https://historysoa.com/files/original/5/280/1895-08-01-The-Author-6-3.pdf 037a01a3a6264a379c9d924dd1652dec 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 <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;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) 1895-08-01 Volume 6 Issue 3 Pages Page range in volume 53–84 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18950801 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin C be El ut b or, (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) C O N DU C T ED BY WA. L TER BES ANT. VoI. VI.-No. 3..] For the Opinions earpressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are responsible. None of the papers or para- graphs must be taken as eaſpressing the collective opinions of the committee unless they are officially signed by G. Herbert Thring, Sec. *- - -4° HE Secretary of the Society begs to give notice that all remittances are acknowledged by return of post, and requests that all members not receiving an answer to important communications within two days will write to him without delay. All remittances showld be crossed Union Bank of London, Chancery-lane, or be sent by registered letter only. Communications and letters are invited by the Editor on all subjects connected with literature, but on no other sub- jects whatever. Articles which cannot be accepted are returned if stamps for the purpose accompany the MSS. *-- ~ +-º a- - - WARNINGS AND ADVICE. I. RAWING THE AGREEMENT.-It is not generally understood that the author, as the vendor, has the absolute right of drafting the agreement upon whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out. Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. In every form of business, this among others, the right of drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or has the control of the property. 2. SERIAL RIGHTS.–In selling Serial Rights remember that you may be selling the Serial Right for all time; that is, the Right to continue the production in papers. If you object to this, insert a clause to that effect. 3. STAMP You R AGREEMENTs. – Readers are most URGENTLY warned not to neglect stamping their agreements immediately after signature. If this precaution is neglected for two weeks, a fine of £10 must be paid before the agree- ment can be used as a legal document. In almost every case brought to the secretary the agreement, or the letter which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The author may be assured that the other party to the agree- ment seldom neglects this simple precaution. The Society, to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of members stamped for them at no ea'pense to themselves eacept the cost of the stamp. 4. AsCERTAIN whAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES TO Both SIDEs BEFORE SIGNING IT.-Remember that an arrangement as to a joint venture in any other kind of busi- ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party WOL, WI. AUGUST 1, 1895. [PRICE SIXPENCE. refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he reserved for himself. 5. LITERARY AGENTs.-Be very careful. Yow cannot be too careful as to the person whom yow appoint as your agent. Remember that you place your property almost un- reservedly in his hands. Your only safety is in consulting the Society, or some friend who has had personal experience of the agent. Do not trust advertisements alone. 6. CoST OF PRODUCTION.——Never sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, until you have proved the figures. 7. CHOICE OF PUBLISHERs.-Never enter into any cor- respondence with publishers, especially with those who ad- vertise for MSS., who are not recommended by experienced friends or by this Society. 8. FUTURE WORK.—Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 9. PERSONAL RISK.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. Io. REJECTED MSS.—Never, when a MS. has been re- fused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises they may put forward, for the production of the work. II. AMERICAN RIGHTS.—Never sign away American rights. Keep them by special clause. Refuse to sign any agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the publisher, unless for a substantial consideration. 12. CESSION OF COPYRIGHT.-Never sign any paper, either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright, without advice. 13. ADVERTISEMENTs. --Keep some control over the advertisements, if they affect your returns, by a clause in the agreement. 14. NEVER forget that publishing is a business, like any other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy, . charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with business men. Be yourself a business man. Society's Offices :- 4, PoETUGAL STREET, LINCOLN's INN FIELDs. *- - -* HOW TO USE THE SOCIETY. I. VERY member has a right to ask for and to receive advice upon his agreements, his choice of a pub. lisher, or any dispute arising in the conduct of his business or the administration of his property. If the advice sought is such as can be given best by a solicitor, the member has a right to an opinion from the Society’s solicitors. If the case is such that Counsel’s opinion is desirable, the Com- mittee will obtain for him Counsel’s opinion. All this without any cost to the member. 2. Remember that questions connected with copyright and publisher's agreements do not generally fall within the experience of ordinary solicitors. Therefore, do not scruple G 2  ## p. (#408) ################################################ 54 THE AUTHOR. to use the Society first—our solicitors are continually engaged upon such questions for us. 3. Send to the office copies of past agreements and past accounts with the loan of the books represented. This is in order to ascertain what has been the nature of your agree- ments, and the results to author and publisher respectively so far. The Secretary will always be glad to have any agreements, new or old, for inspection and note. The infor- mation thus obtained may prove invaluable. 4. If the examination of your previous business trans- actions by the Secretary proves unfavourable, you should take advice as to a change of publishers. 5. Before signing any agreement whatever, send the pro- posed document to the Society for examination. 6. The Society is acquainted with the methods, and—in the case of fraudulent houses—the tricks of every publish- ing firm in the country. 7. Remember always that in belonging to the Society you are fighting the battles of other writers, even if you are reaping no benefit to yourself, and that you are advancing the best interests of literature in promoting the indepen- dence of the writer. 8. Send to the Editor of the Awthor notes of everything important to literature that you may hear or meet with. 9. The committee have now arranged for the reception of members’ agreements and their preservation in a fireproof safe. The agreements will, of course, be regarded as con- fidential documents to be read only by the Secretary, who will keep the key of the safe. The Society now offers:—(1) To read and advise upon agreements and publishers. (2) To stamp agreements in readiness for a possible action upon them. (3) To keep agreements. (4) To enforce payments due according to agreements. *-- ~ *-* a- - -s. THE AUTHORS SYNDICATE. EMBERS are informed : 1. That the Authors' Syndicate takes charge of the business of members of the Society. That it submits MSS. to publishers and editors, concludes agree- ments, examines, passes, and collects accounts, and, gene- rally, relieves members of the trouble of managing business details. 2. That the terms upon which its services can be secured will be forwarded upon detailed application. 3. That the Authors' Syndicate works only for those members of the Society whose work possesses a market value. 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiations whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia- tions are placed eaclusively in its hands, and that all communications relating thereto are referred to it. 5. That clients can only be seen by the Director by appointment, and that, when possible, at least two days’ notice should be given. 6. That every attempt is made to deal with all communi- cations promptly. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent to defray postage. 7. That the Authors' Syndicate does not invite MSS. without previous correspondence ; does not hold itself responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice; and that in all cases MSS. must be accompanied by stamps to defray postage. 8. That the Syndicate undertakes arrangements for lectures by some of the leading members of the Society; that it has a “Transfer Department ’’ for the sale and purchase of journals and periodicals; and that a “Register of Wants and Wanted * is open. Members are invited to communicate their requirements to the Manager. There is an Honorary Advisory Committee, whose services will be called upon in any case of dispute or difficulty. It is perhaps necessary to state that the members of the Advisory Committee have no pecuniary interest whatever in the Syndicate. -* zºº' - *-*. NOTICES. HE Editor of the Author begs to remind members of the Society that, although the paper is sent to them free of charge, the cost of producing it would be a very heavy charge on the resources of the Society if a great many members did not forward to the Secretary the modest 6s. 6d. Subscription for the year. The Editor is always glad to receive short papers and communications on all subjects connected with literature from members and others. Nothing can do more good to the Society than to make the Awthor complete, attractive, and interesting. Will those who are willing to aid in this work send their names and the special subjects on which they are willing to write P Communications for the Author should reach the Editor not later than the 21st of each month. All persons engaged in literary work of any kind, whether members of the Society or not, are invited to communicate to the Editor any points connected with their work which it would be advisable in the general interest to publish. Members and others who wish their MSS. read are requested not to send them to the Office without previously communicating with the Secretary. The utmost practicable despatch is aimed at, and MSS. are read in the order in which they are received. It must also be distinctly under- stood that the Society does not, under any circumstances, undertake the publication of MSS. The Authors’ Club is now open in its new premises, at 3, Whitehall-court, Charing Cross. Address the Secretary for information, rules of admission, &c. Will members take the trouble to ascertain whether they have paid their subscriptions for the year P If they will do this, and remit the amount, if still unpaid, or a banker's order, it will greatly assist the Secretary, and save him the trouble of sending out a reminder. Members are most earnestly entreated to attend to the warning numbered (8). It is a most foolish and may be a most disastrous thing to enter into an agreement binding for a term of years. Let them ask themselves if they would give a solicitor the collection of their rents for five years to come, whatever his conduct, whether he was honest or dishonest ? Of course they would not. Why then hesitate for a moment when they are asked to sign them- selves into literary bondage for three or five years P Those who possess the “Cost of Production ” are requested to note that the cost of binding has advanced 15 per cent. This means, for those who do not like the trouble of “doing sums,” the addition of three shillings in the pound on this head. In other words, if the cost of binding is set down in our book at eight pounds, to this must now be added twenty-four shillings more, so that it now stands at £9 48. The figures in our book are as near the exact truth as can be procured; but a printer’s, or a binder’s, bill is so elastic a thing that nothing more exact can be arrived at. Some remarks have been made upon the amount charged in the “Cost of Production” for advertising. Of course, we have not included any sums which may be charged for inserting advertisements in the publisher’s own magazines,  ## p. (#409) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 55 dr in other magazines by exchange. As agreements too often go, there is nothing to prevent the publisher from sweeping the whole profits of a book into his own pocket, by inserting any number of advertisements in his own magazines, and by exchanging with others. Some there are who call this a form of fraud; it is not known what those who practise this method of swelling their own profits call it. *- LITERARY PROPERTY. I.—INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. T a meeting of the Committee, held on Monday, July 8, the following resolution was passed:—“Resolved that the Com- mittee of Management of the Incorporated Society of Authors taking advantage of Mr. George Haven Putnam’s presence in this country, hereby convey to him their recognition and appreciation of the services that he has rendered to the cause of international copyright in conjunction with Mr. R. Underwood Johnson and the American Committee.” To this Resolution Mr. Pritnam has sent the following reply:-‘‘I am writing to acknowledge your courteous favour of the 9th inst., with the report of the Resolution passed by the committee of the Society of Authors in recognition of the services rendered by myself in furthering the completion of an international copyright arrange- ment between the United States and Great Britain. I can only express my full sense of the compliment that has been conferred upon me by so representa- tive and honourable a body as the Society of Authors, and the pleasure that it gives to me to understand that the work I was in a position to do in behalf of a recognition of literary property that should be independent of political boun- daries has been appreciatively understood by the members of your Society.—G. H. PUTNAM.” II.-CANADIAN COPYRIGHT. Mr. Hall Caine, who sails on a visit to America in September, has been invited by the Committee to act as the representative of the Society in Canada. He will confer with certain Canadian statesmen, and will lay before them the actual facts of the case and the unanimous opinion of all the persons in this country as to the vital importance of preserving an International Copy- right for all English-speaking countries. A Parliamentary return has been published giving the amounts received from Canada since 1877 as duties collected on foreign reprints of British copyright works. The total, less charges for collection expenses, since that year, i.e., in eighteen years is 35278 98., or an average of 3293 4s. 54d. per annum. Anybody may have the shillings—who has got the pounds? Of late years the collectors seem to have been more active. Thus, in the year ending June 30, 1890, they collected £970 7s. ; in 1891, 2919 8s. ; in 1892, 3533 13s. I Id, ; in 1893, however, they dropped to £364 7s. 2d.; in 1894, 29276 1s. 4d. Taking the average of £293 4s. 54a, per annum —call it £300—this represents, at 12# per cent. a trade amounting to £24OO per annum. Is it really worth while after all to imperil international copyright for so paltry a sum as 32400 per annum ? III.-CANADIAN PUBLISHERs. A communication has been received from the Rev. William Briggs, D.D., Book Steward of the “Methodist Book Publishing House,” Toronto, calling attention to their current list of new books, and mentioning that their complete list numbers nearly 200 works. Dr. Briggs says that he credits the Society with ignorance rather than with a desire to conceal the facts when it speaks of “Canadian booksellers who may call them- selves publishers.” Very good. It is, indeed, far from the intention of the Society to con- ceal the facts. But one may point out, first, that a list of 200 books of all kinds is not a very long list; and, next, that Dr. Briggs has not told us of any other Canadian publisher who has so respectable a list. One does not suggest that there are no other such publishers; but one would like to know. The current list forwarded contains a varied assortment of works. There are five books of history; four books of verse, one on Art; one upon medical science; seven of fiction— two by an English writer; three of natural history; four of travel; and the rest on religious subjects. - IV.-CONTRIBUTORS AND SERIAL RIGHTs. Contributors to magazines and papers are reminded that they sell serial rights only, where no special stipulation is made. A correspon- dent sends a printed form of receipt, headed “Purchase of Entire Copyright.” He must substitute for the last two words before signing it, unless, of course, he has already agreed to sell the whole copyright, the words “First Serial Right.” In most cases, of course, the serial right is all that the MS. is worth ; but provision must be made for possibilities, and in no case should the author be led to believe that while he offers the serial right, the publisher can claim the whole copyright after publication, and without previous agreement. - Eº º:  ## p. (#410) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. THE SPIRIT OF DR, JOHNSON. R. H. D. TRAILL’S paper in the Fortnightly Review is amusing, but un- fortunately he has been led astray by a spirit of deception. The voice is the voice of Dr. Johnson, but the sentiments are undoubtedly those of Mr. Cave, sometime publisher. For, whereas the question which now concerns authors is that of their own independence, which can never be achieved until the production of a book means a recognised system, on such lines as leave no room, either for secret profits, or for the over- reaching of an author, or for the suspicion of such practices; until it means an agreement based upon figures understood by both sides, and giving the property over to be administered also on terms which are understood by both sides. So long as the author has to go to a publisher and humbly ask him for an agreement, the meaning of which he is not to understand, so long will literature be dependent and held—so far—in the contempt which belongs to dependence. The spirit of the late Mr. Cave, however, plainly perceiving the real point, goes off on a quite different point. He pretends that it is proposed to abolish publishers altogether, and in this way diverts attention from the real point. I do not know whether anyone has proposed such a measure. Certainly no one in this society has done such a silly thing. It is, for instance, quite conceivable that any successful author might become his own publisher—Ruskin showed the way—by the simple method of keeping a clerk or secretary. As for talk about the trouble of sending backwards and forwards to printers, binders, &c., that is rubbish. Besides, every ăuthor has got to send proofs backwards and forwards as it is. The production of the ordi- nary book is a matter of the merest routine; there is no trouble at all about it. I have myself produced a great many, and I know what I am talking about. Five minutes' talk with printer and another with binder—that is nearly all. It is a question of the merest routine. It is also quite concervable that half-a-dozen successful authors might unite to keep a common clerk for the distribution of their books. Nothing would be easier, and of course it will be done before long. But the publisher will still remain, however many authors so unite, until, or unless, the booksellers themselves unite and provide a mind to think and act for them. To the publisher will belong, for instance, the great literary enterprises; the encyclopædias, atlases, dictionaries of all kinds, works which require the services of many men of letters and the advance of large capital; to them also will belong the whole literature of the past; to them will belong the magazines and journals; to them, perhaps—but this is not certain—will belong the whole of the educational books. I say “perhaps,” because it is quite conceivable that the educational books will be removed into other channels altogether, and will be published by other hands on a very different plan, which is already under discussion. On this point we shall probably hear more. There will also remain to publishers that very large and lucrative branch which provides prize books, story books, &c., for children. Other branches will remain, because, although the soi disant Johnson, otherwise the Spirit of Cave, pretends that it would be possible yet wicked to destroy the publisher, nobody has ever yet thought it either possible or even desirable to attempt such a step. I certainly think that a writer of Mr. Traill's experience and scholarship might have detected the imposture. Thus, it is pointed out to me by one also of some knowledge in English literature I. That Dr. Johnson was the most earnest champion of the rights of authors, and the most passionate enemy of the injustices of booksellers, and of an imperfect copyright law, that ever lived in England. 2. That he was familiar with every detail of the book- making and bookselling businesses. 3. That the booksellers he dealt with stood on an entirely different footing to that occupied by the publisher of to-day; that he wrote his “Poets” for a co-operative society of booksellers who sold their own books over their own counters, and that the only exception to this rule of business ever mentioned by him (so far as I know) relates to the publications of the Clarendon Press—and there his endeavours appear to have been used to reduce the earnings of the middleman. - 4. That all this (the portrait of the flesh and blood Johnson) may be found in twenty places in Boswell. 5. That the Dr. Johnson of the Fortnightly article is a bogey in both senses; that he is another man, with other leanings and other opinions; that he has forgotten all his special knowledge, and talks the dangerous nonsense of one who is only half informed. To this I must add that, as usual, Mr. Traill’s spirits go hopelessly wrong over the figures. What, for instance, does this mean? It is the so called Spirit of Johnson who speaks: “They will always need the services of some trader with capital enough to undertake the venture and to lie out of his money till its slow returns come back to him.” As for capital, how much is possessed by the new publisher P. How much is required to pro- duce a book P. For the greater part nothing. Dr. Johnson would know, probably well, that under the present conditions of trade, no capital is expended, not a farthing, on most of the books published. Or, if any, then, the small difference between the first returns and the actual cost. But as to “lying out of his money,” and the slow returns; publishers could not exist by books demanding large capital and bringing in slow  ## p. (#411) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. - - 57 returns. These books are only brought out by great firms; they may be admirable books. It is in the issue of such works that some pub- lishers do good service to literature; but they do not live by them, nor do they in general reckon them as profit-making ventures. The figures themselves are quite simple and cannot be repeated too often. The real Dr. John- son would have known them at once. Again, we take an ordinary 6s. book, not because, as the Spirit of Cave calling himself Johnson says, “as if a 6s. novel was the whole of literature,” but because the 6s. book is a very common form for essays, biographies, and belles lettres of all kinds as well as for fiction. If any One will find us a more convenient unit than the Ordinary 6s. book we shall be glad to take it. Now the figures that follow were obtained by the Secretary of the Society and others working in the same direction four or five years ago; they have been published ; they have never been seriously disputed. Quite recently they have been obtained by Mr. Hall Caine from six publishers, all of whom agreed in the main with each other and with us. Very well; the ordinary 6s. book—meaning from seventeen to twenty sheets—i.e., from 70,000 to IOO,OOO words in small pica type, of about 260 words to a page, without illustrations, on good paper and in good plain binding, costs for an edition of 30OO copies no more than a shilling a copy with advertising, unless there is reason for knowing that the demand will increase, when the increased amount spent in advertising must be spread over. Of this cardinal fact there can be no doubt or dispute whatever. The sale of the book to the trade is at 4s. 2d., less 5 per cent. “for the account,” and thirteen to the dozen on ordering so many. This means 3s. 7+}d. for every copy. We generally reckon this as an average of 3s. 6d., which gives some allow- ance for press copies and for bad debts. It is, however, too low, because the booksellers, after the first run, chiefly order single copies. However, take it as 3s. 6d., with this understanding. We now have this simple sum : Cost of the book, Is. Price of the book to the trade, 3s. 6d. Profit on the book, 2s. 6d. This has to be divided between author and publisher. I. At a royalty of IO per cent. (quite a common royalty formerly), we have : Author receives 74d. a copy; Publisher receives 22#d. a copy. 2. At a royalty of 15 per cent. : Author receives Io; d. a copy ; Publisher receives 194d. a copy. 3. At a royalty of 20 per cent : Author receives 144d. a copy; Publisher receives 153d. a copy. 4. At a royalty of 30 per cent. : Author receives 21; d. a copy. Publisher receives 83d. a copy. But, says the publisher, there are all my office expenses. Quite so. There are also the author's office expenses. And there are the bookseller's office expenses. Is it not colossal impudence that the middleman should demand to have his office expenses paid, and should refuse to consider those of the other two—the real workers? Now, to return to a case noted in last month's Author. A certain publisher is reported to have said (1) that he could not make more than 7d. a copy for himsel/, after all office eaſpenses were paid, out of a book; and (2) that things had got to such a pass that a publisher would soon refuse a successful author altogether. At this time, this very man, on his own showing of 7d. a. copy—a figure which cannot be accepted—ha just made a good deal more than £10oo in three or four months by producing one successful book. Yet he wanted more But the respect- able and the honourable publisher says that he does not say or pretend such things, or do such things. Very likely. Why does he not write to the papers, then, and disclaim such men P The question of office expenses, if it is to be considered at all, must be considered fairly. The author has expenses of all kinds, so has the bookseller, so has the publisher. As regards the last he can only prove his claim by showing his books. Thus, we have, in general terms, apart from each book: I. His rent. With the new publisher, the rent of two little rooms. 2. His accountants, clerks, and travellers. With the new publisher, two office boys and one traveller, or a share of one traveller. 3. His office expenses—as light, fire, servants, postage, &c. If his expenses under these items amount to so much, these expenses divided among all his books in proportion to the price will give the actual “office expenses " of each copy. In a great house this must be a very minute fraction. Our friend who wept and wailed over the seven- pence which he got for doing nothing at all, estimated his office expenses at 5a, a copy. This means that, on the book referred to which sold, say, to take an extreme case, 50,000 copies, its own share of office expenses of distribution amounted to over £1 OOO. Credat Judaeus / In  ## p. (#412) ################################################ 58 THE AUTHOR. these absurdities, however, we are landed when- ever we accept from such publishers figures without understanding what they mean, and which are advanced by them in the full knowledge that they will not be understood. *m- a. º. a- - -, NEW YORK LETTER. New York, July 15, 1895. HERE have been not a few discussions in the columns of the Author of points of etiquette, editorial and journalistic; but there is one question which I have never seen raised in your pages. It is this: What should a correspondent do when he reads in the journal to which he contributes a paragraph against which he feels that he ought to protest ? The immediate cause of my making this query here is that I found in the June number of the Author a word—only a single word, it is true—against which I am moved to protest. A letter from Mr. John Bloundelle Burton (addressed to the editor of a New York paper, not of the highest rank) is reprinted, and to it is prefixed a note in which somebody says that the person to whom the letter was addressed “appears to have indulged in an outbreak of abuse that is not common even on the other side of the Atlantic.” Is not this a slur unworthy the pages of a journal like the Author, which is constantly trying to cultivate the good- will of America. P I know nothing of the attack which the writer of the letter complained of; but along acquaintance with the literary papers of Great Britain and of the United States has led me to the conclusion that there is little to choose between them—so far as courtesy to authors is concerned. Most of them are courteous on both sides of the water. Few of them are abusive. Of these few, I think, more are to be found in London than in New York; and I have detected, I fancied, more rancour and more venom in the British abuse than in the American. Of course, this may be due to my point of view; and it is quite possible that an Englishman as familiar with the American papers as I am with the British might not agree with me. And, as I said before, abuse is not common in either country. Of all the American writers of fiction who have made themselves known to British readers in the past half-dozen years, no one has been more heartily welcomed than Miss Mary E. Wilkins. It may be interesting, therefore, to note that Miss Wilkins has recently made a new departure, and has achieved an unexpected success. She has just won the prize of £400 offered by the Bacheller Syndicate for the best detective story not exceeding 12,OOO words in length. Her story is called “The Long Arm.” A second prize of £1oo was awarded to a tale called “The Twinkling of an Eye,” by Mr. Brander Matthews. Both stories are to be published by a leading newspaper in every one of the chief American cities. In New York they will appear in the Herald, which has given an interesting account of the particulars of the competition. The circular sent out to competitors thus characterised the class of fiction desired: “We are seeking clean stories which will interest the average newspaper reader, and which can be pub- lished to advantage in instalments of about 2000 words each. We hold that a very high quality of art is consistent with these requirements. The novelty and ingenuity of the plot, and the literary and constructive art developed in its treatment, are considerations which will probably most influence the minds of the judges in reaching a decision. The judges will be gentlemen of un- questionable fairness and competency. The date fixed for the close of the competition was May 1, 1895.” About the beginning of April the manu- scripts in Mr. Irving Bacheller's private office were as thick as the leaves of Wallombrosa. They came in from all parts of the globe. Three thousand stories in all were received. All were sent in anonymously. Then came the work of sorting and selection. All the stories were read in the first instance by Mr. Bacheller and a staff of experienced coadjutors. Fifty, which were con- sidered the best, were handed to Mr. John H. Boner, of the Literary Digest. Out of these he choose thirteen, which were then turned over to Mr. Hamilton W. Mable, of the Outlook, for final adjudication. When the sealed envelopes were opened the authors of the successful stories were for the first time made known. There was no possible chance of favouritism. Every manu- script, in accordance with the conditions, was typewritten, and was sent without the author's name. The accompanying sealed envelope con- tained the sole clew to the authorship. So high was the merit of the best of the selected stories (after the two prize winners) that a very large proportion of them have been purchased by the Bacheller Syndicate for use after “The Long Arm" and “The Twinkling of an Eye” have been published. - Mark Twain is about to start on a lecturing tour around the world. Sailing from the Pacific Coast in August, Mr. Clemens will read and lecture in the Sandwich Islands, Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, Ceylon, Madras, Calcutta, Lahore, Bombay, Mauritius, South Africa, England, Scotland, and Ireland, finishing his .  ## p. (#413) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 59 little excursion by a few readings from his own works in the chief cities of the United States. It is an open secret that Mr. Clemens lost most of his own fortune—and some also of his wife's— in the disastrous failure of Charles L. Webster and Co. He had also sunk many thousands of dollars in an invention from which he is not likely to get a cent back. His tour is certain to be enormously profitable, for Mark Twain is one of the wonders of the platform. No one living tells a story better than he, or has a more engaging personality before an audience. He is a master of the art of delivery, of diction, as the French call it. I hear a rumour also that a complete library edition of all his works is in contemplation. That he is the author of the Joan of Arc serial now running in Harper's Magazine seems to be generally admitted. It is pleasant to record that the dramatisation of “Pudd’nhead Wilson’’ made by Mr. Frank Mayo has also been successful on the stage. The American copyright law allows a novelist to reserve the right to dramatise his story. The British copyright law does not give the novelist this right, although the decision in the “Little Lord Fanntleroy" case will hereafter make the path of the pirate thorny and doubtful. Whenever any British author feels like de- nouncing the necessity of manufacture in the United States, which is a condition of American copyright, he should first recall the fact that in One respect at least the American copyright law is more favourable to the Englishman than the British law is to the American. In Great Britain the American novelist cannot legally reserve the right to dramatise his story; and in Great Britain the American dramatist has no rights at all, unless he sees to it that his play is performed in England before it is performed in America, which forces him to spend anywhere from £20 to 350 in an absurd special performance. Now the British dramatist has full protection in the United States, and the British novelist has sole right to dramatise his own story or to authorise a dramatisation of it. That this is the case is fortunate for Mr. Du Maurier, who is in receipt of the weekly royalties from the three or four companies recently per- forming Mr. Paul M. Potter's adaptation of “Trilby.” author, and if there were the rage for “Trilby’’ in Great Britain which there is in the United States, I doubt very much whether he would be in receipt of several hundred pounds a month for the authorisation to perform a stage version of his tale. The interest in “Trilby’’ seems to be unabated. Two parodies of the novel have been published—both of them beneath contempt ; and two burlesques of the play have been acted. The WOL. WI. If Mr. Du Maurier were an American music publishing house of Dibson and Co. has just issued an album of “Trilby Songs, Words, and Music.” The author of “Ben Bolt” has been called again to mind; he is still alive—and a member of congress. His name is Thomas Dunn English; and if there are any British admirers of Poe who are really familiar with the facts of Poe's career, the name will recall to them the long quarrel of Poe and English—and also the interesting circumstance that Poe once brought a libel suit against English and recovered damages. But this is a digression from “Trilby.” The editors of the Critic of New York have prepared and published a pretty little pamphlet of forty-eight pages called “Trilbyana : The Rise and Progress of a Popular Novel,” being a review of Mr. Du Maurier's “Trilby,” a criticism of the drawings, a notice of the play, and an account of the various entertainments founded upon the book. The songs “Ben Bolt,” “Mal- brouck,” “Au Clair de la Lune,” &c.; a review of Charles Nodier's “Trilby, le Lutin d’Argyle,” and many other items of interest, mostly reprinted from the Critic; portraits of Du Maurier, a view of his house on Hampstead Heath, and a repro- duction of his first contribution to Punch, con- taining likenesses of himself and Mr. Whistler. It is announced that Mr. Du Maurier’s new novel will be the chief serial for Harper's Monthly during the year 1897, but it is still doubtful whether or not the author-artist will be his own illustrator. One of the books announced for early publica- tion by Macmillan and Co. in New York (and probably also in London) is a volume containing the very interesting lectures on art which Mr. John Lafarge delivered at the Metropolitan Museum a year or two ago. Mr. Lafarge is one of the most Original of American painters, and his work is so highly esteemed in France that he was requested to make a special collection of his pictures for exhibition at the Champ de Mars this year. He is also one of the inventors of the very beautiful stained glass, now one of the most characteristic developments of recent American art. That he is a delightful writer all will admit who remember his letters from Japan, published in the Century three or four years ago; and that he can lecture as well as write this forthcoming volume will show. Mr. Laurence Hutton has spent part of the spring in Florence and part of the summer in Venice. His three articles on the “Literary Landmarks of Florence, of Rome, and of Venice,” will appear in Harper's Monthly during the autumn. They will be greatly enlarged before they are reprinted, each in a little book by itself, uniform with the “Literary Landmarks of H  ## p. (#414) ################################################ 6o THE AUTHOR. Edinburgh.” They will all be illustrated by Mr. Frank W. Du Mond, whom Harper and Brothers sent to Europe specially for this purpose. Mr. Hutton expects to arrive in London before the end of the summer; and early in the autumn a little book of his on “Other Times and Other Seasons” will be published in the pretty little series called “Harper's American Essayists,” now extending to more than a dozen volumes, of which only Mr. Howells’ “Criticism and Fiction” and Dr. Waldstein’s “Ruskin.” have yet been pub- lished in England. H. R. [The writer of the paragraph containing the word “even,” to which objection is taken by “H. R.,” begs to state that he was not speaking of the literary papers, which are perhaps more courteous in America than in this country, but of the ordinary Press. If “H. R.” will, for instance, read a few numbers of a certain Irish-American paper published in Boston, he will find that the word “even '' is fully justified.] * * ** – º- NOTES FROM PARIS, M* ARTHUR MEYER, of Le Gaulois, has suggested that at the next Universal Exhibition in Paris, to be held in 1900, a special section should be reserved for literary men, and that a special building, to be called “Le Pavillon des Lettres,” should be erected for their convenience. I understand—for I never read Le Gaulois—-that various prominent men of letters have been interviewed on their opinion as to the feasibility of this scheme, and that for the most part they are favourable to the idea of making “exhibitions of themselves.” I do not quite under- stand how this exhibition will be managed, Sup- posing that the idea be carried out, as seems probable. Will the various literary men of cele- brity be on view to the visitors to the exhibition at certain fixed hours in the day? Shall we see them at work or at play, or, it may be, as they take their meals? Since the curiosity of the public as to the persons and personalities of celebrated authors is to be gratified, let it be gratified in full. I, for my part, will be a constant visitor to the Pavillon des Lettres. I should like to see Alexandre Dumas at breakfast, and to find out, de visu, whether he eats his eggs hard-boiled or soft. I should like to see Jean Richepin at work, and to assure myself whether it is true—as I read in an American journal the other day—that when he writes he dresses in Scarlet, and con- stantly rolls his eyes and smites his forehead. I should like to see whether George Ohnet uses a steel-mib or a quill, and how often Alphonse Daudet lights his cigar whilst writing, say, a thousand words. As the exhibition is to be an international one, I suppose foreign men of letters would also be invited to take up their residence during its duration in the Pavillon des Lettres. Each country would have its section. I am sure that the English section would be visited with great interest. The lady novelists who analyse with such minuteness of observation the sex question, would enjoy as great a success of curiosity as did the Tunisean dancers at the last exhibition. The prolific producer who can work two typewriters simultaneously (one with his hands and the other with his toes), and at the same time dictate to a shorthand writer, so that at once he can turn out, say, a short story, an analytical critique, and an incisive political leader, would greatly enhance our credit as an industrial nation. The critics, I presume, would be placed in separate rooms in each section; this as much for the purposes of classification as for the mutual safety of themselves and the authors proper. Personally, I should oppose any suggestion tending to have them secured in cages, but that will be a matter for the committee to decide. If anything of a spectacular nature were to be arranged in connection with the Pavillon des Lettres, one might have a series of very effective tableaua vivants, as, for instance, “The Authors thrown to the Critics,” which would remind one of Rome at its worst. The English section would be particularly interesting by its critics' depart- ment, especially the English authors. The veil of anonymity would at last be raised, the British man of letters would at last see his—(well, what P) —face to face. Some rather startling discoveries would, I fancy, be made; for instance, in the way of authors, who, not objecting to turn an honest penny and by way of clearing the field of possible competitors, would be found, not amongst their confrères, but among the critics. Mme. Sarah Bernhardt has been offered a sum of £32,000 to write her memoirs. The offer emanates from a syndicate of American publishers. Two editions of the book would be prepared. One, luxuriously illustrated by the best French artists, would be issued to subscribers at £8 the copy, and the syndicate calculates that at least 5000 amateurs would subscribe. This edition would be followed by a cheaper one for the general public. Mme. Bernhardt has not definitely accepted this offer, and in any case—so she at present declares —she will publish nothing until she retires from the stage. As one cannot imagine her retiring from the stage, it will be a long time—if she abide by her declaration—before these memoirs willcome  ## p. (#415) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 6 I to light. In the meanwhile two newspapers have offered very large sums for serial rights. One is a French and the other an American news- paper. Mme. Bernhardt is said to be spending her holiday at Belle Isle, sorting papers, with the help of two secretaries, with a view to a selection of materials for this work. The offer must be of very recent date, because, as I related in last month's Author, I was assured by Mme. Bernhardt, about two months ago, that she had no present intention of writing her memoirs, as had been stated in an interview with her. No doubt the announcement that a biography of this lady was in preparation sug- gested the idea of the deal to the syndicate, and I can answer for the fact that the biographer in question, far from feeling any mortification at this annexation of his idea, is delighted to have been indirectly the cause of this flight of double- eagles in the direction of the little house on the Boulevard Pereire, where to his knowledge, owing to disastrous seasons, hostile critics, and so on, they will be doubly welcome. I certainly did not attend the inauguration of the monument to Henri Murger, and I am very much surprised that anybody can have been foolish enough to subscribe a penny towards the perpetuation of the memory of an author whose teachings were simply detestable. Murger's glorification of “La Vie de Bohème,” his glorifica- tion of laziness, disorder, and physical and moral dirtiness, has done more harm amongst foolish young men and women than any book that, I know of. Murger was himself an example of its pestilent influences, and died, bald, blear-eyed, and brainless at the age of thirty-eight. Daudet has given a description of him and of some of his foolish acolytes, as he saw them, a year or two before Murger's death at the Café des Martyrs. Most of Murger's admirers, who tried to live according to the idiotic modus vivendi which he had expounded, died premature deaths, sapped in every limb, or went mad, or com- mitted suicide. And thousands of girls, who might have lived to become happy mothers and respected wives, were lured to follow Mimi in her foolish career and ended as sadly, owing to the fashion set in that most mischievous “Vie de Bohème.” It is a regrettable fact that its evil influence still exercises itself, and it is to be feared that this monument to its author may increase and extend this evil influence. I am delighted, on the other hand, to hear that at last a monument is to be raised to Florian, in his native town. When shall we have in Paris monuments to Maupassant, to Balzac, or to Victor Hugo P The statute to Florian will be executed by M. Adrien Gaudez. A large com- VOL. VI. some such remark as this : President. mittee, composed of littérateurs and artists, mainly of Southern extraction, have the matter in hand, and are organising performances of one of Florian's works at the Comedie Française to raise part of the necessary funds. The monument will be raised near Alais, on the banks of the Gardon river. I had written “on the banks of the Gardon river” when it struck me that a monument can only stand on one bank of a river; and now that I come to think of it, I ought to have written “On one of the banks of the Gardon river,” for, of course, the Gardon has two banks. Yet it is a locution, is it not, this “on the banks,” where only one bank is meant? “The little cottage on the banks of the Thames,” “the ruined chapel on the banks of the Arno,” and so on. But those of us who write for the Author must be nothing if not grammatical. An eye is upon us, and nearly every month I receive from a press-cutting agency extracts from a society paper, containing “The italics are ours, the grammar is Mr. Sherard’s.” My anonymous critic never points out where my grammar differs from that of the professors of the art, but the stigma is there all the same. All things considered, I think that I will amend the last sentence in the preceding paragraph to “The monument will be raised near Alais, on one of the two banks of the Gardon river.” A number of booksellers’ clerks were sentenced the other day to long sentences of imprisonment, by the Eighth Chamber of Correctional Police, for wholesale larcenies to the prejudice of their employers. Some stole the books out of their masters’ shops, others resold these same books to those who had been robbed of them. One of the prisoners endeavoured to justify himself in a rambling statement about the special ethics of the bookselling trade, and muttered something about authors, royalties, manuscripts, and other irrele- vancies. He was very properly silenced by the What possible comparison can there be between a manuscript and a printed book, or, for the matter of that, between an author and a publisher ? I wish most strongly to advise journalists and literary men who may be offered positions on English papers published on the Continent to make full inquiries as to the nature of their duties, the amount of work that will be required of them, the relative value of money in the town where their salaries are to be paid, and finally as to the financial standing of the paper, before accepting any such offer and expatriating them- selves. Neglect of such precaution may involve a man in very serious difficulties. I have on my table a letter from a young journalist who recently H 2  ## p. (#416) ################################################ 62 THE AUTHOR. came from England to occupy the position of sub-editor on an English paper published on the Continent. He was engaged on a salary of £Io a month, which, as prices go in the town where he is living, is about equal to £6 a month in England, He has to work from ten o’clock at night till seven o'clock in the morning, and this in a stuffy, badly ventilated room. He is allowed one night off every week. He writes to tell me that his health is breaking down under the continual strain and from the unhealthy conditions under which he lives. This salary is not paid regularly. This month he had to apply for it six times, and it was only paid—six days after it was due—when he had commenced legal proceedings for its recovery. In the meanwhile he was without money, and the last day he was without food, and his landlord, whose rent was overdue, had begun to threaten to expel him. I believe that all requisite information as to the points on which a journalist, who is offered a position abroad, ought to satisfy himself, can be obtained from the secretary of the Institute of Journalists. Young French writers have every reason to congratulate themselves on the presence of M. Poincaré at the head of the Ministry which specially concerns itself with literature and art. His recent creation of knighthoods in the Legion of Honour show him to be guided less by routine than by discrimination. He appears to be in- clined to reward literary talent in all its forms, and to be specially actuated by the desire to en- courage young authors. His latest nomination is that of Paul Margueritte, a son of the gallant general of that name who fell at Sedan, who distinguished himself at first by certain novels of a moral order, and is looked on as the Theuriet of the future. M. Poincaré can now no longer be accused of exclusive patronage of the naturalists and symbolists. Amongst other promotions and nominations in M. Poincaré's list for July 14th, one notices that Sardou has been raised to a commandership, whilst Paul Bourget and André Theuriet have been made officers of the Legion of Honour. Sardou's titles to literary distinctions are not quite clear in my mind, but both Bourget's and Theuriet's promotion are well deserved and right; Bourget's on the principle that to him that hath shall be given, Theuriet’s because Adhemar Theuriet, commonly known as André Theuriet, is the very type and model of a hard-working man of letters. I sometimes think of Anthony Trollope in connection with him ; they had characteristics in common, though Theuriet is an artist, which Trollope was not. Besides Paul Margueritte, M. Poincaré has bestowed the coveted red ribbon on Maurice Rollinat, Gustave Guiches, and Catulle Mendés, Most people were surprised to hear that Mendés was not a legionary. I hope that his red ribbon may make him happy. He is certainly a very great artist, and as a producer, indefatigable. Some of his mere newspaper articles are little literary gems. I can remember a prose elegy on the young poet Ephraim Mikhaël, written by Mendés, which was better than anything that Bossuet ever wrote. On the other hand, Mendés has largely made a bad use of his genius. I know nobody who more deliberately and per- sistently has glorified what is ugly and vile in woman and in man, and there can be no doubt that he has done a great amount of harm by his writings. In England we should probably have seen him at the Old Bailey, here we see him in the Legion of Honour. Maurice Rollinat’s nomination delights me. I made his acquaintance fourteen years ago, just after he had been “created ” by Madame Bern- hardt, and “produced” at a Figaro soirée by Albert Wolff. At that time he was a realist amongst realists—the Zola of poetry. Indeed, Zola afterwards borrowed the subject of one of his poems for prose treatment in “La Terre.” He had a special hankering after the morbid and the horrible, as displayed in his ode entitled “Tropmann,” which is supposed to be a confession by that murderer of the exquisite delights which he experienced in preparing and executing his abominable crimes. The first night on which I met Rollinat, we dined together as the guests of a dear and an unhappy friend of mine, and after dinner the poet recited his “Tropmann,” and made our blood run cold. At that time he looked very ill. I fancied him bordering on con- sumption and insanity. He told us he could eat nothing, and that he was killing himself with abuse of tobacco. He said that his pipe never left his lips. I felt sorry, as anyone could see that there was excellent work left in him. Some weeks later, I heard that Maurice Rollinat had turned his back for good on Paris, and had decided to live in the country—a life that I have always longed to lead myself. The excellent effects of this change were not long in mani- festing themselves. The taste for the morbid evaporated in the fresh air; sanity returned hand-in-hand with health. I never saw a case of more complete literary reformation. Some delicious prose sketches were its first manifestation; since there has been but a march forward. In the meanwhile, Rollinat has also made himself famous as a musical composer, a gift which is rare amongst poets, who, singers indeed, have not often any ear for the grosser musics.  ## p. (#417) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 63 I am sorry to say that I know little about Gustave Guiches, though his name is familiar to me. I have read next to nothing of his writings. His prose is always a serried mass, without lights, and like Alice, in “Alice in Wonderland.” I don’t care for story-books in which there is no conversation. He is an analyst and a psycho- logist, and now he is of the Legion of Honour, and that—except that all his confrères appear very pleased at the distinction conferred upon him—is about the sum of my knowledge in the matter of Mr. Gustave Guiches. I am not certain which of the two, author or publisher, had a right to complain of the other in the following case, which has just been brought to my knowledge. The author is a well-known writer, and like many well-known writers is often without a coin to toss with. The publisher is a successful man of business, with plenty of capital. Some time ago, the author got the idea of a book which was sure to have a very large sale, the sort of book at which any publisher would jump. Indeed, when it was afterwards announced that this book was in preparation, the publishers, both in London and New York, did jump, and assailed the author with offers for the manuscript, when completed. In the meanwhile, however, the author had asked the publisher referred to if he would care for the book, and the publisher had assented, and though no contract was signed, it was arranged by letter that after the expenses of production had been paid, the author should receive a royalty of 16% per cent., half any American rights, and on handing in the manuscript a sum of £50 on account of royalties. Should the manuscript be unsatisfactory the publisher was to pay the author a solatium of 29.1o. The author set to work to collect his materials, spending money in out-of-pocket expenses and devoting time which might have been more wisely spent in filling the domestic pot- au-feu. A consequence was, as bad luck pur- sued the author, that one day not only was the said pot empty, but the bailiffs were in the house, and there was every prospect that the author would lose every stick, every book, which he possessed. In this stress he wrote to the pub- lisher, explained his circumstances, and what had brought them about, and asked for an advance of half the sum which was to be paid on delivery of the manuscript, engaging to finish the work within a month. The publisher refused any advance. The author then wrote to him to ask him to release him from his agreement, as he had received many other offers for the same book, and knew that on signing an agreement for its publication with one or another of these pub- lishers, he could receive much more than the small sum which was necessary to save his home from the huissiers. The publisher wrote back that he would certainly not release the author from his Agreement (which he spelt with a capital A), that should he take the “astonishing step ’’ of offering the book to any other publisher, he (the writer) would “most reluctantly be compelled to put the matter in the hands of his Solicitor.” The author, not in fear of the Solicitor (with a capital S), but in ignorance of his own rights, and anxious to act “on the square,” accordingly aban- doned his plan for realising what was necessary to save his home, and was promptly sold up and turned out into the street, without a bed to lie on or a book to console himself with. Furthermore, during the sale various of his manuscripts, including all his notes for the book in question, were lost. They were probably included in a “lot * of waste paper, and fetched perhaps two- pence. As I said at the outset, I do not know which of the two, author or publisher, has a right to complain of the other. I hear, however, that the publisher feels very sore against the author. RoBERT H. SHERARD. 123, Boulevard Magenta, Paris. July 18. *- AUSTRALIAN NOTES, & 4 OLF BOLDERWOOD " (T. B. Browne) the Australian novelist, has finally relinquished his duties as a police magistrate, and has left—or is leaving—Albany for Melbourne, where he will devote himself entirely to literature. The native Australian is credited with the possession of a good deal of astuteness in affairs relating to his own well-being, and probably for that reason he avoids literature as a pursuit. Kendall, the New South Wales poet, was a native of the colony; Fergus Hume is a Victorian—or New Zealander; Mrs. Campbell Praedis (I think) a Queenslander; and Mrs. Bliss (who has pub- lished one or two novels) is also a native of the Northern colony. There are a large number of Australian poets, as Mr. Douglas Sladen, who prepared “A Century of Australian Song” can certify; but few or none of these depend upon verse writing for a liveli- hood. $º º  ## p. (#418) ################################################ 64 THE AUTHOR. NOTES AND NEWS. ERE are two questions very pertinent to the present moment when the “office expenses” of author and bookseller are for the first time introduced into the subject of agreements. I give them special prominence, and beg readers to consider the subject and to give me their opinions. “Is an author's house ‘a place of business” on which an author can demand reduced rates as a shopman can in a shop P” “An author spends £2OO on travel, on books, on type-writing, on copying, on work put out, &c. He sells his book outright say, for £500 ; or he draws an income for three years of say £300 upon it. Need he pay income tax on more than £300 in the first case or on more than £220 a year in the second case ?” Of course, it stands to reason that if a pub- lisher's office expenses, which used to be roughly calculated—one knows not why—at 10 per cent. on the returns, are to be taken into account, so must an author's, and so must a bookseller's. For my own part I think that the office expenses of neither Ought to be considered, for the simple reason that the publisher undertakes to produce and to distribute and to collect on certain terms. For his services he is paid; he performs his services with his machinery. He has nothing else to do with the book. So the bookseller, and so the author. The last of the three creates the book by his own knowledge, his own industry, his own genius. Very likely he does not live by writing books. One hopes that he does not. It would be therefore difficult to estimate the share of “office expenses * belonging to the book. What solicitors call “out of pocket expenses” which are often very heavy, should of course all he charged upon the book for the author if “office expenses” are to be admitted at all. But with what face publishers demand “office expenses " which they deny to booksellers cannot be understood. Here is a point of morals. We are not expected to know persons in any class of life whose trans- actions have been proved to be dishonest. It is considered incumbent on every honourable man to cease from knowing or dealing with such persons. It is admitted that our self-respect is concerned in the matter. Very well. Now let me relate a simple anecdote. It is not an anec- dote of a living man but of a dead man, who was a man of letters. I told this man of what was certainly a very disgraceful trick played upon an author by a certain person. There were the papers: there was no doubt possible. I asked my friend what he thought of the man who could do such things. “Why,” he replied, “the fellow is nothing better than a common rogue.” Well,” I told him, “that fellow is your own personal friend.” The next day I met them walking together arm-in-arm—my friend, who always considered himself a strictly honourable person, and the man he had called, and thought, a common rogue. There had been no explanation, and there was no defence. I asked myself then if that was right. I ask myself again now, if that was right. Now, unless we bring into literary affairs the same standards of morals and honour as are demanded in every other honourable profession, I do not know how we shall ever succeed in raising our own pro- fession to the same rank and level, say, of the Bar. The first thing demanded of an honourable profession, whether the church, the army, the law, medicine, or literature, is a standard of honour among its members; and here was my friend walking about arm-in-arm, in familiarity and friendship, with a man whom he had him- self, the day before, stigmatised as a “common rogue.” Perhaps the most delightful of all books is a well written book of new travels in new countries. There are not many new countries left in the world: we must be contented with finding new corners. Then it is always pleasant to read of human and other creatures in the last-found new corner. We must not read the day before yesterday's book of travels: it becomes for the most part insipid after a single season; it must be to-day’s travel, or a book of travels at least two hundred years old. The present day’s book of travel is, I suppose, Mr. Trevor Battye's “Icebound in Kolguev,” at least it is so to me, for I have just laid it down with a sigh of regret that there was no more of it. The Author is not a review, but it has always been my privilege as editor, if I light upon a delightful book, to say so. I light upon very few, because, as one who has a great deal to do, I have very little time for reading new books. Mostly, at the present, my spare time is occupied with looking up odd prints about London Town. I beg to call attention to the best list of pensions on the Civil List that has ever been published. It is the best because, first, it repre- sents many branches of Literature, Science, and Art; and next because there is only one name which has no business on there. When the grant was first made it was intended solely as a reward for distinction in Literature, Science, and Art. Most unfortunately, a clause was added to include those persons whom the Sovereign might desire to distinguish, or words to that effect. But this  ## p. (#419) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 65 clause operates in two ways. It enables the Prime Minister to give pensions to persons wholly unconnected with Literature, Science, and Art ; and it enables him to grant pensions to the sons and daughters of persons distinguished in Literature, Science, and Art. This year while there is only one name unconnected with the purposes of the grant, there are six ladies, widows or sisters of very eminent literary persons. Could not the wording of the resolution be slightly altered in effect as follows: “That this Grant is to be bestowed upon persons who have attained distinction in such literary, scientific, or artistic work as is not in itself remunerative, or upon the wives, sisters, or daughters of persons of distinction in Literature, Science and Art, and upon no other persons?” A correspondent sends me a note on his own case. It is this; and it is not uncommon. He is educating himself; he is devoted to the study of literature; and he wants instruction. He says there is no institution where literature and Com- position are taught. He suggests that such an institution might be very useful. I think it would. In order to make people love good literature we must teach them what to look for ; that can only be done by making them study good models and teaching them how to write. We shall be swelling the ranks of bad writers ? Not at all. The reading public will take care of that for us. We shall only create disappointment P On the contrary. Our evening class would teach people what are the qualifications necessary for success. I am not in the least afraid of what is called “flooding the market.” You can only flood the market by producing too much good work; and of that there will never be any danger —not the least danger. An American asks why our New York corre- spondent, in speaking of literary papers, ignores the Critic. * H. R.” says (July 1st), that the “only American representative of the weekly review is the Nation, for the admirable Dial of Chicago is a semi-monthly.” I think that “H. R.” had in his mind such papers as the Spectator and the National Observer, which are political and social first and literary next. The Nation is the only American paper which corresponds to these. I suppose that this was also in my own mind or I should have added a note about the Critic. I said some time ago, and I repeat it, that it is impossible to get a day-by-day know- ledge of American literature without taking in the Critic. I read it regularly; I find it more appreciative than many of our own papers; I do not discern in it the scurrilous abuse of writers which marks personal animosity, a thing too common in our own organs ; on the contrary, I have always found in the Critic the desire to be fair; and—one may, however, be mistaken on this perfectly unimportant point—the writers in the Critic do seem to me to read the books which they review. I am glad that “H. R.” has given me this opportunity of recommending English readers, who want to know what goes on in American literature and what Americans think about our books, to send for the New York Critic. Mr. Jerome's case is important to all literary men. He had established himself in a quiet house at St. John's Wood, where there are many such houses, with a garden, and a study looking out upon the garden, and situated in a cul de sac, removed from organs, street noise, and traffic. In a word, he had found a quiet spot where he could work undisturbed. He has now been turned out of this by the new railway excavations. He has to look about and to find, if possible, some other place as quiet and as suitable for literary work. This is a very serious business; it may take a long time; it will certainly involve much loss of time and worry. They offered him the usual compensation of rent. He claimed, very properly, such compensation as would represent to some extent the real nature of the loss. He invited several well-known men of letters to testify to the substantial character of this loss. And he has recovered an award which is at least substantial, whether it fully compensates or not. The case is interesting to us, if only because it helps to make the world understand what we have been maintaining so long, that literature is a serious profession, not only recognised by the income tax assessors, who discovered the fact long ago, but also by arbitrators when compensation is considered for interruption and vexatious loss of time; and so, gradually, and in course of time, coming to be recognised by the world at large. The verbatim report of the dinner given to the editor of this paper by the members of the Society is published in this number of the paper. I am pleased to give a more permanent setting to certain facts and opinions expressed in the speeches than they could obtain in the daily papers, and I trust that they will produce good fruit. I am also relieved from a certain natural modesty in the matter, because the Chairman orders the publication. - WALTER BESANT. es:  ## p. (#420) ################################################ 66 THE AUTHOR. CIVIL LIST PIENSIONS, PARLIAMENTARY paper has been issued giving the following list of pensions granted during the year ended June 20, 1895, and charged upon the Civil List:— Dr. Christian Ginsburg, in recognition of the value of his researches into Biblical and Hebrew literature, 31.5o. Miss Hester Pater and Miss Clara Pater, in consideration of the literary merits of their late brother, Mr. Walter Pater, 250 each. Mrs. Mary Eugénie Hamerton, in consideration of the literary merits of her late husband, Mr. P. G. Hamerton, 29 IOO. Mr. William Watson, in consideration of the merit of his poetical works, 31OO. Teresa, Lady Hamilton, in consideration of the public services of her late husband, Sir R. G. C. Hamilton, K.C.B., 3150. Mary Agnes, Lady Seeley, in consideration of the literary merits of her late husband, Sir J. R. Seeley, K.C.M.G., Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge, 2100. Mrs. Edith L. Pearson, in consideration of the literary merits of her late husband, Mr. Charles Henry Pearson, £IOO. Marie, Lady Stewart, in consideration of the services of her late husband, Sir Robert Stewart, in the cultivation of music in Ireland, £50. Mr. George Augustus Sala, in consideration of his services to literature and journalism, 38 Ioo. Mr. Alexander Bain, in consideration of his services in the promotion of mental and moral science, 38 IOO. Dr. Jabez Hogg, in consideration of his scientific and medical services, 375. Mr. George Frederick Nicholl, in consideration of his merits as an Oriental scholar, £75.—Total, £1,200. *— - --> BANQUET TO SIR WALTER BESANT, EARLY three hundred ladies and gentle- men representing literature in all its branches foregathered in the King's Hall of the Holborn Restaurant, on June 26, to con- gratulate Sir Walter upon the distinction of knighthood conferred upon him by Lord Rose- bery. Sir W. Martin Conway presided. The following is the list of those present at the dinner:— Herbert Allingham, John R. Adamson, Herbert J. Allingham, Sir Edwin Arnold, Mrs. Alhusen, A. W. a Beckett, Professor Edmund Atkinson, A. St. John Adcock, E. A. Armstrong, the Hon. Mr. Justice Ali, Lady Besant, C. F. Clifford Borrers, Philip Eustace Besant, A. Digby Besant, Robert Bateman, J. Bloundelle-Burton, Mackenzie Bell, Herbert Bentwinch, M. Powis Bale, Madame Belloe, Miss Marie Belloe, F. E. Beddard, E. A. Reynolds Ball, Sir Henry Bergne, J. M. Barrie, Mrs. Oscar Beringer, Bret Harte, Lewis Brock- man, Rev. Professor Bonney, Mrs. Hodgson Burnett, William Black, Robert Barr, Mrs. Barr, A. Trevor Battye, C. Black, Oswald Crawfurd, Sir W. T. Charley, Mrs. Connor Leighton, C. H. Cook, Moncure D. Conway, Miss Ella Curtis, Miss E. Charlton, Hall Caine, Mrs. and Miss Roalfe Cox, Miss R. Challice, A. C. Catmour, W. Morris Colles, Mrs. Colles, F. Norreys Connell, Miss May Crommelin, Rev. A. Church, Rev. Henry Cresswell, Ralph Hall Caine, Miss Margaret Cross, C. J. Cross, Horace Cox, PIerbert Cornish, John Coleman, Miss Cusins, A. W. Dubourg, C. F. Dowsett, George du Maurier, Miss Owsey, Austin Dobson, Mrs. Ruston C. Esher, Ruston C. Esher, T. Mullet Ellis, J. N. Ford, Harold Frederic, A. Eleming, Rev. Richard Free, R. E. Forrest, Miss Isabel Fitzroy, Mrs. Gerard Ford, John Foster Fraser, Basil Field, Miss Hain Fris- well, G. H. Fortescue, Rev. A. J. Foster, B. C. Farjeon, G. Manville Fenn, Charles Grant, Horace G. Grover, Mrs. E. A. Gordon, Mrs. J. E. Gordon, Mrs. Aylmer Gowing, Upcott Gill, Gen. F. Goldsmid, Dr. Goodchild, Sir H. Gilzean-Reid, Annabel Gray, Sarah Grand, F. Gribble, W. Oliver Hodges, Reginald Hansell, R. C. Hobbes, Sydney Hodges, E. Grant Hooper, E. W. Hornung, Anthony Hope, Rev. E. C. Hawkins, Miss Eleanor Holmes, H. Rider Haggard, Miss Mabel Hawtrey, A. W. Horner, Miss Mary Hughes, Charles Heneage, James Hill, T. R. F. Holmes, Col. A. Harcourt, Miss S. E. Hall, Dr. Harley, J. W. Houghton, Jerome EC. Jerome, C. T. C. James, R. B. S. Knowles, Paul King, Rev. S. Kinns, C. F. Keary, C. A. Kelly, E. A. Leaf, John M. Lely, Frederick Les- singham, Miss Lessingham, A. H. W. Lewers, F. Legge, Mrs. Lefroy, H. F. Lester, Charles Lowe, Rev. Dr. Lansdell, Robert Leighton, Mrs. Line- ham, W. J. Lineham, J. E. Muddock, Miss K. Macdonald, W. H. Maas, S. B. C. McKinney, Charles Merrick, Surgeon-Major McGregor, H. C. Moore, Hugh R. Mill, Mrs. Millie, Frank- fort Moore, Cyril Mullett, Mowbray Marras, George Moore, Mrs. Newell, Rev. M. Marshall, Helen Mathers, J. C. M'Cartie, Miss N. North- croft, J. J. Nunn, Mrs. Newell, Henry Norman, Mrs. Osprey, E. Phillips Oppenheim, Miss M. A. Pool, Mrs. A. Phillips, Mrs. N. Parker, J. N. Pyke Nott, Captain H. L. Pilkington, W. H. Pollock, D. H. Parry, Miss E. Pitcairn, C. F. Rideal, Dr. Phil Reeves, John Rae,  ## p. (#421) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 67. Miss Mabel Robinson, Mrs. Harcourt Roe, W. H. Rideing, Mrs. Rideing, Miss E. C. Rickards, Douglas Sladen, Sydney C. Scott, Col. Sutherland, Mark Sale, J. Ashby Sterry, Reginald Wynne Simpson, G. W. Shelden, W. Baptiste Scoones, A. A. Sykes, J. F. Sullivan, Mrs Sedgwick, A. T. Story, Miss Myra Swan, J. A. Stewart, Annie S. Swan, S. Squire Sprigge, W. G. Thorpe, Mrs. Alec. Tweedie, H. R. Tedder, A. W. Tuer, Miss Trevor, Basil Thomson, Basil Tozer, G. Herbert Thring, E. M. Underdown, Rev. Charles Voysey, Mrs. Owen Visger, A. P. Watt, A. S. Watt, Rev. C. H. Middleton Watts, J. Warriner, Mus.D., Dr. Leon Williams, Sydney F. Walker, Humphrey Ward, C. J. Wills, Mrs. Wallace, D . Wallace, Mrs. Woolaston White, Mrs. M. Woods, Arnold White, W. William Williams, Walter Wren, Percy White, I. Zangwill. In addition there were the representatives of the leading papers, and the guests brought by the above. The dinner committee report that they had received letters expressing sympathy with the object of the dinner and regret on account of unavoidable absence from the following—two or three sent in at the last moment whose names are in the foregoing list:-Sir Robert Ball, Sir Henry Bergne, Rev. Canon Bell, Rev. Dr. William Bright, Professor Church, P. W. Clayden, F. Howard Collins, Christabel Coleridge, Mrs. Clifford, the Hon. John Collier, Lily Croft, Violet Greville, Dr. Richard Garnett, Thomas Hardy, Rev. Prebendary Harry Jones, Professor Hales, Isaac Henderson, E. H. Lecky, H. W. Lucy, Sir Herbert Maxwell, Florence Marryatt, Gilbert Parker, T. P. O'Connor, Arthur Pinero, Mrs. Parr, Sir Frederick Pollock, Herr Poorten- Schwartz, A. R. Roper, Charlotte Riddell, Sir Benjamin Richardson, Gabriel Setoun, W. M. Maxwell Scott, Rev. Professor Skeat, Sir Herbert Stephen, Henry M. Stanley, J. L. Veitch, and Theodore Watts. The CHAIRMAN read a letter from the Presi- dent of the Society, Mr. George Meredith, in which, after expressing regret at his inability through ill-health to be present, he said: “I dare not put the strain upon myself, in spite of my desire to testify personally, as written words can but poorly do, to my great esteem for your ante-penultimate chairman, considering both his unexampled services to the profession of letters, and his literary quality. A title is more than a thing of air when it stands for the nation’s acknowledged debt to the man consenting to bear it, the distinction of whom, in the present case, will be a perpetual reminder of his labours on behalf of young authors, and his devotion to the interests of his fellow craftsmen. Most heartily VOI. VI. do I applaud him, with envy of his admirable persistency, his constant good temper and spirit of fairness to opponents in the struggle. If any further elements go to the making of a champion, he possesses them, for he has won the gratitude which breathes of its cause of existence, and the honour which only a common national accord can give.” (Cheers.) - Mr. HALL CAINE then rose to propose the toast of the evening. He said: Before I attempt to dis- charge the duty which has been so kindly la d upon me, permit me to supplement the admirable letters which you, Sir, have just read by a message that I have received since coming into this hall from a venerable man of letters whose name must com- mand reverence and affection in any company of English authors—Imean John Ruskin. From his home at Coniston Mr. Ruskin telegraphs: “I am in true sympathy with you to-night. Convey my respectful greetings to all present, who are doing well - deserved honour to Sir Walter Besant, to whom please give my heartfelt congratula- tions.” He then said: Sir Martin Conway, ladies and gentlemen, -In your name, and in the name of the Society of Authors, I have the honour and privilege to propose a toast which needs no words to awaken our warmest feeling, no eloquence to fire our enthusiasm—the health of Sir Walter Besant. In drinking the health of Sir Walter Besant we drink to a novelist of old and assured renown, of high aims and noble achievements—a novelist who has given the world of his best, and never yet written a line which modesty or morality could wish him to blot. In drinking the health of Sir Walter Besant we drink to a social reformer who has brought solace and cheer through so many years to so many thousands; who has kindled good impulses of benevolence and charity, and thrift and self-help; and has been so happy as to see, while he is still in the meridian of life, a practical realisation of one of his imaginary pictures in the People's Palace of London. But there is a claim which comes closer than these, and, in drinking the health of Sir Walter Besant, we drink to the father of the profession of literature in our time as a profession, and to the first cause and founder of the Society of Authors. Ladies and gentlemen, during the quarter of an hour in which with your permission I stand here to try to give expression to the feelings which have brought us together, I will confine myself to this aspect of Sir Walter's claim upon our gratitude. Only those who have been at the pains to inquire can know how recently it is that writing came to be considered in a pecuniary view. Men wrote in the old days and sometimes they were paid for writing, but apart from the drama, in which the labourer has always been thought I  ## p. (#422) ################################################ 68 THE AUTHOR. worthy of his hire, the world took the view that the man who wrote anything was paid by the act of writing, and that the earnings thence ensuing were the pay of the bookseller for the act of selling. It was not until the time of Dr. Johnson that there was any real recognition of the rights of literary property, or any reasonable laws for their protection. From that time onward to our own day the rights of literary property have had to be wrested step by step and inch by inch both from the public, who have clung to the false idea that the only property which an author holds in his writing is the satisfaction of its fame, and from the book- sellers, who have more naturally but not more justly maintained that they are the patrons of literature and the masters of the men who write their books. In that long struggle of more than a hundred years, a struggle which has never ceased for one moment, however friendly the relations of author and publisher may happily have been, no labours on our side have been so strenuous, so continuous, or one-tenth part so successful as those of the distinguished comrade in whose honour we are gathered here to-night. It is, Sir, as you know better than we do, a familiar pleasantry, that the Society of Authors is only an agreeable synonym for the Society for the Protection of the Distressed Literary Person. We are by no means concerned to repudiate that benevolent character. The distressed literary persons are the only spirits in prison about whom it is necessary for such a society to concern itself. The literary persons who are not dis- tressed usually find themselves in the more enviable position of Paul and Silas, whose gaolers are on their knees to them as often as there is the slightest danger of their going out. But we are bold to claim for Sir Walter Besant that in founding the Society of Authors, and in directing the line of its conduct, he has done a great service to literary people of every class and country by carrying forward the rights of literary property one long step farther towards just and equitable international law. The right of an author, Sir, in the book he writes is surely a stronger right than that of the man who pays money for the house he occupies; it is a right of creation, and by its nature it should never cease. But an author has never yet been much hetter than the life tenant of his own property When copyright was established the machinery of book production was primitive and unwieldy, and it was held (and, I think, properly held), that to make an author's right perpetual was to pre- vent books from becoming cheap and being uni- versally diffused. But times have changed since then, Sir, and that argument is not now of much avail; it is no longer necessary that printers should turn themselves into literary Robin Boods. and rob the rich to give to the poor; books can be printed at very low prices, and with very great. rapidity, the reading public has enormously in- creased and is constantly increasing, and by help- ing to break down unnatural forms of literature, such as the three volume novel, by showing that an author's account lies as much in great sales of cheap books as in limited sales of dear ones, by constant insistence on the principle that an author has a right all over the world to the property he creates in his writings, Sir Walter Besant has paved the way for that perpetuity of copyright which is the natural and inevitable, and I will sa, the near, end of all legislation about books. It may, perhaps, be said that these, after all, are services which touch only the meaner side of the literary life. It is true that the part of an author's life which is concerned with his rights, his gettings, and his spendings is not so noble as that which is concerned with his duties, his efforts, and his aims; but only the most childish affectation or the most foolish otherworldliness will prompt an author to say that it is not a necessary and an honourable part. Johnson used to say of Millar, the bookseller, “I respect Millar, sir; he has raised the price of literature.” And in like manner we may say of our guest, that we honour Besant, for he has increased our pay. If he has done that he has done more than increase our material comforts; he has, in the best sense, enlarged the possibilities of the literary calling, and made it the one profession in the world which is not limited either as to the condition or the sex of its members—a profession in which neither money nor influence is essential to success, and wherein high talents and absolute genius can afford to rise from the lowest class to the highest distinction. Ladies and gentlemen, if our guest has done all this, he has paid the penalty. Tor eight years the prevailing weather of his daily life must have been good fisherman's weather—that is to say, a bit of a breeze. He has walked on steep headlands where his foot might slip, and where he has had to breathe pretty hard. He has been made the target for many shots. His arithmetic has been questioned, and his knowledge of the rule of three has been entirely denied. All this was fairly to be ex- pected from the class that was fighting against him. But it was also fair to expect that the other class, the class for which he fought, the authors, would have seen that it was cruel and inhuman to withhold the sympathy and encou- ragement, and commendation which were the rightful reward of such long unceasing labour, such sacrifice of personal comfort and even per-  ## p. (#423) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 69 sonal profit, and (good as his work has always been) such willing deduction from the vigour of mind which might have gone into his books. I am afraid it must be admitted that this has not always been the case. Though the Society of Authors is a standing assurance of the progress of Sir Walter Besant's ideas on literary property, and though this dinner to-night and this dis- tinguished company are proof of the loyalty with which the greater body of literary people have supported him, the fact remains that at every step he has had to encounter both the apathy of many in whose interest he has laboured, and occasionally their active and most powerful oppo- sition. There have been the lusty literary pugi- lists who have told our guest that his Society for the Protection of the Distressed Literary Person would only have the effect of maintaining a race of literary invalids, and preventing the survival of the fittest. Then there have been the pampered literary aristocrats, who having become eminent and prosperous by literature, and having no other reason for their existence, have told the public with every accent of woe that authorship is the worst paid of all callings, that a man had better be a bricklayer than an author, that he had better buy a porter's knot, and hang around the docks, or borrow 4d. and set up a besom in the hope of being allowed to sweep a crossing. Against such malcontents our guest has never failed to show that even in pounds, shillings, and pence literature is a profession which pays most of us as much as we deserve, and a few of us more than we have a right to expect, that it is a profession of which in no company, and in no country, we have cause to feel ashamed, and that it is only hypocrisy and cant and shallow pride that can prompt anybody to make a show of kicking down the ladder by which he has risen to his place With such opposition no wonder if our guest had sometimes lost heart, and therefore we all rejoice the more at that splendid recognition of his services to the profession of letters which is the first cause of our gathering to-night. The Queen has knighted Walter Besant, but his nature and life were already knightly. The Minister who recommended his knighthood has the distinction among others with which he now lays down office of being the first to honour an actor since Sir William Davenant, and perhaps the first to honour an author, solely for author- ship, without suspicion of political leaning or yet private friendship (if we except the exceptional case of the late Poet Laureate), since Disraeli offered a peerage to Carlyle. Itrust I am betray- ing no confidence when I tell you that Lord Rose- bery in his letter to our guest, with that graceful courtesy which never fails him, assigned as a chief reason for the title he recommended that such services to the honour and dignity of literature called loudly for the recognition of the State. It is well known that Sir Walter Besant himself has often claimed for literary people that State recog- nition which has been freely given to distinguished men in every other walk of life. As we all remember, his claims have gone far. When he was one day charged with thinking that all literary men ought . to be made knights, he answered: “Not at all; I think some of them ought to be made dukes.” And now his own decoration, though it has been so gratefully accepted by the public, has awakened in certain quarters all the usual objections to the decoration of literary people. As this is a matter which concerns us very closely, I will ask you to let me touch upon it briefly if you can bear with me for about two minutes more. We have heard Once more that to decorate men and women of letters would be to tempt them to take sides in politics, to curry favour with ministers and so to forget the claims of their own true calling. It is a sufficient answer to this, that there is no reason on earth why we may not be politicians as well as authors, and that in another profession, the pro- fession of the law, the way to the position of a judge or yet of a Lord Chancellor is often the channel of political partisanship, but that, except On one notorious occasion, nobody ever dreamt of thinking that the high duties of the English bench or the Woolsack had been for a moment obscured by thoughts of party politics. We have also heard again that as men and women of great genius do not find their audience quickly or perhaps at all during their lifetime, it must usually occur that the distinctions conferred by the State, under the guidance of a semi-demo- cratic minister, must be those of the second-rate people only, the temporarily popular novelist, the fashionable and flashy thinker. This is the com- mon argument of the people who have not been at the most ordinary pains to inquire into the facts, and the answer is that though it is true that the greatest man is never more than a stone's throw from his contemporaries, and (as Landor says) they generally throw it; though it is true that no great man has ever reached the utmost standard of his greatness in the crowd of his own age, it is not true, in this country, at all events, that any entirely great man has been mistaken for a little one by the generation in which he lived, or yet failed (though his life was as short as Keats's or as long as Wordsworth's) of some sort of substantial recognition while he was still alive. Authors, sir, are not pearls which ripen only in the obscurity of their shells. Shakspeare was probably the most popular writer of the seventeenth century, as Scott has been the most  ## p. (#424) ################################################ 70 THE AUTHOR. popular writer of the nineteenth century, and only an autocrat premier could have gone far astray in distributing his favours in England at any time during the past three hundred years. We have also been told that, as the State will never reward unacknowledged greatness and can do no more than ratify the greatness that is already acknowledged by the world, it can only give its titles as misers leave their legacies—just where they are not wanted; that a title adds nothing to the distinction of a really great author; that an author, unlike a judge or a governor, requires no title to lift him above the people, but is happiest and best when left in his natural posi- tion of the familiar friend of his readers, coming closer to them than a sister, closer than a brother, and that anything which separates him from them, anything that takes him from the hearths and homes of the people, is not an honour but an injury; not a distinction, but as an evidence of vanity, even something of a disgrace. This is probably the strongest objection to the decora- tion of the author, for it applies to the author alone, and no doubt it was this that chiefly influenced Charles Dickens when he determined to remain Charles Dickens to the end. But while it is true that the might, majesty, and dominion of an author are not conferred by any title, while it is true that nothing and nobody, neither the Queen nor any of her ministers, can add to the wealth of a writer who holds the rich reversion of the love of the people, and while it is also true that there would be something incongruous in talking of Thomas Carlyle as Lord Ecclefechan, and something absolutely offensive in thinking of Robbie Burns as Sir Robert Burns, and perhaps something silly in the idea of Wiscount Oliver Goldsmith and Lord Charles Lamb, it is no less true that titles are good or bad in relation to the men who bear them and the public who accept them, and that Walter Scott did not moult a feather when he became Sir Walter Scott, and now our distinguished guest of this evening, our second Sir Walter, has not lost an ounce of our affection and admiration by becom- ing Sir Walter Besant. And so, ladies and gentlemen, with one consent we rejoice at the distinction that has been conferred upon our guest, first, for his own sake, because he has worked long and loyally for the honour and dignity of our calling; next, for the sake of authorship, because it has thereby publicly proved in the face of mankind and of all other professions that a man of literary genius may properly be a man of rank; and, finally, for the sake of our society, which has at length asserted its right to recogni- tion in obtaining the recognition of the State and triumphed in the triumph of its founder and chief. Sir WALTER BESANT, in responding, said: Sir Martin Conway, ladies, and gentlemen, I have to thank you all for the great honour of this even- ing. You will believe me when I say that I have not words at command adequate to my sense of this honour. Especially, however, I have to thank Mr. Hall Caine for making it quite clear to you all that it is not for my writings that Lord Rosebery has conferred upon me the honour of a knighthood. I should be very proud indeed— nothing could make me more proud—by being thought worthy of a knighthood in letters. But if I were made a knight in recognition of any writings of mine, then I should have to look round and ask where are the men and women of the higher ranks. Where, one would ask, should we find the Baronets, the Barons, the Earls of letters ? Where, for instance, is His Grace the Duke of Boxhill? Where is the Earl of Wessex P. Where, the Lord of the Hebrides P Where, the Lady of the Beleagured City ? Where, the Countess of Otterbourne? Where, my Lady Fauntleroy P. Where, my Lady Elsmere? Where, the Earl of Man P. Where, my Lord Thrums? Where, the Baron of Sker P Where, my Lord of the Quartier Latin P Where, Lord Conan Doyle? Where, the Earl of Brattleboro’, Vermont ? Where was the Marquis of Samoa while he lived P I have spoken, you see, of novelists alone. We might ask similar questions as to the poets, the historians, the dramatists, the essayists. The honour, Sir, I must beg to insist upon in the strongest terms is, in fact, conferred upon this Society itself; it is a recognition of this Society; it is, to use Lord Rosebery’s own words, offered for services rendered to the dignity of literature. And these services would be foolish and futile—a mere beating of the air with useless hands—were it not for our own organisation. Sir, we may be Radical or Tory, or what we will; but let us remember—what Mr. Hall Caine invited us to consider—that Lord Rosebery is the first Prime Minister who has ever givenathought to the dignity of literature; the first who has ever recognised that literature is a profession at all. We may not vote for him at the next General Election—the thing has, happily, no connection with politics— but let us not forget this service—the recogni- tion by the foremost Englishman of the moment, the Prime Minister, of the fact that to literature belongs dignity, and that those who aim at pre- Serving and increasing that dignity are trying at least to do good and honourable work, and work Worthy of recognition. Since this is so, I will ask you to bear with me for a little, while I try to speak of what we have attempted and what we hope to achieve. The first thing, and the second thing, and the  ## p. (#425) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 7 I main thing, is to achieve the independence of the author. Now, I do not wish to make this an occasion for any attack upon any persons what- ever, or for any kind of bitterness. If I men- tion plain truths it is not in accusation; we may remember that a very bad condition of things may gradually grow up without any blame being attached to any person. There- fore, let us refrain this evening from that censure or that indignation which is sometimes necessary. And further, in order to remove any thought of attack or censure, I will ask you to consider the position of the author—the man who lived by literature—not at present, but— say—sixty years ago. It was a very bad time for literature; England’s great men were either beginning or ending; the general standard of work was miserably low; the general run of writers were miserably poor; part of their misery—the worse because they were unconscious of it—was that they were not ashamed to write begging letters of the most abject kind. I had in my hands the other day a whole sheaf of such letters written by one whose work is still read and quoted, and his language was that of a simple unshamed mendicant. It is not a question whether this man was honestly treated—he may have been ; the point is that he could without shame and degradation assume such an attitude and write such letters as make one sick and sorry and ashamed to read. And since these things were not done in secret, but were talked about with scorn, the effect on public opinion was to bring the calling of literature into profound contempt. It was called, as it literally was, a beggarly profession; young men were exhorted to break stones in the road rather than take it up. Everyone had stories of Grub-street: mone too abject to throw stones and contempt at men of letters; nay, in Fleet-street itself the disreputable wits would be seen over their cups and in their poverty. They were—sixty years ago —horribly poor and most horribly dependent. When they were not cursing their masters with fierce and biting epigrams, they were shedding tears over the unbounded generosity that tossed them an unexpected guinea. Consider next, if you please, how this dependence was brought about. Barristers have never lived in such contempt and dependence: why should men of letters ? Well, this condition of things was mainly brought about by the remarkable fact that of the three persons con- cerned in the production of literature—the author —the man in the middle—and the bookseller — the man in the middle had got the whole of the business into his own hands, and he kept all the information to himself: he would not tell what a book cost to produce ; nor what he got from the bookseller; nor what the author was able to get for himself. He wrapped up the business in profound secrecy. Both to bookseller and to author he talked only in vague terms of his enormous risks and the certainty of losing by every book which he produced. No one knew ; the author was absolutely ignorant of his own affairs, and if he ventured to ask a question, or to inquire into the meaning of his accounts, the man in the middle first indignantly asked whether he meant to say that he was cheated, and, next, threatened to take no more of his work. How then could the independence of the author be achieved? First, and above all, by getting at a knowledge of the facts, and, in order to arrive at those, by clearing our minds of prejudice and misinformation. On the one hand, for instance, we had to begin by teaching people that a book is really not an inexhaustible mine ; nor is it, on the other hand, like a dynamite shell, charged with deadly risk. Its production, in a word, seldom entails more than a very small risk; its circulation seldom produces more than a small return. This we had to learn for ourselves first and to teach afterwards. We had then to begin our work by ascertaining exactly what is meant by production, by risk, by return, by circulation, and by trade price. We have now discovered those figures; we have put them into the hands of our members and the general public. They were at first vehemently, and if I may just for this once use a strong adverb, they were most impudently, denied. They have now been most clearly proved to be as correct as such figures can be. We have therefore broken down the barriers of ignorance which have been so carefully erected; we have shown what is really meant by every method of production; we have enabled authors to under- stand that it is the public—the world at large— and not a publisher, whose servants they are ; we have made it possible to take the patronage of the author entirely out of the hands of the middleman, and to place it entirely in the hands of the public; we have made it possible to take the whole command and the whole control of current literature out of the hands of the middle- man and to place it in the hands of the author, who is the creator, the producer, and the sole Owner. I do not say that this glorious revolution has actually been effected, but it has been begun —it has been begun, and it will go on; it will go on : we have opened the eyes of literary men and Women, and no one can shut them again : the end, though it may be retarded for a while, is certain—it is, I say, as certain as the rising of to- morrow's sun.  ## p. (#426) ################################################ 72 THE AUTHOR. This is not, mind, and never has been, a question of guineas : we have been accused, over and over again, of sordid aims, of encouraging greed, and other pretty things—chiefly by the failures in literature : it is not, I repeat, a ques- tion of guineas : it is simply a question of independence. The man of letters has always been believed by the world to be a bookseller's hack. When the world sees, as it can already see, not one here, and one there, standing erect in independence, but a whole class, we shall hear no more talk about booksellers’ hacks, or about the contempt of literature. I say again that it is not a question of guineas, though guineas may be concerned with it. Whether an author makes much or little is not our concern; it is our concern that he should feel first that he is not a bookseller's hack, nor anybody's servant; next, that he can have the estate which he creates administered for himself, and not for the man in the middle, with honesty and justice; that he shall no longer be degraded by having to accept whatever crumbs are thrown him ; that he shall no longer have to accept with meekness whatever accounts are tendered him; that he shall no longer have to sign away the whole of his property for a song. It is our concern that the owner of the property should offer, not submit, his literary estate to a paid manager ; that he should know exactly what he is prepared to give his agent for his work; that he should know exactly what work the agent does for his money. There are somethings, remember, that hopelessly degrade a class or a man. Among these things are help- lessness under injustice; dependence on the caprice of an employer; and inability to obtain redress of wrongs. For the sake of that dignity of literature, which Lord Rosebery recognises, we will sweep these disabilities away. In a word, we mean to reverse the position entirely. The bending back and out-stretched hand of—- shall we say, sixty years ago?—never seen now, is it P−shall be transferred from the author to the middleman ; henceforth, it shall be the middleman who will be found weeping on the kerb over the generosity of the author. Now all these things are possible when we understand the facts and the figures, and none of these things are possible so long as the facts and the figures are concealed from us. Another thing. The acquisition of this know- ledge arrives at a most opportune moment. T mean that the recent changes in the conditions of literature made this knowledge more than ever necessary. The vast extension of our Empire and of the United States, the growth of our Colonies, the passing of this International Copy- right Act, have opened out to literature a field far wider, and an influence far more extensive, than anything ever known in history. Not only is population increasing, but readers are increas- ing far more rapidly. Books, which are still too dear for most people to buy, pass from hand to hand; books break the monotony of the dullest station; books cheer the sick bed; reading is the universal recreation; everywhere we must have books—books—books. There are, again, spring- ing up everywhere free libraries. What do the people read P Who are their favourites ? Well, I have made this subject one of some personal investigation, and I think we shall all be agreed that when we find the people choosing as their favourite authors such writers as Scott, Marryat, Macaulay, and Dickens, which is literally the case—I cannot speak of living writers in this goodly presence—the popular taste is not so very bad after all. Have you ever, let me ask, tried to realise the meaning of such an audience as a writer now popular commands P. Have you ever tried to under- stand how many readers a man now living may command? If figures mean anything you may try to realise the meaning of millions. But you cannot—nobody can—it is impossible to realise a very large number. But try to think of the faces rather—try to realise the faces of those who sit listening while the author speaks. His theatre is the round world itself; at his feet sit nearly all who speak the English language—all those who read—say, a half of the whole number—say, only sixty millions. See them sitting there ! Ilook at the white faces upturned to catch the words ! If the author only whispers he shall be heard in every corner of this immense theatre, See, Isay, the upturned faces; mark how the light falls upon them, and how the waves of laughter, and of pity, and of terror, pass across that boundless ocean of human faces. Look farther—as far as your eye reaches there are faces—faces—faces ! Millions and millions and millions of faces ! No end to them. Good Heavens ! What can a writer ask for more than to give his message, if he has one, to so great an audience, with his single voice so to move the world P Well! But we cannot all speak to the whole world. That is true. So the young fellow who enters the army will not probably end by commanding that army. And the young fellow who was called this morning to the Bar will not probably end as Lord Chancellor. Yet it is good to think that these possibilities exist. It glorifies a profession that one may become in it a Field Marshal or a Dord Chancellor. In like manner it glorifies our profession to feel that it contains such a magnificent prize as the possibility of speaking to all the world. It is a prize far, far  ## p. (#427) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 73 greater—far, far more desirable—than any other profession can offer. For not only will the future writer so speak to the whole world, but he will live in the love and honour of the whole world. And shall—I ask you most earnestly—shall this glorious and splendid profession continue to lie in servitude and dependence P Shall the conqueror of the whole world’s love continue to live in a shameful dependence upon his own servant P A third reason why the acquisition of this know- ledge is necessary at this time is—that there has arisen during the last quarter of a century, a large and still increasing class of writers about whose works not the most daring audacity can pretend that there is any risk. Such writers belong to every branch of literature. If, for instance, we think of historians we are reminded of Freeman, Froude, Seeley, and J. R. Green. I say every branch, because one of the charges brought against us is that we think all literature is fiction. There cannot be the least, not the slightest, risk in producing the books of these men. They are essayists, poets, novelists, theologians, educational writers; specialists, professional, and technical writers. This army of writers whose books mean a certainty of success now numbers in this country alone many hundreds. These authors, if they knew the truth, which many of them do not know, would understand that they have only to choose an agent, not to submit their MSS. and to ask humbly for terms. Others— beginners—may wait to receive proposals as to their works; these writers have the administration of their estates entirely in their own hands. They are, in fact, complete masters of the situation. It remains with them to offer terms, not to accept terms; to send in an agreement, not to wait for OL162. This increase of writers, whose books are certain to succeed more or less, is partly, of course, another of the results of the free library. Of these there are now almost enough in the country to guarantee against risk every book of any importance. This is a new and hitherto unconsidered fact, which, like all the other older facts connected with literary property, has somehow been overlooked, if not studiously concealed. I say, then, that this independence of ours is within our reach ; we have only to hold out our hands and take it ; if we do not our successors will. The publication of these simple figures is nothing short of a death blow to the old system of darkness and concealment. Let us turn for a few minutes to the future. What will happen next in the profession of literature? First of all we are gradually developing the sense of community and the necessity of union. In this direction we have already advanced very creditably, but the necessity of union—the absolute necessity—wants to be impressed upon us, and felt by us, more and more. By union, remember, we do not forfeit any individual work or rights. As at the Bar, where union has been long complete, we shall go on working every man for himself; but we shall be jealous for the honour of our profession; we shall understand that if we are again separated into individuals the old danger will return ; the old servitude will be again imposed. By our union we shall control in the immediate future the whole of the material side of current literature—i.e., we shall control our own property—is that too much to demand P−the price of books; the placing of books—already we keep quantities of books out of dishonest hands; the form of agreements; the advertisement of books. I want to see this material side of current literature completely in our own control—in our own hands. I, myself, do not expect to live long enough to see the fulness of this glorious revolution, but many in this room will—for it will come—it is a part of that end which I have said already is as certain as to-morrow’s sun. Where, then, have we left our friend the pub- lisher P. We agreed that to-night we would have nothing said in bitterness. I am very glad to say, therefore, that we shall put the publisher into a far better position than he holds at present. For we shall remove the old reproach of secrecy: the old inevitable jealousy : the old suspicion of over-reaching : which came from the practice of secrecy. We shall make it thereby possible for a publisher to take his place in the estimation of the world, not as a rich man only, always with this atmosphere of jealousy and suspicion, but as a great merchant prince. The large houses, which have capital, will carry on the work of issuing the great and costly enterprises of literature : the encyclopaedic dictionaries, the special histories, and the rest. They will also have the whole of the past literature in their own hands. Nor will it be any shame, but rather the reverse, for the best intellect of the day to work for them. and in their pay. Most of the current literature, however, will be conducted for the authors by agents who will not publish on their own account. The publisher, like the author, with the increased dignity of letters, will rise far higher in the estimation of the world. What dignity, what reputation, can belong to a calling at which is perpetually hurled the reproach, whether deserved or not, in many cases most undeserved, but still inseparable from the calling under peresent conditions, of secrecy for the purpose of over- reaching P The next thing is—if you will suffer me to  ## p. (#428) ################################################ 74 THE AUTHOR. preach for five minutes—that while we have shown authors how they may act together for the common good without any injury to themselves, we have to make them feel that they should, in their utter- ances concerning each other, obey the same rules of courtesy as belong to the Bar. One of the evil results of the former darkness was the absurd and suicidal hatred of poet towards poet; of nove- list towards novelist; nay, of histºrian for histo- ian—witness the life-long hatred of Freeman for Froude. It arose partly from ignorance of the vast fields open to writers: everyone thought of London—of the West End—of clubland—as if the world of thought, and learning, and reading, was all concentrated there. We are now beginning— only just beginning—to understand that there is no reason for any hatred or jealousy at all. There is room in this great world of ours for every author of power, whether he is poet, novelist, historian, philosopher or artist, or scientific professor. Rudyard Kipling does not kill Barrie, and Hall Caine is not injured by Conan Doyle; Austin Dobson is none the worse for William Watson. Quite the contrary; the more good writers there are the better it is for each. The demand for good work is maintained; a thirst for reading is increased. The recognition of this great fact ought to lead to the discontinu- ance of the bad old practice, once common among authors, and by no means yet extinct, of criti- cising, i.e., slashing each other. Let us agree in future, if we cannot speak well of another author, to hold our tongues about him. Silence is some- times the very wisest form of criticism. And our enemies, you may be very certain, desire nothing better than to see us like so many cats, spitting at each other. Let us, in fact, make a stand for professional courtesy. Let me next, if I may be allowed, say a few words as to the future of the Society itself. First, it is not enough to ascertain and to publish the facts of our position — we must continue on guard over that position with un- ceasing watchfulness. The price we must pay for independence is the continual watch and guard over it. We must never relax in that watch and guard; we must always have a centre —an office—an outward and visible sign of organisation ; a place whither cases can be brought and treated. For the same reason, we must continue to cultivate the spirit of common action for a common cause. Now, your Chairman has, I know, many useful plans in his head for the advancement of the Society. I desire to advance three things which seem to me very pressing and urgent. They are these. First, it is very much to be desired that we should be able to bring certain cases into court. For instance, there are still firms—believed by those who do not know them to be honourable firms—which falsify every account they issue —charging large sums of money which they have not paid, and overcharging the amounts which they have paid. We have already submitted a case of this kind to counsel for opinion, and have obtained a very clear and decided opinion to the effect that there is no judge on the bench who would tolerate such falsification on any grounds possible to conceive. We desire, therefore, to bring such a case of falsified accounts into the courts of law. This is very difficult, because, of course, we must be able to furnish proofs, by evi- dence of printers and others. We have had in our hands cases by the dozen in which there was no doubt possible as to the falsification of every item —to anybody who knew the meaning of figures; but there was wanting either the evidence of printers or the consent of the author to proceed. Still we may hope for such a case, sometime or other, complete in all its parts. When we do get it, the question will arise whether it should be treated as a civil or a criminal charge. The moral effect of placing a highly respectable firm in the dock, charged with falsifying accounts, would be really most beneficial. . The second point that presses is the preparation of model agreements. The time has come when we might prepare agreements which would give the agent or distributor such payment as shall be thought perfectly fair. In this work I think we may fairly expect the co-operation of those publishers who do not falsify accounts, and do not try to cover up and conceal things. The third point—one most urgently needed— one to which I invite your very earnest attention— is the establishment of a Pension Fund. Nothing of the kind exists in literature. It is horribly needed. The rank and file among us cannot, from the nature of the case—even if we had what we ought to have—we cannot save much money. There falls upon us in the fulness of time an old age with infirmities, but without means, with failing powers, and without resources. The instances which have come under my own know- ledge, partly when I sat upon the Council of the Royal Literary Fund, and partly from the cases brought before the Society, which does not pretend to relieve distress, have been most painful—most terrible. Of course, what we are doing in the extension of knowledge has already led to great improvement in the material position of the writer. But progress is necessarily slow. People have gone on so long believing that literary property was either common property or something could be—conveyed—by anyone who wished. There are societies like that for the Promotion of  ## p. (#429) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 75 Christian Knowledge, which have, in the past, at least, acted as if the author had no rights what- ever over his own property. Some years ago we exposed the sweating of these good Christian people. We sent copies of this exposure to all the bishops. With one exception, not one of the bishops seemed so much as to understand that the author had any right at all except to take what was offered him, Well, this kind of ignorance is slowly disappearing before the more general recognition of literary property which we never cease to demand. Until, however, Arch- bishops and Bishops will be ashamed to tolerate the sweating of the author, and even after, there will continue to be oppression, and there will con- tinue to be failing powers, and there will con- tinue to be poverty. Many a poor gentlewoman have I heard of in these late years; many a writer who has done good and faithful work all her life for her employers—always, alas ! “employers,” and never “agents”—who has found herself at the end unable to work and with no money saved. She has to eat the bread—the bitter bread—of dependence, and to drink the water —the bitter water—of charity. We would, if we could, relieve that lady; we would give her, when the time for stopping work arrived, such a pension as would make her independent of charity. The plans for raising such a fund have long been drawn up; they only wait for workers. It is, lastly, my highest hope that in such work as this—and in everything else that belongs to the Dignity and Honour—and Glory—of Litera- ture—I, a humble Craftsman, whose only real distinction is that I am, like you, a Craftsman in Letters, a Brother in the Craft, a Member of the Guild, a Worker in the Fraternity, may live to take a larger part in that cause, and to do more work for that cause than in the past. In proposing the toast of “The Chairman,” Mr. HENRY NORMAN said: You will believe that I feel myself honoured by the pleasant duty that lies before me. Apart from the pleasure I have felt in taking part in this dinner — given in honour of Royal recognition of the profession of letters—I should at any time be delighted to propose the health of my friend Sir Martin Conway. It is customary, I have been told, in this country at any rate, when called upon in such a capacity, to deprecate one's fitness for the task, and to wish modestly that it had fallen upon a better, a gifted man, and the practice of opening one's mouth with something in the nature of a confession of his personal short- comings, his physical disabilities, and his mental limitations, is almost the inevitable prelude of the English speaker. Ladies and gentlemen, I shall venture to lay aside this custom on the present occasion. In my case all these painful facts will be abundantly plain before I sit down, and though I naturally wish that I were a better man—as who would not ?—I should be very loth indeed to lose this opportunity of expressing my gratification at the honour which has alighted, most auspiciously, most aptly, upon the head of Sir Martin Conway. His claim to recognition— if I may use the word “claim " in connection with a man who has certainly never made one— is undoubted upon several grounds, but I shall allude to only two of them to-night. He is a young man still ; many more honours may be expected to fall upon him—political, literary, social, and atheletic—and it would be unfriendly if at so early a stage I were to exhaust his blushes. There is first—I rank it first to- night—his work for the Society of Authors. I have the privilege of serving with him upon the Committee of Management, and I am sure my fellow-members will bear me out in saying that a better chairman it would be impossible to have. Ladies and gentlemen, some of you here present, I venture to think, have good reasons to be grateful to that committee. Whether because of a peculiar vice of yours which has recently been ruthlessly exposed—reference to which leads me to express the hope that those of you who, like myself, have sat next to a great author, have at least managed to secure your own share of a good dinner—or whether, as I prefer to think, because of the inevitable friction in all human affairs, the entente cordiale between author and publisher is Occasionally — in the words of an American humourist—spilt. When that catastrophe happens you fly for help to your Society, and the members of the committee receive a private communication from the secretary requesting them to assemble at an early date to discuss the case of Mr., Mrs., or Miss Author against Messrs. Publisher and Co. Then, in a dark room, in a dingy street, which has nothing suggestive of the laurels of literature except its name, a Star Chamber, a Vehmgericht, council of ten sits upon your woes. When these are genuine—when you have had the consummate Sagacity to read your agreements before signing them—it proceeds next to sit upon the publisher, and, in almost every case it has taken up, with success. But publishers—I am sorry there are none of them present to receive my humble homage—are not invariably in the wrong. We British authors are happy in having at our doors a group of publishers of the highest in- tegrity, judgment, and business ability — men to whom the best interests of literature are every bit as sacred as they are to ourselves. Now, Sir Martin Conway, in his capacity of chairman of  ## p. (#430) ################################################ 76 THE AUTHOR. that Star Chamber of which I have spoken, holds his scales of justice absolutely level. The weights that he handles are never plugged with putty; he never sticks a piece of tallow upon the bottom of the scoop; in the expressive language of the street, “there ain’t a bit of bogey in him.” I submit with absolute confidence, ladies and gentle- men, that Sir Martin Conway's connection with this committee is an adequate first ground for our respect and regard, and for any external honour he may receive. I pass to our chairman's second claim. It is one entirely personal to himself. Speaking as a man who has travelled somewhat himself—just enough, I trust, to justify Shakespeare's remark that “a good traveller is something at the latter end of a dinner,” I do not hesitate to say that Conway has a unique record. He has been quite original. It has been given to other men to remove mountains, but this momentous feat seems to pale before the seven- leagued walks from peak to peak, across a whole chain, of my friend Conway. Only one man has ever done it before—and that was Fingal, who stepped from mountain to mountain in the Western Islands of Scotland, accompanied by his two hounds, and reaching the mainland, flung their leash over an enormous rock. Sir Martin Conway's hounds have been his faithful Gurkhas, and this Himalyan Fingal has ex- plored the great Indian range in its most snowy fastnesses. The result has been one of the most beautiful and valuable books of recent years; full of the careful observation of the born geographer, the splendid enthusiasm of the climber, the trained appreciation of the mind of one who combines the man of action with the artist and the thinker. Only recently has been placed before us yet another example of these talents in “The Alps from End to End.” Having reviewed this book, you, who know so well the habits of reviewers, will not be surprised to learn that I am keeping it to read on my holiday, and I am certain that, I shall find in it the most charming and the most invigorating literature. For literature it is ; with his special intellectual equipment Sir Martin Conway could never write the mere book of travel or of mountaineering. Personally our chairman is known to you all. In friendship I have found him as firm as the rocks he scales. His future is certain to be even more distinguished than his past. A once famous poem, not so well known now-a-days as it should be, begins with these words:— “Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar Sir Martin Conway is a living contradiction of that sentiment. It is not hard for him to climb, and those who know him best look forward con- | >> fidently to see him scale peak after peak, “till life’s last sun tips his last hill with gold.” Ladies and gentlemen, I have done. I dare say no more lest he threaten me with the ice-axe, which I feel sure is in his pocket at this moment, and without which he is too scientific to attempt to mount even an omnibus, and lest, anxious to escape from an atmosphere of admiration too warm for his ice-hardened constitution, he decide to leave this room and flee, not by the door, not by the windows, but by the roof, and produce his axe to chip a foothold among the mural decora- tions. Let us fill our glasses, and be thankful that it is not Alpine goat’s milk with which we fill them. I give you the health of Sir William Martin Conway, chairman of the committee of the Society of Authors, explorer of the Himalayas, Fingal of the Alps, first Knight of the Order of the Edelweiss. And I beg to be allowed to couple with it the health of that charming and gracious lady, who plays so large a part in his success at home, and suffers so courageously and patiently his adventurous absence abroad, Lady Conway. June 26, 1895. * - a --> TRUTH IN FICTION. I N the July number of the Author Mr. Sherard, in his letter from Paris—which is always entertaining—says: “A man who tells stories professionally must, it seems to me, lose, to a certain extent, the perception of truth.” And he adds, “I should like to have other opinions on the subject.” The opinions of three great authors, of very different dates, at once suggest themselves. Perhaps Mr. Sherard will hold that they support his view. But it is evident that these writers did not agree with him in thinking that the tales related by professional story tellers are not true, which Mr. Sherard implies. ARISTOTLE. It is evident, from what has been said, that it is not the place of a poet to relate the things that have taken place, but what might have taken place in accordance with probability or necessity. For the historian and the poet do not differ only in writing in verse or in prose ; but in this, that one relates what has taken place, and the other what might have taken place. For which reason poetry is more philosophical and more serious than history. For poetry relates rather what is universal, but history what is personal. (De Arte Poetica X.)  ## p. (#431) ################################################ T/IE AUTHO/8. 77 RABELAIS. I, your humble servant, desiring still more to increase your entertainment, now offer you another book of the same stamp; only even more just and worthy of your credence than the former. For I have never told a lie, nor asserted a thing that was not true. I speak of these things as Saint John in the Apocalypse, “Quod vidimus testamur.” (Pantagruel, Livre II. Prologe de l'Autheur.) FIELDING. Notwithstanding the preference which may be vulgarly given to the authority of those romance writers who entitle their books, “The History of England, the History of France, of Spain, &c.” it is most certain that truth is to be found only in the works of those who celebrate the lives of great men, and are called biographers. With us biographers the facts we deliver may be relied on, though we often mistake the age and country wherein they happened; for, though it may be worth the examination of critics, whether the shepherd Chrysostom, who, as Cervantes informs us, died for the love of the fair Marcella, was ever in Spain, will anyone doubt but that such a silly fellow hath really existed P. Is not such a book as that which records the achievements of the renowned Don Quixote more worthy of the name Qf a history than even Mariana’s P for, whereas the latter is confined to a particular period or time, and to a particular nation, the former is the his- tory of the world in general, at least that part which is polished by laws, arts, and sciences; and of that from the time it was first polished to this day ; nay, and forwards as long as it shall so remain. (Joseph Andrews, Book III., I.) HENRY CREssWELL. II In response to Mr. Sherard’s invitation, 1 would say :— I. It is well to distinguish between the moral untruthfulness due to bluntness of sensitiveness or callowness of sympathy, and the mental un- trustworthiness characteristic of blindness of insight, obtuseness of judgment, or blurredness of memory. But, it seems to me, in proportion to the sanity or genius of the writer, whether of “fiction ” or of fact, will result the truthfulness of his perception and the trustworthiness of his conception. - 2. An inherently untruthful character or un- trustworthy mind may be previously responsible for the writing of untrue fiction; and this would be alike in its unreliability, whether it took the popular form of novel-writing, play-making, or so-called history, biography, and so on. 3. In such a case the writing may serve as an expedient safety-valve, as it were, leaving the inherent nature more reliable in ordinary life; though its extraordinary expresssion may tend to render the reading public less reliable ac- cordingly. - & 4. But of course, even when the veracity may be above dispute, the verity may prove beneath respect; being born of the author's honest though unreliable fancy, begotten of fallacy, and fostered by unwise popularity. 5. If, however, the fiction be born of just observation or of true imagination, in due con- ception, it is merely another name for the higher or inner truth of extraordinary life; and its creator is a true apostle of truth, even when his disciples happen to be too few, too indifferent, or too poor to repay his publishing expenses PHINLAY GLENELG. III. Is there any means by which further opinions on this subject can be obtained ; not, of course, from authors, who are hardly in a position to judge impartially of their merits or demerits, but from that large and often long-suffering class the relatives of authors? It would be exceedingly interesting if a con- siderable number of those persons could be induced to give their testimony, adding, of course, to which of the two rival schools their particular author belonged—namely, whether to that founded on observation and imagination, or to that far more popular one founded on an inventive fancy. Imagination I take to mean the power of imaging in the mind, as in a mirror, how certain characters will think and act in certain circum- stances—in other words, the power of drawing the complete circle from the arc. There is no guessing in such a matter, and there is no inven- tion. All depends on perception of truth. On this perception, coupled with keen observation, it appears to me that writers of the first class of fiction, headed by George Eliot, depend entirely. If the exercise of the faculty of perception of truth tends to the wearing of it out—like a watch —most miserable is the man whose work is based upon it, for he will suffer degradation first, and his work will show degradation in due course. The second large class of fiction founded on an inventive fancy has none of the restrictions of the first. The writer, bound by no iron laws of life, no constraining bias and limitation of character, exercises a fairy-like gift of conjuring up a world in which we do not live, peopled with beings not of like passions with ourselves, who can be made  ## p. (#432) ################################################ 78 THE AUTHOR. to act according to the writer's will, and even to point morals approved by him. Of these books the admiring reader says, not “How true!” but “EIoW beautiful | * It would be of great interest to learn which class of authors is the more truthful or untruth- ful in ordinary life. MARY CHOLMONDELEY. IV. The question asked by Mr. R. H. Sherard as to the “writing of fiction disposing an author to untruthfulness in ordinary life,” is one of which I have often thought. My opinion is, that it does not. I think truth-speaking in ordinary life depends upon personal character wholly apart from the romantic and imaginative bent of the mind. Is it possible to suppose that Scott or Ringsley sacrificed the truth of their lips to their “pen of the ready writer.” What were the personal characters of Cervantes or of Coleridge, whose “Ancient Mariner” and “Christabel” were fiction in verse, or of Disraeli the younger, the most flowery of writers ? True, a romancist may throw a halo around ordinary things. He may dilate upon facts in a style of fluency and illumination which makes his hearers say, “He is romancing !” But the truth germ is there. His enlargement of it shows only the difference between the man who can think, or write, or talk on a certain subject, and the man who cannot. If the novelist be naturally truthful the line between fact and fiction in his own mind will be strong as a cable, though fine as a hair, and all the stronger, because he realises that facts are his foundation, and that he must sift and mould them to his use. A clear head is demanded for writing fiction. This clear head helps to keep clean the lips of the naturally truthful man. The natu- rally untruthful man will be untruthful still. The brilliant talker may throw into his eloquence gesture or inflexion which guides the branching off from fact to fancy. I hold that the motto “Truth before Life " may be that of a novelist in the private and ordinary life of business, duty and humdrum routine which fall more or less to the share of all, whether theologian or novelist, to whom God and his mother have given the gift of truth and the love of it. Such will delight the more keenly in the pictures of his brain, the fairyland where he meets his own congenial acquaintances, and throws over them “the light that never was on sea or land” to gain his own purpose in using his gift without abusing it. MARY ELIZ. STEVENSON. CORRESPONDENCE, I.—Co-OPERATION. NLY to-day for the first time has your Author come into my hands. After read- ing Mr. Hall Caine's clear exposition of the relationship existing between authors, pub- lishers, and booksellers, the thought occurs to me, might not the producers of literature do, with advantage to themselves and the public, what Government servants have done for themselves —break the back of monopoly by setting up business, like co-operative stores, and, working with their own employés, manage the publication in its various branches P. Thus freed from the greed of those who prey upon authors, literary men would reap the full harvest their seed might yield, according to its quality, times, and seasons. Yet I cannot doubt that this view of the subject has already received a full share of atten- tion from lights so brilliant as those which illu- minate the Author. E. W. HEWARD. II.—PAPER CovKRs. Permit me to submit to the “Society of Authors” a suggestion as to a mode of pub- lishing which I think ought to have a trial in this country. My remarks apply of course more to books of science, travel, biographies, &c., than to fiction. My suggestion is to issue such works in two forms, viz., paper cover and cloth. Of an edition of 500 I should, for instance, issue 350 in paper and 150 in cloth. The copies in paper cover I should offer to the bookseller on sale or return for three months at a certain discount, a larger discount being offered for outright orders. It is not advisable to send cloth copies on sale, as in most instances the cloth case would be somewhat damaged and the loss considerable, while if a paper copy is returned somewhat the worse in outer appearance the cover can be re- placed at a nominal cost. From a business point of view the “on sale" system seems at first sight unhealthy, but I think its disadvantages will be outweighed by obvious advantages, as I shall endeavour to show. By the proposed system the cost of production will be considerably reduced, the saving being effected on the items for binding and advertising. The saving on the binding is indisputable. By enabling the bookseller to show the book to every possible purchaser among his clientéle the publisher brings it more effectively under the notice of the book-buying public than by far the more expensive method of advertising, and I venture to predict that many a copy of a new  ## p. (#433) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 79 book will be sold in this way, which would remain on the publishers’ hands under the present system of book distribution. The two questions: Will the bookseller consent to receive the books on sale, and the necessary trouble with them 2 and, Do English- men not object to books in paper covers ? deserve consideration. As to the first, I have no doubt that any book- seller who takes an interest in his work, and does not altogether trust to the publishers' adver- tisements and underselling his colleagues for the sale of his books, will be glad to receive and endeavour to sell these books, his risk being confined to the carriage of them. As to the second, cloth cases can easily be obtained from the publisher, and the books can be bound in them at a very small price for buyers who object to paper copies, and do not bind their books according to their own taste. It is not generally known that the above- mentioned system is the recognised system in Germany, and has no small share in the educa- tional success of that country. I have myself, as a bookseller, obtained on sale and sold a good many expensive German books which I could not have risked buying outright. In conclusion, I should like to say that I shall be glad to give more details to any member of your Society who might think the experiment, if experiment it can be called, worth trying. TH. WołILLEBEN. III.-AN AFTER-DINNER GROWL. May I enter a protest—a vigorous one—against the systematic begging at dinners of the Society of Authors P. To be pestered for tips when one's soul is elevated by words of wisdom is distinctly aggravating, and should be quite unnecessary. If a fee for attendance must be paid—and apparently it must, for if one hesitates the waiter plaintively whispers, “This is all I get, Sir "- it would add to one's comfort if it were included in the price of the dinner ticket. Maybe the big guns at the top table are not thus beset, but you should have heard the anathematising last night amongst the multitude ANDREW W. TUER. Leadenhall Press, E.C., June 27, 1895. IV.-AT HIs own ExPENSE. Why should he not, if he is a new writer and has his name to make P I would not give eighteenpence for the opinion of any publisher or publisher's reader in England on the chances of a book by a new writer finding favour with the public. I say this with no intention of disparaging their powers of judgment, for I would not give sixpence for my own opinion, and I have been a journalist and tale-writer, in a small way, for many years, and an insatiable devourer of general literature from a very early age. I hold that a new writer is justified in getting to his public by any means at his command, and that only to the verdict of that public should he pay the slightest attention. A fig–indeed, a fig- seed—for individual opinions whether they be those of publishers, editors, or critics, and I hope a time is coming when every author will have to justify his faith in his own works by bearing the expense of obtaining a public verdict. A. B. – rºcº- W.—EveRY AUTHOR HIs Own PUBLISHER. As I myself have for six years been publishing and selling the only book 1 ever had it in me to write, my experience may interest your readers. In 1889 a publisher (and sinner) gave me £9 15s. (ostensibly £IO) for right to publish several thousand copies, which in less than two months were sold. He then renewed his magni- ficent offer, which I rejected. • In 1889 I printed and bound the fourth edition, which a London publisher sold for me at (to him) a fair profit. Two thousand copies went fast, and then came the fifth edition, for which this same publisher offered me “375 down on the day of publication.” I warmly thanked him for nothing, and then and there resolved to print, bind, publish, and sell my own book. Every author I know warned me against this “risk,” saying the producer of a book couldn't possibly be the seller as well. To my anxious inquiry, “Why not P’’ I only got for answer the rather ladylike reply, “Because he can’t.” I treated it as a sum in arithmetic, and set to work to “prove’’ it. I published the fifth edition at great expense. It had never dawned upon me to have stereos made. The sale was a grand success, and I am now going to publish the twelfth edition. I may say that at the sixth or seventh edition a firm of publishers offered kindly to be my trade agents, and to give me 4s. On a 5s. book; their cheques are exact to the day, and their accounts accurate to a penny piece; and my trade agents accept twelve to the dozen, squarely and honestly, and have no nonsense about baker's or devil's dozens of thirteen. Nothing could be more lovely or businesslike. I have had no money to spend on advertisements; each book has adver- tised itself. No one has “ log-rolled ” me (I wish to goodness they would !) and all newspapers have boycotted me. Mr. Ian Maclaren should read this if you are kind enough to insert it—for at the recent authors' dinner he said, “An amateur author is one who publishes at his own expense—a thing  ## p. (#434) ################################################ 8O THE AUTHOR. which the most inexperienced Scot would not do.” I, Sir, am a most inexperienced Scot—of the feminine gender, too!—and yet for six years have boiled the pot with something in it, by having faith enough in my own work to take all the risk, worry, and labour of producing and selling my own book. It has been an undoubted, and is a growing, success; so much so, that this twelfth edition is to be of 5000 copies. A CANNY SCOT. From the Westminster Gazette (June 7). [Are not the figures wrong How could a publisher give 4s. for a 5s. book P. But the moral is plain.—ED.] VI.-CopyRIGHT PROPRIEToRS AND ILLUSTRATED Journ ALISM. I have observed with some satisfaction the prominence which you have given to the impor- tant copyright decision in the case of “Gambier Bolton v. Cecil Aldin and others,” tried in the Court of Queen’s Bench on the IIth ult. Having acted for Mr. Gambier Bolton in this action, and also for Mr. Franz Hanfstaeng1 in the litigation with the papers, arising out of the “Living Picture * representations at the Empire Theatre, I think it right to point out that the great importance of Mr. Bolton's victory arises from its having clearly distinguished the decision in the House of Lords with reference to sketches of the Living Pictures which appeared in the Daily Graphic, from the more common cases of direct copying, whether from a picture or photo- graph, which are now declared to be in no sense permitted piracies, notwithstanding that they may not reproduce all the features of the original work. This is a matter of vital importance to all who are concerned in securing the rights of copyright owners ; and it deserves to be emphasised at the present time, because from the interested views put forward by some of the papers as to the effect of the House of Lords decision, there was some danger of a licence to pirate generally being claimed in the sacred name of illustrated jour- nalism, and this could not have failed to affect the protection given to authors, as well as artists, against mischievous piracies in various other forms. As there has been so much misunderstanding about the net results of the Hanfstaeng1 copyright litigation, you will perhaps allow me to put these shortly for the benefit of those of your readers who are interested in international copyrights. The points established may be summarised from an article in the Art Journal as follows: I. Extinction of the necessity of registration in England in the case of works first published abroad, and vice versa. 2. Establishment of the Berne Convention as the real guide in international matters, in lieu of any local laws. 3. Declaration that the rights of publishers depend on place of publication, and not on “making” of the protected work. 4. Assertion of the principle, in cases of in- fringement, that “competition is no test.” 5. Declaration that the lawfulness of part of an unauthorised representation of a protected work will not excuse the incorporation in such representation of that which is clearly unlawful. HERBERT BENTWITCH. Corporation Chambers, Guildhall Yard, E.C., 20th June, 1895. *- a -º e- BOOK TALK. R.S. AYLMER GOWINGPS book of poems, called “Sita, and Other Poems,” mostly adapted for recitation, contains a small collection of verses on contemporary events. Many of them are highly spirited and effective. Let, however, the author speak for herself. The following lines are entitled “Tennyson”: ALL glorious with the mystery sublime Thy eyes shall fathom soon, Night’s bosom pillows thee, O son of Time ! In splendours of the moon. Cometh thy daybreak—there shall be no night In that far heaven, untrod By course of quenching suns or stars, whose light Shall be the face of God. True seer, from thy heart the lamp of faith Glowed clear through storm and shine, And clothed the fearful majesty of Death In robes of grace divine. And thine the hand of might, the tender touch That makes our pulse thine own IBy love’s enchantments, for thou hast loved much. And grief’s excess hast known. Sweet singer, by thy voice of human love And sorrow, pure and strong, Teach us to find our God, while thou, above, Art singing a new song, Mr William Alfred Gibbs has produced a thing rare in these days—a tale in verse, “Arlon Grange.” His book (Provost and Co., Henrietta- street) is beautifully printed, bound, and illus- trated. These pages are not critical, because criticism is impossible in our brief limits, and the hastily pronounced brief judgment of half a dozen lines on a work not read by the judge, which has cost the author months or years of  ## p. (#435) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 8 I work, is generally futile when it applauds and impudent when it assails. We can always, how- ever, find room for the poet to speak for himself. The following lines are detached from the text: “When Love doth pace The lustrous floor of Heaven, He casts no shadow in that radiant place. “But when on Earth He stands beneath the sun, His mortal form to shadow giveth birth. “Thus shadow lives Wherever love doth dwell; Thus passing Love to grief its semblance gives. “With wings unfurled, Love soars again to Heaven— His mortal shadow scares him from the world. “Say, shall we slight His presence whilst he stays, Or blame the sunshine for its partial light P “Ah no he flies, To take our thoughts to Heaven, And spread its radiant floor before our eyes. “Then welcome Love, Tho' shadow follows thee; - Parted on earth, we meet again above.” “Paganus,” another name as the title page informs us, has published “Poems of Paganism” or Songs of Ilife and Love. (London: The Rox- burghe Press.) The remarks made above in the Poem of “Arlon Grange” apply to this little volume of short poems. There is no room for a criticism, and a brief judgment would be futile. They are mostly love songs. We shall hear more of the poet of whom it may at least be said that he possesses a musical ear and a great command of rhyme and metre. Shall we quote the verses called “Linus to Lyterses?” What of the past, Lyterses P What of the gathered years P Time, with his tender mercies, Leaves not a stain of tears. Where are the joys that bound us P Where are the songs we sung P Where the warm hands that crowned us Kings, when the world was young P Weary of life immortal Linus in languor nods, Dreaming of death’s dream-portal, Panting to sleep with gods. Go, little gush of verses, Over Time's barren bars Whisper to lone Lyterses, “Linus still seeks the stars.” “Lyra Piscatoria.”—This little book deserves to be noticed in conjunction with that which follows—Mr. Bickerdyke's—the one in the prose of fishing, the other in its poetry. The poet who chooses to call himself Cotswold Isys says on the title page that this volume contains “Original Lyrics on Fish, Flies, Fishing, Fishermen, and all the British Freshwater Fish.” of the Tench : O LADY of the lake whereon The water lilies blow, Or oozy deeps bay out the banks Of rivers soft and slow ! No gay coquette e'er looked so fair Clad in her satin green; No nun behind her nunnery walls So shy or seldom seen . Let him sing: No lady finger's ruby gem Can match thy glowing eyes; Thy satin robe of emerald sheen, Her vesture far outvies; Yet while she loves her grace to show And all her charms display, Thou, shy and modest water nymph Dost shrink from light of day. Mr. John Bickerdyke's new book, “The Boat. Cruise on the Broads,” is not a story, nor is it an essay. It is, on the other hand, a little handbook of information about that curious land-and-water country known as the Broads. It seems to con- tain every kind of guidance for those who are going to make a holiday on the Broads. Their numbers increase every year. Everyone who goes there will have to take this book with him. The publishers are Bliss, Sands, and Foster. Another of the many pleasant gossipy books. about various parts of London is “Soho and its Associations,” edited from the MSS. of Dr. Rimbault by Mr. George Clinch. Soho began to be built towards the end of the seventeenth century; it was for a long time a fashionable place of residence, and much frequented by lite- rary men and artists on account of its quiet, and its close proximity to the fields. The associations connected with Soho are both numerous and interesting. Thus in Gerard-street alone— whose name they are proposing to alter, with the usual reverence for things ancient—we find the names of Charles, Lord Gerard, first Earl of Macclesfield, after whom it was named by Henry, Prince of Wales, son of James the First, who had here a place of exercise; the Earl of Scar- borough, who had here his town house ; John Dryden, who lived here from 1687 to 1700, where he died—the house, as Dryden says, “is Gerard- street, the fifth door on the left hand, coming from Newport-street. James Boswell had lodgings here, so had Charles Kemble ; Edmund Burke lived here; and David Williams, the founder of the Royal Literary Fund, lived here. (Dulau and Co., Soho-square.) Mrs. B. M. Croker, whose works are steadily gaining ground, has two serials running in foreign papers, one in the Berlin Poste, the other in the Indépendence Belge. So far every one of her books has appeared in German, both in serial and  ## p. (#436) ################################################ 82 THE AUTHOR. in book form. This is not a distinction granted to every novelist. A new and revised edition of Mrs. Alfred Bald- win’s “Story of a Marriage,” has just been pub- lished by Messrs. J. M. Dent & Co. Canon W. Sparrow-Simpson will issue imme- diately, through Mr. Elliot Stock, an English translation of the “Tragico-Comoedia de Santo Vedasto,” from the MS. in the library at Arras, with an extended introduction. The work will be uniform with “Carmina Vedastina,” recently published by the same editor. |Miss M. G. McKinloch has an article in the current number of The Month (Burns and Oates) on the “Revels and Pageants of Ancient Edin- burgh.” “The Nature and Origin of Man” is the ambi- tious title of a little work which Mr. Elliot Stock is publishing for S. B. G. M'Kinney. It is note- worthy that the standpoint of the writer enables him to regard Goethe and Rudyard Kipling as inspired teachers. Mr. Joseph Hatton has written a new novel, which is to appear in serial form exclusively in the People for Great Britain, and in Leslie's Weekly Illustrated for the United States. It will commence Aug. 4, and will appear simultaneously in America, New Zealand, the Transvaal, Tas- mania, and Melbourne. It is a story of the French Revolution, the title “When Greek meets Greek,” and the period between the taking of the Bastille and the fall of Robespierre. The volume edition will be published at the end of the year |by Hutchinson's in London, and Lippincott's in Philadelphia. “Tom Chester's Sweetheart : A Tale of the Press,” is one of the newest of the shilling novels, from the press of Messrs. Hutchinson. It appeared in the midst of the excitement of the General Election, but has sold two large editions notwithstanding. Mr. Hatton has utilised some of his journalistic experiences in the story, which deals with the adventures of an elderly gentleman, who thought any fool could edit a newspaper, and tried it. The book might be transferred almost without alteration, save for conversion into dialogue into a most admirable Comedy-farce. “Comrades,” by Annabel Grey, is now in the press and will be shortly published by Mr. Henry Drane, Salisbury House, Salisbury-square, E.C., at 68. It is a novel dealing with high and low life, politics, passion, society, secret societies, and Nihilism. Mrs. Alec Tweedie's article on a “Danish Butter Factory,” in the Fortnightly for May, met with such warm praise from the Press that she has enlarged it considerably with English information, useful to all who are interested in dairying, and Mr. Horace Cox has published the pamphlet at 6d. It bids fair to be as successful as “A Girl’s Ride in Iceland,” by the same author, which in its third edition is selling on the bookstalls at Is. At last the Gibbon cupboard is to be unlocked by Lord Sheffield. Mr. Murray announces that he will in the autumn issue the unpublished writings of the historian of the “Decline and Fall.” These include his journals, written mainly in French, and relating to his work and travels during 1762-4; his correspondence with members of his family, his friend Lord Sheffield, and other celebrities, political and social, of the time; and the seven different autobiographies. The Lord Sheffield of to-day will edit the work, and write a preface to this collection of un- doubtedly interesting material which his an- cestor received in trust from the great Gibbon. A volume of biographical studies of the great astronomers, by Sir Robert Ball, will be pub- lished by Messrs. Isbister in the autumn. It will be illustrated. Mr. Frederick Wedmore has written a work on “Etching in England,” which will come from Messrs. Bell, who will also publish in the autumn Dr. G. C. Williamson's book on Richard Cosway. Mr. E. W. Naylor is the author of “Shake- speare and Music,” which Messrs. Dent are to issue shortly. - A new volume of poems by Mr. Frederick Tennyson, brother of the late Poet-Laureate, is to appear in the autumn. The terrible death of Stambouloff will have caused greater interest to attach to his biography by Mr. A. Hulme Beaman, which is to be the next volume in Messrs. Bliss, Sands, and Foster's “Public Men of the Day” series. Its appearance will now be delayed somewhat, as a closing chapter will be added, and as the author is abroad. Mr. Austin Dobson's poems are to be issued by Messrs. Kegan Paul in a limited edition in two volumes. The same publishers also announce for publication his “The Story of Rosina,” in a style uniform with “The Ballad of Bean Brocade,” and, like it, illustrated by Mr. Hugh Thomson. Mr. Dobson has written an introduction, and Mr. Berbert Railton drawn illustrations for a new edition of T. Hood’s “Haunted House,” which the publishing house of Messrs. Lawrence and Bullen is preparing. Mr. Rudyard Kipling is not now going to bring out his volume of ballads until next spring. His  ## p. (#437) ################################################ THE AUTHOR. 83 new lot of jungle stories will, however, appear this autumn. Mr. Kipling disowns the alleged existence of the original of Mulvaney at San Francisco, but says that if Private McManus is a real person and can telltales to back his claim, “we will allow that he is a good enough Mulvaney for the Pacific Slope, and wait developments.” A work on English gardening, by the Hon. Alicia Amherst, will be published immediately by Mr. Bernard Quaritch. Illustrations will be given of old English gardens, parterres, &c., and there will be a bibliography of works on the subject from 1516 up to the present. A volume of fables left by Stevenson will see the light in the autumn. His novel “ St. Ives,” of which only two chapters remained unfinished when death intervened, will follow. The “Wailima Letters,” which will practically be an autobiography of the Samoan Stevenson, is to have a preface and an epilogue by Mr. Sidney Colvin, and, as frontispiece, an etching of the novelist by Mr. William Strang from an Australian portrait. Next month will see the appearance of Ian Maclaren's new book, “The Days of Old [or is it o’Auld 2) Langsyne.” Miss Montresor has named her new work “The One Who Looks On,” which Messrs. Hutchinson will issue in the autumn, and her future plans include a serial for one of the monthlies, entitled “Monsieur Morezes.” Miss Adeline Sergeant's “Out of Due Season” will appear from Mr. Heinemann in a fortnight's time. “The Way of a Maid,” by Katherine Tynan, will be published soon by Messrs. Lawrence and Bullen. Mrs. Hungerford’s new three-volume novel, “The Pro- fessor's Experiment,” will be issued next month by Messrs. Chatto and Windus. Mrs. Hodgson Burnett will in all probability bave a new book out before the end of the year. As the result of requests made since the appear- ance of the Dean Stanley biography for more of his letters, a volume of these is in preparation, which will contain, by permission, many written to Her Majesty the Queen; also those to the late Master of Balliol, to Dr. Vaughan, Mrs. Arnold, Mrs. Drummond, and Sir George Grove. Selec- tions from the Dean’s poems, hymns, and occa- sional verses will also be given. Another volume of letters long-expected is announced by Messrs. Macmillan, namely, “The Letters of Matthew Arnold, 1848-1888,” collected and arranged by Mr. George W. E. Russell. In a prefatory note Mr. Russell remarks that, “for those who knew Matthew Arnold, the peculiar charm of his letters lies in this—that they are, in a word, himself.” Mr. W. Clark Russell has written for the Autonym Library a volume of stories styled “Cornered,” which will appear in the autumn. His twenty-years-old novel, “Is He the Man,” has been re-issued during the past month, with a preface modestly begging that it be regarded as a product of an immature stage. Hitherto Mr. Charles Lowe has been known chiefly as a first authority on things Prussian, in politics and war. He has now written a novel, laid in his special field; it is called “A Fallen Star,” and treats of the Scots in Prussia. Mr. Lowe, of course, is himself a Scotsman. The volume will be issued shortly by Messrs. Downey, T'or the edition of the works of Poe, which Messrs. Lawrence and Bullen are to issue in the autumn, the editors, Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman and Professor George Edward Wood- berry, have fortunately obtained the final correc- tions made by the author on the margins of an early edition. Much fresh matter is, it is said, included in this new collection, which will be fully illustrated. So tardily, by the way, is the appeal for subscriptions towards erecting a monu- ment over Poe's grave, at Baltimore, being answered, that the expedient of growing roses on the spot and charging fancy prices for them has been suggested as an aid to the fund. A volume of “Selected Papers on Browning ” is to be published by Mr. George Allen. Dr. Edward Berdoe will write the introduction. The contributors include Bishop Westcott, Professor Corson, Rev. H. J. Bulkeley, Rev. W. Robertson, Rev. J. J. Kirkman, Mrs. Ireland, Miss Beall, Miss Marx, and others. The history of the publishing house of Messrs. Blackwood is being written by Mrs. Oliphant in a form of so much detail that three volumes are necessary. The first will appear in the autumn. Mr. William Morris's new work “The Well at the World's End,” is to have four woodcuts, designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, and will be published by Messrs. Reeves and Turner. Mr. Morris's prospectus at the Kelmscott Press includes a volume of verse by Mr. Theodore Watts; “The Cronycles of Syr John Froissart,” reprinted from Pynson’s edition, 1523, and edited by Mr. H. Sparling; an edition of Shakespeare by Dr. F. J. Furnivall: and “‘Christabel’ and Other Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,” edited by Mr. F. S. Ellis. - Some particulars of Mr. du Maurier's next book have been supplied by Mr. J. Henry Harper to a Tribune interviewer. The opening chapters will deal with French school life; English life, “both fashionable and rowdy,” will then be brought in;  ## p. (#438) ################################################ 84 THE AUTHOR. and after exploiting the artistic world of Antwerp and Dusseldorf, the scene will recur to England in conclusion. It is to be illustrated, but whether by Mr. du Maurier himself will depend on his health. This story, with “plenty of liveliness and and some tragedy,” is to be ready for the pub- lishers about Dec. 1896, will be longer than “Trilby,” and will first appear in Harper's Magazine. To give “pen-pictures of life in our great universities '' is the object of an Anglo-American series which Messrs. Putnam’s Sons have in hand. The volumes will consist of college tales and fictions, after the fashion of Mr. W. K. Post's “Harvard Stories,” published some time ago. Mr. John Seymour Wood is responsible for “Yale Yarns,” which is to start the series. In his “History of Punch,” to be published in the autumn by Messrs. Cassell, Mr. M. H. Spiel- mann promises “for the first time an accurate recital of the origin of Punch.” Mr. Athol Mayhew claimed in his recently-issued similar work called “A Jorum of Punch,” that his father, Henry Mayhew, was projector, proprietor, and first editor of the paper. Mr. Spielmann, in a vigorous correspondence in the Daily Chronicle with Mr. Loxton Hunter, defines Mr. Mayhew’s position as simply that of “one of the three literary co-editors appointed at the beginning, until the sole editorship was vested in Mark Lemon.” Mr. W. H. Hudson, F.Z.S., is publishing ...through Messrs. Longmans Green a volume on “British Birds,” which, besides being elaborately illustrated, will have a chapter on structure and classification from the pen of Mr. Frank E. Bed- dard, F.R.S. An entertaining and informative volume on -bookhunting may be looked for from Mr. W. Roberts, editor of the Bookworm. It will be published in the autumn, liberally illustrated, and entitled “The Bookhunter in London,” as a com- spanion work to Octave Uzanne’s “The Book- hunter in Paris” (“Physiologie des Quais de Paris”). A work on the leading forms of literature represented in the Scriptures has been written by Mr. R. G. Moulton, Professor of English literature in the University of Chicago, entitled “The Literary Study of the Bible.” It will be published by Messrs. Isbister; also a volume which the same author has edited and written an introduction for—namely, “Four Years of Novel Reading: An Account of an Experiment in Popu- larising the Study of Fiction.” The past month had but a thin production of books. Mr. Trevor-Battye's “Icebound on Rolguev * (Archibald Constable and Co.), and Mr. Wandam’s book on “French Men and French Manners” (Chapman and Hall)—the real Parisian, he says, loves Paris as he would love his mis- tress—not his bride ; and Professor Dowden's “New Studies in Literature,” were the most important. In the last days of June the volume of “Dictionary of National Biography,” con- taining the Parnell notice, was published, and attracted considerable attention. The biographer of the Irish statesman is Mr. Barry O'Brien. Nordau’s “Conventional Lies,” an anterior work to “Degeneration,” but hitherto procurable only in a pirated American edition, was published in authorised form by Mr. Heinemann in the middle of last month. Captain Younghusband is giving precedence in publication to his work on “The Siege and Relief of Chitral,” which Messrs. Macmillan will publish as soon as possible. His book on his travels in Manchuria, the Desert of Gobi, Tur- kestan, the Himalayans, and the Pamirs, will, however, appear in the autumn from Mr. John Murray’s house, entitled “The Heart of a Con- tinent.” Mr. Murray will also publish a work of travel by Mr. F. St. J. Gore, of Magdalen College, Oxford, the title of which is “Lights and Shades of Indian Hill Life.” Messrs. Macmillan have projected a “Foreign Statesmen º’ series, to resemble in form their “Twelve English Statesmen.” Professor Bury, of Trinity College, Dublin, is editor. Mr. Irving B. Richman, Consul-General of the United States to Switzerland, is the writer of a Swiss study, which Messrs. Longmans Green are to publish soon, called “Appenzell: Pure Demo- cracy and Pastoral Life in Inner-Rhoden.” The publication of Sir Henry Colvile's Uganda book, “The Land of the Nile Springs,” is now announced by Mr. Edward Arnold for the early autumn. “Interviews with the Immortals” is an amus- ing little paper-bound volume by “Ananias Green.” Ananiasis a journalist and interviewer. He inter- views Mr. Micawber, Mr. Sam Weller, Mr. Mark Tapley, and “the Micawber Congress.” The little work is full of fun and go; it is political in its aims, and it is dedicated to the memory of Home Rule. (Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.) An excellent photograph of the dinner given to Sir Walter Besant has been taken by the Stereo- scopic Company. The likenesses of the great majority of the guests are very good indeed. Anyone desiring a copy can obtain same from the London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company, 54, Cheapside, E.C., for the price of 5s. 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. 06 Issue 03 (August 1895) Subject The topic of the resource <span><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 06 Issue 03 (August 1895)</span> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015013732253</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1895-08-01-The-Author-6-3 publications The Author