon<br /> whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out.<br /> Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In<br /> every form of business, this among others, the right of<br /> drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or<br /> has the control of the property.<br /> 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.—In selling Serial Rights remember<br /> that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that<br /> is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you<br /> object to this, insert a clause to that effect.<br /> 3. STAMP You R AGREEMENTs. – Readers are most<br /> URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements<br /> immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected<br /> for two weeks, a fine of £10 must be paid before the agree-<br /> ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every<br /> case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter<br /> which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The<br /> author may be assured that the other party to the agree-<br /> ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society,<br /> to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of<br /> members stamped for them at no ea pense to themselves<br /> eaccept the cost of the stamp.<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> 4. ASCERTAIN WEIAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES TO<br /> BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an<br /> arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi-<br /> ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party<br /> refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he<br /> reserved for himself.<br /> 5. LITERARY AGENTS.–Be very careful. You cannot be<br /> too careful as to the person whom you appoint as your<br /> agent. Remember that you place your property almost un-<br /> reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting<br /> the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience<br /> of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone.<br /> 6. COST OF PRODUCTION.—Never sign any agreement of<br /> which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part,<br /> until you have proved the figures.<br /> 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERS.–Never enter into any cor-<br /> respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad-<br /> vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced<br /> friends or by this Society.<br /> 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever,<br /> bind yourself down for future work to anyone.<br /> 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or<br /> responsibility whatever without advice.<br /> Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a M.S. has been re-<br /> fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises<br /> they may put forward, for the production of the work.<br /> II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American<br /> rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any<br /> agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the<br /> publisher, unless for a substantial consideration.<br /> 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper,<br /> either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright,<br /> without advice. -<br /> 13. ADVERTISEMENTs. --Keep some control over the<br /> advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in<br /> the agreement.<br /> I4. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any<br /> other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy,<br /> You have to do with<br /> Be yourself a business man.<br /> charity, or pure love of literature.<br /> business men.<br /> Society’s Offices :-<br /> 4, PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN&#039;s INN FIELDs.<br /> *- A --&quot;<br /> HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY.<br /> I. VERY member has a right to ask 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 /> business or the administration of his property. If the advice<br /> B 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#356) ################################################<br /> <br /> 2 THE AUTHOR.<br /> Sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member<br /> has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the<br /> case is such that Counsel’s opinion is desirable, the Com-<br /> mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this<br /> without any cost to the member.<br /> 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright<br /> and publisher&#039;s agreements do not generally fall within the<br /> experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple<br /> to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually<br /> engaged upon such questions for us.<br /> 3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past<br /> accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in<br /> order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree-<br /> ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively<br /> So far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any<br /> agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor-<br /> mation thus obtained may prove invaluable.<br /> 4. If the examination of your previous business trans-<br /> actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should<br /> take advice as to a change of publishers.<br /> 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro-<br /> posed document to the Society for examination.<br /> 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in<br /> the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish-<br /> ing firm in the country.<br /> 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you<br /> are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are<br /> reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing<br /> the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen-<br /> dence of the writer.<br /> 8. Send to the Editor of the Author notes of everything<br /> important to literature that you may hear or meet with. . .<br /> 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of<br /> members’ agreements and their preservation in a fireproof<br /> safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con-<br /> fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who<br /> will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:—(1)<br /> To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To<br /> stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon<br /> them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments<br /> due according to agreements.<br /> &gt;<br /> THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE,<br /> EMBERS are informed :<br /> 1. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate takes charge of<br /> the business of members of the Society. That it<br /> submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree-<br /> ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene-<br /> rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business<br /> details.<br /> 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured<br /> will be forwarded upon detailed application.<br /> 3. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate works only for those<br /> members of the Society whose work possesses a market<br /> value.<br /> 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations<br /> whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia-<br /> tions are placed eaclusively in its hands, and that all<br /> communications relating thereto are referred to it.<br /> 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by<br /> appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days’<br /> notice should be given.<br /> 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi-<br /> cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent<br /> to defray postage,<br /> 7. That the Authors&#039; Syndicate does not invite MSS.<br /> without previous correspondence ; does not hold itself<br /> responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that<br /> in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray<br /> postage.<br /> 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for<br /> lectures by some of the leading members of the Society;<br /> that it has a “Transfer Department&#039; for the sale and<br /> purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register<br /> of Wants and Wanted” is open. Members are invited to<br /> communicate their requirements to the Manager.<br /> There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services<br /> will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It<br /> is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the<br /> Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in<br /> the Syndicate.<br /> - - -º<br /> NOTICES.<br /> HE Editor of the Awthor begs to remind members of the<br /> Society that, although the paper is sent to them free<br /> of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very<br /> heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great<br /> many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest<br /> 6s. 6d. subscription for the year.<br /> The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and<br /> communications on all subjects connected with literature<br /> from members and others. Nothing can do more good to<br /> the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive,<br /> and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this<br /> work send their names and the special subjects on which<br /> they are willing to write P<br /> Communications for the Author should reach the Editor<br /> not later than the 21st of each month.<br /> All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether<br /> members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate<br /> o the Editor any points connected with their work which<br /> t would be advisable in the general interest to publish.<br /> Members and others who wish their MSS. read are<br /> requested not to send them to the Office without previously<br /> communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable<br /> despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in<br /> which they are received. It must also be distinctly under-<br /> stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances,<br /> undertake the publication of MSS.<br /> The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at<br /> 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary<br /> for information, rules of admission, &amp;c.<br /> Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they<br /> have paid their subscriptions for the year P. If they will do<br /> this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker’s<br /> order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the<br /> trouble of sending out a reminder.<br /> Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the<br /> warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a<br /> most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding<br /> for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they<br /> would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five<br /> years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest<br /> or dishonest ? Of course they would not. Why then<br /> hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them-<br /> selves into literary bondage for three or five years P<br /> Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are<br /> requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15<br /> per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#357) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 3<br /> of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the<br /> pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding<br /> is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be<br /> added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands<br /> at £948. The figures in our book are as near the exact<br /> truth as can be procured; but a printer&#039;s, or a binder’s,<br /> bill is so elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be<br /> arrived at.<br /> Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged<br /> in the “Cost of Production” for advertising. Of course, we<br /> have not included any sums which may be charged for<br /> inserting advertisements in the publisher&#039;s own magazines,<br /> or in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too<br /> often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from<br /> sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket,<br /> by inserting any number of advertisements in his own<br /> magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are<br /> who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those<br /> who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it.<br /> *-- * ~ *<br /> g- ºr -ºs.<br /> LITERARY PROPERTY,<br /> I.—CANADIAN COPYRIGHT.<br /> HE following “case” has been drawn up for<br /> the committee by Mr. James Rolt, barrister-<br /> at law —<br /> “It is impossible to deal with the Canadian<br /> Copyright Act of 1889, or to estimate the effect<br /> it will produce if it is allowed to come into force,<br /> without in the first place, shortly referring to the<br /> present position of copyright (a) as an imperial<br /> question, and (b) as an international question.<br /> (I) International copyright.<br /> (i.) The principal countries of Europe, and, in<br /> fact, from a literary point of view, the principal<br /> countries of the world, with the exception of the<br /> United States, have at last, in the Berne Con-<br /> vention, recognised that the rights of an author<br /> in the fruits of his labour should be free from all<br /> conditions and restrictions whatever, except such<br /> as may be enforced by the laws of the country<br /> where it is first produced.<br /> (ii.) The United States unfortunately, owing<br /> to political and trade pressure, have not been<br /> able to allow authors their full and just rights.<br /> Foreign authors can, however, under the Act of<br /> 1891, obtain protection on the terms of printing<br /> their works in the States. The condition is<br /> unquestionably wrong and unfair in principle,<br /> but the recognition by the States of the rights of<br /> foreign authors is, even where subject to such a<br /> condition, of immense importance, especially to<br /> British authors.<br /> Acceptance of the terms imposed does not<br /> imply a recognition of their justice, and should<br /> not under any circumstances be allowed to be<br /> drawn into a precedent. On the other hand, we<br /> should be most careful to avoid doing anything<br /> which might imperil the recognition of the rights<br /> of British authors which has been so hardly won<br /> from the United States of America.<br /> The Canadian Act, if allowed to come into<br /> force, would, it is believed, lead to the with-<br /> drawal from British authors of the United States<br /> Act of 1891.<br /> (2) Imperial copyright.<br /> The foundation of imperial copyright as it at<br /> present exists is to be found in the Act of 1842,<br /> which gives protection throughout the British<br /> dominions to every work which is first published<br /> in the United Kingdom. The Colonies justly<br /> complained that under this Act a work which<br /> was published in a colony had no copyright in<br /> the United Kingdom or in any other colony, but<br /> this grievance has been removed by the Act of<br /> 1886; a work published in a colony now enjoys<br /> precisely the same protection as one first pub-<br /> lished in the United Kingdom,<br /> (3) Canadian copyright as it exists at present.<br /> It was a common complaint of the Colonies,<br /> especially of Canada, that owing to the operation<br /> of the Imperial Copyright Act they were unable<br /> to obtain a sufficient supply of English literature.<br /> In order to remove this ground of complaint the<br /> Foreign Reprints Act was passed, and under<br /> its provisions Canada has been allowed to import<br /> pirated copies of English works on the under-<br /> taking that a duty of 12% per cent. should be<br /> collected by the colony upon all such copies for<br /> the benefit of the author. As a matter of<br /> fact the duty has not been collected, nor has<br /> any serious attempt been made by Canada to<br /> comply with the undertaking.<br /> In 1875 an Act was passed in Canada giving<br /> copyright to foreign authors upon condition of<br /> their republishing in the colony either simul-<br /> taneously with or at any time after publication<br /> elsewhere. This Canadian Act was expressly<br /> authorised by an Act of the Imperial Legislature,<br /> and therefore the Canada printers and publishers<br /> contended that the Imperial Copyright Act was<br /> repealed so far as Canada was concerned, and that<br /> English authors could only obtain copyright in<br /> Canada upon complying with the conditions of<br /> the Canadian Act. This contention was, however,<br /> decisively negatived by the Canadian courts in the<br /> case of “Smiles v. Belford,” and the position<br /> therefore at present is that English authors are<br /> only obliged to republish in Canada if they wish<br /> to avoid the operation of the Foreign Reprints<br /> Act.<br /> (4) Canada’s present proposals.<br /> The Canadian Act, passed by Colonial Legisla-<br /> ture in 1889, but reserved for the sanction of the<br /> Imperial Government, provides that, in order to<br /> obtain copyright in Canada, works must be regis-<br /> tered with the Minister of Agriculture before<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#358) ################################################<br /> <br /> 4. THE AUTHOR,<br /> or simultaneously with their first publication,<br /> wherever such publication takes place, and must<br /> be reprinted and republished in Canada within<br /> one month of their publication elsewhere; and (2)<br /> that if the author does not comply with these<br /> conditions the minister may grant licences for the<br /> publication of the work, the licensees paying a<br /> royalty of Io per cent. for the benefit of the<br /> author. This Act is promoted solely by and in the<br /> interests of the Canadian printers and publishers,<br /> who claim to have the right to make a profit out<br /> of the works of English authors.<br /> The following are some of the reasons why the<br /> Act should not be allowed to come into force :<br /> (I) It is reactionary, and contrary to the prin-<br /> ciples adopted by this country after full con-<br /> sideration in acceding to the Berne Convention.<br /> It would, of course, deprive the Canadian author<br /> of the benefit of that Convention.<br /> (2) It is an attempt to deprive authors of their<br /> recognised rights for the benefit of the Canadian<br /> printers and publishers.<br /> (3) It is (except from the view of the printer<br /> and publisher) entirely unnecessary. The Cana-<br /> dian reader is amply provided for under the<br /> Foreign Reprints Act.<br /> (4) It will involve the repeal, so far as British<br /> authors are concerned, of the United States Copy-<br /> right Act of 1891, and the revival of legalised<br /> piracy in that country.<br /> (5) If it should by any chance accomplish its<br /> object, the action of the Canadians will thus recoil<br /> on their own heads. Canada will again be flooded<br /> by pirated copies printed in the United States,<br /> and the last condition of the Canadian printers<br /> and publishers will be far worse than the first.<br /> The short-sightedness of the Canadian policy is<br /> almost incredible. It will involve the flooding of<br /> English and other markets with cheap reprints, to<br /> the great detriment of publishers who have to pay<br /> a fair price for the work they publish. It has<br /> been proved over and over again that legislation<br /> is powerless to prevent the importation of these<br /> cheap reprints.<br /> (6) Having regard to the entire failure of<br /> Canada to collect the duties under the Foreign<br /> Reprints Act, there is no security whatever that<br /> authors will receive even the Io per cent. royalty<br /> provided by the Act.<br /> A manifesto has been issued by the Canadian<br /> Copyright Association in support of the Act.<br /> The reasons given may be stated as follows:<br /> (1) Canada has the right to legislate fully on<br /> copyright. Canada&#039;s right to legislate on copy-<br /> right is confined to the case of Canadian authors.<br /> She has no right whatever to take away from<br /> British authors their rights under the Imperial<br /> Acts. This was expressly decided by her own<br /> courts in “Smiles v. Belford,” and is the reason<br /> why she is now seeking the advice of the Imperial<br /> Legislature.<br /> (2) Copyright is analogous to patent right, and<br /> the Imperial Government did not disallow the<br /> Canadian Patent Act. But, in the first place,<br /> copyright is not analogous to patent right. Copy-<br /> right is given to the form only, not to the thought<br /> expressed. It does not prevent another author<br /> dealing, with the same subject or idea. Patent<br /> right deprives the second inventor, who has<br /> independently arrived at the same result, of the<br /> profits of his labours. Patent right is a monopoly<br /> in restraint of other original inventions. Copy-<br /> right is not. Secondly, the Canadian Copyright<br /> Act is not in the least on the same lines as the<br /> Canadian Patent Act. The Patent Act allows<br /> twelve months for obtaining a patent in Canada,<br /> after one has been obtained in England, and a<br /> further twelve months for commencing to manu-<br /> facture. This gives time to ascertain whether the<br /> market will warrant the outlay.<br /> (3) That under the present conditions the<br /> Canadian rights of English authors are included<br /> in the sale to United States publishers, to the<br /> injury of the Canadian printers and publishers.<br /> Here we have the true and only reason for the<br /> proposed legislation.<br /> It is based on a fallacy. It is no injustice what-<br /> ever to Canadian printers and publishers that<br /> British authors should be able to choose for them-<br /> selves where and through whom they will print<br /> and publish their works. To be consistent, the<br /> Canadians should demand that no artists should<br /> have protection for their works except such as<br /> used paints and canvas made in Canada. And the<br /> remedy is simple. English authors have to reprint<br /> in the United States. English publishers do not<br /> therefore demand protection or set up imaginary<br /> rights, but meet the difficulty in a business-like<br /> way. They set up branches in New York and<br /> Boston. Let the Canadians do the same.<br /> English authors, other things being equal, would<br /> rather deal with a Canadian publisher than an<br /> American. And let the Canadians join with us<br /> in endeavouring to obtain the removal of the<br /> unjust restrictions imposed by U.S.A. legislation<br /> instead of endeavouring to perpetuate and extend<br /> them.<br /> The real interests of English authors and<br /> Canadian publishers and printers in this matter<br /> are the same, and the latter are pursuing a most<br /> short sighted and suicidal policy.<br /> In any case the English authors submit with<br /> some confidence that the Canadian proposals are<br /> not such as ought to receive the sanction or<br /> assistance of the Imperial Legislature.<br /> May 13, 1895. J. ROLT.”<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#359) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. s<br /> II.--THE LAW of CoPYRIGHT.<br /> Amongst the Bills proposed to be introduced<br /> during the ensuing session of Parliament is one to<br /> amend the law relating to the protection of copy-<br /> right against the importation of foreign reprints<br /> into this colony, and to the registration of books.<br /> The second clause provides that Act No. 4 of<br /> 1854, and so much of the seventh section of the<br /> Copyright Act, 1873, as entitles the proprietor<br /> of the copyright of any book to demand the<br /> delivery to him of all copies of foreign reprints of<br /> such books unlawfully imported under that Act,<br /> shall be repealed. Clause 3 will suspend the<br /> existing order prohibiting the importation of<br /> foreign reprints of British books, and give force<br /> and effect to every provision of Acts of the<br /> Imperial Parliament having regard to the<br /> prohibition against the importation of foreign<br /> reprints of British books into this colony.<br /> Clause 4 makes it illegal for any person not being<br /> the registered proprietor of the copyright, or some<br /> person authorised by him, to import into the<br /> colony any reprint of any book in which there<br /> shall be registered copyright under the provisions<br /> of the Copyright Act, 1873, as to which such<br /> proprietor shall have given to the Collector of<br /> Customs a notice, in writing, duly declared before<br /> a justice of the peace, that such copyright exists,<br /> such notice also stating when such copyright will<br /> expire. And if any unathorised person shall<br /> import or bring any such reprint into the colony,<br /> or shall knowingly sell, let, publish, or expose for<br /> sale or hire any such reprint, then every such<br /> reprint shall be forfeited, and shall be seized by<br /> any officer of customs, and shall be destroyed or<br /> disposed of in such manner as the Governor<br /> shall direct; and every person so offending, being<br /> duly convicted, shall also for every such offence<br /> forfeit the sum of £Io and double the value of<br /> every copy of such book which he shall so import<br /> into the colony, or shall knowingly sell, let,<br /> publish, or expose for sale or hire, or shall have<br /> in his possession for sale or hire; £5 of such<br /> penalty to the use of the officer of customs, and<br /> the remainder to the proprietor of the copyright.<br /> By clause 5 the proprietor of the copyright is<br /> reserved the right of action for damages for<br /> infringement of the Act. According to the<br /> seventh clause lists of all books in respect to<br /> which copyright shall be subsisting in the colony<br /> must be posted at the customs houses of Colonial<br /> ports.-Cape Times, April 6.<br /> III.-AMERICAN CoPYRIGHT LAw.—IMPORTANT<br /> DECISION.<br /> The Law Department of the United States<br /> gave an important decision yesterday bearing .<br /> upon the law of copyright. It says that the law<br /> in the United States as it at present stands does<br /> not prevent the sale in the States of American<br /> copyright books that have been printed in Canada.<br /> The point is one of such importance to United<br /> States authors that an agitation for their better<br /> protection will be started forthwith.-St. James’s<br /> Gazette, May 4.<br /> IV.-BoITON v. ALDIN AND OTHERs.<br /> (Queen&#039;s Bench Division.—Before Mr. Justice<br /> Grantham and a Common Jury).<br /> This was an action to recover damages for the<br /> infringement of copyright in a photograph by<br /> publishing it in the Sketch and in another publi-<br /> cation, and an injunction was asked for to<br /> restrain future publication. The representatives<br /> of the Illustrated London News, it was said, were<br /> ready to submit to an injunction going against<br /> them, and to pay costs up to a certain point; and<br /> they were therefore discharged from the action.<br /> Mr. Willes Chitty was for the plaintiff, and Mr.<br /> Kemp, Q.C., and Mr. Willis Bund for the remain-<br /> ing defendant.<br /> It was said that Mr. Gambier Bolton, the<br /> plaintiff, was a Fellow of the Zoological Society,<br /> and he had spent a large part of his life at the<br /> Zoological Gardens and in travelling in various<br /> parts of the world taking photographs of a great<br /> number of wild animals in various attitudes. He<br /> had a collection of 30OO of these photographs,<br /> which the authorities of the British Museum had<br /> framed and hung upon their walls for the benefit<br /> of future generations. This was very important,<br /> as many varieties of animals were fast becoming<br /> extinct, and, indeed, the plaintiff had in his<br /> possession photographs of two or three kinds of<br /> animals which were already extinct. The photo-<br /> graphs in the Museum would show to future<br /> generations the animals as they now exist. He<br /> had incurred great expense, and had run very<br /> great personal risk in getting the photographs.<br /> He had been in great danger on two or three<br /> occasions at the Zoological Gardens. Among<br /> others, he took at the Zoological Gardens a photo-<br /> graph of a tigress yawning. The difficulty in that<br /> particular case was that the tigress was asleep,<br /> and he had to wait for hours and hours until she<br /> should wake and yawn, and then there was great<br /> doubt as to whether the yawn could be caught at<br /> a proper attitude. He registered the photograph<br /> under the Copyright Act of 25 and 26 Vict. c. 68,<br /> in June, 1894, and it would be shown that the re-<br /> maining defendant made a sketch of this photo-<br /> graph and sold it for publication. It was pub-<br /> lished in the Sketch, and it was to stop a proceed-<br /> ing of that kind that the present action was<br /> brought. It was most important to the plaintiff<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#360) ################################################<br /> <br /> 6 THE AUTHOR.<br /> that this should be accomplished, because artists<br /> of high standing were in the habit of using his<br /> photographs for studying wild animals in various<br /> positions, and his source of profit would be endan-<br /> gered if people were allowed to publish sketches<br /> of them.<br /> Evidence was given that the tigress in question<br /> had a cancerous mouth, and the tigress in the<br /> sketch had the same complaint. Mr. J. P. Nettle-<br /> ship, artist and animal painter, expressed his<br /> opinion that the published sketch was taken from<br /> the plaintiff’s photograph. It was admitted that<br /> the defendant’s sketch was sold for £3. There<br /> was other evidence that the publication of the<br /> sketch would be likely to seriously affect the sale<br /> of the plaintiff&#039;s photographs.<br /> Mr. Kemp, upon the conclusion of the evidence,<br /> submitted that the plaintiff had made out no<br /> case, and he quoted various decided cases in sup-<br /> port of his contention that what had happened<br /> was no infringement of copyright within the mean-<br /> ing of the Act.<br /> Mr. Justice Grantham had no doubt that the<br /> sketch was taken from the photograph, and that<br /> there was an infringement of copyright. He<br /> therefore gave judgment for the plaintiff for an<br /> injunction, and he awarded him one penalty of<br /> £IO and 34o damages.<br /> Judgment for the<br /> Observer, May 17.<br /> plaintiff with costs.-<br /> W.—MUSICAL COPYRIGHT.<br /> A telegram from America has been received by<br /> the plaintiffs in the musical copyright test case of<br /> Novello v. Ditson to say that the Appellate Court<br /> last Friday upheld the decision of the court below,<br /> in favour of the British publishers. The question<br /> referred to the so-called “manufacturing ” clauses<br /> of the American Copyright Act of 1891 ; or, in<br /> other words, the point raised was whether music,<br /> like books, must be printed from plates engraved<br /> or type-set in the United States in order to secure<br /> copyright at Washington. Both courts have now<br /> decided that music is exempt from the “manu-<br /> facturing ” clauses, and although it would perhaps<br /> be somewhat rash to consider the matter quite<br /> settled until the full text of the judgment is<br /> received a week hence, it nevertheless seems to<br /> have been held that music, unlike books, need not<br /> be reprinted in the United States in order to<br /> secure American copyright. The action was so<br /> far a friendly one in that the facts were agreed to<br /> by both parties; but the case was regularly<br /> fought out, the costs as we understand being<br /> defrayed by the members of the Music Publishers&#039;<br /> Association of England.—Daily News, April 30.<br /> *... a -º<br /> sº- w -<br /> THE PROBLEM OF PUBLISHING,<br /> I&quot; has been remarked by many of our members<br /> that the Society has never put forward a<br /> model agreement, or a series of model agree-<br /> ments. The reasons for not doing so are obvious.<br /> At the outset, while the facts were as yet only<br /> partly known, and the whole question was<br /> obscure, it would have been absurd to attempt a<br /> model agreement. For instance, no one had then<br /> ventured to demand the audit of accounts; no<br /> one had dared claim the right of learning the real<br /> facts as to the administration of his own estate;<br /> no one had even begun to understand that there<br /> is no risk whatever in the publication of a very<br /> large number of writers&#039; works; no one had as yet<br /> begun to understand that there ought to be any<br /> connection between the price paid when a work<br /> was bought and the sum it realised ; and, though<br /> the royalty system had been introduced, no one<br /> had even begun to ask what any royalty offered<br /> meant for the publisher as compared with the<br /> author.<br /> All this is now changed; we know what it<br /> actually costs to produce a book; we know what<br /> the publisher charges the retail bookseller; and<br /> we know what is meant by risk.<br /> The time may seem, therefore, convenient for<br /> some consideration of the problem from the<br /> author&#039;s point of view, with the increased light<br /> thrown upon it since the question first arose, now<br /> ten years ago.<br /> There are three methods of publishing:<br /> I. Those in which the author sells his work for<br /> what it will fetch ; or, which is another way of<br /> putting it, prefers to capitalise his royalties. In<br /> the case of a successful writer this method should<br /> only be adopted with the advice of an agent.<br /> 2. That in which a profit-sharing agreement is<br /> accepted.<br /> 3. That in which a royalty is accepted.<br /> There are sub-divisions in these three classes.<br /> As, for instance, when the profit-sharing agreement<br /> means a half or two-thirds to the author; and, in<br /> the third case, what amount of royalty is offered,<br /> and whether the royalty is deferred or to begin<br /> with the first copy.<br /> We will consider some of the relations of the<br /> publisher to the book he issues.<br /> I. He used to say that he took the risk. We<br /> do not hear so much about the risk of late. As<br /> regards successful writers, that is, two or three<br /> hundred writers at least, there is no risk, no<br /> risk at all. Not the least shadow of risk. The<br /> publisher knows very well beforehand that he is<br /> safe for a certain minimum of copies, and that<br /> this minimum will not only cover his expenditure<br /> but will leave a margin of profit. Outside this<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#361) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 7<br /> circle of successful writers there may be, no doubt,<br /> risk; most publishers, however, in such a case<br /> make the author pay for production, or, at least,<br /> guarantee such a number of copies as will repay<br /> themselves, with a margin. The number of books<br /> thus paid for by the author is enormous ; there<br /> are small firms which do nothing else.<br /> 2. When there is risk, what is it P<br /> Of course we are not considering the starting<br /> of a magazine, or the production of great works<br /> like an encyclopædia, a dictionary of natural<br /> biography, or the like ; or a book elaborately and<br /> expensively illustrated; or an edition de lua.e; or<br /> technical books in small demand. The author in<br /> such a case must generally be considered as the<br /> employé of the publisher; he contributes his work;<br /> he is paid for his work; he is not concerned with<br /> the rest. In this place we are talking only of<br /> ordinary books—travel books, history, memoirs,<br /> and biography, essays, poetry, plays, fiction,<br /> theology, sermons, educational books, &amp;c.<br /> The risk is the difference between the number<br /> that the publisher can reckon on being taken by<br /> subscription, and the initial cost. Thus a book<br /> may cost £120 to produce and advertise, which<br /> the publisher will only subscribe at the outset<br /> for £1 12. The risk in that case is therefore 38.<br /> Most people talk as if the risk was the whole cost<br /> of production. On the other hand, those who pay<br /> for producing their own poetry and fiction will do<br /> well to remember that the risk will probably be<br /> represented to them as the whole cost of produc-<br /> tion. In some cases, where the book is worthless<br /> and ought not to be published, the risk really may<br /> be the whole cost of production. A case was<br /> brought to the Society the other day in which an<br /> author had paid for the production. The number<br /> of copies sold was nineteen<br /> 3. The use of money. Accounts are made up,<br /> as a rule, once a year, and payment is made three<br /> months afterwards. This means the use of all the<br /> money received, and since the first run of the book<br /> is by far the most important, the use for eight to<br /> twelve months. In the case of a highly suc-<br /> cessful book, say a 6s. book, of which 40,000<br /> copies go off in the first three months, the pub-<br /> lisher retains in his own hands for nearly a year<br /> the difference between the returns and the cost of<br /> production ; that is, he has the use of all the<br /> author&#039;s royalties, amounting in such a case to<br /> about £3000. This would mean to the author<br /> about £IOO interest, but to the publisher, as<br /> money used in his business, a sum which may be<br /> estimated at from IO to 20 per cent., i.e., from<br /> £300 to £600.<br /> extreme case, and very unusual. Quite so ; but<br /> we must always take an extreme case in order to<br /> test an agreement in publishing, just as in a<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> But, it will be said, this is an<br /> theory of mathematics. Take, however, another<br /> case, in which only 2000 copies are sold. Here the<br /> publisher holds in hand for a year royalties at, say,<br /> one shilling a copy, amounting to £IOO. He<br /> therefore pockets from £10 to £20 in addition to<br /> what the royalty leaves him. This extra profit is,<br /> it will be seen, a serious factor in the accounts of<br /> a book, and one which must be taken into con-<br /> sideration.<br /> 4. The agency for American rights. An author<br /> should be careful to retain these rights. A literary<br /> agent will take care of them for him at IO per<br /> cent. Several publishers’ letters have been<br /> received lately in which, while denouncing<br /> vigorously the extreme wickedness of the literary<br /> agent who takes IO per cent., the writer has<br /> kindly offered to undertake the American rights<br /> at 30 per cent. or 50 per cent.<br /> 5. The cost of production.<br /> It cannot be too strongly impressed upon<br /> authors that cost of production must be taken to<br /> mean actual cost — money actually paid and<br /> nothing else. There are st&#039;ll some people left who<br /> systematically falsify their accounts. Readers<br /> of the Author will remember that a case was<br /> submitted to counsel, whose opinion, published<br /> in tº e Author, was that no judge would<br /> uphold such falsification on any pretence what-<br /> ever. Whether such a case could be brought into<br /> the criminal courts remains to be seen. Perhaps<br /> this may be ascertained by experiment before<br /> long.<br /> Nothing, to repeat, must be charged that is<br /> not actually paid, e.g., not advertisements in a<br /> publisher&#039;s own organ ; not advertisements that<br /> are actually, or practically, exchanges. Discounts,<br /> which are sometimes very heavy, must be entered<br /> in the joint account.<br /> 6. There must be no secret profit of any kind.<br /> 7. The accounts must be open to inspection<br /> 8. The author must be told the whole of the<br /> facts about the production and the sale of his own<br /> book. -<br /> 9. Then comes the question of the “establish-<br /> ment expenses.”<br /> A charge for these expenses is sometimes made<br /> in the agreement. Should it be allowed P<br /> There are three persons connected with every<br /> book.<br /> I. The author, who creates the property. Has<br /> he no “establishment expenses P” One does<br /> not reckon his household expenses; but there are<br /> many other things, He has to pay his agent; his<br /> study is his office; he has probably a shorthand<br /> clerk; he employs people to copy things; he has<br /> to buy many books; he has sometimes to go<br /> many journeys; he has to spend large sums<br /> in acquiring his knowledge—surely these are<br /> C<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#362) ################################################<br /> <br /> 8 THE AUTHOR.<br /> ‘&#039; establishment expenses.” Hitherto, however,<br /> he has not charged them.<br /> 2. There is the bookseller. He has a heavy<br /> rent to pay; he has taxes, assistants, and all the<br /> charges of a shop to defray before he touches<br /> anything at all for himself. These are his “esta-<br /> blishment expenses.” Hitherto he has not asked<br /> them to be allowed first, before his “profit”<br /> begins. The simple man continues to call the<br /> difference between the price he gets and the price<br /> he pays, his profit.<br /> 3. The publisher, alone of the three, demands<br /> a first charge of “establishment expenses.” But<br /> he is careful not to recognise the same claim in<br /> the case of the other two.<br /> Io. Then follows the question of the proportion<br /> that should be paid to the publisher.<br /> What are the services which he renders He<br /> lends his office and his servants; his clerks give<br /> out the book, they also collect the money. The<br /> publisher arranges with printer and binder; he<br /> decides on the amount that may be spent in<br /> advertising the book. As a rule it is per-<br /> fectly simple routine work. What should he<br /> receive P There must be a margin, of course,<br /> over and above the establishment expenses,<br /> for the publisher as well as for the author<br /> and the bookseller. How large should that<br /> margin be P<br /> A publisher has been complaining lately in the<br /> New Budget that all he could get for himself out<br /> of a certain book which had a very wide circulation<br /> was a paltry 6d. a copy. Note that with a very<br /> successful book—it is only a very successful book<br /> for which so large a royalty can be claimed—<br /> namely, 25 per cent.—with a book selling 40,000<br /> copies, the wretched 6d. over which this person<br /> whines means 29 Iood | This 6d. was reckoned<br /> after deducting sevenpence for alleged establish-<br /> ment expenses. Imagine the happiness of an<br /> agent who should be allowed to take £IOOO out<br /> of £5000 for himself, with his office expenses as<br /> well ! The case is highly instructive.<br /> II. The deferred royalty ought not to be, but<br /> too often is a trick of the very worst kind. It seems<br /> perfectly reasonable that the cost of production<br /> should be first defrayed before profits are declared.<br /> Thus, suppose an edition of 3OOO copies is printed<br /> —all that the publisher thinks will be sold.<br /> Suppose also that the publisher is nearly right.<br /> IIe sells 2500 copies. The book has cost him<br /> 216o. He sells it at 6s., i.e., 3s. 6d. It therefore<br /> takes him 920 copies to clear himself: every other<br /> copy is clear gain. What do we think then of<br /> publishers offering a miserable IO per cent. or<br /> 15 per cent. royalty to begin after a thousand<br /> copies? At the latter royalty, for instance, the<br /> author would receive about £70 and the publisher<br /> about £200. This can hardly be called a just<br /> share of profit for managing this little estate.<br /> What, then, ought the publisher to receive P<br /> Obviously, more in proportion for a book of<br /> small circulation than for one of wide circulation.<br /> With these facts before us let us endeavour to<br /> arrive at some kind of conclusion.<br /> A proportion actually based on principles of<br /> equity cannot be expected from the nature of the<br /> case. For who can decide what ought to be the pay-<br /> ment of an agent P One can only state the facts,<br /> and deduce from them some conclusion that will<br /> be accepted by honourable men on both sides.<br /> Sir Frederick Pollock, speaking at a public<br /> meeting of the society when he took over the<br /> chairmanship, said, very strongly, that it was<br /> simply impossible that honourable men should<br /> be unable to arrive at an agreement as to the<br /> rights of author and publisher respectively. It<br /> does seem impossible. Let us therefore make an<br /> attempt to arrive at a solution of the problem.<br /> The above are, roughly speaking, the data. If<br /> the members of the society will consider the<br /> problem, (I) for a book about which there can be<br /> no talk of risk, and (2) for a book which carries<br /> risk there may be found some way out of the<br /> difficulty.<br /> For my own part, I would suggest, as a small<br /> contribution towards clearing up this question,<br /> that we leave off talking about the author&#039;s royalty<br /> and begin to speak and think of the royalty<br /> granted by the author to the publisher. This<br /> will be a practical method of asserting the pro-<br /> prietor&#039;s rights in his own property.<br /> *~~<br /> * --<br /> NOTES FROM PARIS,<br /> \ LPHONSE DAUDET has no intention of<br /> writing his impressions about London.<br /> He emphatically said so this very<br /> morning. He said that he has se-n far too little<br /> of our great city to venture to express an opinion<br /> on it that it would be presumptuous,<br /> and so on. He will probably, however, use his<br /> experiences in some future novel.<br /> His stay on the whole has been a pleasant one,<br /> and he will leave England on Monday next, “not<br /> without regret.” He has been greatly interested<br /> in all he has seen, and has filled note-books with<br /> notes on the same. He says that the characte-<br /> ristic of the English race is pride, that the French<br /> have no such pride, and that it is a good thing.<br /> Our English habit of tea-drinking, on the other<br /> hand, he thinks a detestable thing. “Tea in the<br /> morning,” he says, “tea at noon, tea all day. I<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#363) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 9<br /> gave it up in time. It was ruining my nerves.”<br /> He still suffers a great deal. “I feel as if my<br /> legs were being stabbed with knives, and as<br /> though there was a harrow going over my body.”<br /> However, he keeps in good spirits, and may often<br /> be heard singing. His favourite tune just now is<br /> that of “Her Golden Hair,” which, he says, is<br /> the Leit-Motiv of London.<br /> I say that his stay has been a pleasant one “on<br /> the whole”; that is to say, in spite of various<br /> annoyances from which, it would appear, no<br /> celebrity on a visit to London is exempted. The<br /> interviewers, to begin with, who by indiscreet<br /> statements have involved him—as thanks to him<br /> for placing himself at their disposal—in inter-<br /> minable controversies. Then the Leo-Hunters.<br /> Various people—including one or two noble ladies<br /> —treating him like an actor or curiosity on show<br /> —have written—strangers to him a stranger—to<br /> bid him to their houses, without taking the<br /> trouble of showing the preliminary courtesy of<br /> calling on him or of leaving cards. These have<br /> received lessons in savoir vivre which one hopes<br /> may profit them. Anonymous letters, many con-<br /> taining insults, have reached him by every post.<br /> Inventors have asked him to further their inven-<br /> tions, and needy Frenchmen have demanded<br /> funds where with to repatsiate themselves.<br /> I was present the other day at an interview<br /> between M. Daudet and a person who described<br /> himself as a French musician, who wanted a<br /> “few words in private.” Daudet told him to<br /> speak up, and he began speaking offensively<br /> about the English. However, seeing that Daudet<br /> by no means agreed with him in his comments<br /> on “ces Anglais,” he deftly turned his insults<br /> into compliments, and went on to say that he<br /> wanted the money to pay his fare back to Paris.<br /> Daudet said he had no money with him, but asked<br /> Léon, who was present, for his purse. Léon<br /> said that there was very little in it, and Daudet<br /> then told the man that he should have all there<br /> was, and emptied the purse on the table. The<br /> destitute musician went away, radiant, with<br /> about two pounds in his pocket. That was a<br /> week ago. To-day I saw him in the bar of a<br /> public-house in the Strand. He has not left for<br /> Paris yet.<br /> Léon Daudet has just finished correcting the<br /> proofs of his satirical novel “Les Kamcatka,”<br /> which will be published at the beginning of June<br /> by Charpentier, who expressed himself to me at<br /> the Wernissage of the New Salon as very sanguine<br /> about it. He will then start upon a work<br /> of imagination, to be called “Le Voyage de<br /> Shakespeare.” He imagines Shakespeare travel-<br /> ling in the North of Europe collecting the impres-<br /> sions from which “Hamlet” eventually springs.<br /> WOL. VI.<br /> It will be a difficult task, but, if successfully<br /> worked out, should make a very interesting book.<br /> I understand that George Hugo, who has been<br /> staying in London with the Daudets, will illustrate<br /> the work.<br /> I hear that of late many of the most dis-<br /> tinguished men of letters in France—the Daudets,<br /> the Rosnys, Pierre Loti, and others—have placed<br /> the management of their entire English and<br /> American business interests in the hands of Mr.<br /> A. P. Watt.<br /> Crockett writes me a charming letter from<br /> Bellagio. “Since I came to Italy,” he says, “I<br /> have been full of work. My book of ‘Cleg<br /> Relly, Arab of the City,” begins in the Cornhill<br /> for July, and this in addition to ‘The Grey<br /> Man’ for the Graphic, and other things. Then<br /> there have been incidentals to do, short things,<br /> which are neither here nor there, but which take<br /> time.”<br /> I have often thought that for writing a book<br /> for children a child would be one&#039;s best col-<br /> laborator. S. R. Crockett seems to share my<br /> opinion, for he tells me that he is writing a<br /> Christmas book in collaboration with his little<br /> daughter Maisie, the bonniest little child that<br /> God ever sent to earth. “It is a Christmas<br /> book about our travels,” he writes. “It will make<br /> the superior person very sick; but will please all<br /> children, big and little, or so I think. And I<br /> care little what the person who can’t write<br /> himself, but tells you how you must write, will<br /> say of the matter.”<br /> He is exemplary in his remarks on criticism.<br /> “I heard that I had been annihilated in some<br /> review by a gentleman whose name was un-<br /> familiar ; but I did not see the article, which<br /> must, I think, have been blank cartridge, since<br /> nobody was a penny piece the worse.” He also<br /> tells me that he hopes to be back in July,<br /> “when we are going to St. Andrews for the<br /> seaside, to dig in the sand—all of us.”<br /> Amongst the late Leconte de Lisle&#039;s papers<br /> was found a set of notes, in which the great poet<br /> summed up, in a few words devoted to each, his<br /> opinion on his comrades in the Muse. Of Lama -<br /> time he says: “An abundant imagination, an<br /> intelligence endowed rather with a thousand noble<br /> and ambitious desires than with real capacities.<br /> A nature d’élite, an incomplete artist, a great poet<br /> by chance. He has left behind him—as it were<br /> in expiation—a multitude of stillborn beings,<br /> with liquified brains and hearts of stone, the<br /> Wretched family of an illustrious father.” Alfred<br /> de Musset, in Leconte de Lisle&#039;s opinion, was a<br /> “mediocre poet, nil as an artist, a very witty<br /> writer of prose.” Victor Hugo was “the greatest<br /> known lyrical poet. Exaggerated in all things,<br /> C 2<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#364) ################################################<br /> <br /> IO THE AUTHOR.<br /> puerile and yet sublime, with an inexhaustible<br /> reservoir of splendid and incoherent images, a<br /> marvellous dreamer, with extraordinary blanks in<br /> his intellect.”<br /> About Baudelaire he wrote: “Very intelligent<br /> and original, but of limited imagination, lacking<br /> in breadth. His art is too often clumsy. About<br /> Théodore de Banville: “Witty, amiable, good-<br /> natured, a skilful, brilliant, but superficial artist.”<br /> Alfred de Vigny, according to the great Parmas-<br /> sian, was “a great and noble artist, in spite of<br /> frequent laches of expression, who has always<br /> lived in retirement, poor and dignified, faithful<br /> to the end to his one creed—the beautiful.”<br /> Theophile Gautier : “An excellent poet, an<br /> excellent writer. Very unjustly neglected.” As<br /> to Béranger, he is of opinion : “His chansons de<br /> circonstance and his God of a cabaret philanthro-<br /> pique have all had their vogue ; and having all<br /> had their vogue, are now and for evermore dust<br /> and ashes.” One would like now to be able to<br /> have the opinions of Béranger, Theophile Gautier,<br /> Baudelaire, and the others on Leconte de Lisle.<br /> I hear that arrangements have already been<br /> made in London for the publication in serial form<br /> of Mr. Vizetelly&#039;s translation of Emile Zola&#039;s<br /> new novel “Rome.” That is to say, arrangements<br /> in anticipation, as but little of the book has been<br /> written. The story, apart from descriptions of<br /> Rome and Roman life, deals with a tragic love<br /> affair. Zola is working himself to death over it.<br /> I met him at the Wernissage, and asked him why<br /> he was looking so pale. “Le travail,” he said,<br /> “Le travail!” Work ought not to make one pale.<br /> It is absurd if it does.<br /> Why are literary men, who usually lead a<br /> very healthy life, almost invariably “sicklied o&#039;er<br /> with the pale cast of thought &quot; ? De Musset<br /> said their faces gave a reflection of the white<br /> paper which was always before them. But then<br /> the paper is not long white, and I, for my part,<br /> never saw an author turn negro from the reflec-<br /> tion of the written sheet. The doctors might<br /> explain the matter.<br /> I have seen it reported that Madame Sarah<br /> Bernhardt is engaged in writing her memoirs.<br /> This is not true, and the report was doubtless<br /> spread abroad with the kind intention of injuring<br /> a work which has been in preparation for some<br /> time. I saw the lady shortly before her depar-<br /> ture from Paris, and she said that she was in no<br /> wise so engaged. What leisure she enjoys is<br /> spent in her atelier on sculpture, in which art she<br /> has already achieved some success. A model<br /> attends her every day when she is at home in<br /> Paris. I do not know what she does when en<br /> voyage.<br /> I had a grotesque experience at her house in<br /> the Boulevard Pereire on the occasion referred<br /> to. We were talking about a very pathetic and<br /> tragic thing, and the great lady was wringing<br /> her hands and had tears in her eyes. She was<br /> sitting with her back to a cage in which was a<br /> large Senegalese monkey, and the whole time<br /> that she was speaking the ape was grimacing<br /> horribly, sticking out his tongue, blinking his<br /> eyes, and performing various gymnastic feats.<br /> The contrast was a striking one, and, heavy-<br /> hearted as I was, I could not master a laugh—a<br /> laugh of the Sardinian kind.<br /> I suppose that everybody is reading Mr.<br /> Roche’s masterly translation of the “Memoirs<br /> of Barras.” One wants to hear the other side<br /> about Napoleon, and Barras gives it, full and<br /> strong. Of course Barras, by reason of his<br /> jealousy about Josephine, was a prejudiced<br /> witness, but then most of the witnesses on the<br /> other side, from Ménéval downwards, were also<br /> prejudiced. Mr. Charles Roche is a very dis-<br /> tinguished journalist, of world-wide experience,<br /> of whom M. Daudet has expressed a very high<br /> opinion. He is connected by marriage with the<br /> family of Charles Dickens.<br /> May 23. ROBERT H. SHERARD.<br /> Authors’ Club, 3, Whitehall Court.<br /> * * ~ *<br /> a- - --e.<br /> NEW YORK LETTER,<br /> New York, May 18.<br /> ITH increasing experience of the diffi-<br /> W W culty of expression in black and white, I<br /> am coming more and more to be of the<br /> belief that it is absolutely impossible to say any-<br /> thing in print so that it cannot be misunder-<br /> stood. For example, there was a letter in the<br /> Author two or three months ago in which it was<br /> shown that a British series of books is pretty<br /> certain to find an American publisher, while an<br /> American series is very unlikely to find a British<br /> publisher ; and now comes Mr. Andrew Lang in<br /> the Illustrated London News and calls this plain<br /> statement of fact a complaint. Certainly it was<br /> not prompted by any feeling of grievance. It was<br /> prompted by a desire to fulfil the wishes of the<br /> editor of the Author, who requested me to<br /> explain any conditions in the American book<br /> market which the reader in England was not<br /> likely to know.<br /> Now, one of the conditions an English reader is<br /> not likely to suspect is that the American market<br /> is more freely opened to a British book of average<br /> merit than the British market is opened to an<br /> American book of average merit. This is a fact.<br /> To state it is not to make a complaint. -<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#365) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. I I<br /> To account for it is not easy, although the<br /> reason is probably to be found in the former<br /> colonial dependence of the United States toward<br /> Great Britain; the effect of which was to give the<br /> British a poor opinion of what came from<br /> America, and to give the Americans a high<br /> opinion of what came from England. Many<br /> American authors have noticed that there is still<br /> in the United States a lingering survival of<br /> colonial deference toward British authors.<br /> Curiously enough, this colonialism exists in<br /> America only in regard to literature. For<br /> example, British art, pictorial or plastic, is held<br /> in very low esteem, as the American painters and<br /> sculptors and architects look to France for their<br /> masters. In a recent essay on “Trade Winds in<br /> Literature,” Col. Higginson discussed the subject<br /> with his usual felicity of illustration.<br /> “The sailors of Columbus,” he began, “ in<br /> crossing the Atlantic were not alarmed by oppos-<br /> ing winds, but because the wind blew always in<br /> their favour. It was certain, they held, that such<br /> winds cut off all hope of return. In literature<br /> these same winds have blown ever since; the fame<br /> of an English author spreads rapidly to America,<br /> whereas that of an American, though it may<br /> ultimately reach Europe, goes far more slowly.<br /> Dr. Conan Doyle, who has thus far identified his<br /> name with but a single character in fiction,<br /> comes here and receives 500 dollars per lecture;<br /> whereas if Edgar Poe had gone to England, in<br /> his day, and had offered to lecture, he would<br /> have been fortunate if he had cleared a profit of<br /> 3s. 6d. Americans to whom the very names of<br /> Dr. Doyle and Mr. Christie Murray and Dean<br /> Hole were previously unknown, made haste to<br /> read some of their books in order to attend their<br /> lectures. It is impossible to see in this any-<br /> thing but a survival of that trade wind called<br /> Colonialism.”<br /> And after giving other instances, Col. Higgin-<br /> son declared that “The history of literature is,<br /> far more than we recognise, a series of vibrations<br /> of the pendulum for the two great branches of<br /> the English-speaking race; sometimes the one<br /> takes the lead, sometimes the other. Forty years<br /> ago no book produced in England compared in<br /> world-wide circulation with “Uncle Tom’s<br /> Cabin, and even to this day it is said to be<br /> found in English farmhouses more frequently,<br /> with ‘The Wide, Wide World,’ than any other<br /> book. Twenty years ago the travelling American<br /> rarely met an Englishman who was not familiar<br /> with Mark Twain, or an English woman who was<br /> not eager to hear anything about Longfellow. It<br /> is probable that Emerson had, and still has, on<br /> the minds of thoughtful Englishmen more direct<br /> influence than Carlyle had among Americans.<br /> It is only a few years since American magazines<br /> conquered London, which they still hold; and<br /> since it was generally admitted that Americans<br /> excelled their transatlantic cousins in short<br /> stories. This year there is a swing of the pendu-<br /> lum. In spite of Mr. Howells—who doubtless<br /> prophesied somewhat rashly—there is a reaction<br /> in favour of tales of historical romance, in which<br /> English writers have taken the unquestioned<br /> lead.”<br /> The fact is that England is the older country,<br /> and that, therefore, there is a certain prejudice in<br /> England against an American author ; while<br /> America is the younger country, and therefore<br /> there is a certain prejudice in America in favour<br /> of an English author. That is why an American<br /> publisher was readily found to issue Mr. Lang&#039;s<br /> series of volumes on “English Worthies,”<br /> although that series proved to be a financial<br /> failure, and was abandoned before two of the<br /> most interesting of its books appeared—Mr. Lang&#039;s<br /> own “Izaak Walton’’ and R. L. Stevenson’s<br /> “Wellington,” both of which remained unwritten.<br /> That is why the “Great Educators’” series, which<br /> was planned here in New York by Prof. Nicholas<br /> Murray Butler (who assigned the separate<br /> volumes to writers in America, in England, and<br /> in France), and which is printed here by Charles<br /> Scribner&#039;s Sons (who sell sheets to Mr. Heine-<br /> mann), is published in London with a new title-<br /> page, from which Prof. Butler&#039;s name is omitted<br /> —this new title-page being the only part of the<br /> so-called “Heinemann’s Great Educators’ Series&#039;’<br /> which is printed in England.<br /> It is pleasant to be able to record that books of<br /> solid merit have sales sometimes as large as those<br /> of the mere book of the hour. I was told not<br /> long ago that two thousand sets of the new edition<br /> of Mr. James Bryce&#039;s book on the “American<br /> Commonwealth” were placed with the trade here<br /> in the city of New York alone in a single day.<br /> By the publisher&#039;s advertisements I see that Mr.<br /> John Fiske’s “Discovery of America” is in its<br /> thirteenth thousand, while most of his other<br /> historical and philosophical works have reached<br /> at least a tenth edition.<br /> Macmillan and Co. will commence in May the<br /> publication of their “Miniature Series,” one<br /> number of which will appear each month. The<br /> little books will be bound in paper, and will be<br /> sold at 25 cents each. In shape and in size, and<br /> in neatness of typography, they resemble the<br /> pretty little collection of books by American<br /> authors issued by Mr. David Douglas, of Edin-<br /> burgh. The volumes announced for the coming<br /> year are: “Shakespeare&#039;s England,” by William<br /> Winter; “The Friendship of Nature,” by Mabel<br /> Osgood Wright; “A Trip to England, by Gold-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#366) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 2 THE AUTHOR.<br /> win Smith; “From a New England Hillside,” by<br /> William Potts; “The Pleasures of Life,” by Sir<br /> John Lubbock; “Old Shrines and Ivy,” by<br /> William Winter; “The Choice of Books,” by<br /> Frederick Harrison; “Gray Days and Gold,”<br /> by William Winter; “The Aims of Literary<br /> Study,” by Hiram Corson, LL.D. ; The Novel—<br /> What It Is,” by F. Marion Crawford; and<br /> “Amiel&#039;s Journal,” translated by Mrs. Humphry<br /> Ward. It is to be noticed that, although the<br /> publishers are a British house, only two of these<br /> eleven books are by residents of England.<br /> In the May number of the Book Buyer, the<br /> little monthly publication issued by Charles<br /> Scribner&#039;s Sons, appears the first instalment of a<br /> Bibliography of First Editions of John Greenleaf<br /> Whittier, compiled by Mr. Edward H. Bierstadt,<br /> of the Grolier Club. No detailed and descriptive<br /> bibliography of this writer has been published here-<br /> tofore, and the compiler has endeavoured to make<br /> his work complete, and as fully descriptive as is<br /> convenient in view of the undertaking. It is the<br /> purpose of the publishers of the Book Buyer in<br /> future to make contributions of literary study,<br /> which they believe will be found convenient<br /> standards of accurate information upon the<br /> subject. The Whittier Bibliography will be<br /> completed in four instalments. The publishers<br /> expect to follow it with bibliographies of James<br /> Russell Lowell, Nathaniel Hawthorn, Robert Louis<br /> Stevenson, and other authors whose works are<br /> of interest to collectors. The May number of the<br /> Book Buyer has for its frontispiece an engraving<br /> on wood of the latest portrait of Mr. Stedman.<br /> The editor of the new American edition of the<br /> Bookman—which now owes very little to its<br /> London namesake save the name—is one of the<br /> Columbia College Professors of Latin ; and<br /> it is therefore perhaps not unfair to credit him<br /> with the following adaptation, called “Titerary<br /> Log-rolling in Ancient Rome’’:—<br /> Hor. Epist. ii., 2, 87.<br /> Frater erat Romae consulti rhetor, ut alter<br /> Alterius sermone meros audiret honores,<br /> Gracchus ut hic illi, foret huic ut Mucius ille,<br /> Qui minus argutos vexat furor iste poétas P<br /> Carmina compono, hic elegos. “Mirabile visu<br /> Caelatumque movem Musis opus !” Adspice primum,<br /> Quanto cum fastu, quanto molimine circum-<br /> Spectemus vacuam Romanis vatibus aedem -<br /> Mox etiam, si forte vacas, sequere et procul audi,<br /> Quid ferat et quare sibi nectat utergue coronam.<br /> Caedimur et totidem plagis consumimus hostem<br /> Lento Samnites ad lumina prima duello.<br /> Discedo Alcaeus puncto illius ; ille meo quis P<br /> Quis nisi Callimachus P Si plus adposcere visus,<br /> Fit Mimnermus et optivo cognomine crescit.<br /> Multa ferout placem genus irritabile vatum,<br /> Cum scribo et supplex populi suffragia capto ;<br /> Idem, finitis studiis et mente recepta,<br /> Obturem patulas impune legentibus aures.<br /> [The same, Englished.]<br /> Two Romans, counsellor and pleader, went<br /> Through life on terms of mutual compliment;<br /> One called the other Gracchus, he supposed<br /> His brother Mucius ; so they praised and prosed.<br /> Our bards to-day the selfsame madness goads:<br /> My friend writes elegies, and I write odes.<br /> O how we puff each other “’Tis divine !<br /> The Muses had a hand in every line.”<br /> Remark our swagger as we pass the dome<br /> Built to receive the future bards of Rome;<br /> Then follow us and see the fame we make,<br /> How each by turn awards and takes the cake.<br /> Like Samnite fencers with elaborate art,<br /> We hit in tierce to be hit back in quart.<br /> I’m dubbed Alcaeus, and retire in force :<br /> And who is he P Callimachus of course !<br /> If this seem feeble, then I bid him rise<br /> Mimmermus, and he swells to twice his size.<br /> Writing myself, I’m tortured to appease<br /> Those wasp-like creatures, our poetic bees;<br /> But when my pen&#039;s laid down, my sense restored,<br /> I rest from boring and from being bored.<br /> The Paris correspondent of the Author voices<br /> M. Marcel Prevost’s protest against an unautho-<br /> rised American translation of his unspeakable<br /> Demi-Vierges.” The translation, it is true, is pub-<br /> lished in America, but the translator, Mr. Arthur<br /> Hornblow, is an Englishman. H. R.<br /> *– ~ --&gt;<br /> sº- ~~<br /> NOTES AND NEWS.<br /> THINK that I may very properly make this<br /> the place for a brief note concerning the<br /> distinction lately conferred upon me. It is,<br /> in fact, a national recognition of this Society and<br /> of its work in advancing the dignity and the inde-<br /> pendence of literature. The Earl of Rosebery in<br /> his letter to me expressly pointed out that this<br /> distinction was offered in recognition of services<br /> which, he kindly says, have been rendered by<br /> me to the dignity of literature. These humble<br /> services could only be effective through such an<br /> organisation as our own. It is, therefore, the<br /> Society itself which has, for the first time, received<br /> recognition.<br /> We have also to chronicle the same distinction<br /> conferred upon our chairman, Sir William Martin<br /> Conway. The fact that he is our chairman, in<br /> addition to the many achievements by which he<br /> has lifted himself above the heads of his fellows,<br /> may be taken as having had its weight.<br /> Last, but not least, is to be noted, as very<br /> suggestive of new departure, the same distinction<br /> bestowed upon a poet—Sir Lewis Morris.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#367) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. I3<br /> In the lamented death of Lord Pembroke the<br /> Society has lost one of its strongest friends.<br /> Lord Pembroke was a member of our council; he<br /> attended the meetings of council—which are<br /> few ; he was present at several of our public<br /> meetings; he took the chair for us at one of our<br /> dinners; and he always showed the greatest<br /> interest in our work and aims.<br /> In a recent “interview,” which appeared in the<br /> Daily Chronicle, Mr. Hall Caine gave public<br /> utterance, for the first time, to a suggestion which<br /> has been in the minds of many, and is now being<br /> talked of freely. “The authors,” he said, “who<br /> have the hearts of the public would’—under<br /> certain circumstances—“ have to do as Ruskin<br /> did—create new publishers—or else attempt the<br /> perhaps not impossible task of doing without<br /> publishers altogether, and going direct to the<br /> booksellers.” This is what is whispered or spoken<br /> outright. What is to prevent, if authors choose,<br /> the opening of an office, with a manager paid on<br /> Commission, and not allowed to publish on his<br /> own account P The thing is perfectly plain and<br /> perfectly simple. For my own part I hope—<br /> though my hope is not, I confess, so strong as<br /> formerly—that the old machinery will continue,<br /> but adjusted to altered conditions. All that we<br /> demand as a preliminary to any serious attempt<br /> to settle the question is the recognition of four<br /> points which no honest man can, for very shame,<br /> refuse, viz.: -<br /> I. No secret profits—i.e., no falsifying of<br /> a CCOUnts.<br /> 2. No charge unless of money actually paid—as<br /> no charge for advertisements except those paid<br /> for ; all discounts to be entered in the books, &amp;c.<br /> 3. Open accounts—i.e., an author to see the<br /> account books which concern himself.<br /> 4. A clear understanding of what the agree-<br /> ment leaves to either party in the event of<br /> SUICCéSS.<br /> I have submitted these points to many business<br /> men. Their opinion has uniformly been the same.<br /> If anyone in the City, they say, should dare to<br /> object to any such conditions between himself and<br /> his partner or fellow venturer in any enterprise,<br /> he would be shown the door instantly.<br /> If, therefore, we find that a certain publisher is<br /> constantly vomiting charges of this and of that<br /> against the Society or any of its committee; if<br /> he further learns that this publisher is one of<br /> those who still falsify their accounts, keep the<br /> books dark, and persevere in the bad old ways of<br /> treating the author as their humble dependent, it<br /> is surely our plain and obvious duty at least to<br /> avoid that person; not to give him our books;<br /> and not to admit him to our society. Do we not<br /> owe so much—it is not much—to the cause of<br /> literature, as well as our own self-respect P. This<br /> is one of the points which we ought to cultivate—<br /> the absolute social boycotting of the dishonest<br /> and the tricky publisher.<br /> Here is a case, not of dishonesty, nor of tricki-<br /> ness, but one which exposes the way in which<br /> certain publishers have come to regard their own<br /> rights over a book. The man in question was<br /> interviewed by a certain paper, and he wept over<br /> the wickedness and the greediness of the un-<br /> speakable author. The case of wicked greed was<br /> this. He produced a book by a highly popular,<br /> though, perhaps, unspeakable, author. This<br /> author took a royalty of eighteenpence out of a<br /> nominal six shillings. How did the case stand P<br /> The figures are not to be denied. They are as<br /> follows:<br /> The average price of the book to the trade is<br /> s. 6d.<br /> 3 The cost, with advertising, is less than a shil-<br /> ling—say I I d.<br /> The author receives Is. 6d. for every copy sold.<br /> The publisher receives Is. Id.<br /> This man said that he must first subtract the<br /> “establishment expenses” and, these all deducted,<br /> he was left only sixpence. The “expenses”<br /> therefore amount to about as much—say 31250<br /> for the one book, which had a sale of about<br /> 50,000 copies, and is still going on. Really, when<br /> one looks at the modest exterior of this publisher&#039;s<br /> establishment, one is surprised that one book can<br /> cost so much merely to manage, without counting<br /> the production. Therefore, the publisher having<br /> had no risk whatever—having simply used the<br /> machinery of a small office, and ordered the<br /> advertisements—gets 31250 for himself by his<br /> own showing. And he goes on to say that<br /> things are coming to such a pass—i.e., when<br /> a publisher can make no more than £1250<br /> for himself out of one book—that “the successful<br /> author will find no publisher willing to undertake<br /> his books at the price he demands.” What? Not<br /> for twelve hundred and fifty pounds? Really<br /> Here is self sacrifice But is not this demanding<br /> almost too much of a credulous public P<br /> As for “establishment expenses,” the question<br /> will have to be argued out. For my own part,<br /> I should begin by arguing that the bookseller&#039;s<br /> and the author’s “establishment expenses” must<br /> be allowed as well as the publisher&#039;s. The former,<br /> clearly, has rent and assistants and taxes to pay :<br /> and he has also the very considerable risk of<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#368) ################################################<br /> <br /> 14<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> unsold stock. The latter—the author—has at<br /> least the rent of his study, which is his office;<br /> his shorthand clerk; his agent; his typewriting;<br /> the books he must buy ; the journeys he must<br /> take. For instance, I once wrote a little book<br /> on Captain Cook. It was one of Macmillan&#039;s<br /> series, for which T received a hundred guineas.<br /> The price was, I dare say, quite as much as the<br /> book was worth, commercially. I do not complain<br /> at all about the price. I was very glad to write<br /> the book for other reasons apart from the small<br /> cheque. Now, this book took me down to York-<br /> shire twice; and once to a certain cathedral city<br /> to see a certain clergyman, who had information<br /> of a kind previously unpublished, and very useful<br /> for the book. I had to pay for the copying of a<br /> previously unpublished log. I had to get a good<br /> deal of typewriting done. All these were “esta-<br /> blishment expenses,” and they amounted, I<br /> reckoned up, to about £45. But it never entered<br /> my head to charge these expenses, although they<br /> swallowed up nearly half the little cheque. If,<br /> however, the practice of charging for “establish-<br /> ment expenses” is allowed to one of the three<br /> persons named, I shall argue that it must be<br /> allowed to all.<br /> It seems likely that we shall have a good deal<br /> of talk upon these subjects before long, perhaps<br /> with some results. The booksellers, whose case is<br /> really hard, seem waking up. One of them, Mr.<br /> Burleigh, wrote to the Times saying, with great<br /> bitterness, that authors and publishers between<br /> them are killing the bookseller. Sir William<br /> Conway pointed out in an able letter that authors,<br /> at least, are innocent of any such action or<br /> intention. As a matter of fact, the alleged<br /> Squeezing by agents, which has by no means as<br /> yet even reached the old half-profit system, is a<br /> thing of the last half dozen years, and no change<br /> whatever, as Mr. Burleigh must know very well,<br /> has been made of late in the relations of bookseller<br /> and publisher. The booksellers, in fact, if they only<br /> knew it, are the real masters of the situation. They<br /> should combine, but not to run up the prices of<br /> books. They should combine, leaving to each<br /> perfect freedom as to the price at which he would<br /> sell his books.<br /> upon me I will show him certain other objects for<br /> which booksellers could combine with very<br /> excellent results to themselves. But if he calls he<br /> must not begin by calling authors bad names:<br /> first, because I won’t allow it; next, because we<br /> don&#039;t deserve these bad names; and lastly, because<br /> calling names doesn’t advance matters.<br /> At the Authors’ Club on the 27th ult. Rider<br /> Haggard was the guest of the evening. If there<br /> And if Mr. Burleigh will call<br /> was wanted a proof that literary men are not,<br /> as a rule, devoured with jealousy and hatred<br /> towards each other, it was provided in the recep-<br /> tion which he met with at that dinner.<br /> A friend of many readers of this paper is dead.<br /> George Bentley died last week at the age of sixty-<br /> seven. He had long been suffering from asthma,<br /> which drove him every winter to take refuge at<br /> Tenby. Courtly, genial, kindly, he was the model<br /> of the old-fashioned publisher of the most honour-<br /> able kind. Nor was he without literary ability, as<br /> was shown by the occasional papers which he con-<br /> tributed to his own magazine, Temple Bar, of<br /> which he was for nearly thirty years the editor,<br /> These essays he collected into a little volume,<br /> which he published some years ago, with what<br /> success I know not. His magazine continues, I<br /> believe, to enjoy a wide and increasing circulation;<br /> and it has always been remarkable for its excel-<br /> lent novels, written chiefly by ladies, and for its<br /> biographical sketches. At this moment, that of<br /> going to press, it is impossible to do justice to<br /> the memory of George Bentley. In our next<br /> number I hope that one who knew him intimately<br /> will communicate to the Author a longer notice<br /> of this kindliest of publishers.<br /> I hear also at the same moment that James<br /> Dykes Campbell, the author of the “Life of<br /> Coleridge,” is dead. It was his one book, but it<br /> is the life of Coleridge. No other memoir of the<br /> philosopher-poet will be written, unless it is one<br /> based upon Campbell&#039;s. The author was for many<br /> years a partner in the house of Ireland, Fraser, and<br /> Co., in Mauritius; he was always, from boyhood.<br /> attracted towards literary pursuits; and when I<br /> first made his acquaintance, now thirty-two<br /> years ago, was already deeply interested in every-<br /> thing that concerned Coleridge and his friends.<br /> He was fortunate in being able to retire from<br /> business soon after forty with a moderate fortune,<br /> which enabled him to live as he pleased, and to<br /> take up in earnest the literary life without being<br /> shackled by the necessity of providing the daily<br /> bread. To this enviable independence we owe<br /> the “Life of Coleridge&quot;—a book which contains<br /> the research, the travels, and the patient labour<br /> of years. He died at a comparatively early age,<br /> but his life was happy, fortunate, and successful.<br /> To have written that one book, which will remain<br /> long after the perishable work of more popular<br /> writers, to be inseparably associated with the<br /> name of Coleridge, is an achievement which by<br /> itself makes a successful career.<br /> WALTER BESANT.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#369) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 15<br /> ANNUAL DINNER OF THE INCORPORATED<br /> SOCIETY OF AUTHORS,<br /> R. MOBERLY BELL presided last even-<br /> ing (May 23) at the Holborn Restaurant,<br /> over the annual dinner of this Society,<br /> at which about 180 ladies and gentlemen were<br /> present, including the American Ambassador, Sir<br /> F. and Lady Jeune, Mr. A. W. a Beckett, Mrs.<br /> Oscar Beringer, the Rev. Canon Bell, D.D., Mr.<br /> Mackenzie Bell, Mr. C. F. Clifford Borrer, Mr.<br /> J. Theodore Bent, Mrs. Brightwen, Mr. Walter<br /> Besant, Miss Marie Belloc, Mrs. Moberly Bell,<br /> Professor C. A. Buchheim, Mr. F. H. Balfour, yet I am not here to ask absolution, to plead<br /> Mrs. H. C. Black, Dr. Sutherland Black, Mr.<br /> Poulteney Bigelow, Miss Mathilde Blind, Mr.<br /> Henry Blackburn, Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell,<br /> Sir W. T. Charley, Q.C., Mr. Edward Clodd, Mr.<br /> W. Martin Conway, Mrs. Conway, Mr. Moncure<br /> T). Conway, Miss E. R. Chapman, Mr. A. Chatto,<br /> Mr. and Mrs. Horace Cox, Miss Beatrice<br /> Chambers, Mr. and Mrs. Hall Caine, Mr. Ralph<br /> Hall Caine, Major Seton Churchill, the Earl of<br /> Desart, Mrs. Gerard Ford, Miss L. Friswell, Sir<br /> William Fraser, Mr. Harry Furniss, Mr. Edmund<br /> Gosse, Mrs. Aylmer Gowing, Dr. R. Garnett,<br /> Mr. Upcott Gill, Mme. Sarah Grand, Mr.<br /> Anthony Hope Hawkins, Dr. G. Harley, F.R.S.,<br /> Mr. Holman Hunt, Mr. Isaac Henderson, Pre-<br /> bendary Harry Jones, Mr. C. F. Keary, Miss<br /> Florence Marryatt, Lord Monkswell, Mrs. Millie,<br /> Mr. S. B. G. M&#039;Kinney, the Rev. C. H. Middleton-<br /> Wake, Mr. Justin C. MacCartie, Mr. and Mrs.<br /> Henry Norman, Miss E. Pitcairn, Mr. W. H.<br /> Pollock, the President of the Royal College of<br /> Surgeons, the President of the Institute of<br /> Journalists, Lord Reay, Mr. W. Fraser Rae, Mr.<br /> John Rae, Mr. J. Morgan Richards, Mr. J. Ashby<br /> Sterry, Mr. A. M. M. Stedman, Mr. M. H. Spiel-<br /> mann, the Rev. Clementi-Smith, Mr. Douglas<br /> Sladen, Mrs. Burnett Smith, Dr. Burnett Smith,<br /> Miss Shaw, Mr. and Mrs. H. M. Stanley, Miss L.<br /> Shaw, Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Sheldon, Mr. Clement<br /> R. Shorter, Sir Henry Thompson, Mrs. Alec<br /> Tweedie, Mr. Andrew W. Tuer, Mr. G. Herbert<br /> Thring, Mrs. Thring, Miss Grace Toplis, Miss<br /> Tobin, Miss G. Traver, Mr. H. Townsend (New<br /> Pork Herald), Mr. Thomas Townend, Mr. William<br /> Tirebuck, Mr. P. Villars (Figaro), Mrs. Neville<br /> Walford, Mr. C. T. Hagberg Wright, Mr. Walter,<br /> Mr. Sydney F. Walker, Mr. Theodore Watts, and<br /> Mr. Wesselitsky.<br /> The following is a report of the speeches:—<br /> The CHAIRMAN.—Your Excellency, my Lords,<br /> Ladies, and Gentlemen: I ask you to drink<br /> to that toast which needs no words——“The<br /> Queen.”<br /> The CHAIRMAN.—Your Excellency, my Lords,<br /> Ladies, and Gentlemen : Before I propose the<br /> toast of the evening, I think it incumbent on me<br /> to offer some explanation of my apparent pre-<br /> sumption in venturing to address from this chair<br /> a Society of Authors. I am painfully conscious<br /> that I stand, as it were, in the footprints of men<br /> whose shoelatchets I am unworthy to unloose; that<br /> I address authors whose names are “household<br /> words,” and that to most of you to whom I am<br /> utterly unknown, except by name, if by that,<br /> I must seem to have rashly and unnecessarily<br /> placed myself amongst that vast majority of man-<br /> kind who “rush in where angels fear to tread.”<br /> guilty, nor even to urge extenuating circum-<br /> stances, for if on my own merits I have barely<br /> right to ask admission as a simple member of the<br /> Society of Authors—for I hold that the term<br /> “author’’ is not too lightly to be applied to<br /> every scribbler (hear, hear) — if I have still<br /> less the right to speak with the authority which<br /> befits your chairman, yet I ask you to see<br /> in this chair to-night not my own insignificant<br /> personality, but rather the representative, if an<br /> inadequate one, of that great author who, though<br /> anonymous, may yet in some respects claim to<br /> be the greatest author of all time, the Press.<br /> (Hear, hear.) I am deeply sensible that the<br /> Society of Authors, in asking me to take the chair<br /> to-night, have been anxious to pay a graceful and<br /> generous compliment not to myself, not to any<br /> section of the Press, but to the Press as a whole,<br /> to the Press in the widest acceptation of the term,<br /> to that power, great for good and evil—I trust<br /> greater for good than for evil—which owes its<br /> existence to a large extent to the co-operation of<br /> authors, and to which authors themselves some-<br /> times owe a little. (Hear, hear.) I speak of the<br /> Press as an author because I like to think of<br /> every portion in it as forming a part of one<br /> individual whole, animated by one common object,<br /> choosing, it must be, different ways of arriving at<br /> that object, quarrelling, it may be, within Our<br /> body corporate, but yet, if differing in our means,<br /> never differing in our end, and that end I take to<br /> be to voice without fear or favour, without bias<br /> or prejudice, above all without personal motive—<br /> (hear, hear)—that which we honestly believe to<br /> be the public intelligence and the public con-<br /> science. I call the Press a great author because<br /> to ninety-nine hundredths of readers authors are<br /> known not by their individuality, but by their<br /> Works, and I think that even in this distinguished<br /> assembly of authors it will hardly be denied that<br /> the Press, if not the greatest, is, at all events of<br /> all authors, the most prolific and the most<br /> voluminous. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) The<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#370) ################################################<br /> <br /> I6 THE AUTHOR.<br /> most popular amongst you count your readers<br /> by thousands—we count ours by tens and<br /> hundreds of thousands. The most industrious<br /> amongst you can only write—well, ten or a dozen<br /> volumes in the course of a year. (Laughter.)<br /> We publish that every day. (Laughter.) The<br /> most versatile amongst you cannot claim to be a<br /> profound authority on more than three or four<br /> subjects. The author I represent is omniscient.<br /> (Laughter.) . He speaks with profound authority<br /> on every subject and at the very shortest notice.<br /> We write tragedy in our police courts, we write<br /> comedy in our Parliamentary reports, and fiction<br /> in our advertisements (laughter); but the Press,<br /> though it uses the first personal plural, is never<br /> egotistic, and our business to-night is with the<br /> Society of Authors. There are two societies of<br /> authors. To the greater it is given to but few<br /> in a generation, or even in a century to belong;<br /> but the long list of immortals, which begins,<br /> perhaps, with Homer and will not finish, with the<br /> names of your two presidents, the late Lord<br /> Tennyson and Mr. George Meredith. If few can<br /> attain all can aspire, and you and the world will<br /> be better for the aspiration, and I think it fitting<br /> in proposing the toast of what must be an<br /> ephemeral society of authors not to altogether<br /> omit mention of that great immortal Society, of<br /> whose works it was said more than four hundred<br /> years ago “they are the masters who instruct us<br /> without rods or ferrules, without harsh words<br /> or anger, without money or clothes. If you<br /> approach them they are not asleep. If inves-<br /> tigating you interrogate them they conceal<br /> nothing, if you mistake them they never<br /> grumble, if you are foolish they never laugh<br /> at you.” The other society of authors is<br /> Our noble selves. If we cannot illuminate all<br /> time we shed a very brilliant light upon the pre-<br /> sent generation. We are a most virtuous society,<br /> the most virtuous that ever existed. Imake that<br /> assertion on the unimpeachable authority of a<br /> committee of the society itself, for we have been<br /> informed in the public press that no member of<br /> this society is greedy—(laughter)—inordinately<br /> greedy. That remark was not made in reference<br /> to this banquet. It referred to the greed of<br /> pecuniary profit. I do not know that it is a<br /> serious charge to bring against anyone that he<br /> should be greedy of the full remuneration which<br /> he can honestly claim for his work (hear, hear),<br /> but, however that may be, we are devoid of even<br /> that, and therefore I am sure I am justified<br /> in saying that we are a peculiarly virtuous<br /> Society, that we have a strong sense of virtue<br /> —whether we have an equal sense of humour,<br /> that, as one of our Society hath said, is quite<br /> another story (laughter)—but we have great<br /> claims upon your goodwill. We have led a<br /> respectable, useful, and not utterly obscure<br /> existence, for more than eleven years. Originally<br /> started, I believe, for the protection of the<br /> unfledged authors from the wiles of those animals.<br /> —ferae naturae—who prowl in the field of litera-<br /> ture in the guise of the Profession we all honour<br /> and respect, the publisher, you now number<br /> twelve hundred members, all authors more or less.<br /> distinguished, more than half of whom have<br /> sought the assistance of the committee : and<br /> we have another claim—we are co-operative<br /> and self supporting. We do not send round the<br /> hat. (Laughter.) We ask nothing of our visitors,<br /> except to dine with us, and that which is,<br /> perhaps, I admit, already a severe tax, to listen.<br /> to our speeches, but even that is not compulsory.<br /> (Laughter.) I have spoken of your past and<br /> present. Allow me a few words as to your<br /> future. As a member of your Society, as one<br /> whom you have peculiarly honoured to-night, I<br /> naturally wish you a long and prosperous career,<br /> but I fear that my hopes are stronger than my<br /> faith. I am credibly informed that many of you<br /> neglect the latest gospel of labour. Some of you<br /> work more than eight hours a day, many of you<br /> have other professions, and are therefore out-<br /> siders; others, I am told, are so devoted to<br /> literature that they work without exacting a living<br /> wage, and then, worst of all, you do not each of<br /> you insist upon exactly the same payment—<br /> pounds, shillings, and pence, per word, or per<br /> page, or per week. (Laughter). Well, if these<br /> horrible charges are true, it is my duty to tell<br /> you that you are blacklegs, and that you must<br /> expect in a very short time that either the House<br /> of Commons or the London County Council, or<br /> one of those numerous institutions which exist<br /> to restore to us the beneficent socialism of the<br /> sixteenth century, will come down upon you, and<br /> they will, perhaps, establish a ministry or a<br /> department for the protection of the authors, and<br /> thus will destroy the reason of your existence.<br /> The department will collect statistics, they will be<br /> able to say that two, or possibly three, men are<br /> studying at the same time the same period of<br /> history, that possibly half a dozen young ladies<br /> are writing novels, in each case the motif<br /> of which may be the gentle passion, and it would<br /> be very easy for them to point out that this is an<br /> enormous waste of labour, that it could be done<br /> much more cheaply and much more expeditiously<br /> by a ministry of literature, with the help of<br /> assistant secretaries for prose, poetry, and so forth.<br /> This is not utterly irrelevant, because in the past<br /> you have fought the pseudo publisher, otherwise<br /> the pirate. For the future your object is to<br /> combat pseudo philanthropy, otherwise Socialism<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#371) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 17<br /> —it is the only way by which you can keep the<br /> Society alive, and by which we in the Society can<br /> exist. I have to associate with this toast the<br /> name of your chairman, Mr. William Martin<br /> Conway, a gentleman who has climbed to dis-<br /> tinction on the Alps, the Apennines, and the<br /> Himalayas; who is equally prominent as an art<br /> lecturer, mountaineer, author, and who now<br /> desires to enter into that singular assembly con-<br /> sisting of commoners who desire to become peers,<br /> and peers who desire to become commoners. I<br /> am peculiarly unable to speak of Mr. Conway;<br /> luckily you know him better than I do. I am<br /> unable, because my opportunities have never led<br /> me much into the study of art, and my inclina-<br /> tions have never led me to mountaineering, except<br /> with the friendly help of a locomotive. But there<br /> is just one point for which Mr. Conway is very<br /> remarkable, and upon which I am able to speak<br /> with the highest authority. Mr. Conway is a man<br /> of a most extraordinarily good judgment, and ex-<br /> traordinary good taste. He has brought the<br /> proofs of that here to-night, and they sit on my<br /> left hand. (Laughter and hear, hear.) Ladies and<br /> gentlemen, I ask you to drink to the toast of the<br /> Incorporated Society of Authors, associated with<br /> the name of Mr. W. M. Conway.<br /> M.R. W. M. ConwAY.—Mr. Chairman, Your<br /> Excellency, My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen :<br /> I have often thought that this annual dinner of the<br /> Society of Authors might be made a very much<br /> more amusing function than it is. We un-<br /> fortunately meet only to dine. We don’t meet, I<br /> am thankful to say, to collect money, neither do<br /> we meet to sell the products of our labour. I<br /> have sometimes thought that if on these occasions<br /> every member of the Society of Authors attended<br /> with his manuscripts, and if we invited the<br /> publishers of London to dine with us, and if,<br /> after duly baptising the whole show in champagne,<br /> we held an auction, that the frolic would be some-<br /> thing worth attending. (Laughter.) However, you<br /> have drunk the health of the Society of Authors,<br /> and it is for me to attempt to justify that some-<br /> what rash act. Sir, the Society of Authors is at<br /> all events an active society—when it has nothing<br /> else to do it falls upon Mr. Gosse (laughter), we<br /> fill up odd moments by quarrelling amongst our-<br /> selves, and when we get a chance we fall upon a<br /> common enemy. Squabbling is said to be a sign<br /> of life, and I am sure that the Authors’ Society,<br /> throughout the whole course of its not too long<br /> existence, has been engaged in one successive<br /> series of squabbles. It was once my pleasure—at<br /> least, my duty—to be the secretary, or, rather, to<br /> run, a thing called the Art Congress for the three<br /> years of its chequered existence. During that<br /> time I attained a somewhat minute and peculiar<br /> dinner.<br /> acquaintance with the attitude of the artistic mind<br /> in the face of business. Since I have been intimately<br /> associated with the Society of Authors I have had<br /> proofs—derived from this former experience—I<br /> have had proofs that the author is really an artist.<br /> I find that in many matters of business the<br /> author approaches the situation with that kind<br /> of attitude which is distinctly characteristic of<br /> the artist who abuses everyone all round, but more<br /> especially his own attorney (laughter), and we<br /> who have sat for some time on the committee of<br /> this Society are now thoroughly accustomed to<br /> the artistic attitude of authors—we have become<br /> so accustomed to it that unless we are abused by<br /> the members we don’t consider that we can be<br /> possibly doing our duty. (Taughter.) There is<br /> my friend Mr. Besant, who at intervals boils with<br /> indignation. I say that this boiling with indig-<br /> nation on the part of our founder, Mr. Besant,<br /> is the great source and origin, and, I hold, the<br /> moving force, that has created and maintained<br /> this Society. (Applause and laughter.) Unfor-<br /> tunately for myself, I am unable so to boil when<br /> I hear that an author has entered into a ridiculous<br /> agreement. Mr. Besant does the boiling with<br /> indignation, and it is for me to advise him to<br /> carry out his contract. It seems to me that the<br /> first thing that an author who has played the<br /> perfect fool in the matter of the making of his<br /> agreement has to do is to suffer the penalty of<br /> his folly for the time being, and to afterwards go<br /> to the Society of Authors to guard him in the future<br /> against similar blunders. (Hear, hear.) Another<br /> member of the Society wrote to us the other day<br /> and said he would like to become a member of the<br /> Society, not because he intended to make any use<br /> of it, but because he wanted to have a guinea&#039;s<br /> worth of fighting for his money. We elected that<br /> gentleman immediately (laughter), being, I hope, a<br /> sporting committee, and we have since been sitting<br /> around waiting for the fray. (Laughter.) Un-<br /> fortunately the only sport we have been able to<br /> have out of him has been a letter communicated<br /> to the public press in which he abused us for<br /> dining here to-night. (Loud laughter.) Well,<br /> we have heard something of late about book-<br /> sellers, and I had a sort of idea of talking about<br /> them myself, but it occurred to me that it would<br /> lead to a disquisition on political economy which<br /> 1 feared would be rather a heavy morsel after<br /> So we will pass by the booksellers, and<br /> come to our other friends the publishers. Gentle-<br /> men, our relations with publishers—the relations,<br /> that is to say, with the main body of authors with<br /> whom we come in contact—appear at the present<br /> time to be highly satisfactory, for the number of<br /> disputes—most of them small ones — that has<br /> been brought to our notice of late has been ex-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#372) ################################################<br /> <br /> I 8 THE AUTHOR.<br /> tremely low, and I conclude that, through the<br /> medium of the Society of Authors, publishers<br /> and authors have come to understand each other<br /> a little better than before, and this common<br /> understanding has been brought about by the<br /> common recognition of each side of its own folly<br /> and its own interest, and I believe that hereafter<br /> we shall find that the Society, far from being a<br /> necessarily militant body, will be in friendly<br /> contact with that body of men who are really its<br /> partners, and should be its allies. I believe that<br /> in future we shall find that we are attaining<br /> more and more to a common understanding, and<br /> are able better and better to work to our common<br /> end. But at the present time we are united —<br /> we and the publishers are assuredly united in<br /> One common cause, for we are threatened by a<br /> common danger. I allude, of course, to the ques-<br /> tion of the Canadian copyright. (Hear, hear.)<br /> There, gentlemen, is a question which has arisen<br /> recently in an acute form, and which, if there had<br /> not been a Society of Authors to take it up, would<br /> assuredly have been settled in a manner that would<br /> have done the greatest possible injury to the<br /> interests of British authors. I trust that, owing<br /> to the vigorous ini iative that we have taken in<br /> this matter, no injurious decision will be come to;<br /> but there, at all events, is a matter which threatens<br /> authors and publishers alike, and in which both<br /> are equally and keenly interested. (Hear, hear.)<br /> Well, gentlemen, I think I have said enough, and<br /> more than enough, to justify in having drunk to<br /> the health of yourselves—to the Society of Authors<br /> —and I trust that in the coming year, until we<br /> meet here again, we shall go on along the lines<br /> we have adopted, and shall advance in the pro-<br /> motion of those just interests which the Society<br /> exists to promote. (Loud applause.)<br /> The RIGHT Hon. SIR FRANCIs H. JEUNE, P.C.,<br /> in proposing the toast of “Literature,” said—<br /> Mr. Moberly Bell, Your Excellency, My Lords,<br /> Ladies, and Gentlemen: I have the honour to<br /> propose to you the toast of “Literature,” asso-<br /> ciated with the name of Mr. Anthony Hope<br /> Hawkins. (Here a band, playing in a neigh-<br /> bouring room, opportunely interrupted with a<br /> startling burst of music, which, to the merriment<br /> of the company, seemed specially designed to<br /> pay honour to the toast and to the name of<br /> Mr. Anthony Hope Hawkins.) I could hardly<br /> imagine, sir, a more inspiriting incident, under<br /> what must be admitted to be circumstances of<br /> some difficulty, then the sound of that distant,<br /> but, I hope, not distressing band. (Laughter.)<br /> But I admit I do acquire some comfort and some<br /> consolation in entering upon the task which has<br /> devolved upon me, for I presume that I have<br /> been selected to propose this toast because I never<br /> wrote a book, and because my contributions to<br /> ephemeral literature have been so few as to be a<br /> negligable quantity, and I am quite content to be<br /> ranked in that large class of meritorious persons<br /> whose only business with newspapers is to read<br /> them, and whose only additional duty with regard<br /> to books is to buy them. (Laughter.) But, sir,<br /> I think it is not unfitting that a man whose life<br /> has been spent in the pursuit of a laborious pro-<br /> fession should make his acknowledgments to the<br /> charms of literature, because it is he, and persons<br /> such as he, who owe to literature the happiest<br /> relaxation of their lives, with an occupation that<br /> never wearies, and with pleasures that never pall.<br /> (Applause.) But, Sir, a prudent lawyer never<br /> makes an admission except for the purpose of<br /> avoiding an inconvenient inquiry, and I am not<br /> prepared on this occasion, especially after the<br /> speech of the chairman, to admit a complete dis-<br /> severence between literature and law. It is quite<br /> true, sir, that in those legal treatises in which we<br /> delight, or are supposed to delight, you cannot<br /> find those charms of literature other than such as<br /> may be obtained by clearness of style and lucidity<br /> of arrangement. It was not, Sir, always so. We<br /> have, I am afraid, in later days changed for the<br /> worse. Old writers allowed themselves greater<br /> license. Lord Coke, in commenting on a mis-<br /> taken and earlier author, after his observations<br /> proceeded to a sort of obituary notice of it, and<br /> said: “He lived without love, and died without<br /> pity, save that of those who thought the pity was<br /> that he had lived so long.” (Loud laughter.)<br /> Sir, I regret to say characterise the personal<br /> qualifications of our predecessors, however<br /> erroneous we may think their notions to have<br /> been. But, Sir, the connection between Litera-<br /> ture and Law is, I venture to think, a close one.<br /> I don’t claim that many have found their place on<br /> the roll of fame, and I do not forget that England<br /> contributed Lord Bacon, or that Sir Walter Scott<br /> hailed at once from the land of lawyers and the<br /> land of Scotland, but I admit that the roll of fame<br /> is short. But when we come to that branch of<br /> literature which your chairman represents, there,<br /> I venture to say, a wholly different position may<br /> be taken up. Your chairman has told you that<br /> every day some twelve volumes—I think it was—<br /> of ephemeral literature are produced. Well, Sir,<br /> I think that we lawyers contribute our full share<br /> to that. I believe that public speakers attain a<br /> length in the columns of the daily papers propor-<br /> tionate to their eminence—that the first-class man<br /> is allowed to say all he has said at full length,<br /> that the second class are those who are allowed to<br /> say a part of what they have said, and that the<br /> third class consists of those who have to content<br /> themselves with reading what they ought to have<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#373) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> IQ<br /> said. (Doud laughter.) Now, Sir, I think that<br /> we may claim the first of those places. I<br /> recollect a short time ago—well, a time ago—<br /> reading in the same day a judgment by a<br /> certain Lord Chancellor—whose name I decline<br /> to mention (laughter)—and a political speech<br /> by the same authority. The judgment, Sir,<br /> occupied two columns and a half — the<br /> speech occupied something less than half a<br /> column. I do not know whether the political<br /> and judicial utterances were of value in direct<br /> relation to their length, but I think it must be<br /> admitted that in his legal capacity the Chancellor<br /> made a larger contribution to journalism. than<br /> ever he could or did as a politician. (Laughter.)<br /> Well, your chairman has reminded you that there<br /> is another side where we may contribute largely,<br /> at least to daily literature. He has told you that<br /> the Courts produce at once tragedies and come-<br /> dies, that literature from the time of Shakespeare<br /> down to those of Molière, Trollope, and Dickens<br /> have been always ready to produce these scenes,<br /> and I am sorry to say they are chiefly charac-<br /> terised by a sense of humour rather at the ex-<br /> pense of the lawyers, or by some extremely bad<br /> law. (Laughter.) But, Sir, I am not altogether<br /> surprised, or at all surprised, that literature finds<br /> a field for its exertions in that direction. A trial<br /> combines many elements of interest. There is<br /> the continual display of gladiatorial skill. There<br /> is the constant revelation of incident, and there is<br /> the glorious uncertainty of result. A famous<br /> trial seems to combine the various attractions of<br /> an interesting cricket match with those of a suc-<br /> cessful drama. (Laughter.) I think, Sir, for<br /> these contributions journalism ought to be thank-<br /> ful. It may well be that there are some parts of<br /> these contributions which could be better spared,<br /> and I think this is no unfitting occasion,<br /> speaking as I do to an audience composed<br /> both of men and women, and to an audience<br /> highly capable of judging on such a subject, to<br /> express a respect for those journals which,<br /> exercising their independent judgment, have<br /> thought it right to refuse publication to matter<br /> which, in their opinion, ought to be suppressed.<br /> (Applause.) But, Sir, I am quite conscious that<br /> those journals who practise that abnegation do<br /> so at considerable loss to themselves, and they<br /> deserve respect because it may well be that they<br /> give advantages to less scrupulous rivals. I<br /> should be glad, Sir, if it were not so. I think it<br /> impossible that the proceedings in Courts of<br /> Justice should be held otherwise than in public,<br /> and from personal experience I have no reason<br /> whatever to complain of the proceedings of the<br /> public Press, but I am aware that there are some<br /> papers who cannot put a sufficient check upon<br /> themselves, and I confess I should be glad if it<br /> were possible to provide that some authority,<br /> responsible and cognisant in the matter, should<br /> be allowed to forbid the publication of that which<br /> ought not to be published. I think that would be<br /> for the interests of morality, and I believe it would<br /> be for the interests of journalism, because I think<br /> it would tend to raise the lower class of journals,<br /> perhaps against their will, but still to raise them<br /> to the standard of the highest (applause). Sir,<br /> I approach the task of saying something about<br /> literature—and it has fallen to my lot to do it<br /> more than once—with a somewhat uneasy feeling<br /> in one respect, and the presence of your chairman<br /> brings about that feeling. I was once in the<br /> chairman’s presence, and the presence of the<br /> American Minister reminds me of it, and I<br /> was once rash enough to say that journalism<br /> was “literature in a hurry,” and after I<br /> had said it I received so many remonstrances and<br /> read so much criticism in the papers that I<br /> almost began to think that my poor little obser-<br /> vation was original. (Laughter.) Mr. George<br /> Augustus Sala told me it was not true that all<br /> newspapers were produced in the small hours<br /> of the morning. An authority, Mr. Arthur<br /> Walter, in a judicious and even judicial spirit,<br /> said that a part of literature was so produced<br /> and part was not ; but, Sir, our chairman this<br /> evening has reinforced me because he has told me<br /> that it is the great merit of the Press to produce<br /> its matter at the smallest possible notice. There-<br /> fore I decline the white sheet, I am not prepared<br /> to do penance for the observation, and I still<br /> venture to maintain that journalism is literature<br /> in a hurry. (Taughter.) You attend the theatres<br /> on the first night, and you see the busy pencils<br /> all around you, and you read the criticism next<br /> morning. It is brilliant criticism, but is it not<br /> brilliant criticism in a hurry P (Laughter.) There<br /> is a story told of Mr. Delane, coming down late<br /> at night to his club full of the account he had<br /> heard of the illness of Mr. Disraeli. It was said<br /> that Mr. Disraeli was seriously ill—even danger-<br /> ously ill—and Mr. Delane&#039;s terror and regret<br /> were extreme. He said to everyone “Have you<br /> heard the terrible news, the awful news P” His<br /> friends heard him somewhat surprised, and<br /> someone said “No doubt it is very sad and<br /> very sudden, but I never knew you had such an<br /> admiration for Mr. Disraeli,” and Mr. Delane<br /> said “Oh no, it is not that at all, but here<br /> it is ten o’clock at night and I have not<br /> got a word written about him. (Laughter.)<br /> Now, sir, I daresay that if Mr. Disraeli had then<br /> died there would, after all, have appeared a<br /> brilliant and complete biography of him, but<br /> would it not have been biography in a hurry P<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#374) ################################################<br /> <br /> 2O THE AUTHOR.<br /> Sir, I have the greatest possible respect for the<br /> leading articles of the Times; I think they are<br /> very full of good sense, of profundity and wisdom—<br /> and I nearly always agree with them. (Laughter.)<br /> But, sir, I have never heard that it was given to<br /> many men in the world, to quote Mr. Russell<br /> Lowell, “lifelong convictions to extemporise,” and<br /> when I have read these articles I have sometimes<br /> thought it is wisdom in a hurry. Well, sir, I<br /> hope I have justified that phrase.<br /> it is—as I trust it is not—disparaging to<br /> journalism, it is certainly not disparaging to<br /> literature. (Applause). I say all honour ought<br /> to be paid to the laborious student by whom our<br /> great works have, with toil and labour, been pro-<br /> duced; and, sir, what is more, the whole history<br /> of the literature of this country is the history of<br /> a literature that has not been in a hurry. The<br /> remarkable feature about it is that century after<br /> century the tree has put forth flowers ever new,<br /> although of varied beauty, and has produced fruits<br /> ever new, although of varied value. Well, sir, I<br /> think that is a great comfort to which we look. I<br /> am sorry to hear from Mr. Conway that authors<br /> have their domestic and external difficulties. They<br /> apparently have difficulties both with their home<br /> and foreign policy. (Laughter.) They apparently<br /> have difficulties with the publisher and with the<br /> |bookseller; and the trio of publishers, booksellers,<br /> and authors form a combination which does not<br /> altogether appear to be a happy family. I can-<br /> not, Sir, offer them the consolation of a lawyer,<br /> because I am afraid that the instinct of a lawyer<br /> is that where three people are quarrelling there<br /> must be something very substantial to be quarrel-<br /> ling about.<br /> consolation of the distressed agriculturist. The<br /> relations between them appear to be very much<br /> the same as those of landlord and farmer and the<br /> labourer, and I think it is true that whatever else<br /> has happened in these unfortunate difficulties<br /> which have arisen in that sphere of life, whatever<br /> else has happened it is not the labourer who has<br /> suffered. Sir, there may be other difficulties and<br /> dangers which beset the labourer. It may be<br /> that at the present time some clouds rest upon<br /> his prospects. It may be that writers such as<br /> Mr. Max Nordau, in pointing out degeneracy,<br /> apart from matters of great exaggeration, put<br /> their fingers upon some points of truth; it may<br /> be, sir, that in an age which apparently is unable<br /> to elect a Poet Laureate, that there is something<br /> wrong with the poets or with the age ; but if<br /> some of these matters tend to a foreboding I think<br /> we may look at the past of our literature, and<br /> take comfort in the fact that literature is the<br /> best antidote to pessimism ; and if it be true that<br /> literature, high, and pure, and national, filled the<br /> At any rate, if<br /> Perhaps, sir, I may offer them the<br /> “spacious times of great Elizabeth,” it is equally<br /> true that the sounds of that literature have often<br /> echoed since and echo still. Sir, I have great<br /> pleasure in connecting with this toast the name<br /> of my friend, Mr. Anthony Hope Hawkins. I<br /> had almost said my relative, because he is, I am<br /> glad to think, connected with my legal brother,<br /> the brilliant and distinguished Sir Henry<br /> Hawkins. At any rate, I am sure that in Mr.<br /> Anthony Hope Hawkins, not even Max Nordau<br /> himself, in his most scientific moments, could<br /> discover the stigma of degeneracy. It was no<br /> decadent, I think, that produced the weird and<br /> startling fiction of the “Prisoner of Zenda,” or<br /> the raillery of the “Dolly Dialogues,” or the<br /> easy sarcasm and startling incident of his last<br /> effort “The Man of Mark.” Mr. Hawkins has,<br /> I hope, himself made a mark upon the literature<br /> of the day, and I hope that he will gain for<br /> himself a notable place in the literature of the<br /> country. (Applause.)<br /> r. ANTHONY HoPE HAWKINs, replying to<br /> the toast, said—Mr. Chairman, Sir Francis Jeune,<br /> Your Excellency, My Lords, Ladies, and Gentle-<br /> men : I regret for some reasons that one who<br /> pursues the branch of literature that I do should<br /> have been called upon to reply to this toast.<br /> Almost the first remark that I heard when I<br /> came into this room was the question of why I<br /> should be selected to reply to this toast. Gentle-<br /> men, I am unable to answer the question, but I<br /> am, after all, glad that it is so, because it has given<br /> me the opportunity and the pleasure of listening<br /> to the kindly and generous words which Sir<br /> Francis Jeune has spoken of me, but I was afraid<br /> that it would foster that vanity to which novelists,<br /> I understand, are prone. Gentlemen, that is an<br /> unjust charge. We are very conscious of one<br /> another&#039;s defects. (Laughter.) And if you were<br /> aware of the dispassionate consideration, in a very<br /> limited amount of time, we bring to bear upon<br /> One another’s writings, you would not consider<br /> that we unduly exalted our branch of literature.<br /> The fact is that we authors are somewhat in the<br /> position of ladies, who, believing themselves sus-<br /> pected of beauty, take refuge in an exaggerated<br /> appreciation of the charms of others, to which<br /> they have not paid much attention. (Laughter.)<br /> Mr. Conway, as became his position, did not<br /> speak in terms of extravagant eulogy of the<br /> Organisation of which he is the active chief, but<br /> we who occupy less responsible positions may<br /> speak more freely of what we consider our merits<br /> and our mission. For my part, I look forward<br /> to a great mission for this Society, and I am<br /> prepared to endure as many jokes as the wit<br /> of our opponents may suggest for the price<br /> of taking it seriously. Our primary object is to<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#375) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 2 I<br /> abolish Grub-street. (Hear, hear.) But I think<br /> there is another, and I think that the committee<br /> of this Society did well to think that there<br /> was another—and that is that in time, and<br /> as this Society justifies itself in the eyes of the<br /> world, it may establish not onlv a Court of<br /> Appeal for distressed authors, but also a court<br /> of honour for its own members. (Hear, hear.)<br /> If we look round at the other professions—I don’t<br /> need to say “learned professions,” for it needs<br /> no learning to write books (laughter)—you will<br /> See corporate bodies existing to which members<br /> of the profession willingly submit their disputes,<br /> and by whose decrees they willingly allow their<br /> conduct to be governed. Gentlemen, I believe<br /> that that reputation and position is not beyond<br /> the prospects of this Society. (Applause.) I<br /> think that the Society will live above criticism,<br /> and we shall see it come to occupy that position<br /> to which, in my opinion, it has a right to aspire.<br /> We don’t want this Society to be merely a society<br /> for the prevention of cruelty to children<br /> (laughter)—that is a very laudable and excellent<br /> function, and a function with which this Society<br /> is employed from day to day, but we also wish it to<br /> be a Society to which its own members and our<br /> friends the enemy—the publisher—can come with<br /> confidence, sure that a dispassionate judgment<br /> will be taken, and sure that the Society will be as<br /> Severe towards the faults of its own members as<br /> upon those with whom members come into con-<br /> tact in the course of business. (Hear, hear).<br /> I think there is one more word that I ought<br /> to say before I sit down, for I should not be<br /> doing my duty, having the honour to reply<br /> for literature, if I did not say one word<br /> about the great loss which literature has suffered<br /> in the year gone by in the death of Mr. Robert<br /> Louis Stevenson. The romantic school of English<br /> fiction was deprived by his death of its acknow-<br /> ledged king and chief, and a personality was lost<br /> of rare thought and distinction and sweetness.<br /> It is not possible for most of us—I may say<br /> safely without offence that it is not possible for<br /> any of us—to hope to emulate Mr. Stevenson’s<br /> achievements, or claim to share his gifts. (Hear,<br /> hear.) . But we are many of us able to<br /> remember the kindness which he invariably<br /> showed to younger and less distinguished<br /> Writers, and we are all able to learn some-<br /> thing from the example of his high ideal, and<br /> the untiring, unresting energy with which he<br /> pursued it. So, sir, although we cannot<br /> stand on his high level, we may feast our<br /> eyes upon the high mountains that it is not<br /> for our feet to tread, and, with a thousand un-<br /> satisfied aspirations, rest at least in the tranquility<br /> of the satisfaction of our own little piece of .<br /> work done as well as we could do it. (Loud<br /> applause.)<br /> Mr. WALTER BESANT then proposed the toast<br /> of “The Visitors” in the following terms: Mr.<br /> Chairman, your Excellency, my Lords, ladies<br /> and Gentlemen,_I have to propose the toast of<br /> “The Visitors.” I am sure that at this late hour<br /> of the evening you will not think it shows any<br /> disrespect to our visitors if I give you this toast in<br /> a very few words. We have always been particu-<br /> larly happy and fortunate at all our dinners in the<br /> visitors who have done us the honour to attend,<br /> and on this occasion I think we are more fortunate<br /> than usual. For, first of all, we have with us this<br /> evening the American Ambassador. Wherever<br /> English authors are gathered together, on the<br /> rare occasions that they do assemble, it is only fit<br /> and right that America should be represented in<br /> the most adequate form possible, because those of<br /> us here, or in America, who are able to contribute<br /> anything towards literature at all, are doing it<br /> not only for America, but for both countries, and<br /> for all that vast world which comprises the<br /> English-speaking race. We have next with us the<br /> President of the Institute of Journalists, and I am<br /> sure that no one is more fittingly here, because<br /> literature and journalism so closely overlap that<br /> no one knows where one begins and the other<br /> ends. We have also with us the President of the<br /> Royal College of Surgeons, whom I take to repre-<br /> sent the literature of surgery. Then we have<br /> next with us representatives of the chief London<br /> papers, and some of the provincial ones, and we<br /> also have representatives from France, Australia,<br /> America, Italy, and from Russia, all gathered<br /> together as Our guests on this occasion. Law is<br /> represented not only by our own members who<br /> are lawyers, of whom we have many, but also by<br /> one of our judges, to whom you have already<br /> had the pleasure of listening. India is repre-<br /> sented by one who has administered a province,<br /> and lastly Africa is represented by a most<br /> dist nguished traveller—perhaps the most dis-<br /> tinguished traveller of any time or any country.<br /> I have therefore the pleasure and the honour, in<br /> the name of the Society, to we&#039;come the visitors<br /> On this occasion, and I ask you to do honour to<br /> the toast, with which I couple the name of the<br /> American Ambassador. (Applause.)<br /> His Excellency the AMERICAN AMBAssADoR,<br /> replying to the toast, said: Mr. Chairman, My<br /> Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am deeply sensi-<br /> tive to the cordiality of your welcome. I am asked<br /> to respond for the guests of the English authors.<br /> The paradise of politicians is supposed to lie in a<br /> majority, and were Ia politician I should find my-<br /> self in the largest majority that the most hopeful<br /> politician could expect, for if I speak for the<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#376) ################################################<br /> <br /> 22 THE AUTHOR.<br /> guests of the authors it is not for the little repre-<br /> sentative handful that have gathered round this<br /> charming board to-night, but it is for the count-<br /> less army of the vast majority of civilised men and<br /> women who have fed so well and so long at the<br /> tables of the authors, and have enjoyed the fine<br /> fruits of the authors’ wit and fancy. In order to<br /> enlarge the scope of Literature, the phrase was<br /> invented, “The Republic of Letters,” and yet I<br /> am inclined to take a leaf from the book of one<br /> of my countrymen, and let the American sailor,<br /> Captain Mahan (applause) show the superiority<br /> of sea power over land power, to call to your mind<br /> how Nelson, with the sea power of England, made<br /> the safety of England possible under Wellington<br /> at Waterloo. It is therefore upon the high seas<br /> of authorship and literature that I would ask you<br /> to embark :<br /> Far as the breeze can bear the ocean’s foam,<br /> Behold your empire, and survey your home.<br /> I don’t think that the land can hold the mind<br /> of man—it must embark upon the sea, and it<br /> must be wafted as the gales may blow—freely,<br /> unhesitatingly. Wherever genius shall direct the<br /> course, there the human mind must follow it.<br /> And so authors must become seafaring folk—<br /> they have been so, they must be so, and, coming<br /> from a country kindred in literature and in feeling<br /> to this—(loud applause)—I feel that literature<br /> forms the strongest bond between the two nations.<br /> (Applause.) You are free to freight your ship<br /> with what you will—with learning, with poesy,<br /> with prose, with wit, with fancy, with philosophy<br /> —you may freight your ship with what you will,<br /> and you may choose your course. You are not<br /> confined by hard dry land, but on the high seas<br /> of human feeling and human relations you steer<br /> your bark to what course you will, and whatever<br /> port you find open to the good things with which<br /> your vessel is freighted. There can be no such<br /> thing to-day as exclusion of the human mind—<br /> there can be no such thing as a pent-up author.<br /> If he is pent-up, depend upon it the bonds and<br /> shackles are found within his own mind. I am<br /> disposed to think of this empire of authorship<br /> and literature that there is no thing into which<br /> it does not enter, and over which it does not<br /> exert a potential control. In these islands, and<br /> everywhere else almost, there is great agricultural<br /> depression, and the question might be asked<br /> “What have authors to do with the tilling of<br /> ground, and what has literature to do with agri-<br /> culture ?” Now, I would put it to any clear-<br /> minded Scotchman, and I would put it also<br /> to his hard-headed English brother, what effect<br /> upon the principles of real estate in Scotland<br /> and in England has the literature of Sir<br /> Walter Scott had P Subtract that influence and<br /> let the calculation be made—how much poorer<br /> on the whole score of money value, of houses<br /> and lands, would the kingdom of Great Britain<br /> be without the mind and the soul of that<br /> magician. (Applause.) Why, Gentlemen, I would<br /> ask my friend Sir Francis Jeune whether there<br /> was not lately tried in the court over which he<br /> presides, a suit to avoid a contract for real estate<br /> upon the ground that a ghost inhabited the<br /> house that had been purchased, and whether<br /> Amy Robsart was not brought into court, and<br /> his purchase sought to be avoided, because the<br /> man found that Sir Walter had killed Amy<br /> Robsart in the wrong place P (Laughter.) Now,<br /> Gentlemen, if the ghosts of literature can be<br /> brought into court and have their money value<br /> essayed, what are we to say of the realities of<br /> literature, and of the power of authorship in our<br /> daily transactions? So that I think we can<br /> expand, by very easy efforts of logical and<br /> rational deduction, the touch of authorship and<br /> literature to everything that affects the happiness<br /> of men, women, and children the civilised world<br /> over. Thus you see that in attempting to answer<br /> for a small portion of your guests, I speak in the<br /> tongue of my own land—and, I suppose, with a<br /> certain inflection (“No, no,”) I may also say I<br /> speak yours—and I thank you most sincerely for<br /> the pleasure that we have derived from the<br /> Society of Authors to-night, and for the pleasure<br /> that all derive from the work of authors every-<br /> where. (Applause.)<br /> Mr. H. M. STANLEY then proposed the last<br /> toast of the evening, that of “The Chairman.”<br /> He said: Your Excellency, my Lords, Ladies and<br /> Gentlemen,_-From what the American Minister<br /> has said just now, I gather that in behalf of the<br /> visitors here to-night he has expressed the feelings<br /> of pleasure of all your guests at being here this<br /> evening and I gather that they have enjoyed a<br /> great deal of pleasantness. To me this is a<br /> memorable evening, because it is the first time I<br /> have had the pleasure and honour of being at an<br /> Authors&#039; dinner. From what Mr. Conway has<br /> stated it appears that there is a great deal of un-<br /> happiness sometimes within the circle of Authors,<br /> but I never expected to see any disturbance at an<br /> Authors&#039; dinner; and if I were to express my own<br /> feelings I should describe them as being those<br /> of extreme felicity that I have the honour to sit<br /> at this table this evening. In fact, I am free to<br /> confess that, from what I have seen and heard<br /> of the party here present, a somewhat warmer<br /> feeling takes possession of me now than when I<br /> entered this hall, for you are all so modest and<br /> unassuming in manner—in fact this is the quietest<br /> public dinner I have ever been at ; but it seems<br /> to me that you do not carry in your bearing that<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#377) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> 23<br /> pride which we might have expected from children<br /> spoiled by the world’s applause. (Laughter). I<br /> have to propose the last toast of this evening.<br /> The fluency with which speeches have been deli-<br /> vered made me almost despair of being able to<br /> interest you at all, but I gather some confidence<br /> and comfort from the nature of my subject. You<br /> have heard your chairman—you have seen him<br /> for yourselves. You have heard a speech,<br /> weighted with good sense and humour, and you<br /> will take him, as I take him, to be more than a<br /> mere ornament for a banquet, and you may<br /> gauge his worth each one for yourselves. I do<br /> not think Mr. Moberly Bell has distinguished<br /> himself in the fields of fiction—of which there<br /> are so many representatives here this even-<br /> ing, ladies and gentlemen—but he has dis-<br /> tinguished himself in other fields of litera-<br /> ture. He has been away for many years in a<br /> distant land, as a narrator of facts, as a student of<br /> history, as an observer of political strategy, as an<br /> analyst of human motives. Week after week his<br /> letters have appeared in this country, and by<br /> them we were able to diagnose public feeling in<br /> that land. I dare say that he will submit to your<br /> superior &#039;gifts of divine imagination. He may<br /> not be able to raise a mortal to the skies, or bring<br /> an angel down to earth, like some of you can, but<br /> he can at least write most veracious political<br /> letters, and in his book “ Pharaohs and Fellahs &#039;’<br /> you will be able to find the keen discrimination<br /> and varied talents of a Plutarch. (Laughter.)<br /> I have known Mr. Moberly Bell for many years.<br /> Those who may only have been able to claim a<br /> slight acquaintance with him may be able to say<br /> that they would like to cultivate his acquaintance<br /> more closely, but I am sure those who are already<br /> possessed of his friendship can boast of a thing<br /> of which they are, and may well be proud. This<br /> is the gentleman to whose health I ask you to<br /> drink heartily—to his health and long life—and<br /> it is with all affection and sincerity that I give you<br /> “Our Chairman, Mr. Moberly Bell.” (Applause.)<br /> The CHAIRMAN.—Mr. Stanley, Your Excellency,<br /> My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen: I thought I<br /> had forgotten how to blush, but Mr. Stanley is<br /> an artist of the renaissance, and he has dis-<br /> covered the lost art. I never before heard myself<br /> compared with Plutarch, and I never knew half<br /> the great things I had done, but I attribute a<br /> great deal of what Mr. Stanley has said to an<br /> acquaintance of twenty-eight years, and I beg<br /> that you will take Mr. Stanley&#039;s remarks about<br /> myself in a very different way to what you would<br /> take his remarks upon other matters with which<br /> he is even more acquainted—that you will take it<br /> with a grain of salt. (Laughter.) As I was<br /> coming into this room I was told by a lady that<br /> the speech of the chairman in reply to his health<br /> was expected to be extremely witty. That would<br /> have appalled me—did appal me, until I sud-<br /> denly remembered what is the soul of wit. I<br /> therefore approach my task with that consolation<br /> in mind, and I have nothing more to do than to<br /> thank you very heartily for the support you have<br /> given me, for the way in which you have welcomed<br /> me, for the warmth with which you have drunk<br /> my health, and on behalf of the Society of<br /> Authors I thank everyone here for their presence<br /> to-night. (Applause.)<br /> The company then rose.<br /> ** * *<br /> g- ºr -se<br /> BOOK TALK.<br /> UTOBIOGRAPHICAL memoranda, were left<br /> by the late Lord Selborne, and are now in<br /> course of preparation for issue. The work<br /> will be published by Messrs. Macmillan.<br /> Mr. George Barlow has written a story of<br /> artistic life, styled “Woman Regained,” which<br /> will appear shortly from the Roxburghe Press.<br /> Two art works of importance are announced by<br /> Messrs. Geo. Bell and Sons for publication in the<br /> autumn. One is on the paintings of Velasquez,<br /> and is being brought out by Mr. R. A. M. Steven-<br /> son, the eminent art critic, who is also cousin of<br /> the late Robert Louis Stevenson. The other con-<br /> cerns Sir Frederick Leighton, and among the<br /> hundred reproductions of his pictures which it<br /> will contain will be that of “Cimabue,” by per-<br /> mission of Her Majesty. Mr. Ernest Rhys has<br /> written a biography of the P.R.A. for the work,<br /> while an appreciation of him as artist is from the<br /> pen of Mr. F. S. Stephens.<br /> A technical dictionary of sea terms, phrases,<br /> and words used in the English and French<br /> languages has been compiled by Mr. William<br /> Pirrie, and will be issued shortly from the house<br /> of Messrs. Crosby Tockwood and Son.<br /> M. Alphonse Daudet, who has, of course, been<br /> the centre of attraction for literary London during<br /> May, is writing the story of his youth—or, rather,<br /> he is telling it to his intimate friend, Mr. Robert H.<br /> Sherard, who will put it into form and write it.<br /> For “Premier Voyage—Premier Mensonge ’’ is<br /> to be published in English, and the work of<br /> collaboration has been begun.<br /> Works relating to the Far East come just now<br /> not singly but in battalions. Another book on<br /> Rorea has just been published under the title of<br /> “Quaint Korea,” the writer being Mrs. Louise<br /> Jordan Miln, who is known for her larger work<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#378) ################################################<br /> <br /> 24 THE AUTHOR.<br /> “When We Were Strolling Players in the East;”<br /> Mr. Lafcadio Hearn will shortly make a further<br /> addition to the stock with “Out of the East :<br /> Reveries and Studies in New Japan,” with the<br /> same publishers, Osgood, McIlvaine, and Co.<br /> Japan is also the subject of a volume of letters<br /> by Amy Wilson-Carmichael, which Messrs.<br /> Marshall Brothers are bringing out under the<br /> style “From Sunrise Land.” Then Mr. J.<br /> Morris, who was many years in Tokio, in the<br /> service of the Board of Works, has written<br /> a work called “Advance Japan: A Nation<br /> Thoroughly in Earnest,” a feature of which will<br /> be the Japanese national anthem done into<br /> English by Sir Edward Arnold. It is in the<br /> press of Messrs. W. H. Allen and Co. “Old-<br /> World Japan,” by Mr. Frank Rinder, is a volume<br /> which Mr. George Allen will issue shortly. Mr.<br /> Henry Norman’s important and already well-<br /> known work, too, “The Peoples and Politics of<br /> the Far East,” has during the month entered its<br /> third edition.<br /> Two other works on subjects of contemporary<br /> political interest are “Five Years in Madagascar,”<br /> by Colonel Francis C. Maude (Messrs. Chapman<br /> and Hall), and a book on Nicaragua by Mr.<br /> Archibald Colquhoun, special corresponeent of<br /> the Times.<br /> Mr. Charles G. Leland has gone in among the<br /> people of Florence, and sought to know their<br /> world of legend, and his book of record is<br /> announced for early publication by Mr. Nutt,<br /> entitled “Legends of Florence.”<br /> Mr. Aubyn Trevor-Battye&#039;s adventures in the<br /> Arctic regions are embodied in “Icebound on<br /> Rolguev,” which Messrs. Archibald Constable<br /> and Co. will publish for him very soon.<br /> Mr. Lionel Johnson and Mr. Le Gallienne have<br /> written the letterpress of “Bits of Old Chelsea,”<br /> which Messrs. Kegan Paul will issue in an artist’s<br /> proof edition, Mr. Walter Burgess having drawn<br /> for it about forty etchings. Few subjects could<br /> be more interesting, associated as Chelsea is with<br /> the great names of Carlyle, Turner, Rossetti, and<br /> Leigh Hunt — to mention only these. One<br /> notable sketch is of “A Corner in Sir Thomas<br /> More&#039;s Garden.” Only a hundred copies will<br /> make up the edition, and the price is Io guineas.<br /> An association has been formed among the<br /> prominent houses which do business in foreign<br /> books, with the object of keeping a look-out upon<br /> questions concerning the improvemant of their<br /> trade, and generally to live in harmony and<br /> defend their interests. The society is called<br /> “The Association of Foreign Booksellers in<br /> London.” Mr. H. Kleinan, of Messrs. Hatchette<br /> and Co., is president, and Mr. Kohn, of Messrs.<br /> Asher and Co., hon. Secretary.<br /> Mr. D. Christie Murray will publish, in the<br /> course of a week, through Messrs. Smith, Elder,<br /> and Co., his new novel in one volume, “The<br /> Martyred Fool.”<br /> The story “Lochinvar,” which Mr. S. R.<br /> Crockett is writing, deals with the life of a High-<br /> lander exiled in Holland. Messrs. Methuen will<br /> publish it. A new romance by Mr. Gilbert<br /> Parker, entitled “When Walmond came to<br /> Pontiac; the Story of a Lost Napoleon’’ is due<br /> from Methuen&#039;s press to-day.<br /> The Hon. Denis Arthur Bingham will shortly<br /> issue, through Chapman and Hall, a volume of<br /> “Recollections of Paris.” He is the author of<br /> “A Journal of the Siege of Paris” and “The<br /> Marriages of the Buonapartes.” French life is also<br /> the subject of a book by Mr. Albert D. Vandam,<br /> which the same publishers have in hand, entitled<br /> “French Men and French Manners.”<br /> A new series of short novels by well-known<br /> writers will be commenced towards the end of the<br /> month by Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co. The<br /> first volume is to be “The Story of Bessie<br /> Cottrell,” by Mrs. Humphry Ward, which is<br /> appearing serially in Cornhill and Scribner&#039;s.<br /> Messrs. Routledge and Sons also announce a new<br /> fiction series at 3s. 6d., of which the first will<br /> be “Two Women and a Fool,” by H. Chatfield<br /> Taylor.” Another is to be produced by Messrs.<br /> Archd. Constable and Co., who in it will make no<br /> distinction of names, but regard simply the merit<br /> of a story.<br /> Mr. Lang edits a new edition of “The Death<br /> Wake,” the poem by Thomas Tod Stoddart,<br /> which first appeared in 1831, and is now ex-<br /> tremely rare. It will be issued from the Bodley<br /> Head.<br /> Two works of history which are to appear<br /> shortly are “The Model Republic,” in which Mr.<br /> Grenfell Baker traces the evolution of Switzer-<br /> land; and a history of the Australasian Colonies,<br /> from their foundation to the ye, r 1893, by Pro-<br /> fessor E. Jenks, of University College, Liverpool.<br /> The latter will be the next volume in the Cam-<br /> bridge Historical Series, edited by Professor<br /> Prothero; while Mr. Baker&#039;s book will be pub-<br /> lished by Messrs. H. S. Nichols and Co.<br /> Mr. Grant Allen (who is dramatising his recent<br /> much-debated novel, “The Woman Who Did,”<br /> assisted by a theatrical collaborator in the person<br /> of Mr. Dyce Scott) is one of several leading<br /> authors who will contribute to a new series of<br /> complete stories to be published by Messrs. Tillot-<br /> son and Son, of Bolton. Mr. Crockett is of the<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#379) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 25<br /> number, with a tale called “The Enlistment of a<br /> Cameronian; ” and Miss Corelli contributes “The<br /> Withering of a Rose.” -<br /> Chief among the books published during May<br /> was “The Life and Letters of Edward A. Free-<br /> man, D.C.L., LL.D.,” by the Dean of Winchester<br /> (W. R. W. Stephens, B.D.), which Messrs.<br /> Macmillan issued in two volumes. It is interest-<br /> ing to note that the great historian had an<br /> “ insuperable repugnance to reading or writing<br /> in a public library.” “As if,” he said once, “to<br /> take the lowest ground, money were not better<br /> and more cheaply spent in buying one&#039;s own<br /> books, than in buying railway tickets to go read<br /> other men&#039;s books a long way off.” From the<br /> same publishing house early in the month came<br /> the first volume of a notable work, “A History of<br /> English Poetry,” by Mr. W. J. Courthope. The<br /> definition of English poetry given by Mr. Court-<br /> hope is metrical compositions in the language<br /> “from the period at which it becomes fairly<br /> intelligible to readers of the present day.” The<br /> author anticipates his work will be completed<br /> before the end of the century. The first two<br /> volumes of the “Memoirs of Barras, Member<br /> of the Directorate,” were published by Messrs.<br /> Osgood, McIlvaine, and Co. Mr. George Duruy<br /> edits the work, and in his introduction defends<br /> Napoleon from the attacks of Barras, and gene-<br /> rally exhibits the latter as a scoundrel.<br /> Mr. H. S. Hoole Waylen has compiled a selec-<br /> tion of “Thoughts from the Writings of Richard<br /> Jefferies,” which Messrs. Longmans will publish<br /> immediately. The same firm will send out Sir<br /> Edward Arnold’s new book of verse, called “The<br /> Tenth Muse, and Other Poems; ” and a volume of<br /> “Russian Rambles,” by Isabel F. Hapgood, who<br /> relates inter alia a visit to Count Tolstoy in his<br /> home.<br /> What is likely to be an excellent catalogue of<br /> the manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum has<br /> been prepared by the director, Dr. M. R. James,<br /> and will come from the Cambridge University<br /> Press on an early day. Twenty pages of photo-<br /> graphic reproductions of important manuscripts<br /> are given. The work is priced net at 25s.<br /> “The Rise and Growth of the English Nation,<br /> with special reference to Epochs and Crises,” by<br /> Dr. W. H. S. Aubrey, is announced for publication<br /> by Mr. Elliott Stock. It will be completed in<br /> three volumes, the first being published early in<br /> May and the rest at short intervals.<br /> The June number of the Antiquary will con-<br /> tain an interesting illustrated paper on “Some of<br /> the Round Towers of France;” also an article on<br /> the R. A. Exhibition under the title “The Anti-<br /> quary among the Pictures.”<br /> The London Library has added 40,000 volumes<br /> to its shelves since 1888, when the present catalogue<br /> was published, and the census of January showed<br /> that the stock has grown to a total of 167,000.<br /> While the accommodation is thus severely taxed,<br /> the income also increases steadily—there are<br /> 2279 members—and at the general meeting on<br /> the 13th inst, a proposal will come up for the<br /> appointment of a professional auditor. A new<br /> catalogue will be ready three or four years hence.<br /> Mr. J. F. Hogan, M.P. has written “The Sister<br /> Dominions,” in which he gives the impressions<br /> Canada and Australia made upon him during a<br /> recent tour. As he is secretary of the Colonial<br /> party in the House of Commons, the author had<br /> special means of receiving the opinions of public<br /> men in the colonies. The book will be published<br /> soon by Messrs. Ward and Downey. Australian<br /> life (along with that of Scotland) is also the<br /> concern of a novel called “By Adverse Winds,”<br /> which Mr. Oliphant Smeaton, editor of the<br /> Liberal, has written, and Messrs. Oliphant,<br /> Anderson, and Ferrier will publish.<br /> The produce of the past month in the depart-<br /> ment of periodicals includes a new monthly, on<br /> general lines, edited by Mr. William Graham, and<br /> called the Twentieth Century, devoted to articles<br /> on subjects of the day, but containing also fiction<br /> and verse; and a new quarterly of the same price<br /> as the Yellow Book and, like it, concerned with<br /> literature and art. This latter is the Evergreen,<br /> “a northern seasonal,” published in Edinburgh<br /> by Patrick Geddes and Colleagues, and in London<br /> by Mr. Fisher Unwin. The contents of each issue<br /> are to correspond with the season of the year it<br /> appears in.<br /> Mrs. Emma Marshall will shortly add to the<br /> series of her historical romances a story entitled<br /> “The White King&#039;s Daughter. Messrs. Seeley<br /> and Co. are the publishers of these stories, of<br /> which “Under Salisbury Spire’ and “Ken-<br /> sington Palace ’’ are amongst the most popular.<br /> “Roughly Told Stories,” is a book apparently<br /> by a new hand, named John Ingold. He aims<br /> at originality and epigram. He is also a cynic.<br /> One sketch in the volume at least is noticeable<br /> —that called “The Tramp.” (The Leadenhall<br /> Press.)<br /> The authorship of “A Superfluous Woman”<br /> has at length become public. That it was from<br /> a practised hand every one knew, but there was<br /> some doubt as to the sex of the writer. The book<br /> was quite one of the successes of 1894, and ran<br /> through several editions. Another novel by the<br /> same author, Miss Emma Brooke, entitled “Tran-<br /> sition,” has just been published. Let us wish it<br /> as large a success.<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#380) ################################################<br /> <br /> 26 THE AUTHOR.<br /> A prettily bound book, with its silver and<br /> grey, is Mathilde Blind’s “Birds of Passage.”<br /> It is a book of songs—“Songs of the Orient”—<br /> “Songs of the Occident’” — “Shakespeare<br /> Sonnets”—and miscellaneous poems. Let the<br /> poet speak for herself in one of her Shakesperian<br /> Sonnets, that called “Cleve Woods: ”<br /> Sweet Avon glides where clinging rushes seem<br /> To stay his course, and, in his flattering glass,<br /> Meadows and hills and mellow woodlands pass,<br /> A fairer world as imaged in a dream.<br /> And sometimes, in a visionary gleam,<br /> From out the secret covert&#039;s tangled mass,<br /> The fisher-bird starts from the rustling grass,<br /> A jewelled shuttle shot along the stream.<br /> Even here methinks where moon-lapped shallows smiled<br /> Eound isles no bigger than a baby cot,<br /> Titania found a glowworm-lighted child,<br /> Led far astray, and, with anointing hand<br /> Sprinkling clear dew from a forget-me-not,<br /> Hailed him the Laureate of her Fairyland.<br /> “A Life&#039;s Mistake” is a story told by Charles<br /> Garvice, and published in New York by “George<br /> Munro’s Son’s.” Mr. Garvice writes like one<br /> who has a future before him. But he should<br /> compress. A story ought to be very good indeed<br /> to be continued for 35o long pages of closely<br /> packed type. -<br /> “Creation’s Hope” (Baker and Son, Clifton)<br /> is a religious poem whose aim and scope are indi-<br /> cated by the title. It is by the Rev. Marcus<br /> S. C. Rickards, M.A. The following is an<br /> extract :<br /> In this fair life scene, over everything<br /> There hangs a chilling fear—as the bright Noon<br /> Is spoilt by haze, or as the smiling Spring<br /> Is marred by blight—a fear, that late or soon<br /> Tempers all bliss, and clouds each native boon.<br /> Close as an ever-brooding presence sits<br /> That fear of death, which now makes Nature swoon,<br /> Now braces her for what this clime befits,<br /> Which Ignorance alone for a brief spell outwits.<br /> The warbler flitting on from spray to spray<br /> Fears not the gun that compasses its doom :<br /> The schoolboy stealing up to cap his prey<br /> Starts not the shy moth settling on the bloom ;<br /> The sunny May-fly scorns eve&#039;s pending gloom :<br /> The feasting grub recks not that ampler size<br /> Yields the hid foe within more food and room :<br /> The gleaming trout darts at the summer flies,<br /> Nor shuns the murderous hook arrayed in kindred guise.<br /> But we know we must die, and can but wait:<br /> We lounge &#039;mid flowers and shine while distant claps<br /> From gathering thunder-clouds forebode our fate;<br /> Large rain-drops fall, and inky gloom enwraps,<br /> Tho&#039; Sunbeams linger on awhile perhaps.<br /> We roam life’s strand, and eye the nearing tide,<br /> Which gains on each, and all at length entraps :<br /> We gather shells, we strut with childish pride,<br /> We play about while Death creeps on with fatal stride.<br /> The Rev. Atherton Knowles has produced a<br /> little book which ought to become widely popular,<br /> for its subject alone. Most of us are interested<br /> in Anglican Service Music, its history and de-<br /> velopment. It is a contribution not only to the<br /> history of religion but also to that of social<br /> manners and customs in which churchgoing<br /> occupies so large a place. (Elliot Stock.)<br /> “Poems,” by Louis H. Victory, is published by<br /> Elliot Stock. Here is one of them : *<br /> I walk the world in thought-engendered grief:<br /> I grieve for all the pain that taints the years;<br /> I grieve for wrongs that rend the soul of seers<br /> Who find no power to bring the world relief.<br /> I grieve for kings whose golden-sorrowed leaf<br /> Of life&#039;s brief book is filled with kingly fears;<br /> I grieve for beggars starving through their years,<br /> Whose consolation dwells in sweet Belief.<br /> If I could weep for all the wrongs I see<br /> I would be blest with some relief from woe,<br /> But my dim eyes will never yield the flow<br /> My wearied heart one moment to set free.<br /> And as I wander down the path of years,<br /> I pray to God for His good gift of tears.<br /> “A Japanese Marriage” (A. &amp; C. Black), by<br /> Douglas Sladen. Here is a novel laid in that<br /> enchanted land of colour and sunshine which is<br /> now being talked about by everybody. The<br /> setting is strange, and the characters move about<br /> under new conditions among an Anglo-Japanese<br /> life which is new and delightful. It should be as<br /> popular as Loti’s “Chrysanthème.” -<br /> A new and cheaper edition of “A Prince of<br /> Como,” by Mrs. E. M. Davy has just been issued by<br /> the authoress’s publishers, Messrs. Jarrold and<br /> Sons. We are glad to see this solid recognition<br /> of the work of a young author. . It will be<br /> followed, we venture to hope, by many other<br /> editions.<br /> Miss Eleanor Holmes has completed a new<br /> novel entitled “To-day and To-morrow.” It will<br /> be issued shortly in 3 vols. by Messrs. Hurst and<br /> blackett.<br /> A completed edition of the “Works of the late<br /> Griffith Edwards,” consisting mainly of local<br /> histories in Wales, will be produced shortly<br /> (Elliot Stock). A number of the author&#039;s<br /> poems, both in Welsh and English, are added to<br /> the work, which is edited by Mr. Elias Owen, and<br /> is fully illustrated.<br /> Mrs. Stevenson has just had another story<br /> published. It is in Messrs. Hutchinson’s “Home-<br /> spun Series,” both in cloth and paper covers. It<br /> is called “Woodrup&#039;s Dinah,” and is a tale of<br /> Nidderdale, the beautiful Yorks Valley, lying<br /> between Great Whernside and Knaresbro&#039; and<br /> Harrogate. One who knows the dale says: “It<br /> simply makes me live there again, and the dialect,<br /> customs, and habits come back with more vivid-<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#381) ################################################<br /> <br /> THE AUTHOR. 27<br /> ness than I could have believed possible after<br /> twenty years.”<br /> The author of “Ernest England,” mentioned in<br /> “Book Talk” of last month, is not “J. A.<br /> Tucker” but “J. A. Parker,” to whom an apology<br /> is due for the mistake.<br /> It was also in error that Mr. Harry Furniss<br /> was stated to “ have accepted control of the art<br /> section ” of the New Budget. He is the<br /> originator, chief proprietor, editor, and manager<br /> of the New Budget.<br /> The March edition of 2000 copies of “A Maid<br /> of the Manse,” by Mrs. E. Rentoul Esler, being<br /> exhausted, Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston, and<br /> Co. are preparing a larger edition for immediate<br /> ISSUl€.<br /> Messrs. Bliss, Sands, and Foster have just<br /> published a novel by Miss H. P. Redden, entitled<br /> “McClellan of McClellan.” The book is illus-<br /> trated by the author. Price 6s.<br /> *-- ~ -º<br /> CORRESPONDENCE,<br /> I.—MUSIC AND WoRDs.<br /> N reading Miss Helen Marion Burnside&#039;s<br /> reasonable letter regarding the lot of minor<br /> poets, I would take exception to one remark<br /> only.<br /> #he poet should certainly have a share in the<br /> performing rights of a larger musical work, but<br /> in a song these rights are practically worth<br /> nothing, they having completely lapsed from<br /> force of circumstances. Unless they were recog-<br /> nised universally insistence upon them would<br /> kill the song. I should suggest that the poet&#039;s<br /> initial remuneration should cover the sale of a<br /> certain number of hundreds of copies, and upon<br /> the sale exceeding this amount a royalty should<br /> be given by the publisher to the poet.<br /> MRs. MARY A. C. SALMond.<br /> 21, St. Leonard’s-terrace, Royal Chelsea<br /> Hospital, May 24.<br /> II.-DREAM POEMs.<br /> May I add to the number of dream-poems?<br /> Many a time I have wakened with metre and<br /> rhyme on my lips; but of only three such in-<br /> spirations have I kept a record. Once I dreamed<br /> that I was pouring out tea for a large party, and,<br /> growing tired, made the following remark:<br /> It is not fair<br /> To make poor little me,<br /> Who am small and spare,<br /> Pour out all the tea.<br /> The word spare must have been used for sake<br /> of the rhyme, as it does not at all describe my<br /> figure | Another night I dreamed a whole long<br /> poem, describing, as if for children, the career of<br /> a good little boy. I woke with the following<br /> couplet:<br /> To follow this goodly example he’s bound,<br /> And he’s sure to be happy wherever he&#039;s found.<br /> My third example is an excerpt from a serious<br /> poem, all of which is lost except these lines:<br /> Faces we have not seen for years,<br /> And some which last we saw in tears.<br /> They struck me as rather pathetic.<br /> F. BAYFor D HARRISON.<br /> TTI.-PERSONAL.<br /> The American journalist who, in the Mail and<br /> Eapress (New York), has seen fit, on what he<br /> terms “internal evidence,” to formulate the<br /> charges categorically denied by Mr. John Bloun-<br /> delle-Burton in the following letter, appears to<br /> have indulged in an outbreak of abuse that is not<br /> common even on the other side of the Atlantic.<br /> What that abuse and those charges are will be<br /> plainly seen by Mr. Bloundelle-Burton’s plain and<br /> convincing denial of them :<br /> Constitutional Club, London.<br /> May 13, 1895.<br /> The Editor, the New York Mail and Ea&#039;press,<br /> New York.<br /> SIR,-A cutting from your paper, published last month,<br /> has been shown me, in which, under the heading “Mr.<br /> Safe,” you state that there is an edition of my novel “The<br /> Hispaniola Plate,” published in America by the Castle Pub-<br /> lishing Company,” and that in this edition there is a bio-<br /> graphy of me which “bears internal evidence of having been<br /> written by the author.”<br /> Permit me to show you, therefore, what such “internal<br /> evidence” is worth.<br /> |Until I read the column so headed in your paper, I was<br /> totally unaware that any arrangements had been made by<br /> the publishers of “The Hispaniola Plate ’’ (Cassell and Co.,<br /> London) for reproduction by any firm in the United States,<br /> and, consequently, did not know that the edition from<br /> which you are undoubtedly quoting was in existence. Con-<br /> sequently, also, I know nothing of the biography to which<br /> you refer as “bearing internal evidence ’’ of having been<br /> written by me. And, “internal evidence ’’ notwithstand-<br /> ing, the statement that I wrote the biography is false. I<br /> have never seen it yet, since naturally it is not in the<br /> London edition; I repeat that I know nothing whatever<br /> about it, except that which I can glean from your article,<br /> and, moreover, no biography of me has ever been written or<br /> suggested by myself. I gather also, from what you say,<br /> that comparison favourable to me has been made in this<br /> production between myself and Mr. , a piece of<br /> vulgarity which—in this country at least !—would have<br /> been quite sufficient to prove to any critic (as I imagine the<br /> writer of your article considers himself to be) that it could<br /> not possibly emanate from any author claiming to possess<br /> the slightest feelings of self-respect.<br /> But, since the discussion of such a claim as this is,<br /> <br /> <br /> ## p. (#382) ################################################<br /> <br /> 28<br /> THE AUTHOR.<br /> perhaps, superfluous in my refutation of your writer&#039;s ideas<br /> and statements, I desire simply to inform you that this part<br /> of the so-called “biography” was no more written by me,<br /> or known by me, than was any other portion of it, and also<br /> that, until doing so at this present moment, I have never<br /> written Mr. — &#039;s name.<br /> In conclusion, I ask you to give this denial as much pub-<br /> licity as you have given the statement,<br /> And I remain, Sir,<br /> Your obedient servant,<br /> (Signed) JOHN BLOUNDELLE-BURTON.<br /> IV.-DISCOUNT.<br /> Here is a case for the consideration of pub-<br /> lishers. A firm offers a 7s. 6d. book for 5s. 9d.,<br /> and to encourage the publishers we order the<br /> work. It arrives by Carter, Paterson, and we<br /> have to pay 4d. carriage.<br /> If we order the book of Bickers, or Bumpus,<br /> we obtain it for 5s. 7#d. or 5s. 8d., and it is<br /> delivered free of charge.<br /> Does the arrangement profit the author more<br /> in case I than in case 2 P And if not, why should<br /> we pay 4d. to oblige the publisher, and put a few<br /> extra pence in his pocket P S.<br /> [The author has nothing at all to do with it.—<br /> ED.]<br /> W.—ENCOURAGEMENT v. DISCOURAGEMENT.<br /> My vicissitudes as an author may be of inte-<br /> rest as somewhat remarkable. My first novel,<br /> published anonymously, was accepted by a leading<br /> firm, had excellent reviews in first-class papers,<br /> was pirated in America most successfully. The<br /> second, in my maiden name, brought out in first-<br /> class style by the same firm, had still better<br /> reviews. However, it attracted no attention. I<br /> was asked by my publishers if I were not disap-<br /> pointed, They had expected much from it; but<br /> the subject was painful—that of a woman&#039;s<br /> intemperance, and its telling was “too graphic,<br /> too clever, to get the second reading it deserved,”<br /> so they said. A master in fiction has since said<br /> “It was a book for a second edition.” Then<br /> came my third. The same approbation from the<br /> reviews, but I verily believe it was killed by one<br /> that breathed the word “psychological.” Hard<br /> for it was not so. I would not insult the Spirit of<br /> the Times by crediting it with time or digestion for<br /> such subtlety. This hurrying age adds to its fever<br /> by demanding incident in fiction on a par with<br /> that which society and travel endeavour to secure<br /> for it. The terse and pungent are in favour, no<br /> longer the discursive which takes you by pleasant<br /> bye-paths off the high road of the story into touch<br /> with the writer&#039;s personal thoughts and opinions,<br /> out of broad sunshine into restful shade. What<br /> is there in the modern novel to make you close it<br /> with a careful thumb as your marker, and look<br /> out of the window and reflect with the writer?<br /> Nothing. Tife is hard facts, and so are latter-<br /> day books. I thing it is Mr. Hall Caine who says<br /> a writer has no right to digress to his own<br /> opinions and observations; one must be kept at<br /> full strain after the characters. But “The Golden<br /> Butterfly ’’ is in a sixpenny edition, and there are<br /> readers who hail digressions such as we find in it<br /> as milestones where one may pause and meditate.<br /> Well, my third novel died before its best reviews<br /> —Guardian, Athenæum, and Academy—were<br /> out; the former foretold great things for me.<br /> On the strength of my book the C.E.T.S asked<br /> me to write a story for them. I did so, in a fort-<br /> night. It come out in their Chronicle, and both<br /> paper and cloth editions—a stroke of success.<br /> My last story is just out, both in paper and cloth<br /> too, a large edition in a well-known series. I<br /> am venturing on another three-decker, and have<br /> another short one in the market. But my<br /> reviews warrant me in expecting far greater<br /> success. Is the reviewing system at fault some-<br /> where P A book is often reviewed when it is either<br /> everywhere or virtually dead. All my books have<br /> been called powerful and realistic. In my temper-<br /> ance story, it was almost suggested in the columns<br /> of a paper that my facts must be personal—I hope<br /> not from myself as an inebriate | These terms<br /> are fashionable praise, but I have not been the<br /> fashion. Shorter stories, however, seem to be<br /> “getting me forwarder.” But how tantalising is<br /> the buffeting between intensely appreciative<br /> reviews bearing out a publisher&#039;s confidence and<br /> public indifference I have been warranted in<br /> nourishing great expectations of a full tide, and<br /> found myself stranded high and dry on the beach.<br /> I have been likened, to my own astonishment, to<br /> Mr. Thos. Hardy and Mr. Geo. Meredith. But<br /> the public remain stolid. My “pathos, humour,<br /> picturesqueness and power” are not for their<br /> enthusiasms. Yet I must write. I believe as<br /> firmly as Mr. Crockett in the gift being God-<br /> given, to be used. I live greatly with imaginary<br /> people; when they live with me I must put pen<br /> to paper and oust one set to make room for<br /> another. But I am not now working up to my<br /> powers—deliberately. I have found it exhaust-<br /> ing to do so, realising my emotional and dramatic<br /> situations too strongly ; so am lowering my<br /> standard. Was I born under an unlucky star,<br /> and is it my fate to have to be most discouraged<br /> by encouragements P Where are the powers that<br /> will adjust the balance by making recognition<br /> consistent with reviewing P I don’t grudge<br /> labour, but I yearn for its just reward. Mean-<br /> while I hear my case is a rare one, so I chronicle<br /> it. M. E. S.	https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/278/1895-06-01-The-Author-6-1.pdf	publications, The Author
277	https://historysoa.com/items/show/277	Index to The Author, Vol. 06 (1896)	<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index+to+%3Cem%3EThe+Author%3C%2Fem%3E%2C+Vol.+06+%281896%29">Index to <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 (1896)</a>			<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</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>; <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index">Index</a>	1896-The-Author-6-index		<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=78&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=The+Society+of+Authors">The Society of Authors</a>; <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=78&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Horace+Cox">Horace Cox</a>																					<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=6">6</a>											<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1896">1896</a>								<a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=4&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=London">London</a>				https://historysoa.com/files/original/4/277/1896-The-Author-6-index.pdf	publications, The Author