https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/245/1890-11-15-The-Author-1-7.pdf 4de0a440632497d778a1ba227051e524 PDF Text Text �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource The Author Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, The Author, 1890–1914, made available together for the first time. Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&collection=&type=&tags=&exhibit=&date_search_term=&submit_search=Search+For+Items&sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1890-11-15 Volume 1 Issue 7 Pages Page range in volume 163–198 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18901115 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin Vol. I.-No. 7.]. NOVEMBER 15, 1890. [Price, Sixpence. The Author. THE ORGAN OF THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS (INCORPORATED). CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Published for the Society be ALEXANDER P. WATT, 2, PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON, E.C. 1890. ## p. 162 (#202) ############################################ ADVERTISEJENTS. . . Bertan, Pest iga 1878 Men. Marie, Todd & Co. : we - . . I have seun me of your rus, to have a haina mended rough Meu Hoshin, leurs Ito. of theicity. Ion may like to know that I have nice this heu constantly frimure than twenty years, .. rine the days of a book of men called "The Autonatof the Breakfast talle "1857-8 nutie last Friday without repair and always with perfect satisfaction I have written with in halfa dozen or more volumes, a Targe number of Ennugs cle . are reusands of letters. Jue to it as o an ole rund and I hope you are do the best you can for it though I have in the mean en bought acustion of qui make' conugaad mashed C: . I do not know whether . que creue sir This testimonial, hat I feel as if the per White has Canece out to such of may thought and thought back To much in various forms in etuin was enlitted to this Certificate of hannaha tecnica Sau, Geethan yours truly Viva Wendell Hesmed. IllustraTED PRICE List of Gold Pens will be sent, free and post paid, on application to Mabie, Todd & BARD, 93, CHEAPSIDE, London. i ## p. 163 (#203) ############################################ (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. —No. 7.] 'NOVEMBER 15, 1890. [Price Sixpence. Vol. I. C O N T PAGE News and Notes 163 Mr. Blaikie's New Poems 170 In Grub Street 170 Canadian Copyright. By \V. Oliver Hodges 175 Fin de Siccle ... 177 Literature as a Trade. By Edmund Gosse 178 "The Farrar-Cassell Case" (from the AWw York Tribune). By G. W. S 180 Mr. Brander Mathews* "American Authors and British Pirates" 182 The German Association of Authors 183 NEWS AND NOTES. READERS of The Author are most seriously warned not to forward MSS. to persons advertising for them, even though these advertisements appear in the most respectable papers. The practice is to advertise for MSS. on various pretexts—for descriptive articles, fiction, &c, and to promise payment. The MSS. are sent and are heard of no more. No respectable firm ever advertises for MSS. In a recent case a MS. sent in answer to such an advertisement, has been retained. No answer can be obtained by the victim, and the name of the advertiser is not given up at the office of the paper. The Syndicate Branch of the Society has been undertaken by Mr. W. Morris Colles, author of "Literature and the Civil Pension List," &c, as Honorary Secretary. All communications on this subject should be made to him at the address of the Society's office. In the Churches a very useful custom obtains of hanging up the Ten Commandments, so that first principles in the Conduct of Life should always be presented to the eyes of the congregation. Sunday after Sunday they have to read and to vol. 1. E N T S. PACE The International Literary Congress ... 186 A Curious Case ... 188 The American Tongue ... 190 An English Academy ... 190 An Encouraging Experience ... 192 Queries and Answers ... 193 The Late, Rev. Henry White. By Rev. W. J. Loftie ... 195 At Work ... 195 New Books and New Editions ... .96 Advertisements ... 198 hear these first principles, whether they like it or not. It is reported, by those who have oppor- tunities of knowing, to be a custom favourable to morality. In the same way we must, from time to time, advance the elements, the rudimentary laws, on which we rest every cause. Therefore we may be excused for setting forth, in this number, two or three truisms. They are as follows. Literature, in all times, has had two sides—the artistic and the commercial kind. The singer expects to be paid, the poet is rejoiced at solid recognition of his genius. What is more, the artistic work of the highest genius in no way suffers from a careful attention to its material interests. Does anyone in his senses pretend that the work of Byron, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Wilkie Collins, Charles Reade, lost anything in Art because these writers were good and careful men of business? Let us not confuse these two sides of the literary profession. They are equally important, because unless the latter is looked after, the artist perishes. Both must be guarded jealously, the one because Literature is Art, and the other because the artist must be a free man—not the slave of the man who has the money, nor a hack, nor one who drives his N ## p. 164 (#204) ############################################ 164 THE AUTHOR. pen all day long for a daily pittance, nor a man continually fretted by a sense of wrong and injustice, real or fancied. When, therefore, we insist continually upon the necessity of safe- guarding literary property, of understanding what is meant by an agreement before we sign it, we are working in the highest and best interests of litera- ture. Consider, again. In no other branch of Art is a voice ever raised against those who fight for its material interests. The sculptor, the actor, the singer, the musician, the painter—all alike are understood to be working honestly at their art, even though at the same time they are watching carefully over their material interests. No one accuses Meissonnier of bad workmanship because his pictures are worth a pyramid of gold. Yet, directly a serious attempt is made to put these interests on a proper basis as regards letters, there is raised at once an outcry about degrading Art, taking all the joy out of Art, destroying the nobility of Art, and the rest of it. To which, in the words of Mr. Burchell—Fudge! To be sure, these charges are always preferred by the writers whose works do not possess any pecuniary value, or by those who dabble and play with literature, content to issue, now and then, a critical essay or a volume of critical essays. To them, but not to the men and women whom the world loves, it seems a degra- dation of Art to insist upon the rights of property, and they pretend to regard a great writer as deprived of the joy and nobility of his work because he looks after his own interests. Again, in the words of Mr. Burchell—Fudge! We mix up these two sides of literature. It is absurd to suppose that George Eliot was thinking of her commercial value when she wrote "Romola." Yet she thought very much of it afterwards. That is the way of it. The true artist thinks about nothing but his work while he is engaged upon it. The man who is not an artist cannot understand how he can ever think about the business side of his work at all. Yet he always can, and does, as soon as he is satisfied that there is a business side to his work. And to some minds—to most minds—the knowledge that there is this commercial value in it acts as a constant stimulus—a wholesome incen- tive; it gives the writer confidence and courage and selfrespect; it makes him watch over his work with jealousy, lest its artistic standard be lowered. He takes this recognition, this popularity, this de- mand, as a proof that his work is good and artistic. I have printed, in another part of this number, an article written for an evening paper by Mr. Edmund Gosse on a cognate subject, by his permission. Indeed, whatever Mr. Gosse writes on the subject of the literary life commands attention by itself, apart from the fact that he is one of ourselves, of our inner ring, one who has spoken for us, and will again, one is assured, become, if necessary, our champion. Therefore I would not willingly differ from him in any particular, and in this paper of his, which is mainly a protest against the wretched gossip about authors' prices which is con- stantly published in certain journals I wholly and entirely agree with him. To observe the extrava- gant curiosity about money realized in literature and art disgusts one. And it is not only true, but most opportune, to point out that "such curiosity about literary prices is unwholesome, and because it tends to make money the standard in a species of labour where the rewards are in no degree analogous to the deserts." Nothing is more true; some of the finest work produced has wholly failed from the commercial point of view. Again, it is most true "that no great work was ever com- posed primarily for the purpose of making as much money as possible." Yet, in my judgment, he overstates a very good case when he arraigns authors with a want of modesty in the pursuit of guineas. It is not greed that actuates the author, it is an instinctive yearning for justice and fair play. Let us be fair to our own motives: once secure this justice and all will be secured. We ask for nothing more. But let us, above all things, keep separate the two sides of the literary life, the side of Art and the side of affairs—the soul that animates and the body in which the soul must live. There is a certain sorrowful significance about this incessant and prying curiosity into literary prices which should not be overlooked. It is a time when the difficulties of getting on in any calling or profession are increasing daily. But it is not a time when simplicity of living is also increasing. Further, it is a time when women are longing for their independence, and rushing into every kind of work by which money may be made. Especially they long to enter the literary profession. It seems so easy. Anybody could write like—say Mrs. Gaskell—the thing is so simple, and there seem to be such splendid prizes. Think of a book like this or like that being worth thousands! Or, again, since journalism is itself a branch of the literary profession, the young country journalist is always dreaming of an exchange from his hard work and scanty pay to the splendour and ease of a successful novelist. Therefore he collects assiduously all the scraps— most of them pure inventions—about the prices obtained by this man and by that man, and dangles ## p. 165 (#205) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. them before his own eyes, and sticks them in his paper for all the world to read. In this curiosity I discern that of yearning after the impossible, which makes the literary aspirations of ninety and nine out of every hundred tragic and mournful. There has been a special utterance on the subject by Mr. Andrew Lang. It contains one or two ser- viceable statements. Thus, he says, quite truly, "the author must conquer his casual disposition." It is what the Society insists upon in every paper and every report. Let the author bring to his literary business the same common sense that he brings to other business, and half the trouble will vanish. Again he says, "one has very little sympathy with authors who grumble at the publishers getting their share." No sympathy whatever. Let us only agree upon what should be the publisher's share. That settled, the whole of the trouble would vanish. One thing he says which seems to me mis- chievous, because everything is mischievous which is not based upon a knowledge of facts. It is this. "The publisher, I think, in spite of Mr. Besant, does incur a good deal of risk, not per- haps on one book or two, but on the general result of his business." Exactly the reverse is the truth. The publisher, who very, very seldom knowingly runs any risk at all, may lose—because in all trades there are mistakes made—on one or two books, but as the general result of a large business he is certain, as his business is now conducted, not to lose. This is a very delightful result, and one does not grudge the honourable House its income however great it may become. May such a House increase and continue in prosperity as in honour! Another point to which he takes exception is the assumption that the Society is inimical to publishers. This is an unwarranted assumption, calculated to injure the Society, and contradicted by every utterance of the Society. Suppose a novelist draws the character of a scoundrel attorney, is he therefore hostile to all lawyers? Is it fair to call his attention to the fact that some gentlemen have friends among solicitors? Yet this is what Mr. Andrew Lang does. He says, "extraordinary as it may appear, there are even cases of friendship between authors and publishers." I suppose there is not one upon the Committee of this Society who is not proud to number a publisher among his friends. lastly, I have had many letters from ladies calling indignant attention to one clause which I regret to see at the close of the paper. "As far as I can see, the authors who do suffer are those who should receive ioj. 6d. and only get ■js. . . . Their work is worth very little, VOL. I. and they get even less. . . . Generally, they are women easily ' put upon' and rather unreason- able." "Why," ask my correspondents, "should not even a woman demand and receive justice? Why should she take "js. $d. when 10s. 6d. is due to her?" Really, one cannot give any reason. And considering that the poor wretch who steals a handkerchief worth twopence is sent to prison as much as the bold burglar who robs a bank, there does seem no reply to this question. We must maintain the sacredness of the contract, because that underlies every kind of trade, exchange, or service rendered. Without the keeping of agree- ments nothing could be done. All that can be done is to implore authors not to sign away their property, and to hope that sweating by certain publishers will speedily become as disgraceful as any other form of dishonesty. When, however, one reads of certain cases, it is difficult not to wish that a contract, obtained by studiously withholding the facts of the case from one party, should be set aside. For instance, here is one. A certain specialist, a very popular writer, was asked by a firm to undertake a book on his own subject. They named a price. He took it. Therefore he had no right to complain. The book proved an immediate and very great success. The publishers then asked him to produce another. Remember—they knew that the first had been an enormous success. They knew that the second would prove equally successful. It is said that they began, in fact, with an edition of 100,000 copies of the second book. This seems incredible, and perhaps is an exaggerated statement. Edition has followed edition. It is still, after many years, a living book. The author received ^30 for the first book; and in spite of the full knowledge possessed by the publishers of what they had done with the first, and would do with the second, they gave him the same sum, ^30, for the second. What is to be said of such a contract? That the author was a fool? Perhaps. But what were the publishers? —« Piracy, with mutilation, is even more intolerable than piracy pure and simple. Indeed, as will be seen in another page, I think we should give up the use of the word piracy and write publishing-as-permitted- by-the-law. It is a long word, but at present there is no short equivalent. Here is a case of publish- ing-as-permitted-by-the-law, with mutilation :— "A few months ago I published a book on Bronchitis here in London, and made an arrange- ment with a publisher of Philadelphia for the production of an American edition. It appeared and was selling well when Wood and Co., of New n 2 ## p. 166 (#206) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. York, reprinted it entirely without a word of com- munication with me or my real publishers. This firm has, within the last year or so, published some fifty medical and surgical works or monographs; and, as far as I can learn, they have in every case been taken without permission. I have quite a collection of letters from men who have suffered in this way. We have no legal redress, but our Medical Associations on both sides of the Atlantic have promised to take up the matter, and will go to work pretty energetically." Mr. Louis Stevenson has been interviewed by the Melbourne Argus. 'Tis the common lot. He is reported to have said a good many things of which one, at least, is important, as a contribution to the vexed question of plagiarism. Everybody knows how novelists are perpetually charged with plagiarism. It is, indeed, a difficult thing to refute such a charge. Given the facts, given the absolute coincidence, character for character, incident for incident—how could they occur, one asks, in the later work unless they had been copied from the earlier? To speak only of one who can speak no more. I once dis- covered an extraordinary resemblance between an incident in one of Charles Reade's books and an exactly similar incident in a book published some forty years ago before. The resemblance was so striking, the events were so exactly the same, that I at once, in my ignorance, set it down to inten- tional plagiarism. I am now convinced that I did Charles Reade a grievous wrong. How then did he contrive to reproduce so exactly that part of the earlier work? The following illustra- tions supplied in the course of this interview pro- vide an answer. This is what Mr. Stevenson is reported to have said :— "I suspect most of our inventions are docu- mentary enough, and taken out of the note-book of the memory. I will give you a couple of examples from my own case. Some five or six years after I had written 'Treasure Island,' I picked up Washington Irving's 'Tales of a Traveller,' and there I find Billy Bones, with his voice, his manners, his talk, his sabre-cut, his sea-chest, and all that is Billy Bones's. I had read it long ago, and, if you will allow me a bull, I had forgotten, but my memory had remembered. Again, I fondly supposed I had invented a scene when Alan Breck quarrels with one of the M'Gregors in a house in Balquidder. Here, in Sydney, not two days ago, a gentleman informs me that I had read the out- lines of that scene, even to the names of the three principal characters engaged, in Pitcairn's ' Criminal Trials.' I do not remember. I do not suppose there is a copy of Pitcairn in the Colonies, so that I cannot make sure, but I have not the least doubt that it is so. We all, idealists and realists alike, rearrange that matter of observed life with which our memories are charged, and the most we can mean by the word invention is some happy con- gruity or surprise in the method of arranging it." This is a novel but a sufficient explanation to those who know that the accused is a man of honour. The mind forgets but the memory remembers. In the last number of The Author the arts and wiles of the gentry who seek to catch the literary flats were exposed in some detail. I have now before me the prospectus of an enterprise whose object is to advance the interests of Rising Authors (with a capital "r "). Every effort of this kind, particularly when conducted in a disinterested spirit and with- out the least consideration of sordid gains, com- mands our sympathy. Here is the scheme, then. A new monthly magazine is to be started. It will be called by a most attractive title, viz., "Literary Fame." Literary Fame! The words cause the eyes of the Rising Author to glisten and his lip to tremble. Literary Fame! Nothing short of this. The magazine has no other objects in view—the prospectus, which cannot lie, says so indeed,]in plain words—than the true interests of English Litera- ture. It is designed to introduce to the great British Public that large class of writers who feel that they have a Message to convey to the world at large. To these—as the candid prospectus says —" Literary Fame" offers an unexampled, nay, an unparalleled opportunity. I should think so indeed. The Rising Author has only to send in his contribution. It will be read for nothing—it is well-known that in all other magazines the editor has to be bribed before he will read anything. Each "suitable" contribution—here a note of discord— are not all contributions from Rising Authors, who have a Message for the world, suitable ?—will be accepted and printed, signed with the author's name. Why, what could be more disinterested? The only condition—a ridiculous one—is that the author shall pay beforehand for fifteen copies of the magazine for every column of his paper. Thus, suppose he has a paper of twelve pages, or twenty- four columns, and a Message to the world can hardly be delivered in less, he will only take 180 copies, which will cost him the sum of j£g. Who would not gladly pay j£g for the privilege ot delivering a Message? Should he run a serial story for a twelvemonth, taking twenty-four pages each number, he will only pay ^216 for the year! Of course, thousands will jump at the offer. ## p. 167 (#207) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 167 In other words, how great must be the belief in the credulity of writers when they are calmly invited to consider such a proposal? Let us see how it works out. An ordinary magazine con- tains about 120 pages or 240 columns. This if paid for at the rate of 15 copies a column, pro- duces ^90. To this must be added the advertise- ments and the sale, if any. And after paying for printing and paper, there will remain a very com- fortable little property indeed. But I observe that in case of novels a higher charge will be made. Excellent, enterprising, benevolent editor! When Germans undertake to found and to manage a society, there are no half measures. The pro- gramme of their yearly meeting, a somewhat bulky document, is so thorough that I have had it translated and published for our own instruction. When one considers the infinite trouble we have in inducing our own brethren to unite, it is refreshing to read of such enthusiasm and belief among the Germans in the cause. One lives in the hope that we are really succeeding little by little in bringing literary men and women to make common cause. The difficulty is being illustrated at the present moment by a series of papers in the Daily Graphic on the proposed National Academy of Letters. First the scheme was proposed in general terms by an anonymous correspondent. It has been fol- lowed by a succession of papers from men of letters invited by the Editor. My own paper, which happened to be the first, was taken hold of as a peg by all who came afterwards, and the scheme has been everywhere attributed to me. It is not mine at all. I was only asked what I thought of it Now observe, I began by a most serious warning, as follows:— "The influence of the English Academy would depend entirely upon the position and reputation which it might obtain in the estimation of the world at large, and of litterateurs in particular. If every- body was agreed that to be a R.A. in Letters was as great a thing as to be a R.A. in Arts oraF.R.S. in Science, then the distinction would be an object of ambition, and the voice of the Academy would be potent and authoritative. If it failed to command this respect; if the true leaders refused to enter its walls; if it was considered to be under Court favouritism or to be involved in party interests, or to be the home of the second rate, it never would acquire any influence at all. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that it should, from the very outset, number in its body all the leaders of the day in every department of literature." "Supposing," I added, "this extremely difficult preliminary accomplished, what could the Academy effect?" I then proceeded to show what, in my opinion, such an Academy might accomplish. Most of the letters, beginning with that of Mr. Leslie Stephen, have proved that it is utterly impos- sible in the present condition of things for men of letters to work together as an Academy—a National Institution. They have nearly all written as if union was a thing impossible, and practical aims were out of the ques- tion. Why cannot men of letters act together? First, I believe, because they have got into the habit of speaking and writing about each other as men of no other profession would be allowed to do. A barrister would be disbarred who should dare to speak of another barrister in terms that are con- stantly and without censure used by one man of letters concerning another. Now were there exist- ing a great critical body, a controlling power, pos- sessing the power of leadership, the power of wealth, jhe power of bestowing distinction, the power of reprimand—this curse of literature, this license which fills the history of authorship with con- temptible quarrels and fish-wife recriminations, would instantly cease. An Academy, however, after the manner of the French would be absurd in this country. It is obsolete in Paris. It survives, but it has ceased to be a great power. Such an Academy as I should like to see founded in this country would deal with everything connected with literature. Mr. Leslie Stephen, whose name and work I hold in as much respect as those of any living writer, says dis- tinctly that such a body could not deal with prac- tical things. Why not? One does not expect the individual academician to become at once a steward in the House of Literature: not at all. We engage officers and pay them for such services. Every day the profession of letters is becoming larger; every day the dangers which threaten litera- ture, because its followers are a scattered crowd with no leaders, no authority over them, no guides, and no advisers, are growing greater and greater. Farther on, in this number, will be found a paper showing the views of another writer on the subject. Let me therefore only repeat what I advanced in this paper of mine in the Daily Graphic. 1. Such an Academy must have the support of all the leaders in literature of every depart- ment, or it will be ridiculous. ## p. 168 (#208) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 2. It should recognize and honour good work by public recognition, and by distinction of some kind. 3. It should regulate and control the production of literature on principles which would, once for all, destroy the present friction between authors and publishers, and would make the present widespread frauds and sweatings disgraceful, if not impossible. 4. It should contain the official register of every book published. 5. It should take over and administrate the annual grant for Literature. 6. It should concern itself with every question that may arise in any one of the numerous interests of Literature. These were the principles which I laid down in my paper. The longer I consider them, the more I am convinced that such a body, so constituted, with such work before it, might confer the greatest benefits upon letters. Some of the work has been attempted, not without success, by this Society. But it would come with more authority from an Academy. The last few weeks have also been enlivened by a correspondence in the Times. Whenever the Society has been publicly proving its existence and its activity in some way which makes certain of its friends wriggle, there is sure to occur such a corres- pondence. Then we have the old, old things—the bogey of risk; the awful losses in publishing; the misstatements; the trail across the scent; the misleading suggestions—everything to keep the public in the dark. Newspapers either in the interests of dishonourable houses, or in ignorance, take up the cry, and with paragraphs, letters, and leading articles repeat the misstatements. Then we repeat the truth again—and they are silenced for awhile. Meantime the Society advances. —♦— The controversy was conducted on the usual lines. Hardly any of the writers seemed able to conceive that there were any principles of justice underlying the question. There was misrepresen- tation, there was misstatement, and there was deliberate falsehood—there was no attempt at reasoning. The worst letter of all—the most silly and the most spiteful—was written by an "Author." It illustrated exactly what was advanced in the last number of this Journal on the ill-bred malice which some writers permit themselves to use towards others. This person, who says that he has been treated with fairness—very likely—but he does not understand what is meant by fairness—states that he received a bigger cheque than he expected, and was afterwards told by the publisher that his book had been a loss of so much. "Hit or miss," said this airy speculator—" Hit or miss." He saw no accounts, and asked for none. He took the man's word. In no other business transaction known would he have taken the man's word There is a sweet simplicity about this author which seems to point to the country clergyman. He is often an excellent person, but it is his foible to believe that he is a good man of business. This person, so skilled in matters of business, goes on to call a scholar, a gentleman, a dignitary of the Church— the author in fact of the work under discussion— a publisher's " paid clerk." A clerk copies, casts up accounts, and writes letters to order. A clerk does not, as clerk, produce a work of art, genius, and learning. This is the first time that one has heard an author called a publisher's paid clerk. Now that the thing has been started it will not doubtless be the last we shall hear of it. The main point of the recent controversy in the Times was, of course, ignored from the outset. It is this: A. B. engages C. D. to do a piece of literary work on a subject in which he is a specialist. He is certain to do it well, and to produce a popular book. C. D., not knowing the extent of his own popularity, which A. B. does, produces this work, and receives a sum of money. A. B., in order to secure this popular writer for another work, after- wards gives him four times what was bargained. Now what is the profit of A. B.? He will not say —nor, of course, can he be expected to confess. But it can be guessed by experts, and it is variously reckoned at sixtyfold and a hundredfold what he originally gave C. D. Yet C. D. has no right to complain, because an agreement must be kept. But when A. B. asks C. D. to write another book, knowing that he is certain to make again an enor- mous sum, how far is he justified in offering the writer a sum equivalent to about one-fiftieth of what he himself reasonably expects to make? That is the question. We shall have no answer to it from the other side; but the question itself should be laid to heart by every writer. Sooner or later it will be laid to heart, and then such an agreement will become impossible. The deadly rancour shown towards the Society in most of the letters showed the mind of the writer. It is a most healthy sign. The revelations made in our publications have begun at last to make the author want to understand his agreements, what it ## p. 169 (#209) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. is he gives, and what he gets in return. An end of the good old days, when the author would sign anything that was put before him, is seen to be approaching. He now understands, or can easily learn, what it costs to produce a book, and what is meant by a royalty of ten, fifteen or twenty per cent. Therefore the gentry who have been accustomed in every account they make up, to overcharge on every item, find that they can no longer do so with impunity. Also those who have been fattening on ten per cent, royalties find that their gains are now discovered. In order to divert public attention from the real point at issue, of course side issues have to be found. This has been done chiefly by mis- stating or wilfully misunderstanding what has been advanced by the Society. Especially, and as a matter of course, the old bogey of great risk and enormous losses is trotted out. Let us again affirm very seriously that publishers very, very seldom take any book at all about which there is any risk. They may make mistakes, of course. This is the rule, even with the great houses. Indeed, they would not be men of business if they did not avoid risks. As to the smaller houses, they never take any risk at all. Of course they cannot afford to do so. They have discovered a better plan—to make the author pay. * For instance, this is the busiest time of the year. The publishers' advertisements are now the longest. I take up a paper and examine the publishers' lists in its columns. The following is an analysis :— a. A firm of the first rank. Eighteen books advertised. Nine of these are new editions. Seven are new books. Of the seven five are absolutely without risk, unless of course, they were over-printed or under-priced. Two are novels of which we can only say that this firm has always been careful to produce none but good work, and therefore that it is probably well advised that there is no risk in producing them. B. A small firm. Seven books. Six certainly paid for by the authors. The seventh presents no risk. c A small firm. Four books, all by popular authors. No risk. D. An old established firm. Six books, of which three are new editions. The other three carry no risk whatever. E. Another great firm. Sixteen books advertised. Ten are by authors whose names command a large sale. Five are educational, of the better kind. Of the whole lot one only appears doubtful. f. A new firm. Fourteen books. Four belong to well established series. One is a standard book. Three have names which command success. Of the remaining six, four are cer- tainly paid for by their authors, and probably the other two. G. A firm of high standing. Fifteen books. Eleven are by popular and well-known authors. Three are reprints. One is a work whose subject commands success. H. Another high class firm. Seven works only advertised out of their longer list. Three of these books will command a certain success, that kind of success which remunerates the publisher, but does not enrich the author. Four are by popular authors. This is the kind of illustration that might be followed up every week. I have taken eight houses at random in the order in which they advertised out of the whole list. I can find but three books out of eighty-seven which appear to me doubtful. Of the three I strongly suspect that two are paid for by the authors. We shall have in course of time, a good deal more to say on the general questions of publishers' contracts, unexpected and enormous profits, alleged losses and so forth. Meantime, here is an instance of what we re- commend to the consideration of Messrs. Cassell and Co., the Literary Handmaid of the Church, and other firms like-minded. In the year 1884 a certain author produced with a certain provincial publisher a little work which both believed would prove a modest success. It obtained, however, an enormous run. The publisher, meantime, had bought his modest venture for a modest sum. When the success of the book became known, he voluntarily, unsolicited, tore up the agreement and made another, based on the success of the book. What can be said of such an act? It was spon- taneous, and it was based upon the honourable feeling that, agreement or no agreement, the author should share in this unexpected good fortune. The publisher was Mr. Arrowsmith, of Bristol, the author was Mr. Fargus. The Editor of the Critic (New York) invites his readers to select twenty American literary women as Immortelles. In order to assist the reader, he gives a list of 139 living writers " not unknown to the reading public." In looking through this list one is struck with a profound sense of ignorance, because one knows so few of these names. Sixteen only are known to me. Can there be a rising liter- ## p. 170 (#210) ############################################ 170 THE AUTHOR. ature in the Slates wholly apart from, and unknown to, ourselves? Yet it seems as if every good book which appears in the States is welcomed here. Are there, again, 139 English women of letters all known to our own reading public, of whom no more than sixteen are known across the Atlantic? Literature has many branches, but these ladies represent fiction almost entirely, and fiction is the most popular of all the branches of literature, and as Mr. Brander Mathews explains later on, American novelists are here published—by per- mission of the law—in great numbers. Walter Besant. * MR. BLAIKIE'S NEW POEMS. IT is now a good many years since a little volume of verse, the first work of two very young writers, made its modest appearance. The book was perceived at the outset to possess far more promise than is usually shown in first essays at verse. It is now among the very scarce books, and is worth its weight in silver. One of these writers has gone on producing poetry and is now read and known wherever the English language is spoken. The other has remained silent until now. He is about to publish a new volume which will appear immediately. The name of the former is Edmund Gosse—of the latter, J. A. Blaikie. The following are taken, by his permission, from his new volume (Percival & Co.). r. Love, like a bird, with gladsome wings did fly, In jocund springtide's first delicious hour, Unto my heart's forlorn and wintry bower, And rested there, and sang, till suddenly It opened flowerwise that was like to die; And all the winds his singing, as a shower, Took, and outpoured on tree and herb and flower, And life was light, and warmth, and ecstasy, Until the first rude breath of winter's power;— Then Love, a bird of passage, winged the sky. II. As when a weary troop doth eastward file Through many a dreary league of Lybian sand By wind unwinnow'd, and a listless band Doth struggle, hopelessly, depress'd the while; Till keen the cry of one doth them beguile, Who, catching the first breeze from Nilus fann'd, Scents the faint odours of that verdurous land, Syene's height and Philx's palm-set isle; So I when, mid the city's grinding roar, Thy presence fills the vacancy of eyes, Work-wearied, with thy grace beneficent;— That antique Garden view I where of yore Tu live and love were one, and paradise; And the twain trees in Beauty's vine are blent. IN GRUB STREET. THE most attractive volume that has lately been issued is undoubtedly Mr. Frederic Tennyson's "Isles of Greece" (Macmillan.) Anything coming from a member of the Laureate's family will have an interest for Englishmen in all parts of the world. But Mr. Tennyson's volume can well rest on its own merits. A writer in the Saturday Review says, " Whatever poetic fruits the present season may yet bring forth, be they notable or the reverse, Mr. Frederic Tennyson's new poem is alone sufficient to make the season memorable." Mr. Lecky has completed his monumental work, "The History of England in the Eighteenth Century." Those portions of it which deal with the Irish Question have of course a peculiar interest in the present time. It is a great tribute to Mr. Lecky as an historian, that even those who differ from him are agreed as to the good taste, modera- tion, and judgment he has shown in dealing with a very vexed question. Prejudice and bias are said to be an ornament of history, but restraint is even a greater gift. The work is worthy of Mr. Lecky's already considerable reputation. Both political parties are promising to quote from him in support of their own views. »— Dr. Verrall's edition of the "Ion of Euripides," witha translation into English verse, an introduction, and notes, comes very opportunely at the present time in view of the forthcoming representation of the drama at Cambridge. He certainly throws a great deal of new light on the play, and takes up a very original position on the plot as it is usually received. That a general acceptance of his theory will be adopted cannot, of course, be expected. Commentaries on the classics are not, as a rule, exhilarating to the ordinary public, but Dr. Verrall's introduction should find readers beyond the sphere of scholarship. From the same centre of learning comes Professor Jebb's "Philoctetes," welcome to all lovers of the classics. Such able scholars give the lie to the old charge, " What could Cambridge do but quote?" —♦ Mr. Froude's life of Lord Beaconsfield has been of course a disappointment to those who relish back-kitchen biography. One would think that the public craving for that sort of thing had been more than satisfied. Someone discovered not long ago an unpaid washing bill of Shelley's, which was considered an important contribution to ## p. 171 (#211) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 171 "Shelley's Biographia." It is, no doubt, the absence of a similar item in Lord Beaconsfield's recent biography that is the "felt want." Those, however, who considered Mr. Froude's "Carlyle " a little too circumstantial will not regret any omission of a similar nature. The death of Simonides, the forger, will awaken painful memories among those persons who are wise after the event. Simonides was in many ways a great genius, and he had also indefatigable industry wherewith to apply his art. Some years ago he gave out that he had died of typhoid in the East, and sceptics may still refuse to believe in his demise. There is an amusing story of his which is characteristic of his amazing audacity. After his MSS. and letters of introduction had been exposed by Tischendorff and Mr. Aldis Wright, he revenged himself by admitting the forgery and volunteering the information that he had also written the authentic MS. of the Gospel which Tischendorff himself had unearthed. In these days of popular series, when English Men of Letters, English Men of Action, Remarkable Women, and Talented Journalists have been so successful, why should we not have a Criminal Series? It of course must not be a vulgar reprint of Newgate Calendar heroes, but lives of such men as Chatterton, Samuel Ireland, Shapira, and Simonides. Some enterprising publisher has already, I believe, commissioned the "Buccaneers" and the "Highwaymen"; and "Forgers" would make a very entertaining third volume. Neo- Christians have their Elsmere House and Oxford culture its Toynbee Hall, but the criminal classes have been overlooked, that is, from their own point of view. They have had no vehicle wherein to express themselves hitherto. The Times of November 5th has an interesting reprint from the North China Herald on the subject of " Celestial" novels. The latest expounders of Confucian philosophy have condemned the art of fiction, and one Shih, emulating Savanarola, estab- lished a pyramid of vanities, where all immoral novels were burnt. If this condemned literature was of the "Sweeney Todd " and "Cheeky Charlie" order which the respectable Quarterly Review has been denouncing lately, no one will regret the con- flagration. But pedagogues and philosophers have not always been the best judges of an art for which they have had no sympathy. Roger Ascham, who, if he was the first schoolmaster, was also the first of prigs, denounced as harmful to youthful morals the delightful Morte d'Arthur, the gay stories of Cynthio and Bandello, and Mr. Herbert Spencer has announced that literature nauseates him. Apropos of conflagrations it is very satisfactory to know that the famous library of Siena Cathedral with its magnificent frescoes and illuminated missals has been spared in the recent fire. A correspondent in the Times the other day drew attention to the very careless way in which the library of St. Mark in the Ducal Palace at Venice was exposed to danger. All this does not reflect much credit on the municipalities of modern Italy, who are always throwing stones at the religious bodies who have any works of art in their keeping. The Liberals are ever looking with envious eyes on the Vatican Library, but until they can prove themselves better curators, the longer the collection remains with its present owners the better. It is pleasant to see that some of the shorter stories of Balzac have been issued by Walter Scott, under the title of " Don Juan,'or the Elixir of Life." Those who are unable to read French have hitherto only been acquainted with the longer and more famous portions of the Com£die Humaine as the Peau de Chagrin and the Pere Goriot. Mr. Saints- bury says, "he is happiest when his subject has a strong touch of the fantastic," and in this collection the fantastic is remarkably well represented. With regard to the correspondence on the English Academy in the Daily Graphic, and which is discussed elsewhere in these pages, it may interestpeopleto see again the 40 immortals selected by a plebiscite in 1887, which by the courtesy of the Pall Mall Gazette is here reprinted. W. E. Gladstone. Cardinal Newman. Tennyson. Walter Besant. Matthew Arnold. Leslie Stephen. Professor Huxley. Benjamin Jowett. Herbert Spencer. John Bright. John Ruskin. Frederic Harrison. J. H. Froude. William Black. Robert Browning. Justin Macarthy. John Morley. Lord Salisbury. Professor Tyndall. Sir Theodore Martin. Professor Freeman. Henry Irving. A. C. Swinburne. George Meredith Archdeacon Farrar. Wilkie Collins. Professor Max Miiller. Canon Liddon. Sir John Lubbock.' Duke of Argyle. William Morris. R. D. Blackmore. ## p. 172 (#212) ############################################ 172 THE AUTHOR. W. E. H. Lecky. Andrew Lang. G. A. Sala. Bishop Stubbs. R. L. Stevenson. Cardinal Manning. Sir Frederic Leighton. Professor J. R. Seeley. Six of this forty are now unhappily dead. There are many names one would have included, as there are others one would have excluded, not because they lacked greatness, but because their connection with literature is remote. The list is a remarkable one in many ways; for instance, there are only three Anglican clergymen, the present Bishop of Oxford and Archdeacon Farrar,and the late Canon Liddon. Mr. Sala, about the same time, gave an academy of his own contriving in "Echoes of the Week," then in the Illustrated London News. Among his im- mortals not included in the above were Mr. Lewis Morris, Mr. Alfred Austin, and Sir Edwin Arnold. I believe it is considered very vulgar now to talk about the price of a book, and when one speaks of the value of any particular volume, the aesthetic value is meant—the value of the binding, the type, the paper, and the contents. Sordid commercialism must not enter into the sacred profession of letters. Booksellers no doubt will soon be giving away first editions and luxe editions for the pure love of pro- pagating these new ideas. One advantage of an academy would be that it could decide on such niceties of language. ♦— The interest which was aroused by the publica- tion of "Lux Mundi" has of course begun to subside, and Churchmen are turning their attention to the Lincoln and St. Paul's Reredos and reconci- liation cases. But its success has been phenomenal; no book of the kind has had such a sale since "Tracts for the Times," and "Essaysand Reviews." The controversy still continues in seme of the Church papers, and the " Luces Mundi " have been explaining doubtful points to remove any suspicion of heterodoxy that has attached to their remarkable essays. Someone has taken the trouble to collect all the grammatical solecisms in the late Cardinal Newman's works, and confided the result of his labours to one of the Scotch weeklies, and has refused to ac- cept the Cardinal as a stylist in consequence. Such attempts remind one of those theologians who, having added up all the animals in the Ark and worked out other mathematical problems from Genesis, reject Christianity because they cannot find a satisfactory answer. How many great authors could one not put to a similar test? and how many would come out unscathed? Thackeray, above all 'things a stylist, often made slips in grammar, but are we to reject him as well? When Sir John Everett Millais was asked by him to write something for the Cornhill and the painter ex- pressed doubts as to his grammatical proficiency, Thackeray replied, " D n the grammar!" No one that I know of has as yet criticised the fifty-copies-on-large-paper-system—of which twenty- five are sent to America, wherever that is, five are reserved for the author's friends, and the next ten are destroyed. We hear of the republic of letters, but this is surely the plutocracy of letters. There are a number of books that could only be printed or published by subscription, and it is but fair to the subscribers that only a limited number should be issued. Such are expensive catalogues, Art books, or works like Burton's "Arabian Nights"; but why should a work, already well printed and "got up," have a sort of extra special edition for the benefit of wealthy people who very often never read it? It only gives a book an artificial value, except in the cases I have mentioned. Very often it takes a very selfish form, and ordinary purchasers are deprived of a good deal of matter, to which they are fully entitled, because they are unable to pay two guineas, instead of "\s. 6d. On the propriety of publishing Sir Walter Scott's journal a good many people will differ. From the review in the Times it does not appear that it tends to shatter an idol, and only confirms the prevalent belief in the nobility and integrity of his character It will raise, however, the old questions of how much a public has a right to know of a writer's private life, and how much private life a public man is permitted to have. It depends, one would think, on the author himself. Mr. Browning, a few years before his death, destroyed boxes full of letters, so fearful was he of the biographers, while writers like St. Augustine, Rousseau, Maria Bashkirtseff, and Sir Austin Feverel, all gave their " bruised heart to the world." It is quite impossible to dogmatize on the subject. How far has the popularity of Scott waned? Some people get very angry at the bare idea of it. Mr. Swinburne, in one of his essays, says, " His pop- ularity may fluctuate now and then with olderreaders —so much the worse for them . . . but when it comes among English boys and girls, a dooms- day will be dawning of which as yet there are most assuredly no signs orpresages perceptible." Now it is reported that among boys his popularity has waned. Older readers who knew him in their youth, read ## p. 173 (#213) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 173 him again and again, and like him better each time. Boys prefer the more flashy novels of the elder Dumas. Scott's position in literature is as firm as Shakespeare's, but as a novelist for boys par excel- lence he has been succeeded. In the same way Byron is no longer the poet of young men, or Moore of young ladies. Thackeray, with very natural dislike of affectation, killed Byron the man—the hero of society, and the same able critic quoted before has no doubt influenced popular feeling as to Byron's rank on Parnassus. By a curious irony of fate it is Mr. Swinburne himself, the poet of his early volumes, who has taken Byron's place. It is " Faustine, Fragolletta, Dolores," who occupy in youthful minds the place of the " Bride of Abydos," the " Maid of Athens," and "Donna Julia." Not very long ago there existed at Oxford and Cambridge a Dolores Society, and as a well-known man of letters once said, "Swinburne set us on fire at Oxford." To appreciate Byron we must talk to foreigners. They seem to regard him with unflagging admira- tion. Wherever he went he left the stamp of his wonderful personality, and cities which he has celebrated in "Childe Harold" (now irreverently called the "Rhyming Baedeker"), remember him with'gratitude. The Greek colony in London cele- brated his centenary with great pomp two or three years ago, and after a memorial service in the Orthodox Church in Moscow Road, and an address in modern Greek on the services Byron had rendered to their country, they marched to his image in Hyde Park and placed a wreath there. But the centenary was quite ignored by the English people. The two English names which are most familiar in Italy to-day are those of John Ruskin and Lord Byron. The guides will always tell you what "Rusconi" has said of a particular building, and the street Arabs point out the palace where Byron lived. The publication of "Major Barttelot's Diaries and Letters" has been speedily followed by Mr. Rose Troup's "With Stanley's Rear Column," and the Jameson Diaries are promised shortly. This literature of recrimination which has sprung up is not very edifying, the more so as it seems to be the only tangible outcome of the ill-considered Emin Relief Expedition. It would not be surpris- ing, after the criminal nature of the charge which Mr. Stanley has preferred against the] unfortunate commander of the rear column, to hear Mr. Stanley himself and the advance column accused in turn of subsisting on pigmy in the wilderness. The French genius for delineating character was never more highly displayed than in the "De Goncourt Journals," of which the third volume has just been published. Although it professes to be a memoir of the literary coteries of the period, it is really little more than a description of the nightly dinners at Brebants, and it is the figure of Renan which is the most vividly drawn. Half philosophic, half mystic, Renan certainly values himself hugely. "I should have made an indul- gent paternal charitable priest," he has said of himself. As a rule humility is also an advantage in an ecclesiastic. A writer in the current Quarterly errs when he describes him as a second Voltaire, who had a keen sense of humour, while Renan, if he is to be judged by his own words, apparently has none. "London City," by Mr. Loftie, bids fair to be the book of the month. It will be enriched with vivid illustrations of London city as it is to-day, engraved from original drawings by Mr. William Luker, and every possible care has been taken to make the book a model of artistic and skilled pro- duction. Mr. Loftie is to the nineteenth century what Stow was to the sixteenth—he is this and a great deal more besides. I believe the fashion of writing confessions in ladies' albums exists no longer, but if anyone was asked now who was their favourite writer, after the favourite novelist and favourite poet had been decided on, the favourite writer would be Mr. Andrew Lang. But Mr. Lang is a poet as well, and this month in collaboration with Mr.'Haggard, he has become a novelist too, "The World's Desire" having been just issued in one volume. His fairy book (red this time) gives a number of stories which will be new to a great many of us. There are two from the Russian. Has Mr. Lang reconsidered his strictures on the Russian novelists? He has written a preface to a translation of Langisms which has given occasion for the Scotch to make a bad joke. Homer sometimes nods, but Mr. Lang never seems even to wink. » Mr. George W. Smalley, the London correspon- dent of the New York Tribune, has collected his famous letters to that journal in two volumes, en- titled "London Letters and Others" (Macmillan). They are certainly the best things of their kind that have appeared, and were well worth republish- ing in book form. The stories or anecdotes are many and excellent. ## p. 174 (#214) ############################################ 174 THE AUTHOR A new work is announced by Ralph Iron, the talented authoress of "The African Farm." And Messrs. Methuen have just published a second series of Mr. Baring Gould's fascinating " Historic Oddities." In his last volume Mr. Baring Gould certainly succeeded in raising history to the level of romance, which should be the first duty of a con- scientious historian. The new edition of Matthew Arnold's complete poems, lately issued by Messrs. Macmillan, as a companion to Lord Tennyson's, will be welcome to the increasing admirers of the poet. Those who prefer Arnold the poet, to Arnold the essayist, will regret his unfortunate excursions into theology. His keen critical ability no doubt hampered his poetical achievement—for thorough criticism, if rightly considered, is a creative faculty. The greatest poets are not, as a rule, great critics. Theirs is the magnificent endowment of bias and enthusiasm, and though their opinions are always interesting, the critical power is not infrequently developed at the expense of their poetic gifts. Matthew Arnold is one of those who are pointed to as an example of a man who excelled in many things at once—poetry, criticism, and theology. Censuring Bishop Colenso he said, "Let us have all the science there is from men of science; from the men of religion let us have religion." As a poet, and as some think as a critic, Mr. Arnold excelled, but what about his theology? From theologians let us have theology! Rossetti, on the other hand, is given in support of the other view, that a man cannot excel in two different arts. To say this is like saying that a person must not be able to talk two languages, or that if you are a good runner you must not be a good walker, or a good rider. But if the quantity of Rossetti's produc- tions is meant, the remark becomes a platitude. It is entirely a different thing when science and art get mixed up, as science and religion are sometimes. It is terribly old-fashioned to say so, but I believe literature and art are nearer to one another than we think; at any rate, they are not so distant as the brand-new critics tell us. A paper on the " Drift of Religious Thought in England" will shortly appear in the Forum—where a good many excellent papers have lately appeared. It is by the Rev. Prof. Momerie, author of " Church and Creed." Mr. Moinerie is one of the very few men in the Church of England to whom the posi- tive and negative aspects of truth (positive in the metaphysical foundation, and negative in his con- tempt for ecclesiasticism) have equal attractions. In his forthcoming article he will show how, in spite of its tendency to retrograde, the Church of England is being forced by circumstances towards Rationalism, the goal which all Churches must, in his opinion, reach or perish. Another novel of Egypt—or partly of Egypt— not an imitation of " She." It is by Clive Holland, whose name is becoming better known, and appears at the end of the year. I also note "Mademoiselle," by Frances Mary Peard, to be published immediately by Messrs. Walter Smith and Innes. The following is from a publisher. Of course we all agree with him in his claim that the purchase outright of a book releases the purchaser from any further payment unless he chooses. The other points are also in substantial accord with the views of the Society. "I am much obliged by your note. I am myself most anxious to offer fair terms to authors. "The one broad principle on which I prefer to take my stand, is that the author should share in the success of the book up to the sale of the last copy; and this can only be attained by the use of the royalty system in one form or another. The difficulty is when authors cannot afford to wait and demand a sum down. This at once increases the risk and forces the publisher to provide for emergencies at the cost of the author. The ideal method is to pay a sum down in advance of royalties, and to pay the royalties after that sum has been reached in the sales. "The recent developments of the quarrel between authors and publishers are evidently due to those new and more generous views on social and economic problems which are forcing their way to the front. Political economy is rapidly becoming less a cold science treating solely of the distribu- tion and nature of wealth, and more an inquiry into the means available for improving the condition of the producer, and for discovering an equitable method of distributing profits. Authors are pro- ducers, and though there may be something repug- nant to a sensitive mind in the publicity given to details of literary commerce, we must allow that literature, which has now to be reckoned with as one of the great wealth-producing limbs of com- merce, has every claim to be paid in accordance with recognised principles. "The proportion of divided profit is a delicate question. Where an author has a sure audience, he may claim two-thirds to the publisher's one-third. ## p. 175 (#215) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 175 But when the publisher is working out an idea of his own with trouble and thought, he may justly claim a higher proportion. I think that the royalty paid to an author should be increased in case of a largely increased sale. "The half profit system is an abomination. If resorted to, the sums charged against the book should be those really paid. But of course the publisher may charge a preliminary fee for his trouble. "When a publisher issues a book at the expense of the author, he should charge a reasonable sum, but he has a right to say 'I will produce the book at such a sum; whether you can get the book produced more cheaply elsewhere is not to the point—my charge is so and so.' "When a publisher agrees to give a fixed price for the copyright of a book, the author's claim vanishes with the payment of that sum. The publisher pays for his bargain and has a right to any profits which may accrue. If I buy a plot of ground and find coal on it, the seller could hardly claim an additional share of the profits. Per- sonally, I would give the author a share of any such profits if they were large. But this is hardly a matter of honesty. At the same time such bargains should not degenerate into sweating. "These remarks are crude and written hastily, but I think they are in the main just. "I fear you will never be able to stop the depre- dations of those who infest the shady places of publishing. At the same time your Society has done a vast amount of good, and has, I should say, greatly increased the safety and profits of literary folk." —♦ It is pleasant to announce that Mr. Sprigge's "Methods of Publication " has already run through one edition, and that another is in preparation and will be out in a few days. Contrary to reasonable expectation, the greater part of the edition has been taken by the general public, and not by the members of the Society. Now the book is written especially for the benefit of the members, and could not have been written but for their support in maintaining the Society. It throws a flood of light upon the meaning of the various methods pursued in this chaotic business, and upon the frauds which are often perpetrated under cover of these methods by unscrupulous men. The book ought to be on the shelf of every literary man. Some, perhaps, will not trouble to "do the sums." They may take the general conclusions and note the warnings. With this book should go the "Cost of Production," published only for mem- bers. A new edition of this is in preparation. Messrs. Clowes and Son, of Fleet Street, have in the press, and will publish very shortly "The Law of the Press," by Mr. J. R. Fisher, of The Standard, and Mr. J. A. Strahan, LL.B., Regius Professor of Law, Queen's College, Belfast. The object of the authors has been to present in handy form a com- plete digest of all the laws affecting the Periodical Press, whether from the point of view of editors, contributors, or proprietors. There has of late been growing up a consider- able body of statute and case law of the utmost importance to the literary profession, but although we have excellent works on libel, copyright, and other branches of the subject, there is no book covering the whole ground, and written expressly with a view to the interests of the journalist. For purposes of comparison a chapter is added giving a full account of the Press Laws of France and Germany. * CANADIAN COPYRIGHT. THIS is a subject which has been much dis- cussed during the year by those interested in the Copyright question. Canada, it is well known, occupies a peculiar position with regard to copyright legislation. On the one hand, as one of our colonies, literary pro- perty receives there the same attention and protec- tion as in any other Imperial Colony. On the other hand, such legislation is very little use to author or publisher. A long and easily crossed frontier between Canada and America renders payment for and publication of copyrighted works a thankless task in Canada; the unshackled American can do the job so much cheaper. Canada has for many years designed to obtain leave from Imperial Parliament to regulate copy- right in the colony by domestic legislation, and the idea has met with varying and various support from ministers of all ways of thinking. The position is now as follows :— In 1889, the Government of Canada passed an Act (entitled 52 Vic, cap. 29) relating to the law of copyright in Canada, and this Act is now awaiting the Royal Assent—or was awaiting it in the spring of this year. But since that date the Ministers of the Ciown, whilst regretting the fact, have been unable to authorize the Governor-General of Canada to issue a Proclamation to bring the Act into force. The principal provisions of the Canadian Copy- right Act, 52 Vic, cap. 29, are briefly these :— i. Sec. 1 enacts that the conditions for obtaining copyright in a work in Canada, shall be that ## p. 176 (#216) ############################################ 176 THE AUTHOR. the work shall, before publication or pro- duction elsewhere, or simultaneously with the first publication or production thereof elsewhere, be registered in the office of the Minister of Agriculture, by the author or his legal representatives, and further that such work shall be printed, published, or produced in Canada, or reprinted, repub- lished, or reproduced in Canada, within one month after publication or production elsewhere. ii. Sec. 3 (i) enables the Minister of Agriculture, in the event of the person entitled to copy- right failing to reprint or republish as pro- vided in Sec. 1, to grant licenses to persons domiciled in Canada to print and publish the work, for which copyright, but for such neglect or failure mi"ht have been obtained; but no such license shall convey exclusive rights to print and publish or produce any work. Sec. 3 (ii) provides that a license shall be granted to any applicant agreeing to pay the author or his legal representative a royalty of ten per cent, on the retail price of each copy or reproduction issued of the work; and he shall also give security for such payment to the satisfaction of the Minister. Sec. 4 enacts that the royalty shall be collected by the officers of the Department of Inland Revenue, and paid over to the persons en- titled thereto, but the Government shall not be liable to account for any such royalty not actually collected. Sec. 5 provides that if a license has been granted for the publication of any work, and evidence has been adduced to the satisfaction of the Governor in Council that such work is being printed and published or produced in such a manner as to meet the demand therefoi in Canada, the Governor-General may by proclamation prohibit the importation, while the author's copyright or that of his assignors is in force, of any copies or reproductions of the work to which such license relates. Sec. 6 enacts that no such prohibition as last mentioned shall apply to the importation of copies of such works from the United Kingdom. In June last the above-mentioned Act was brought under the notice of the Sub-Committee on Copyright, as was also an announcement in the press that Sir John Thompson, the Canadian Minister of Justice, was on his way from Canada to confer with the Colonial Office authorities relative to the Canadian Copyright Act. In consequence of this announcement, Sir Fredk. Pollock, the Chairman of the Sub-Com- mittee, communicated with the Colonial Office in July last, drawing attention to the fact that the Canadian Copyright Act was ultra vires, as being inconsistent with and repugnant to the Imperial Copyright Act of 1842. The receipt of Sir Fredk. Pollock's letter was duly acknowledged by the Colonial Office, and then for a time nothing more was heard of the matter. On the 17th September, a letter was written by the direction of Ixird Knutsford, from the Colonial Office to the Incorporated Society of Authors, but owing to a mistake of the Post Office autho- rities the letter was delivered to a wrong address, and was not received by the Society until some weeks afterwards. The purport of the letter was to the effect that Lord Knutsford had directed Sir John Thompson's report on the Canadian Copyright Act, together with other official documents, to be forwarded to the Society of Authors, and ended by saying that his Lordship would be glad to be favoured with any observations which the Society might desire to make upon the questions raised in the report and other documents. Sir J. Thompson's report really consists of a very powerful argument as to why either the Canadian Copyright Act should receive the Royal Assent; or, if the Crown cannot properly give its assent to the Bill on account of its being in conflict with the Imperial Act, that the Government should promote legislation in the Parliament of Great Britain to remove any doubt which may exist as to the power of the Parliament of Canada to deal with the question fully and effectually. The main points upon which this demand is based may be shortly summarized thus :— 1. The Imperial Government has, during the last 40 years, on several occasions promised to pass a Bill whereby the Canadian Parlia- ment might legislate upon the subject of copyright in Canada, although such legis- lation might be repugnant to or inconsistent with the copyright law of this country. This is proved by reference to various despatches from the Colonial Office to the Governor-General of Canada, which are set out at length in Sir J. Thompson's report. 2. The rights which British authors and pub- lishers have under the Imperial Copyright Act have been greatly abused by the sale of their copyright privileges to American publishers and by their refusal to sell to Canadian publishers on like terms. 3. The prices of American prints are so low ## p. 177 (#217) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 177 that British publications have no chance of competing with them in Canada—the price of British publications exceeding by four to tenfold that for which reprints are purchased in America; the result being that the business of publishing British literature for the Canadian market is done almost exclusively in the United States. 4. The American publisher is free to reprint any British work and to supply it to the Canadian public, while the Canadian pub- lisher is restrained from publishing such work on any terms, except with the per- mission of the copyright holder in Great Britain. 5. On account of the facts mentioned in para- graph 4, publishing establishments have been transferred from Canada to the United States. 6. The peculiar position in which Canada is placed on account of her proximity to the United States, and the copyright policy of the United States demand peculiar treat- ment in legislation. 7. The royalty provision of the Act is reason- able, and affords ample facilities for collec- tion. 8. The royalty system was recommended by the Royal Commission on Copyright in their report of 1876. Sir J. Thompson also adds that any suggestions as to details which the Colonial Office may think proper to make, will receive the earnest and re- spectful attention of the Governor-General. On October the 23rd a meeting was held at the Society's offices, to discuss the answer which the Society should return to Lord Knutsford's flatter- ing letter. The purport of Sir J. Thompson's report having been explained, the following reply was sent to the Colonial Office :— "In answer to the letter from Mr. Robert Herbert of the 17th September, 1890, I have the honour to inform your Lordship that a meeting of the General Committee of the Incorporated Society of Authors, including the Sub-Committee on Copyright, has been held to consider the questions raised by Sir J. Thompson in his report to your Lordship of July 14th, 1890. I am directed by the Committee to inform your Lordship as follows:— 1. "They can express no opinion on the question of the general policy which Her Majesty's Government may think fit to adopt towards Canada with regard to the question of copyright. 2 "They hope, however, that if Her Majesty's Government think fit to undertake legisla- tion in order to give effect to the principles of the Canadian Copyright Act, such legis- lation will embody due precautions for making "the collections of royalty charges really efficient. 3. "They submit that the clauses relating to the collection of royalty charges as drafted in the Canadian Copyright Act, 52 Vic, cap. 29, are not sufficient for the proper collec- tion thereof; and 4. "It appears to the Committee doubtful whether the Canadian Copyright Act, 52 Vic, cap. 29, does not purport to abolish copyright altogether, unless the person entitled thereto reprints or republishes in Canada within one month after printing or publishing elsewhere. At best, the language of the Act is ambiguous on this point." It must be remembered, though I hope I may be pardoned for pointing out anything so obvious, that these views of the copyright question in Canada have been forced upon us by the enterprise of America. It is hard on the English author to lose his problematical rights in the colony, but the blow is tempered by the remembrance that America has taken due care that he should lose his real rights. W. Oliver Hodges. Hon. Sec. Copyright Committee. * FIN DE SIECLE. THERE is much talk about the fin de stick or decadent writers at the present moment. Most of it, however, springs from an entire misconception of the true application of the phrase when literature is in question. As applied to social manners or morals, it is the merest affectation to use the term to describe anything but what has become at least jejune, if not absolutely decayed. When applied to literature, on the other hand, the phrase does not necessarily bear any such interpre- tation. Quite the contrary. An author may be described at once as the typical decadent and the greatest living writer with perfect propriety. It may not be out of place at the same time to remind some persons that the decadent spirit is not absolutely dissociated from the vilest writing. The school, however, is honourably d stinguished by great technical excellence. It may fairly be asked then, "What is a decadent}" A complete definition is at all times difficult to obtain, and we do not pretend to offer anything of the kind; but a writer is rightly described as a decadent when his ## p. 178 (#218) ############################################ 178 THE AUTHOR. work reflects decay, or even triviality, in any shape. The true decadent never really cares to handle any subject when those elements are wholly absent; he is always a literary voluptuary and generally dabbles in psychology. M. Jules Lemaitre, speaking of the decadence literature, goes so far as to say that it should perhaps be regarded rather as the dawn of a new era than the decay of an old. If this be so the term "Neo- Romantic" even might not be considered as a misnomer as applied to the school. Again, M. Jules Lemaitre in reviewing a piece by M. Catulle Mendes, hails its author as "the true decadent, the decadent of the classical period, the Grasco-Latin decadent full of knowledge and dexterity." M. Catulle Mendes, he says, is like Callimachus, Claudius, Ausonius, and then further on, "M. Catulle Mendes loves literature with the ardour of a voluptuary who is never glutted . . and this debauchee is an artist with the most tender conscience, whose style is immaculate. I am sure that he would rather lose his head than write an ill-turned sentence." And finally in regard to his subjects, "I am obliged to recognise that he has written much on the details of psychology less with the avowed object of satisfying his own sensuality and exciting that of his readers. He has offended in the same way as did his I>atin name- sake, Ovid, Martial, and nearly all the poets of the Renaissance, in the same way as Montesquieu, Crebillon fils, Voltaire, Gentil-Bernard, Parny, &c." In fact, we may say that the decadent may be generally recognized by his unsavoury subject and his superb style. Many excellent persons, believing themselves to be lovers of literature,condemn decadent literature on this ground alone, and hold the hetero- dox view that no literature can be truly great which is not also truly good. There is a wide margin of taste in letters as in other things; but those persons who really hold this veiw do not care about literature at all—what they like is a popular treatise on moral philosophy written on the anecdotal method. With the exception of Mr. Pater and Mr. Symonds, we have no decadents, though Mr. Henry James is spoken of as a novelist fin de siecle, and there is one story about which there has been a great controversy lately; it is the only work of fiction a Frenchman would recognise as the work of a true decadent. But the spirit is here, and in Mr. Pater's postscript to his delightful Renaissance will be found a system of ethics that has a large following in England. Mr. Pater, it may be said, is among the greatest of our stylists. A writer to the St. James's Gazette once spoke of an infatuation for a certain painter, and fin de siecle is an "infatuation" for all forms of art and all things with form. But we have as yet no one to correspond to Pierre- Zoti, Huissmans and Paul Verlain. LITERATURE AS A TRADE. {Reprinted from the Sr. James's Gazette by permission of the author.) THE day is long past when the Muses lived in retired and modest seclusion, in a place that smelt "sweet as the vestry of the oracles." Those ladies came up to town many years ago, and are well known to have cultivated business habits. They are no more afraid of its being understood that they work for money than a reduced viscountess blushes to have it said that she sells bonnets under a pseudonym. But the importance which they attach to the commercial aspect of their duties, and their extreme anxiety to take care of the pence, have never been insisted upon as they have quite lately. Literature, which was still looked upon in 1889 as a sort of pro- fession, is treated in 1890 as a mere trade; and it seems worth while to note this curious change of sentiment, and to gauge the effect which it will produce. The signs of the new position are too numerous to be overlooked. Mr. John Morley and Mr. Walter Besant wrangle about the number of literary persons in Britain who earn a thousand a year—that very princely sum. A congress of unfortunate foreigners of dubious distinction, in- vited by nobody knows whom, meet in the golden recesses of the Mansion House, and talk in French for a week, about the way in which more francs may be secured in this way, and that way, and the other. And, finally, the columns of the Times reverberate for many successive days with angry voices discussing whether or no the chromo-litho- graphy of a certain " Palestinian" divine (as they say in America) is properly paid with eight, or eight thousand, or eight hundred thousand guineas. That literary work, like all other work, should be honestly and sufficiently rewarded, is so obvious that it seems hardly necessary to go on repeating it. What appears to a mere child of nature ex- traordinary is that so great a wrangle and a chatter should be made about the returns of this one particular kind of employment. It cannot be on account of the huge sums involved. A maker of agricultural machinery or of ordnance, the pro- prietor of a large mill or of a successful patent medicine, would scoff at the figures which are bandied to and fro in the existing discussion. If money-making is the first object, and if it needs transcendent gifts to make ,£8,000 in twenty years, those gifts might surely with advantage be diverted to the selling of dairy produce. In spite of all that is said about its profits, literature remains, and is likely to remain, the only profession in which the ## p. 179 (#219) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 179 most genuinely successful man cannot make a comfortable living. Not all the optimism of Mr. Walter Besant is likely to rob it of this unique distinction. Why, then, are the modest emolu- ments of such a poor trade the object of keen public curiosity? This is a conundrum to which I cannot even suggest an answer. It may be asked whether I think there are no abuses in the publishing trade, and whether 1 ignore or depreciate the service of the Society of Authors. Neither the one nor the other. I am afraid that there have been, and perhaps even still are, irregularities and injustices which require to be remedied. I have been admitted to the debates of the Society of Authors, and have been proud to think that I was allowed to share in work so obviously useful. But I fancy that there are dangers even in the necessary process of reform; and I dread that the personal interests of authors may be given a prominence which will be injurious to the development of literature. The present extravagant curiosity about "royalties " and "intel- lectual property" and the like, goes far beyond the circle of those who are disinterested trying to remove certain trading anomalies. It begins to supersede all other curiosity about literature. This species of talk pervades what is styled "literary gossip." Do you know that Orpheus has published a new volume of his "Argonautics "? Ah 1 that magnificent passage about the Sirens and the sunset! And are you aware that he insisted on being paid five pounds a line for it? You have seen, of course, the new Nemaean ode that Pindar has written in honour of young Adrastus, who won the glove fight at the Cormorant Club? Oh ! such a splendid stanza about the sunlight flashing oft* his left elbow; and they say that the father—the great soap boiler, you know—is so pleased that he has sent Pindar a cheque for a thousand pounds! Pindar, very properly, would not cash it till the old fellow had altered it to guineas. I venture to ask whether all the columns of correspondence in last week's Times amounted to much more than this? Why such curiosity about literary prices is un- wholesome is, that it tends to make money the standard in a species of labour where the rewards are in no degree analogous to the deserts. It directly encourages the measurement of intellectual prestige by the amount which an intellectual pro- duct fetches in the market. It leads at once to deadly errors of taste. If gaudy " Lives of Christ" are valued at ,£4,000 apiece, what is the price of divinity by a Lightfoot or a Westcott? Four millions might perhaps be taken as an average answer, if this is to be a simple sum in the rule of three. But the retailer of gossip pursues his in- vol. 1 quiries, and discovers that theology, as it was and is understood at Durham, is practically not rewarded at this rate. The concentration of his attention on price immediately thereupon produces its effect on his taste. The direct result is that he makes up his mind to regard the famous Bishops as persons of very much smaller literary importance than he had vaguely believed them to be. They are weighed in the golden balances and found wanting. They are looked upon as two small hosiers might be measured by the magnitude of Mr. Whiteley. How far we have diverged, in these last days, from the ambition of Keats, who desired to live like those primitive Sicilian bards, who died content on pleasant sward, Leaving great verse unto a little clan? O, give me their old vigour, and unheard Save of the quiet primrose, and the span Of Heaven and few ears .... .... my song should die away Content as theirs, Rich in the simple worship of a day. That is the last thing that our modern authors are expected to be content with. Yet sooner or later, unless literature is doomed to pass into a mechanism and disappear, the spirit that actuated the noble and poor masters of our language must be revived. It may safely be said that no great work in prose or verse was ever yet composed primarily for the purpose of making as much money as possible. The very spontaneity of the art would disappear in so gross a fume. Nor will those men and women who are led by the current gossip to "take up" literature as a trade, and to write novels, theology, or criticism, for the sake of competing successfully with the best-paid favourites of the hasty public, add anything at all to the riches of our language. The tendency of the moment is to reverse the natural order of things. The principle nowadays is not to write because we must, and then, if necessary, to sell the product, but to write for money mainly, and to get praise and pleasure, if possible, into the bargain. There should be a little modesty, one feels, in this pursuit of the guineas. It looks as though authors were such a hungry set that the mere jingle of gold intoxicated them. A measure of dignity must surely be aimed at, even by novelists, or we shall refuse to be interested in plots that are sold across the counter like cheese, or love-passages that are plainly ticketed as "very cheap at 31. i\d." No one wants to return to the old hypocrisy about "obliging the town " or " publishing at the earnest request of friends." There need be no mock modesty about the processes of literary business. Manuscripts must be sold, agreements entered into, 0 ## p. 180 (#220) ############################################ i8o THE AUTHOR. and a proper care taken that the author does not let himself be defrauded. But these functions should be performed in private, not flaunted before the public. I no more desire to know what my neighbour the poet makes by his verses than I crave to see the account books of my other neighbour the lawyer. I am anxious that each of them should make the best of both worlds—the world of praise and the world of profit; but I am not listening at either wall to hear the clink of the money-bags. It is time that literary people should be requested to show the same decent reserve about their money matters which is shown by doctors and stockbrokers, and shopkeepers. Edmund Gosse. * THE FARRAR-CASSELL CASE. (From the New York Tribune by permission of the author.) London, October 13M. The Farrar-Cassell correspondence has taken, as such correspondence is apt to, a wide range. The personal issue between the particular author and par- ticular publisher gave place, after awhile, to a general discussion of the relations that exist and of the other relations that ought to exist between these two in- teresting classes of the community. Various sorts of people have taken a hand in it, and their contribu- tions fillaltogetherrathermore than twelve columns of The Times. They would make a respectable volume; very amusing and instructive, too. If any American publisher likes to act on this hint he may do so without fear of copyright, or royalty, or any demand for payment from any author whomsoever; least of all from the author of the hint. But he should, I think, have the courage to reprint all, and not a part merely. Some of the letters, for example, may not seem to him, or to anybody, intrinsically valuable, but they are all so connected as to make one whole. It might not be easy to say what the impression of the whole is on the general public. The Times itself is not a safe guide in such matters. In any controversy where the interests of trade are con- cerned, this very commercial journal is prone to take the trade side. It does so in this case. There is a plausible case, though not a real case, for Messrs. Cassell, and the great organ of the great nation of shopkeepers makes the most of it. Messrs. Cassell gave Archdeacon Farrar some thousands of dollars more than they were bound to give him; therefore they were generous to him; therefore he ought not to complain. Such is, in substance, the view of this journal; a view which ignores nearly everything that has been said from the other point of view, and takes no account of the fact that it was Messrs. Cassell, not the Arch- deacon, who published the figures on one side only of the transaction, and on the strength of this one-sided statement appealed to the public to say whether they had not behaved equitably. The challenge to set forth the facts on the other side remains unanswered. We know what Messrs. Cassell paid Archdeacon Farrar for the "Life of Christ"; some $10,000 in all. We do not know, and they stubbornly refuse to tell, what their own profits were, and their silence leaves us nothing better than the conjecture of my last letter to go upon. They are supposed to have made at least a quarter of a million. Is it, then, an equitable transaction by which the author of a book makes $10,000, and the publisher $250,000? Some of the letters printed during the last week are written by publishers; not the least interesting, by any means. It is well when the publisher unbosoms himself, and states his claim nakedly. One of them thinks the notion that the division of profits in this case may have been inequitable an "impudent" notion. "The creation of the property was in a very large measure due to the publishers, and the author was paid all he asked, and, presumably, all he wanted." Mr. Andrew W. Tuer, whose view is less extreme than those of most of his colleagues, says: "If an author is to share profits with the publisher he must in equity be made a partner in the business, and then he shares losses also." This is one of those arguments which proves too much. Every author who is paid by a royalty is, in the sense Mr. Tuer means, a sharer in profits. He is paid in proportion to the sale of the book. But he does not share losses on other books. The partner- ship between him and the publisher, so far as it exists at all, is confined to the particular book of which he is the author. If Messrs. Cassell had agreed to pay Canon Farrar a fair royalty on every copy sold, his share of the profits might still have been much less than theirs, but it would have been a share of the profits. Among the most cynical of these correspondents are a firm who sign themselves contentedly "West End Publishers." "It is believed," say these gentlemen, "that the 'Life of Christ' was judiciously advertised, and the work being made well known by that means in our opinion, made Archdeacon Farrar as an author." And they ask—the question is a favourite one with the letter-writing pub- lisher: "Would the reverend gentleman have re ## p. 181 (#221) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 181 couped Messrs. Cassell for their large outlay if the work had been a failure?" Probably not, but whether he would or not the question frequently and triumphantly as it is put, has absolutely nothing to do with the point under discussion. The point is not whether Messrs. Cassell paid all they agreed to, and more besides. It is admitted they did, They point is simply whether upon a voluntary statement by Messrs. Cassell of what they paid Archdeacon Farrar, and a continuing concealment of what they themselves made, they are in a position to ask the public to say that the adjustment and distribution of the profits derived from the " Life of Christ" was or was not equitable. A publisher asks a similar question: "If I paid an author 820,000 and lost 810,000 by the book, would he repay me the difference? If not, why should I share profits with him if I make 850,000?" Such is the question, stripped of circumlo- cutions, and put, I hope, not less pointedly and not less strongly for the publisher than he puts it. Leaving the dispute between Messrs. Cassell and Farrar on one side, the question is one which a publisher is entitled to ask, though I do not imagine he will be satisfied with the answer. For the true answer can only be given by referring once more to the relations that have in times past existed, and to some extent do still exist, between the publisher and the author. It is, in fact, a question of circumstances. I can imagine a case in which I should answer yes to the first part of the question, and say the author ought to make good the publisher's loss. But such cases would be infrequent, for this reason. Nineteen times out of twenty the publisher is a man of business, and the author is not. A con- tract is entered into between two parties, one of whom knows all about the business side of it and the other knows nothing. The publisher draws the contract, fills it full of technical clauses designed to protect his own interest, each one of them or many of them covering a "custom of the trade" of which no warning is given the author. The publisher not only draws the con- tract for his own advantage, but interprets it by a code known to himself only. Nineteen times out of twenty such a contract, in which every right is safeguarded on one side and none on the other, is put before an author to take or to leave. It is perhaps the only transaction among all the millions of commercial transactions in which one party has everything to say, and the other nothing. If the author refuses to sign and goes elsewhere, he may or may not get better terms, but he will be in precisely the same position with reference to the one publisher as to the other. He must, as a rule, VOL. I. publish upon the terms of the trade or not at all Is it then probable that the publisher will have an equitable claim on the author outside of and beyond the terms of the contract which the publisher himself has framed in his own interest? Is it not, on the other hand, extremely probable that the author may have an equitable claim against the publisher? That is one answer. There are others, but this is not a treatise on the general question, and I pass on. It will be time enough to produce the other answers when a sufficient reply has been offered to this first. I add only on this point that I make no accusation. I state what I believe to be facts. I assume that the publisher acts after his kind, and up to the standard of his pro- fession. "Business men," writes another of these numerous correspondents, rather forcibly, "are largely colour-blind when any higher standard than that of their particular trade is concerned. Every- thing shady in their respective callings has its ready defence." I will, however, instead of going on to another branch of the subject, as I meant to, and adding other testimony from other publishers, turn to a letter which illustrates what I have just been saying-—a letter which I have read since I wrote the foregoing. The letter appeared in The Times of Monday, over or under, the curious signature "Ellbee and Eebee"; which perhaps might at a guess be read L. B. and E. B. Some seven years ago, say these writers, they issued as joint authors a book on terms which are known as "Agreement for publishing on commission." They do not name the publishers. They conveyed to them the right to act as publishers and wholesale vendors for Great Britain, the rest of Europe, and the United States. The authors were to bear all cost and risk; the publishers receiving a commission of 15 per cent, on net sales, and taking the risk of bad debts. They add: "This 15 per cent, was subject to the trade reduction of one-third from the pub- lished price (thirteen copies being considered as twelve), with an additional embargo on special sales, the number of which we had no power to check or control, at a reduced price. But we were still further charged the full retail, or, at any rate, the estimated price on all outlays, of printing, binding, advertisements, &c.—items on which it is not unreasonable to suppose the publishers received discount from the firms they employed." This book thus published ran into six editions at $3 75 a copy. A popular edition was then issued at $1 25, for which the type was not reset, but two pages condensed into one by taking out the leads and omitting photographs. Eight editions were thus disposed of. It was a successful book. o 2 ## p. 182 (#222) ############################################ l82 THE AUTHOR. How much do you suppose the share of the authors came to? They shall say. "We were debited with a considerable sum, almost double the amount of the original deposit, and so sick were we of the whole transaction that we were glad to compromise it by surrendering all our rights—save the mark! The book is now in its twelfth edition—it may be even in a still more advanced issue." Will some publisher who is fond of letter-writing tell us how much he supposes the publishers made out of this transaction? No comment on it or explanation of it has yet appeared, and I venture to predict that none will. Yet the publishers' story would be extremely interesting. Any paper would print it with alacrity. Or, if the firm with whom these unlucky authors dealt do not care for publicity, another publisher's view of the case would be welcome. G. W. S. "AMERICAN AUTHORS AND BRITISH PIRATES." ATU QUOQUE retort is, in popular minds, considered as an excellent and most effective argument. And in fact it has its advantages, because, if it is true, it convicts the accuser of hypocrisy. With what face, for instance, can we charge the Americans with wholesale literary piracy, when they can round upon us with the statement that we are doing just exactly the same thing ourselves? Everybody knows that we do practise literary piracy. But we have hitherto been under the comfortable delusion that it was only on a small scale, and in the case of small and unknown authors. Mr. Brander Mathews, in a pamphlet issued by the American Copyright League, for the first time enables us to realize the extent of the injury and loss inflicted upon American authors by British pirates. As the pamphlet will not probably be published here it will be well for us, before we bring our own charges of piracy, to illustrate the American case by the actual cases and figures ascertained by Mr. Brander Mathews. In Novem- ber, 1874, Longfellow wrote to a lady in England, whose works had been republished in America without permission or compensation, " I have had twenty-two publishers in England and Scotland, and only four of them ever took the slightest notice of my existence, even so far as to send me a copy of the books." Hawthorne has long been among the most popular novelists of the time. It would be diffi- cult, now, to number all the British editions of Hawthorne. Emerson, Lowell, and Holmes are also among the popular writers of the time. How have they been treated? As everybody knows, there are a great many collection of books called "Series" in libraries. Mr. Brander Mathews examines some of these with the following results :— (1) Series A. (*) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) \8} 9 10) 11) 12) B. C. D. E. F. G. H. I. J- K. L. No. of books in the No. of American collection. books. 91 ... 36 19 ... 17 .. not given ... 4 38 ... 30 .. not given ... 7 20 ... 17 27 ... 7 .. 400 ... 30 100 ... 20 79 ... 60 80 ... 65 52 ... all This is instructive. It is clear, to begin with, that we must give up using the word pirate in con- nection with either New York or London publishers. Henceforth we shall speak of books thus issued as published-by-permission-of-the-law. Let us descend to special cases. The following are some of the little stories told by Mr. Brander Mathews concerning these publishers-by-permission- of-the-law. First, they alter titles. Mr. Bret Harte's name is affixed to a work called "Tid Bits "; Mr. John Habberton is made to call a book of his "Rich Sells and Horrid Hoaxes"; Mr. J. G. Saxe writes "Fie, Fie, you Flirt"; and Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes is made to produce a book called "Yankee Ticklers"! Mr. Noah Brooks's " Boy Emigrants" was pro- duced in England by the "Religious Publishing Society," which gave the author a trifling sum for a preface and nothing for the book. Here we are a little in doubt. There is no " Religious Publishing Society " so called, though there are three or four religious societies which publish books. Which Society was it? Not the S.P.C.K. They would not give the author a trifling sum for the preface and nothing for the book. They would have given him the trifling sum for the preface and the book. They are nothing at all if they are not just and generous. Of Mr. O B. Bunce's ingenious little manual of manners "Don't," three editions were issued in ## p. 183 (#223) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 183 England. One of the publishers sent the author a five pound note. "Helen's Babies " was reprinted by nine houses here—the author received something from three of them. Dr. Holland thought to protect his "Arthur Bonnicastle," by causing the number of Scribner's Monthly which contained the last part, to appear first in London. It was reprinted, however, with the last part altered and garb'ed. On mutilation, indeed, which is even worse than piracy, Mr. Brander Mathews has a great deal to say. Professor William Mathews, for instance, has written two popular and successful works. Both of these have been republished in this country, cut to pieces and garbled. Mrs. Champney's tale, "The Bubbling Teapot," is actually printed here with the word "England" substituted for "America" all through. Finally, to make an end, Mr. Brander Mathews states that his own book, "Common Sense about Women," published in 1881 at Boston, was re- printed here with a whole third part bodily cut out! Now Mr. Brander Mathews frankly and readily admits that the wrongs of English authors in America are and have been very great. But it is clear that Americans have also suffered much. He acknowledges that far greater protection is afforded by English than by American law. But before our hands are quite clean, before we can raise the cry of pirate with clear conscience, we must purge ourselves of our own piracy. "What we desire," says Mr. Mathews, "from Great Britain, is the enactment of a law which will give full copy- right to every American book exactly as if its author were a British subject." Exactly. This is what we must do as soon as we can. Not retalia- tion in wrong-doing—but an example in right— is most likely to bring about the understanding we all desire. * THE GERMAN ASSOCIATION OF AUTHORS. MEETING AT BRESLAU, AUGUST, 1890. Saturday, 16th August. 3 p.m. Meeting of the General Management at Gebauer's Hotel, 13, Tauenzienplatz. 8 p.m. Reception of the Members and Guests by the Management of the Second District Society, and by the representatives of the public authorities at the Breslau Concert House, 16, Gartenstrasse. To conclude with an entertainment, at 10.30, provided by the "Breslauer Dichterschule" Club. Sunday, \-]th August. 8 a.m. Visit to the Breslau Town Hall, con- ducted by Mr. Maximilian Schlesinger. 9.30 a.m. Meeting of the Association in the small saloon of the Concert House. Programme for the Day. 1. Financial Report of the Executive Com- mittee. 2. Report of the Treasurer and Statement for the coming year. 3. Report of the Auditors. 4. Election of two Auditors for the year 1890. 5. Resignation and fresh election of three members of the General Management. 6. Fresh election of the Syndicate's Committee of Experts. 7. Motion of Dr. Robert Keil:— "That the General Meeting be pleased to resolve: taking into consideration that the regula- tion of Copyright in the German Empire is always becoming more necessary; taking into considera- tion also, that the petition sent to the Chancellor a year and a half ago, in accordance with the Munich resolution, has up to the present not proved success- ful; taking into consideration further, that the resolution arrived at on the 4th May of this year upon the proposal of Mr. Robert Voigtlander has chiefly in view the interest of the book trade, and does not satisfy the well-grounded wish of the German Association of Authors, as the authoritative representative of German literati, to be included in the Committee in question; taking into considera- tion finally, that the German Association of Authors, according to paragraph 1 of their Statutes, has as its object the protection and furtherance of the interests of the profession of its members :— "(a) That a Committee consisting of six mem- bers be elected from the German Association of Authors, who, with the assistance of the Syndic of the Association, as a qualified voting member, shall prepare a draft of German copyright. "(b) That the Committee be allowed to add to their number, by their own selection, from among the members of the German Associa- tion of Authors, (c) That the travelling expenses and other disbursements of the members of the Com- mittee be paid out of the funds of the Association. ## p. 184 (#224) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. "(d) That the draft when prepared be published by the Committee in the Deutsche Presse, nnd be submitted for discussion. •' (e) That the same be submitted to the General Meeting of the Association in the year 1891, for possible alterations and final approval. "(/) That, after such approval, it be forwarded by the Committee of Management to the Office of the Imperial Chancellor, with the request that, upon the codification of the German Copyright, the said draft may be favourably considered." 8. Report of the Committee on the formation of a Provident Fund for the Aged. 9. Report by Dr. Moritz Brasch as to a general lottery in aid of the German Association of Authors' Provident Fund for the Aged. 10. Proposal by Dr. Bienemann and Dr. Hans Blum. "That the General Meeting be pleased to resolve further:— "I. That a Committee of five members be elected to examine the Statutes of the Association, in order to thoroughly and minutely investigate the following provisions— "(a) The acquisition and loss of membership. "(b) The privileges and duties of the Manage- ment and its members, of the Executive Committee, and of the General Meeting. "(c) The privileges and duties of the District Societies and their respective Committees. "(d) The sphere of activity and the duties of the Literary Bureau and that for controlling pirated editions; as also of the Syndicate, and of the Court of Arbitration. "II. That the Chairman of this examining and editing Committee be not a member of the Executive Committee. In other respects, the Committee to be free to elect its Chairman from among its members, by means of voting papers, by an absolute majority of votes, which may also be effected by letter. The preparation and conduct of the election to be entrusted to the oldest member or to the one whose name stands first in alphabetical order at the General Meeting, or soon after the close of the same. "That the elected Chairman appoint the time and place of the deliberations of the Committee. The members of the Committee not residing at the locality where the meeting is held, to receive their travelling and daily expenses out of the general funds of the Association, in the proportion mentioned at paragraph 21 of the Statutes. "III. That the proposals for changes accepted by this Committee, as well as the views of the minority, should the proposers consider them of sufficient importance, be published by the Chair- man in the organ of the Association, and be soon afterwards laid for acceptance before an Extra- ordinary General Meeting, or, in the case of a protracted termination of the business of the Committee, before the next Ordinary General Meeting." Breakfast and dinner, a la carte, served in the Concert House during the pause in the proceed- ings. 6 p.m.—Festival of the Town of Breslau, at Liebichshohe. Monday, i&t/i August. 9 a.m.—Meeting of the Association. Programme for the Day. 1. Notice of the allotment of offices among the members of the General Management for the ensuing year. 2. Reports of the District Societies as to their activity during the past year. 3. Proposal of Dr. Robert Keil. "That paragraph 7 of the Statutes, so far as it refers to No. 3, be supplemented as follows: in the case at 3 on decision of the District Management. Against this decision, 'which is only to be taken after hearing the accused, and, in order to be valid, requires a majority of two-thirds of the voters and to be com- municated to the General Management with a statement of the reasons, the accused is at liberty within seven days to deposit in writing with the District Management an appeal to the General Management, which is bound to allow the accused, who may be represented by counsel, a verbal or written defence. The Chairman of the District Management is excluded from participation in this decision of second existence. It is necessary that there should be a majority of two-thirds of the voters to confirm the decision of the District Management. Only after the lapse of the period allowed for appeal, and in case of appeal, only after issue of the confirmation to the District Management and to the accused, can the latter be ejected. No appeal to the law against the decisions of the Association can be entertained. Should a member of a District Society have offended against paragraph 7, 3, tlie matter is to be transferred from the Chairman of the General Management to the Chairman of another District Society for treatment and dec.'fioi in the first instance" ## p. 185 (#225) ############################################ THE AUTHOR, '85 4. Proposal of the Eighth District Society, repre- sented by Dr. K. von Thaler :— "(a) That the following resolution be added to paragraph 5 of the Statutes of the Association, 'The third part of the contributions of members to be retained for the District Societies.' "(b) That paragraph 21 of the Statutes be altered as follows: 'The members of the Executive Committee, as also the remainder of the members of the General Manage- ment, perform their functions in a honorary capacity and gratuitously; nevertheless those members of the Executive Committee who take part in the General Yearly Meetings, are indemnified for their travel- ling expenses, at second class railway fare, along with a daily allowance of fifteen marks.'" 5. Proposals of the Second District Society, represented by Mr. Maximilian Schlesinger:— "(a) That to paragraph 33, section 1, of the Statutes the following resolution be added: 'The Aid Fund out of its resources renders assistance towards the support of members, who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in straightened circumstances; and especially to those who, in consequence of illness or bodily infirmities, have become unfitted for their avocations.' "(b) That the highest amount be fixed which the District Societies may go in rendering aid independently. (Paragraph 34, 3)." 6. That the apportionment be fixed which is to be granted (under paragraph 29, 3) to the District Societies out of the proceeds from theatrical per- formances, concerts, lectures, &c, given on behalf of the Association. 7. Proposals of the First District Society as regards the organ of the Association, the Deutsche Presse, represented by Dr. A. von Hanstein. "(a) That the organ of the Association, the Deutsche Presse, introduce for the future amongst its articles only those which have relation to the social and ethical circum- stances connected with German literature and the German literary world; all other belle lettristic matter, such as novels, &c, to be excluded. The newspaper to be viewed as an organ for the furtherance of the interests of the Association, as an official medium of correspondence for the authorities of the Association, and as a journal devoted specially to the social and ethical efforts at reform espoused by the German Associa- tion of Authors. "(b) That the Association undertake the publi- cation and sale of the organ of the Associa- tion. "(c) That the organ of the Association, the Deutsche Presse, be forwarded gratuitously and free of postage to the members, in con- sideration of an adequate increase in the amount of the yearly subscription. Amendment by Dr. J. Riilf:—" That the organ of the Association be delivered free of charge to each member by augmenting the amount of the quarterly subscription by the addi- tional sum of 50 pfennigs." 8. Proposals by Mr. Ernst Lunge. "A. I. That the German Association of Authors may resolve to appoint an Enquete (Commission of Enquiry) upon the business relations of German journalism, especially as to the "(a) Conditions of engagement and of salary of editors. "lb) Mode of payment, and tariff for assistants. "(c) Business usages in the treatment of for- warded manuscripts. "II. That the results of the said Enquete be brought under the notice of the members in a suitable form. "III. That proper steps be taken to arrange for a uniform system in business relations as regards assistants and editors, or at least to insure this mode of treatment with members of the German Association of Authors. "IV. That the Executive Committee or a Special Commission be instructed to see that the resolutions of the Enquete be carried out. "B. I. That the German Association of Authors resolve to establish a central station for the distri- bution of (actual) news, specially for reports on festivities, noteworthy events, &c, which news would be afterwards spread by correspondence. "II. That the German Association of Authors take into consideration the erection of a telegraphic central station according to the pattern of the American 'Press Association.'" 9. Proposals as to the time and place of the next General Meeting. 5 p.m.—Social Dinner in the Saloon of the Wine Tavern of Chr. Hansen, 16, 18, Schweidnitzer- strasse. 7.30 p.m.—Gala performance in the Lobetheatre (Silesian historical comedy, for this evening.) After the performance a convivial meeting at the Lowenbrau, 36, Schweidnitzerstrasse. Tuesday, 19th August. Excursion to Fiirstenstein.—Departure at 8 a.m. from the Freiburger Railway Station (Berlinerplatz) ## p. 186 (#226) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. by special train to Sorgau. From thence at 9.45 a.m. by carriage drive to Fiirstenstein. Ramble through the grounds of Fiirstenstein to the old Castle. At 11 a.m. a social breakfast in the Castle ruins. At 2 p.m. carriage drive to the Baths of Salzbounn. Social dinner in the Kursaal. Coffee in the gardens. At 8.30 p.m. return to Sorgau and arrival at Breslau at 11 p.m. For those members who desire to visit the Riesengeberge, the County of Glatz, Adersbach, Weckelsdorf, and other parts of the Sudeten, it may be mentioned that the junction with the Gebirgsbahn at Sorgau must be made at 8.30 a.m. Those who participate in the meetings will each have to pay three marks in order to defray expenses. The charge for the Gala Dinner on Monday, 18th August, will be four marks each person. Those who join in the excursion to Fiirstenstein must pay eight marks, which includes railway fares and cost of carriage drives, breakfast, and dinner. It is requested that all communications be addressed to Mr. F. G. A. Weiss, Chairman of the Breslau District Society, 6, Kleine Fiirstenstrasse, before the 12th August. The Reception Bureau will after the 15th August be at Gebauer's Hotel, 13, Tauenzienplatz, where members of the Associa- tion may obtain rooms at reduced prices. In fact, lodgings are amply provided for by the Reception Committee. Considering the exceptional importance of the matters to be discussed, we earnestly request the members to participate personally in the General Meeting of the Association at Breslau. We submit a form of proxy to be filled up by those who are unable to attend; as according to paragraph 26 of the Statutes, the vote may be transferred to other members; we may mention, however, that no member is allowed to represent more than ten votes. With the compliments of the Executive Com- mittee. Robert Schweichel. Berlin, 12/A July, 1890. AUTHORIZATION. I hereby authorize, in accordance with paragraph 26 of the -Statutes of the German Association of Authors to represent me at the deliberations and votings of the General Meeting at Breslau on the 17th and 18th August, 1890. Place and date. Signature. * INTERNATIONAL LITERARY AND ARTISTIC CONGRESS. HE Congress met on Saturday, October 4th, at 3 o'clock, being received by the Lord Mayor and a Reception Committee. As already stated it was unfortunately impossible for the Society to be officially represented at the Congress, and not a single English man of letters was present at the Congress. On Monday the 6th, a report by M. Eugene 1'ouillet on the "Convention of Berne" was pre- sented to the Congress. It stated that, thanks to the initiative of the association, an international conference met privately at Berne in 1883, drew up a scheme for a convention which seemed likely to serve as a basis for official negotiations, and asked the Swiss Government to present it at an opportune moment to other Governments. Switzer- land gave her consent, and, having been assured of the favourable inclination of a certain number of States to the project, convened a conference, this time official, at Berne in 1884. It was from that conference and the discussions to which it gave rise that the convention had sprung. The object pursued by the "Association Litteraire et ArtistiqueInternationale,"andalready accomplished in some measure by the convention, was the protection of the rights of authors in all civilized countries, the passing of laws which would assure to the author the profits of his work and defend him against those who enriched themselves at his expense. Such an object could not be effected in a day, but only step by step. Intellectual needs were not the same among all nations; the degrees of literary progress were not everywhere alike. The convention of Berne did something to fulfil this aspiration. It created a minimum of unifica- tion among a few countries. Nevertheless, it was of its essence to be revised from time to time, and in order to bring about such a revision the association organized a new congress every year. In regard to the question of translation, a point of some difficulty, the convention had made a step in advance by fixing at ten years from the time of the publication the right of the author to prevent unauthorized translations of his work. In 1884, the Swiss Government went further, since it proposed that at the end of ten years the author, if he had himself published a translation of his work, should be invested with the exclusive right of translation during the whole period to which his right over the original extended. This pro- posal seemed to be logical, but was thought too sweeping to be adopted. It was to be hoped that at the next revision of the convention the idea would be found to have made headway, and ## p. 187 (#227) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 187 would be taken up by all the countries which had signed the instrument. Translation was to literary work what engraving was to painting; it merely gave sufficient expression to the same thought. M. Pouillet asked the Congress to pass, as before, the following resolution :—" Translation is only a mode of reproduction; the right of reproduction which constitutes literary property, includes of necessity the exclusive right of translation." At the second meeting of the Congress, a report on copyright in the United States was read. It stated that the Association heard with deep regret of the issue of the discussion raised in the House of Representatives on the Copyright Bill. 126 members opposed a third reading, 98 were favourable to it, and 103 abstained from voting. As Mr. Hopkins, of Illinois, proudly pointed out, 13 Bills of a similar character had already been introduced with the same result— namely, the positive rejection of any measure designed to extend protection to non-American authors. The views endorsed by the definitive vote were not of a nature, despite the hopes entertained in Europe, to indicate any progress, however slight, in the tendencies of the American Parliament; indeed, some of the arguments employed tended rather to make the situation worse. It was not merely the modus vivendi proposed that had been the object of violent attack, but the principle of in- tellectual property itself. To all impartial observers it was evident that the debate was governed by considerations quite foreign to that principle. The opposition was determined by two particular motives —the first, irreconcilable antagonism towards Eng- land, a country directly interested in the vote, and the second an intestine struggle between the east and west of America. The most rancorous opponents of the proposed reform belonged to regions the least given to reading and study, countries purely industrial, where writers and publishers were seldom to be found. In the constituencies of these representatives, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, and Texas, intellectual rights were not tangible and real things. The people disregarded alike the security and dignity of authors, whom they treated as speculators and monopolisers. On the other hand, authors might be proud of having been defended by the repre- sentatives of States which constituted the intellectual elect of the country. New York, New Jersey, Boston, and Philadelphia had contended for right and justice, and it was to them that the Association would owe a crowning victory. It would be of interest to glance briefly at the arguments advanced by the opponents of the law. The notion that an idea once put forth belonged to the whole world had long since been exploded. Mr. Hopkins, however, had not feared to take up the most untenable positions. According to him, authors created nothing, but simply gave form to elements with which their predecessors had provided them. They found their ideas in books, and merely put them in circulation again. This was equivalent to saying that a man could not create his house, since he took his material for it from the earth. Mr. Hopkins added that a writer worthy of the name would not work for money. He had to be thanked for that proof of esteem, but at the same time it must be pointed out that even the best of writers had a right to live by his work, like every other human being. Mr. Hopkins did not seem to think that in refusing to an author the right of remunera- tion he was closing the door of a literary career to every one without fortune and without patrimony. It was the doctrine of silencing the poor in all its cruelty. Another argument was that the interest of an author was opposed to the general interest, as the remuneration which he claimed would tend to increase the price of books. Mr. Payson, of Illinois, desired that even American writers should not be protected. An author, it was said, "ought to be a devotee, an apostle who sacrificed himself to the pleasure of the greatest number. The public owed him nothing. He was free not to write. If he did write, the delight of expounding his thoughts to millions of readers should appear to him a suffi- cient recompense for his labours." Mr. Hopkins and his friends said that if they admitted a right in the American writer to protection it did not follow that they should do the same in regard to the foreigner. "What is there in common between us and other countries?" Mr. Parson asked; "they take interest in us only because we are a source of profit to them." The antipathy against England was here shown in the clearest light. It was England and England alone that would profit by the law. Why should America favour the pub- lishers of the land of feudality? As to the authors, what good was it to speak of them? They made money at home. America owed them nothing. The Copyright Bill had no other object than to open to foreigners the vast market of the American reading public, and that without exacting any re- ciprocity on the part of other countries." One speaker added that in order to ensure protection to a foreign author in England it was necessary that he should live there and take an oath of allegiance to the Queen, and no one had replied to such fantastic statements. Americans knew that in most countries of Europe their rights were protected even now. In France, among other countries, was not the principle of protection, even without reciprocity, embodied in the law? To speak only of England, what connection was there ## p. 188 (#228) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. between a registration at Stationers' Hall and an oath of allegiance to the Queen? Had not Eng- land always offered a treaty to the United States, and had the Association lost the recollection of a project submitted for its consideration in 1881 by the Board of Trade—a project which established the principle of reciprocity between the two countries? Let the United States enter the Con- vention of Berne, and they would at once have a proof that no condition of a nature to wound their sentiments of American loyalty would be imposed upon them. The American people were great readers, there being scarcely a farm or cabin, even in the remotest places in the Rocky Mountains, where a book or magazine was not to be found. Owing to the present system the works of European writers had been published at too cheap a rate. What cost 5of. in England, cost 1 sf. or iof. in the United States. General Gordon's "Journal," worth in London 21s., was sold at Chicago for a dollar and a half. The protection of the author's right, it was maintained, would lead to a for- midable increase in the price of books. It was singular that in a country which piqued itself upon being eminently practical, the representatives of the people in Parliament seemed to be so ill provided with trustworthy documents bearing on the ques- tions which they discussed, for a man having any knowledge of what was going on in Europe might easily refute that argument. To leave England for a moment out of the question—the price of books there, on account of special circumstances, such as circulating libraries, being high—in France, in Spain, and in Germany the extreme of cheaphess had been reached. Where was the right of authors more respected than in those countries? Could the Americans cite a single work for which the author's right had not been paid in some form or another? And yet, with the exception of some editions degrand luxe, the average price was 2f. 50c, two marks, or two pesetas and a half. There had been published a number of "libraries" at if. the volume. The masterpieces of contemporary authors were even republished by Marpon at 60c. the volume. Was it supposed in America that the rights of the author were not paid on all these works? Did not Tauchnitz pay English authors for permission to bring out cheap editions of their works? As a matter of fact, were not contracts daily entered into between the publishers of Lon- don, Leipsic, and Madrid with European authors? This was a proof that respect for the author's right was in no way incompatible with low prices. In regard to the special relations between the United States and England, it was to be observed that the payment to English authors would not be increased by the cost of translation, inasmuch as the lan- guages were the same. Belgium arranged with French authors for the reproduction of their works on better conditions than Germany and England. The requirements of the author were not such that the increase of price would appear so formidable. The average rate could be fixed at 10 per cent, on the price marked. As a conse- quence, the book brought out in America for half- a-dollar—that was, about 2s., or 2f. 50c.—would go up to 2f. 75c—an insignificant increase when it was considered that in return for it a great and admirable country would be in the paths of probity. Should such a sacrifice be thought impossible? Let the United States declare themselves ready to accept these conditions, and they would have the signature of every man who used a pen. * CURIOUS CASE. VI. THIS case was only prevented from turning out a hard one by the agreeable readiness on the part of the publishers to see with the author's eyes. The question at issue was a very curious one, and one which might often crop up in badly worded agreements. It was this: if a publisher has covenanted to pay an author a certain sum on a certain number of sales of his book, the book being originally issued at a certain price, can he raise the price of the book legally, no mention of the price being made in the agreement and the copyright being his? In other words, having in the first instance covenanted to pay a larger royalty, can he at his discretion pay a smaller royalty? This is the case. An author delivered a course of lectures on a technical subject, and their favourable reception prompted him to issue them in book form. He received a promise of two hundred subscribers for the book at five shillings each, and armed with this guarantee against total loss he issued the book with the best publishers he could have found for such a subject. He drew up a contract of which the following is the abstract:— a. The publishers shall print and publish the book at their own risk. /3. The author shall receive from them five pounds for every fifty pages of MSS. he supplies; twenty-five pounds, when the first five hundred ## p. 189 (#229) ############################################ THE AUTHOR copies are sold, twenty-five pounds for the second five hundred copies sold, and, in each case, money in the same proportion for any less number; and thirty-five pounds for each five hundred copies sold after the first thousand. 7. The publishers shall keep accurate accounts, accessible to the author or his accredited agent. S. The publisher shall have the copyright. We have here an admirable agreement in its first three clauses. The idea of the sliding scale royalty—the most equitable method of publishing if well carried out—and the demand that both parties should have access to the accounts of their joint venture, are both most sensible. But the author forgot to mention the price at which his work was to be issued, and he assigned his copyright unreservedly. to the publishers. Nothing short of an absolute breach of the agree- ment could ever regain for him any power over or discretion in the management of the book he had written. There was an understanding that the book should be issued at five shillings. Under this agreement, therefore, the author proposes to receive a small sum down proportionate to the length of his work, and a royalty of 20 per cent, on the first thousand copies, and of 28 per cent, on subsequent editions, the royalty being, as usual, calculated on the nominal or published price. That a nominal price of five shillings was throughout in the minds of both parties, when the agreement was made, is proved practically by the fact that the author brought with him to the publisher two hundred subscribers at that sum, after which the agreement was drawn by the author himself. In time two thousand copies were sold. The publishers then applied for a reduction of the royalties, stating that the book would not bear such large payments to the author. This state- ment they demonstrated by submitting the accounts. Now certainly a very large sale must be effected before a book will bear a royalty of 28 per cent.,* when it is issued at the publisher's expense. If the sale of the book can be calculated by tens of thousands, such payments can be easily made to the author, but here we have a book whose sales attained only to two thousand copies in two years, although it was an extremely successful book, and has run into two new editions since. It is easy to see that the author had much the best of the bargain, although the publisher was not actually at a loss. The author offered to accept a royalty of 20 per cent, throughout, i.e., he was willing to accept is. * Compare table in The Author, No. 2—a leaflet entitled "Royalties "—and " Methods of Publishing," p. 68. per copy for every copy sold. The publishers wished to reduce his share to gd. per copy. To this demand the author refused to accede. When the third edition appeared, it was issued at a nominal price of 7s. 6d. It will be seen at once that this change reduced the author's royalty at a stroke from the 28 per cent, designed in the agreement, to under 20 per cent. Was the publisher's action legal? The agreement enacted that ^35 should be paid for every 500 copies sold over the first 1,000. That is all, and that was done. The agreement said nothing whatever about the price at which these copies were to be sold—a most foolish omission. But there is distinct evidence that the agreement was drawn upon the mutually understood basis of a nominal price of 5.?. for each copy. Did therefore the raising of the price to 7*. 6d. constitute a breach of agreement, under which the author could regain possession of his copyright, and make other arrangements for publication? We were advised that such a view was tenable. The publishers, also advised, did not share this view, but expressed themselves willing to enter into a new contract, whereby the royalty paid to the author should be always 20 per cent, of the nominal price of the work, whatever that price might be, and an agreement was duly signed upon those lines. To us it seems that it is a most instructive case. We have often been told, and have often read, (this is when we are being called grasping), that no case is on record where an author has foregone any advantages he may have obtained over a publisher, and are requested to remember that publishers have done this thing scores of times for authors. Here is an author, who seeing that his book would not bear a royalty of 28 per cent., voluntarily consented to its being lowered. We have been assured that no publisher who respected himself would allow his books to be inspected by an author or an author's agent. (This is when we are being called meddlesome.) Here is a publisher—and there are many such— who inserts a clause giving this right in his agree- ment. Once again a badly worded agreement has brought trouble. Once again an unreserved assign- ment of the copyright to the publisher has made the trouble acuter. It is very gratifying that the case has been brought to an amicable termination. ## p. 190 (#230) ############################################ 190 THE AUTHOR. THE AMERICAN TONGUE. THE New York Herald has sent, through its London correspondent, a circular asking a few questions. He proposes to write an article on "American English," and desires to incorporate in it the views of English men of letters. The questions are as follows :— 1. VVhether you think that the English language has suffered in its purity and elegance by transplantation to American soil? 2. Whether you regard the "Yankee twang" and "Yankee slang" as unfortunate lin- guistic developments? 3. Whether you think that the best classes of American men and women speak with less refinement than corresponding classes in England? I lay these questions before the readers of The Autlwr. They may perhaps be inclined to answer them. The address of the New York Herald is no, Strand, W.C. The development of the - language on the other side of the Atlantic for nearly three hundred years for the most part with no influence at all of one country upon the other, that is to say, upon the language of the common people, requires a philolo- gist to investigate and to describe. For a hundred and fifty years, that is to say, from the beginning of the last century to the middle of this, there was hardly any emigration from this country; very few Americans ever came here, very few Englishmen ever went to America. After the War of Indepen- dence, the Americans simply hated England—one can never understand why—we need only read Hawthorne, Thoreau, and other writers of fifty years ago to understand the unreasoning and childish hatred then nourished towards the mother country, a feeling never in the least degree felt by ourselves. By reason of this long separation, this hostility, this absence of intercourse, and the lack of any American literature worth bringing over, changes in the language of the Americans produced no effect whatever on this country, while the bulk of their people, being illiterate, were not influencd by our literature. Now that our people read American books by the million, our common speech has become greatly influenced by theirs. It is from them, for instance, that we learned to use the substantive for the adjective—as, a monster bal- loon for a large balloon. We have learned most of our exaggerations from them: we have received a great quantity of new words which are certainly no improvement on the old—as "boss, loafer, boom, corner," and a thousand others. We have caught from them that trick of irreverence which runs through the whole of American literature. I cannot say, for my own part, that I think the language has been improved across the Atlantic. As regards the second question, the "Yankee twang " is a mere accident, to be explained I know not how. The Americans remark our English twang or brogue, or manner of speech. Formerly, every county had its brogue. The Cockney twang which says "laidy" for "lady," "whoy" for "why," is the Essex brogue. As for the third question, I am convinced that cultivated people in the States talk better than those of the same class here. The reason is that they think more about their manner of speech. This is natural in a country where manners alone prove the cultivation and refinement which are here taken for granted when one stands on a certain social level. For the same reason their manners seem to me in one sense better, because they think more of manners, yet they are self-conscious, simply because they do think of manners, while English people who have been well-bred from infancy, wear their manners unconsciously as they wear themselves. W. B. * AN ENGLISH ACADEMY. THE English writer whose letter to the Daily Graphic provoked the interesting discus- sion on an English Academy of Letters, has been so long in Paris admiring French institu- tions, that he has had no time to read our contemporary literature, of which he seems, like Mr. Frederic Harrison, to hold a very poor opinion. The question was discussed by Matthew Arnold in his first series of " Essays in Criticism," and the Pall Mall Gazette, in February, 1887, gave a list of forty names elected by the popular vote, to form an English equivalent to the French Academy. The Daily Graphic has already printed the opinions of several eminent writers on the subject. Mr. Leslie Stephen, Mr. Lang, and Mr. Swinburne have objected to the scheme, and other daily papers have been occupied in misunderstanding Mr. Besant. They say he has been clamouring for an academy. If his letter on Friday, October 24th, be referred to, it will be found that Mr. Besant only pointed out what the advantages of an academy might be as compared with the disadvan- tages. He did not say that he wished for an academy on the French lines, consisting of forty immortals, who were to be regarded as the only ## p. 191 (#231) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 191 representatives of English writers, all entitled to tombs in the Abbey, and statues in Trafalgar Square. He sketched out what he considered to be the functions of an English academy, and he rather invited the opinions of others than dog- matised on the subject. Mr. Leslie Stephen was among the first to respond, and his name carries weight on any subject connected with English letters. He dreads the formation of cliques, the canvassing that would inevitably come about, nepotism, and the creation of a State convention inimical to new theories. He only sees in an academy a society of greybeards, who resent originality and look with suspicion on a coming author. A letter, signed by Mr. Whibley, shows the absurdity of pointing to the Royal Academy of Arts as a model. "The English writer" is again shown to be entirely ignorant of current opinions in England, when he talks of Burlington House "as an inducement to do good work, not merely saleable work, but epoch-making, with the gloriole of the National Gallery, of which I presume the Royal Academy is an almost certain ante-chamber." Imagine our National Gallery, now one of the finest collections in Europe, choked in future with works of art now exhibited annually at Burlington House. The Academy of Arts is a terrible warn- ing rather than an inducement to found an Academy of Letters. As Mr. Whibley says, it has resolutely set its face against new methods and new schools. Our younger painters of any eminence go to Paris now to study in the ateliers of the leading French masters. Mr. Andrew Lang admits that the technique of our language might be improved, but at the expense of its idiosyncrasies, its individuality, its peculiar genius. Now it is the want of technical excellence, not only in our art, but in our literature, that the French are always throwing in our faces, assisted by a chorus of Philo-Gallic Britons. Mr. Arnold called this national want a lack of intelligence, quick and flexible. Mr. Lang seems to think that professional jealousies, intrigue, and personal enmity would be the natural result of an academy, and those unhappy differences between authors, now, alas! too common, would only be aggravated. This is a very pessimistic view. One would hope that those national virtues of which Mr. Lang is so sincere an admirer would overbalance any such evil passions latent, as he would have us believe, in our philosophers, authors, and historians. And Mr. Swinburne animadverts rather on the sins of the French Academy than any possible crimes or virtues of the unborn English society. He says, with great truth, "The mere fact that the names of Honors de Balzac and Dumas do not appear on the academic register of contemporary distinction, is enough to dispose of its claims to our notice as a literary institution," and writing in 1867 he said, "Does it include one of high and fine genius besides MeVimle?" M. Coppe"e does not take his own academy very seriously, but his remarks are of the greatest importance. According to his view it has not influenced a single writer either for good or bad, but it has supplied writers with the words they may use without incurring the reproach of using, slang, and that in England an Academy would dignify the profession of letters. M. Coppee has crystalized in a few sentences most of the arguments that can be said in favour of an academy. Slang, whether it be the slang of the Sporting Times, of the art critic, or the reviewer, always encourages poverty of language and expression. All the correspondents have concurred with Matthew Arnold that the technique of our language requires a guide ; that genius requires a rein to direct it; but gentlemen who may be regarded as literary experts condemn the formation of an academy on the French principles. But—and here is another proposition—how if we were to form an academy, not consisting of our great creative or imaginative writers such as poets, novelists, essayists, or historians, but of those who are universally considered authorities on the technique of language, criticism, and style, men like Mr. Leslie Stephen, Professor Max Miiller, Professor Skeat, Professor Seeley, and Mr. Saints- bury? It would avoid those jealousies so feared by Mr. Lang and Mr. Leslie Stephen, and the exclusion of great names in imaginative literature, as Mr. Swinburne anticipates. We should not have people writing and saying "A is a greater novelist than B; C is a much greater poet than D. Of course academies always encouraged mediocrity; there has been some jobbery and chicanery some- where. B and D to our personal knowledge can- vassed and squared the Electing Committee." No, this academy would be an association of scholars and philologists; its members would be, if I may use such a term, the "nurses" of the language. They would encourage the science of letters and proficiency in expression; they would encourage that intelligence Mr. Arnold extolled. Scholars are not made in a day; it would not be in obedience to a popular opinion that they elected a new member. They could not aggravate the populace by rejecting a coming author whose book had lately taken the town by storm, whom they believed would remain—promising. Admission to its ranks would not be a certificate ## p. 192 (#232) ############################################ 192 THE AUTHOR. of immortality, but a certificate of scholarly proficiency. We might not agree with its conclusions, but it would teach us how to arrive at conclusions instead of jumping at them—the methods of criticism, construction, and grammar. If there had been an academy of the precon- ceived type, would Martin Tupper have died a member? If he had escaped election how much abuse would have been heaped "on the old- fashioned conventional fogies who did not know what real poetry was." If it had taken him to its bosom, others more discriminating would have said, "How very premature! our academy is truckling to the vox populi." Such are some of the dangers of an academy founded on the prevailing notions of such an institution. Mr. Besant suggests other functions as the duty of an English academy, but these seem to belong rather to a body like the Incorporated Society of Authors, as Mr. Whibley pointed out. Another point M. Coppee referred to, namely, the Dignity of the Profession of Letters. In France, he said, the author is considered in a way he is not in England. Complaints on this score are often made. The Bar, the Church, and Medicine are a kind of passport to a social standing. Why should not the Arts and Letters be a similar "open sesame." An English academy, M. Coppee thinks, would have the requisite effect. No doubt, but it would create at once an aristocracy in the world of letters which in England at any rate has up to now been a Republic. It opens up, however, new paths for discussion divorced from the immediate question, "Shall we have an English Academy of Letters?" R. * AN ENCOURAGING EXPERIENCE. I. A. B. entered into an agreement with a firm who proposed to publish his book on the half profit system " for the first edition." What was meant by that does not appear. Two years later, no accounts having been sent in, A. B. found that a new edition had been issued, without his consent or advice being asked. The publishers then sent in their accounts. They stated the cost of pro- duction, including a sum of ^17 for illustrations and ^10 for advertising, as j£no. This did not include stereotyping, and there was a very small sum for corrections. Of course every item of this bill, which seems monstrous on the face of it, should have been examined and audited. They had sold the whole edition, producing £io. There was therefore a loss of ^30. They offered to take over the loss and to buy out the book for £,\o. This was done, and the book still lives and is in its twentieth edition. Moral.—The author should not have accepted the account without an audit. II. The same author was so unfortunate as to fall a victim to the payment-in-advance dodge. He paid ^45 down, and was to have two-thirds of the proceeds. Some time afterwards he received £8. He then suggested that it would be as well to spend something in advertising it. The publishers did so—at the author's expense—and charged him with .£36 on this account. This, together with a bill for ^16 for copies taken by the author, made up a very pretty account. Thus:— £ s. d. Paid by the author... ... 45 o o Do. for advertising ... ... 36 5 o Do. for copies taken ... 16 2 6 £97 7 6 £ s. d. Received by the author on account of sales ... ... 8 o o Received from private sales, say ... ... ... 20 o o £28 o o Loss of author by the transaction, ^77 is. 6d. Moral.—The only protection which can be afforded to writers who fall into such a trap is the publication of the figures as above. If they will not deter the unwary nothing will. ## p. 193 (#233) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. QUERIES AND ANSWERS. By Way of Precaution. The following is from the Nation (New York), of October 2nd, 1890 :— "Two Lost Centuries of Britain," namely, the period immediately following the departure of the Romans, is the title of a historical study by William H. Babcock, which J. B. Lippincott Company will shortly issue." I do not know what views and opinions Mr. Babcock has formed and is about to publish. But it so happens that I have been myself engaged in an attempt to restore the lost history of London during these two centuries. There is only one set of documents open to those who investigate this subject, and in case my own opinions should also be those of Mr. Babcock, I place on record that my paper was handed to the type-writer on Monday, October 20th, and has been posted to the Editor of Harper's Magazine, before I have had had any opportunity of seeing Mr. Babcock's paper. Walter Besant. Hampstead, October, 1890. On Accepted Papers. Will you tell me why writers have to give almost unlimited time to the editors of magazines for the publication (and payment) of accepted articles? To cite from many similar instances. In 1885 a story of mine was—with warm encomium— accepted for a magazine "payment on publication." That story only appeared in 1889—rather long credit! In 1889, also with approval, another story was accepted for the same serial, and I presume I may look for it in print at some distant period. When this happens in all quarters, though perhaps not such aggravated cases of delay as in the case of the serial I mean, how are writers who are not millionaires to get on financially? Why are not short articles met with ready money payments, and then if the editor chooses to reserve them months or years, no one is inconvenienced. This is done in America, but, so far as I have experienced, not in England, although such short papers are looked on in the light of " pot-boilers." S. An Authors' Club. October 1.0th, 1890. In the September number of The Author, and while referring to the Authors' Dinner, the following question is proposed :— "Would it be possible, or would it be better for us—in our own interests—to meet in any other way?" Now, although I infer that the Editor had in his mind the alternatives of a conference or a con- versazione when he put this question, I should like to make a reply on another issue. In fact, I wish to urge what I have urged before in the pages of The Author, and that is the speedy formation of an Authors' Club. It seems to me almost ridiculous that a city like New York can have a flourishing Authors' Club, and that London apparently can find no use for one. I have no late tidings of the New York Club, but when I was a sojourner in the States some three years ago, I know that it was not only an extremely popular institution, but .hospitable as well. A. M. —*— The Colonial Custom House. "I have read the article in the September issue of the Authors' Society, entitled 'English Authors and the Colonial Book Market.' "All the correspondents quoted in the article assume (with you) that Custom House officers have both the power and the duty to seize books printed abroad, in which there exists a copyright. I believe they have no such right. They are officers paid a salary exclusively to see that all dutiable goods pay their duty. There is no duty on books, and a Custom House officer seizing books would do so at the risk of an action to which I can see no defence. "How many Custom House officers know of what books a copyright exists? "I have been referring to the law as in England, and I assume that Colonial Custom House officers have the same power only as here. "C. A. G." —♦— The Distribution and Display of Books. How important this subject is, and how singular are the ideas of the distributors upon it were forced on my notice. Some years ago, on the occasion of the death in distressed circumstances of Richard Jefferies, the ## p. 194 (#234) ############################################ 194 THE AUTHOR. charming, and in common repute, successful writer, public attention had been widely drawn to his case by correspondence and articles in the press, and I concluded that his books would probably, therefore, be prominently displayed in the book- sellers' shops. I went to several large shops in London, but none of his books were exposed either in the windows or on the stalls outside. Ultimately I entered one where I had been accustomed to deal, and made enquiries. After a little search copies of some of his books were produced, among them being an illustrated edition of "The Gamekeeper at Home," the very thing for a gift to a child. I bought the copy, the only one in the shop, and expressed my surprise at never having seen that edition before. "Oh," said the young man who served me, "very few people have. It does not seem to have been pushed. The public won't buy what they don't see, you know." "Then," said I, "why didn't you put it in your window?" "Oh, we only put books in the window for which there is a demand." I pointed out the contradiction between his preaching and his prac- tice, but he cut me short with a "Well, sir, it's our rule, that's all I know. Besides, it's an old book now." C. W. Radcliffe Cooke. —«— Query. "In a collection of Sonnets published many years ago—my copy of which has long been lost—■ was a sonnet 'by A. Tennyson,' of which I re- member so much :— "Poland. "Sound ye the trumpet; summon from afar The hosts to battle; be not bought and sold; Arise, brave Poles, the boldest of the bold! O, for the days of Piast, ere the Czar Grew to this strength among his mountains cold When, even to Moscow's battlements, were rolled The growing murmurs of the Polish war, Now must your noble anger blaze out more Than when Zamoyski [Zmole ?] the Tartar clan • • • • # * # • * * Or later, when, upon the Baltic shore, Boleslas smote the Pomeranian. "What was the word to which I have affixed a note of interrogation, and what were the tenth and eleventh lines? ib/h October. "H. G. Keene." Roman Numerals. "The question as to Roman numerals was one of the puzzles of my childhood. But did not the Romans use an abacus to calculate with? The Japanese do, or did a few years back, and their numbers do not admit of being added up in columns. "L. M. S." « The method of multiplication in Roman numerals will be understood by considering that the rotation is not decimal, but additive. Thus—dcviii x ix. may be effected in the following manner:— VIII X IX = LXXII. C X IX = LCCCC. D X IX = MMMML. And the total obtained by adding is :— MMMMLCCCCII. DOCTORESS? "If it were advisable to add a feminine termina- tion to doctor, would it not be better to use 'ess,' which is generally employed in English, rather than the German 'inn,' which we only have in a modified form in words translated from the German, as ' Mar- gravine ' ?" L. M. S." Literary Methods. "I have no intention of entering into the controversy as to Mr. Bainton's pamphlet, but should like, if you will allow me, to tell an anecdote apropos of it, which some who were at Brasenose at the time when it occurred, will still remember. "The then Bursar, jealous for the credit of his cuisine, desired ardently the receipt for a certain fondu, for which another college was famous. He therefore, made acquaintance with the rival cook, and after much amiable conversation, said cordially, 'By the way, I daresay you would tell me how you make that of fondu yours.' 'Well, sir,' answered the cook, frankly, 'I've no objection; I take such and such materials.' 'So do we. You must do something else?' said the Bursar. 'No, sir, I only use those I mentioned, and then I puts them into the fondoo dish and Ifondoos them' "That was all; he 'fondooed them,' but how, he could not explain, nor could the Bursar discover. "There are things which may be analysed and told, and yet can only be done by the expert, who in this case is the author. "The Author of ' Mademoiselle Mori. '" ## p. 195 (#235) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. THE LATE REV. HENRY WHITE. THE first meeting of the Incorporated Society of Authors was held in November, 1883, at the offices of the Social Science Society at the Adelphi. In the assembly there was no figure more conspicuous than that of the Rev. Henry White, Chaplain to the Queen, and to the Speaker of the House of Commons. He had to move a resolution on the occasion, but with charac- teristic modesty, was content to do so without making a speech. Mr. White's connexion with literature pure and simple was but slender. He had published a sermon or two, and had edited a volume written by his Curate; but there was no preacher in London, with the exception perhaps Of Canon Liddon, whom literary men were more de- sirous of " sitting under." He had undergone the experience of other literary men, although in a modified way, and was well acquainted with the necessity which existed among authors for some such organization as that offered by the establish- ment of this Society. From the first, then, he became and remained a sympathetic and indus- trious member, and often expressed himself as pleased with the share he had taken in promoting the movement. Mr. White's literary tastes were unerring, for without being critical in the strict sense of the word, his reading traversed an enor- mous field, and wasentirelydevoted to theillustration of the subjects on which he touched in his sermons. He was extremely fond, in the pulpit, of making quotations from the thoughts of others, whom he esteemed greater than himself, and whom he always quoted by name. In this way the newspapers of the day came under contribution, and The Times, The Saturday Review, even Punch, were frequently named in their turn with Fenelon, Hyacinth, Mr. Spurgeon, and Cardinal Newman; in fact, the skeleton of the sermon was all his own, but it was like one of those Egyptian mosaics which so closely resemble cloisonnee enamel, where the framework is of gold, and the interstices are filled with precious stones. He was fastidious, though as we have said, not critical, and contrived to keep together for a protracted period—he was thirty years at the Chapel Royal, Savoy—a congregation composed of Cabinet Ministers, eminent actors, journalists, doctors, lawyers, and artists, ladies of every rank, and the tradespeople of the precinct. The most striking characteristic, which all now dwell upon who cherish his memory, was an unfailing sympathy with any who were in trouble. Those who knew him best loved him most. He was a man who was not to be "found out." He was as transparent as sunshine, except in relation to the secrets of others intrusted to him. vol. I, There is little to say with regard to Mr. White's life, except in connexion with the Savoy, to which he was appointed soon after taking orders. He lived and died at the top storey of 4, Lancaster Place, in the precinct. From this modest centre he wove a web which seemed to embrace, and we may confidently say, largely influenced, London Society. This influence did not come from money or ex- ceptional talent, or even position. It was the result of that charity that hopeth all things, believeth all things. By this he forged a chain of love which even death has not been able to break—for, being dead, he yet speaketh. W. J. I.OFT1E. * AT WORK. This column is reserved entirely for Members of the Society^ who are invited to keep the Editor acquainted with their work and engagements. THE Christmas Numlier of Tinsley's Magazine con- tains contributions from Miss Mary C. Rowsell, Austin Dobson, James Stanley Little, and John Coleman. Mr. T. Bailey Saunders will bring out immediately a fourth volume of his selections from the Essays of Schopenhauer. Mrs. Price's last story, "Hamilton of King's," which appeared as a serial in one of Messrs. Partridge's Magazines, has just been reissued by that firm in one vol., 2s. 6d. The concluding volume of the "Henry Irving Shake- speare" has made its appearance, with an introduction from Mr. Edward Dowden and a preface from Mr. Henry Irving. Mrs. A. Phillips, author of " Benedicta," &c., is writing a series of articles on Social Bath in the last Century, for Murray's Magazine. Miss Mary C. Rowsell publishes with Mr. French (89, Strand), two Fairy Extravaganzas for amateur [icrformance. Mr. W. M. Rossetti edits the poetical works of William Blake for the "Aldine Editions" of the British Poets (G. Bell and Sons). Mr. Rossetti writes the biographical introduction. ^ Mr. Augustine Birrell is responsible for the lieauliful edition of the "Essays of Elia" just issued by Messrs. J. M. Dent and Co. Mr. Andrew Tuer edits "■ Prince Dorvs," also by Charles Lamb. The edition is in facsimile of the original form in which the book was published, and is issued by the Leadenhall Press. Eleanor Stredder is engaged in writing a series of colonial and foreign stories for children for Messrs. Nelson and Sons. The first, "Jack and his Ostrich," appeared last Christmas. The second, "Archie's Find: A Story of Australian Life," is just ready. Mr. J. A. Blaikie's volume of Poems will lie issued immediately by Messrs. Percival and Co., Covent Garden. Mr. Walter Besant is writing a series of papers on London at various periods, for Harper's Magazine. They will probably be published in the course of next year. ? ## p. 196 (#236) ############################################ 196 THE AUTHOR. Mr. Loftic's "London City" (Tuer and Co.) is very nearly ready. William Westall has written, specially for the Manchester JVeeily Times, a Christmas story, entitled " In Queer Street." The same author and Stepniak, encouraged by the success of "The Blind Musician," are translating, in collalx>ration, another of Korolenko's Russian stories. NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. Armstrong, Frances. The Fortunes of Ruby, Paul and Diamond. Hogg. Is. Besant, Wai ter. Armorcl of Lyonnesse. 3 vols. Chatto and Windus. £1 lis. 6V/. Birrell, Augustine. Obiter Dicta. Second scries. Third edition. Elliot Stock. $s. and 6s. Bramston, M. Dangerous Jewels. National Society. Buchanan, Robert. The Moment After: A Tale of the Unseen. Heinemann. 10s. 6d. Buckton, 0. B., F.R.S. British Cicada:. Illustrated. Vol. I. Macmillan and Co. £1 13*. 61/. Cressweli , Henry. Sliding Sands. 3 vols. Hurst and Blackett. ,£1 nr. 6<l. Croker, B. M. Two Masters: A Novel. 3 vols. F. V. White. £1 lis. 6d. Daudet, Ai.phonse. Kings in Exile. Routledge. 2s- Haggard, H. Rider. Dawn. New edition. S. Blackett. 3*. 6d. Hardy, Thomas. A Laodicean; or, The Castle of the De Stanleys: A Story of To-day. New edition. Low. 2s. and 2.(. 61/. IIarte. Bret. The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh, and other Tales. Macmillan. 3*. 6d. IIoey, Mrs. Cashel. Falsely True: A Novel. New and revised edition. Ward and Downey. 6s. Kipling, Rl'DVARD. Departmental Ditties, and other Verses. Fifth edition. Thacker. 5*. Soldiers Three; The Story of the Gadsbys; In Black and White. I vol. Low. 31. 6</. Wee Willie Winkie, and other Stories. Low. If. Langbridge, Rev. F. What to Read. Sunday Readings in Prose, is. 6d. Religious Tract Society. LYALL, Edna. Derrick Vaughan. I vol. New edition. Methuen and Co. Momf.rie, A. Wm. Treadling and Hearing, and other Sermons: Delivered in the Chapel of the Foundling. Third edition. Blackwood and Sons. 5*. Murray, D. Christie. John Vale's Guardian. 1 vol- Macmillan and Co. OLiritANT, Mrs. Sons and Daughters: A Novel. Black- wood and Sons. 3s. 6d. Peard, Frances M. The Locked Desk. National Society I'raf.d, Mrs. Campbell. Under the Gum Tree. Trisch- ler and Co. St. Aubyn, A., and Wheeler, W. A Fellow of Trinity. 3 vols. Chatto and Windus. £1 iu. 6d. Stuart, Esmk. The Vicar's Trio. 1 vol. National Society. Suter, Julie. Luther and the Cardinal: An Historical and Biographical Tale of the Reformation in Germany. New half-crown series. Religious Tract Society. is. 6d. Tytt.er. Sarah. A Voung Oxford Maid. Religious Tract Society. Nobody's Girls. Sunday School Union. Footprints: Nature seen on its Human Side. Fourth edition. Fisher Unwin. 3*. 6d. Underbill, G. F. The Hand of Vengeance. Trischler and Co. Wills, C. J., and Philips, F. C. A Maiden Fair to Sec. 13 illustrations by G. A. Storey, A.R.A. Trischler. Wills, C. J. In the Sunny South of France. 12 monthly illustrated articles. Atalanta. Jardine's Wife. Trischler and Co. 3 vols. —— John Squire's Secret. 3 vols. Ward and Downey. New 3 vol. novel. Gardner and Co. —— Pit Town Coronet. Cheap edition. Trischler and Co. Vonge, Charlotte M. The Slaves of Sabinus. National Society. OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. 1. The maintenance, definition, and defence of literary property. 2. The consolidation and amendment of the laws of Domestic Copyright. 3. The promotion of International Copyright. The first of these objects requires explanation. In order to defend Literary Property, the Society acts as follows :— (i. It aims at defining and establishing the principles which should rule the methods of publishing. ft. It examines agreements submitted to authors, and points out to them the clauses which are injurious to their in- terests. 7. It advises authors as to the best publishers for their purpose, and keeps them out of the hands of unscrupulous traders. c. It publishes from time to time, books papers, &c, on the subjects which fall within its province. e. In every other way possible the Society protects, warns, and informs its members as to the pecuniary interest of their works. ## p. 197 (#237) ############################################ Zhe Society of Hutbors (Jncotporateb). PRESIDENT. The Right Hon. the LORD TENNYSON, D.C.L. COUNCIL. Sir Edwin Arnold, K.C.S.I. H. Rider Haggard. Alfred Austin. Thomas Hardy. Robert Bateman. Prof. E. Ray Lankester, F.R.S. Sir Henry Bergne, K.C.M.G. J. M. Lely. Walter Besant. Rev. W. J. Loftie, F.S.A. Augustine Birrell, M.P. F. Max-Muller, LL.D. R. D. Blackmorr. George Meredith. Rev. Prof. Bonney, F.R.S. Herman C. Merivale. Lord Brabourne. J. C. Parkinson. James Bryce, M.P. The Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. P. W. Clayden. Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart., LL.D. Edward Clodd. Walter Herries Pollock. W. Martin Conway. A. G. Ross. Marion Crawford. George Augustus Sala. Oswald Crawfurd, C.M.G. W. Baptiste Scoones. The Earl of Desart. G. R. Sims. A. W. Dubourg. J. J. Stevenson. John Eric Erichsen, F.R.S. Jas. Sully. Trof. Michael Foster, F.R.S. William Moy Thomas. Herbert Gardner, M.P. H. D. Traill, D.C.L. Richard Garnett, LL.D. Edmund Yates. Edmund Gosse. Bon. Counsel—Y,. M. Underdown, Q.C. Auditor—Rev. C. H. Middleton-Wake, F.L.S. COMMITTEE OF MANAGEMENT. Chairman—Walter Besant. Robert Bateman. I Edmund Gosse. W. Martin Conway. I IL Rider Haggard. A. G. Ross. Solicitors. Messrs. Field, Roscoe & Co., Lincoln's Inn Fields. Secretary—S. Squire Sprigge. J. M. Lei.y. Sir Frederick Pollock. OFFICE& 4, Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, W.C. ## p. 198 (#238) ############################################ 198 ADVERTISEMENTS. TYPE-WRITING. I MISS ETHEL DICKENS, TYPE-WRITING OFFICE, AUTHORS' MSS. CAREFULLY TRANSCRIBED, 26, WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND Writings by Post receive prompt attention. (Over the Office of “ All the Year Round”). SCIENTIFIC & MEDICAL PAPERS A SPECIALITY. MSS. copied. Price List on application. MRS. GILL, MISSES ERWIN, TYPE:WRITING OFFICE, 13, DORSET STREET, PORTMAV SQUARE, W. ST. PAUL'S CHAMBERS, 19, LUDGATE HILL, E.C. Authors' MSS. carefully copied from I/- per 1,000 words. One additional copy (carbon) supplied free of charge. References kindly permitted to many well-known Authors and Publishers, Further particulars on application. TYPE - WRITING & SHORTHAND. MISS GILL, TYPE-WRITING OFFICES 6, ADAM STREET, STRAND, W.C. . EDITED BY T T T. A E T JO, DARKE, M.T.S., LION CHAMBERS, * BROAD STREET, “The best of all Journals." BRISTOL. Published every FRIDAY, price 2d. The advantages of Type-written Manuscript are LEGIBILITY, NEATNESS, RAPIDITY, and Ease of Manifolding. DR. ANDREW WILSON, F.R.S.E. Now is the time to subscribe. AUTHORS' MANUSCRIPTS, &c., prepared for the A New Vol. commenced Publisher. 4th April, 1890. Companies Reports and patent @gento* Send Specifications Dritten up and Post-card for Specimen Copy. Manifolded. LITHOGRAPHY froin TYPING done in the best To be had at all Railway Bookstalls and Style. Newsagents, or direct from the Publisher- MEMORY LESSONS IN TYPING GIVEN BY 2, PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON, E.C. POST. WRITE FOR TERMS. ESTABLISHED 1851. BIRKBE C K B A N K , SOUTHAMPTON BUILDINGS, CHANCERY LANE. THREE per CENT. INTEREST allowed on DEPOSITS, repayable on demand. TWO per CENT. INTEREST on CURRENT ACCOUNTS, calculated on minimum monthly balances, when not drawn below £100. STOCKS, SHARES, and ANNUITIES purchased and sold. SAVINGS DEPARTMENT. For the encouragement of Thrift the Bank receives small sums on deposit, and allows Interest, at the rate of THREE per CENT. per Annum, on each completed £1. Accounts are balanced and Interest added on the zist March annually. FRANCIS RAVENSCROFT, Manager. OW TO PURCHASE A HOUSE FOR TWO GUINEAS PER MONTH, OR A PLOT OF LAND FOR FIVE SHILLINGS PER MONTH, with immediate possession. Apply at Office of the BIRKBECK FREEHOLD LAND SOciety. THE BIRKBECK ALMANACK, with full particulars, post free on application. FRANCIS RAVENSCROFT, Manager. A WEEKLY JOURNAL OF SANITARY AND DOMESTIC SCIENCE. How ## p. 198 (#239) ############################################ A D VER TISEMENTS. iii. THE BAR-LOCK TYPE-WRITER saves the eyesight. THE BAR-LOCK TYPE-WRITER prevents writer's cramp. THE BAR-LOCK TYPE-WRITER prevents round shoulders. THE BAR-LOCK TYPE-WRITER enables you to keep pace with your thoughts, the operation requires less mental effort than the use of a pen, allowing you to concentrate your mind more fully on the matter you are writing on. The writing of the BAR-LOCK. TYPE-WRITER is equal to a printed proof, and can be used as such for corrections, thus saving large printers charges which are sufficient in many books to defray the cost of a Bar-I.ock. Supplied for Cash, or on Our Easy Payment System by Twelve Monthly Payments of £1 19s., or on Hire at £2 2s. per Month. CORRESPONDENCE AND INSPECTION INVITED. THE TYPE-WRITER COMPANY, Limited, 12 & 14, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. 40, North John Street, Liverpool; 22. Renfleld Street, Glasgow; 25, Market Street, Manchester; Exchange Building, Cardiff; 385, Little Collins Street, Melbourne. Type-Writing Taught by Experts. Author's AfSS. Copied at is. $J. per 1,000 Words at all Our Offices. PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 1. The Annual Report. That for January, 1890, can be had on application to the Secretary. 2. The Author. A Monthly Journal devoted especially to the protection and maintenance of Literary Property. Issued to all members. 3. The Grievances of Authors. (Field & Tuer.^ 2s. The Report of three Meetings on the general subject of Literature and its defence, held at Willis's Rooms, March, 1887. 4. Literature and the Pension List. By W.. Morris Colles, Barrister-at-Law. (Henry Glaisher, 95, Strand, W.C.) 3-r. 5. The History of the Socidte" des Gens de Lettres. By S. Squire Sprigge, Secretary to the Society, is. 6. The Cost of Production. In this work specimens are given of the most important forms ot type, size of page, &c, with estimates showing what it costs to produce the more common kinds of books. The work is printed for members of the Society only. 2s. 6d. (A new Edition preparing.) 7. The Various Methods of Publication. By S. Squire Sprigge. In this work, compiled from the papers in the Society's offices, the various kinds of agreements proposed by Publishers to Authors are examined, and their meaning carefully explained, with an account of the various kinds of fraud which have been made possible by the different clauses in their agreements. Price 3-r. (A new Edition in the Press.) Other works bearing on the Literary Profession will follow. ## p. 198 (#240) ############################################ ADVERTISEMENTS. NEW MODEL REMINGTON STANDARD TYPEWRITER - SH For Fifteen Years the Standard, and to-day the most perfect development of the writing machine, embodying the latest and highest achievements of inventive and mechanical skill. We add to the Remington every improve- ment that study and capital can secure. Sundation AS WYCKOFF, SEAMANS & BENEDICT, Principal Office- LONDON: 100, GRACECHURCH STREET, E.C. (CORNER OF LEADENHALL STREET). Branch Offices LIVERPOOL: CENTRAL BUILDINGS, NORTH JOHN STREET. BIRMINGHAM: 88, COLMORE ROW. MANCHESTER : 8, MOULT STREET. Printed for the Society, by HARRISON & SONS, 45, 46, and 47, St. Martin's Lane, in the Parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, in the City of Westminster. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 01 Issue 07 (November 1890) Subject The topic of the resource The Author, Vol. 01 Issue 07 (November 1890) Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1890-11-15-The-Author-1-7 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031017927&view=1up&seq=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031017927</a> publications The Author