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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) 1894-02-01 Volume 4 Issue 9 Pages Page range in volume 319–354 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18940201 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin Che #utbor. (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vou. IV.—No. 9.] FEBRUARY 1, 1804. [Price SIXPENCE. For the Opinions expressed in papers that are signed or initialled the Authors alone are responsible. None of the papers or para- graphs must be taken as expressing the collective opinions of the committee unless they are officially signed by G. Herbert Thring, Sec. 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 should 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. es WARNINGS AND ADVICE. T is not generally understood that the author, as the vendor, has the absolute right of drafting the agree- ment upon whatever terms the transaction is to be carried out. Authors are strongly advised to exercise that right. Inevery other form of business, the right of drawing the agreement rests with him who sells, leases, or has the control of the property. EADERS of the Author and members of the Society are earnestly desired to make the following warnings as widely known as possible. They are based on the experience of nine years’ work by which the dangers to which literary property is especially exposed have been discovered :— I, Serrat Ricuts.—In selling Serial Rights stipulate that you are selling the Serial Right for one paper at a certain time only, otherwise you may find your work serialized for years, to the detriment of your volume form. 2. Stamp your 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 VOL. IV. which serves for one, is forwarded without the stamp. The author may be assured that the other party to the agree- ment never neglects this simple precaution. The Society, to save trouble, undertakes to get all the agreements of members stamped for them at no expense to themselves except the cost of the stamp. 3. ASCERTAIN WHAT A PROPOSED AGREEMENT GIVES TO BOTH SIDES BEFORE SIGNING IT.—Remember that an arrangement as toa joint venture in any other kind of busi- ness whatever would be instantly refused should either party refuse to show the books or to let it be known what share he reserved for himself. 4. LireERARY AGENTS.—Be very careful. You cannot be too careful as to the person whom you 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. 5. Cost or PropucTion.—Never sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, until you have proved the figures. 6. 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. 7. Future Worx.—Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to anyone. 8. RoyattTy.—Never accept any proposal of royalty until you have ascertained what the agreement, worked out on both a small and a large sale, will give to the author and what to the publisher. 9. PERsonAL Risx.—Never accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility whatever without advice. 10. ResgectED 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. 11. AMERICAN Riauts.—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. If the publisher insists, take away the MS. and offer it to another. 12. CEssION or CopyricHT.—Never sign any paper, either agreement or receipt, which gives away copyright, without advice. 13. ADVERTISEMENTS.—Keep control over the advertise- ments, if they affect your returns, by a clause in the agree- ment. Reserve a veto. If you are yourself ignorant of the subject, make the Society your adviser. ca? 320 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, PorTUGAL STREET, Lincoun’s Inn FIELDs. ee: HOW TO USE THE SoOcrIETY. rE VERY member has a right to advice upon his agreements, his choice of a publisher, 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 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 isin 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. Remember that there are certain houses which live entirely by trickery. 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 Author notes of everything important to literature that you may hear or meet with. eee THE AUTHORS’ SYNDICATE. \ | EMBERS are informed : 1. That the Authors’ Syndicate takes charge of the business of members of the Society. With, when necessary, the assistance of the legal advisers of the Syndi- cate, it concludes agreements, collects royalties, examines and passes accounts, and generally relieves members of the trouble of managing business details. 2. That the expenses of the Authors’ Syndicate are defrayed solely out of the commission charged on rights placed through its intervention. Notice is, however, hereby given that in all cases where there is no current account, a oooking fee is charged to cover postage and porterage. THE AUTHOR. 3. That the Authors’ Syndicate works for none but those members of the Society whose work possesses a market value. 4. That the Syndicate can only undertake any negotiation whatever on the distinct understanding that those negotia- tions are placed exclusively in its hands, and that all communications relating thereto are referred to it. 5. That clients can only be seen by the Editor by appoint- ment, and that, when possible, at least four days’ notice should be given. The work of the Syndicate is now so heavy, that only a limited number of interviews can be arranged. 6. That every attempt is made to deal with the corre- spondence promptly, but that owing to the enormous number of letters received, some delay is inevitable. That stamps should, in all cases, be sent to defray postage. 7. That the Authors’ Syndicate does not invite MSS. without previous correspondence, and does not hold itself responsible for MSS. forwarded without notice. It is announced that, by way of a new departure, the Syndicate has undertaken arrangements for lectures by some of the leading members of the Society; that a “Transfer Department,’ for the sale and purchase of journals and periodicals, has been opened ; and that a “Register of Wants and Wanted” has been opened. Members anxious to obtain literary or artistic work are invited to communicate with 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. see 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 Author 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? 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? If they will do gE OR Oe Dect e peep  “i. oe. oe THE AUTHOR. an 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 (7). It is a most foolish and a most disastrous thing to bind yourself to anyone 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 themselves into literary bondage for three or five years ? 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 4s. 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, or 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. Co ye LITERARY PROPERTY. I.—Tue Wornine or THE AMERICAN Copy- RieHT Law. R. G. H. PUTNAM, of New York, was \ one of the most stalwart workers for the International Copyright Act. He wrote for it, spoke for it, argued for it, expended an enormous amount of trouble in its cause, and finally saw it succeed. Since the passing of the Act he has narrowly watched the working of the Act. No one is better qualified to speak on the subject. We therefore welcome his paper in the January number of the Morwm as an autho- ritative presentment of the case up to the present moment. We may also take this opportunity of adding that what Mr. Putnam has written on the general question of the relations between author and publisher, although we may not always agree with him, has been marked by a moderation in tone and an absence of exaggera- tion which are sadly wanting in most of those who have rushed into the field. The following is his notes of the case as set forth in last month’s Forum: What were the Changes made by the Law? The most important changes in the law (omitting from present consideration a few matters of technical detail) were as follows—First: Its provisions, previously limited to the works of authors (under which term I include for con- venience artists and composers) who were “residents of the United States,’ were extended to cover the productions of non-résidents on condition that such non-resident author was a resident of a country which should concede to American authors similar privileges. Second: All editions of the works copyrighted must be entirely manufactured in the United States. This provision imposed a new restriction upon American authors, who had previously been at liberty to have their books manufactured on either side of the Atlantic. Third: The book, to secure American copyright, must be published inthe United States not later than the date of its publication in any other country. The pro- visions of the Act became operative between the United States and any foreign state only when the President had made announcement, by proclamation, that the necessary conditions of reciprocity had been fulfilled by such State. The proclamation of July 1, 1891, specified that the Act was in force with Great Britain, France, Switzerland, and Belgium. Since that date the following countries have been brought within the operations of the Act: Germany, in April, 1892; Italy, in October, 1892; Portugal, in July, 1893 ; and Spain and Denmark subsequently. By the close of 1892, according to the report of the Librarian of Congress, more than nineteen thousand copy- rights had been granted to foreign authors, composers, and designers. The figures for 1893 are not yet available. How the new Law affects Authors. American publishers are now in a position to give to American fiction a larger measure of favourable attention than was possible when such volumes had to compete with English stories that had not been paid for; and the removal of this disturbing factor must have proved a definite advantage to American novelists, and especially to the newer writers. This advantage has, however, been lessened or delayed by the fact that during the last year large stocks of “remainders” of the novels issued by the “reprinting” firms that have become bankrupt have been crowded upon the book- stands and offered at nominal prices. The disappointment of English authors with the results of the copyright law has been keener than that of their American brethren, because their expectations were so much larger. During the half century in which international copyright has been talked about, many statements had been put into print and talked over in English literary circles, setting forth the enormous circulation secured in “the States” for unauthorised editions of English books, and particularly of English fiction; and large estimates were arrived at as to the great fortunes that were being made out of these editions by the piratical publishers. There has been, nevertheless, a substantial advance. The authors of the first rank (using the term simply for com- mercial importance) have certainly very largely increased the receipts from their American sales, while for authors of the second grade there has doubtless also been a satisfactory gain. I think it probable—though on such a point exact statistics are unobtainable—that in one division of litera- ture, that of third-class or lower-grade fiction, there has been a decrease in the supply taken from England for American readers. There never had been any natural demand in America for English fiction of this class, and it had been purveyed or “appropriated” chiefly in order to supply material for the weekly issues of the cheap “libraries.” The lessening of the supply of this class of literary pro- vender may be classed as one of the direct gains from international copyright. English authors have to-day the satisfaction that they 322 are able to place their books before their American readers with a correct and complete text. Before the amended Copyright Law, English books had to be reprinted on what might be called a “scramble system.” It was often not practicable to give to the printing of the authorised editions sufficient time and supervision to insure a correct typo- graphy, while the unauthorised issues were not infrequently —either through carelessness or for the sake of reducing the amount and the cost of the material—seriously garbled. The transatlantic author, who was then helpless to protect himself, can now, of course, arrange to give at his leisure an “author’s reading” to his proofs. Opinion of the Librarian of Congress. The first great benefit of international copyright has been the gradual decline in the price of standard foreign works. Before the passage of the Act—when, for instance, an Eng- lish publishing house could not be protected in its editions of important medical and scientific works by foreign authors—the only course to pursue was to charge avery high selling price for a limited market, which rarely extended beyond Great Britian. Works of this class are now, however, planned to secure a market on both sides of the Atlantic, and the result is much larger sales at popular prices. This brings a substantial advantage to the more scholarly readers of the community, who are able to secure, at lower pricesthan heretofore, editions of scientific works which have been carefully printed to meet their own special requirements. The dread that the bill would create pub- lishing monopolies proves to have been entirely unfounded. One of the most noteworthy results of the law, from the American standpoint, has been the cleansing effect upon the character of reprinted fiction. By far the larger pro- portion of the cheap novels of an undesirable character with which the market has been flooded during the past fifteen years were the work of English or French authors. <A group of publishing houses in the United States, which made a specialty of cheap books, vied with each other in the busi- ness of appropriating English and Continental trash, and printed this under villainous covers, in ty pe ugly enough to risk a serious increase of ophthalmia among American readers. Should the Act be allowed 2 While the Copyright Act is defective as well in its bearing upon the interest of Continental authors as in sundry other respects, and ought in my judgment certainly to be amended, Iam of opinion that it would be unwise at this time to make any effort to secure such amendments. The public opinion which creates and directs legislative opinion is not yet sufficiently assured in its recognition of the rights of literary producers, to be trusted to take an active or intelli- gent interest in securing more satisfactory protection for such producers. There would be grave risk that, if the copyright question were reopened in the present Congress, we might, in place of developing or improving the copyright system, take a step backward, and lose the partial measure of international copyright that it has taken the efforts of half a century to secure. The provision establishing international copyright is only a clause in the general Copyright Act, and the whole Act ought before many years to be carefully revised. Work of this kind, instead of being referred at the outset to a Con- gressional committee, whose interest in the subject or ability to consider it intelligently could not with certainty be depended upon, ought to be intrusted to a commission of experts selected for the purpose, which should be instructed to take evidence and to submit a report to serve as a basis for legislation. This is the system that has been pursued with the copyright legislation of England, France, Germany, and Italy, and is what might be termed the scientific method THE AUTHOR. of arriving at satisfactory legislation on subjects of intricacy or complexity. Among the recommendations that would be placed before such a commission would be one for the lengthening of the term of copyright. The present term (twenty-eight years, with aright of renewal to an author, to his widow, or to his children, for fourteen years) is shorter than that of any civilised country. The British term is forty-two years, or the life of the author and seven years, whichever term be the longer ; the German, the life of the author and thirty years; the French, the life of the author and fifty years. The amended British law now pending in Parliament (the Monkswell Bill) accepts the German term, the life of the author and thirty years. Il.—Tue Ricuts anp Liasinities or Epitors AND CONTRIBUTORS WITH REGARD TO ARTICLES oF Passine INTEREST. A question is often raised as to what is the precise position of a writer who has sent to a periodical a contribution upon a topic of ephemeral interest, has heard no more of it, and has perhaps seen an issue, in which he might reasonably have expected it to appear, come out without containing it. Is he at liberty to send it elsewhere? Obviously, if he does so, the first editor may still bring it out late in the day; and it may, if accepted by the second, appear in two different places at once, a result which will certainly annoy both editors, and probably place the writer at a disadvantage, both in the matter of future dealings with each of them and as to the question of payment for the particular article ; while, if he does not send it to the second, or possibly third, editor, he will probably have written it in vain. What is the writer’s position, legally and otherwise? The legal aspect of the question must vary with the facts of each particular case, and gener- ally the uninvited contributor is at a disadvantage, in that there are plainly-printed notices in most newspapers and - periodicals which effectually protect the editor, should he require protection, which is doubtful. At best he only can be bound to use reasonable care to return contributions or answer letters within a reasonable time, and in all well-conducted offices he does so, if his rules as to forwarding stamps, &c., are complied with. He may be bound by the rules of courtesy, or justice, or the kindly consideration that one man should have towards another, to see that an obviously perishable article may have a chance elsewhere if he cannot use it, but that is quite another thing from his being under a legal obligation to read and return it at once. Besides which, in many cases, he keeps it on the chance of being able to use it if he has space, a condition which the writer would in most cases accept if it were put before him. If the writer may hazard a suggestion, he would say that in the case of many offices, if the  THe AUTHOR. author were to send in a civil note asking for the article to be returned by bearer if not to be used, the request would be acceded to, while there is the obvious possibility of appending to the con- tribution a request or a condition. Let us see what editors themselves say. In a recent issue of To-Day, in answer to a correspon- dent, Mr. J. K. Jerome is responsible for the fol- lowing, which we quote verbatim, with thanks for the hint :— When writers send to an editor matters of a topical character, the interest of which is momentary, why should they not say something like this? ‘ As this article is only valuable just now, unless accepted within days, I shall feel at-liberty to offer it elsewhere.” If copies of all contri- butions were kept, and something of this sort mentioned, both editors and contributors would be saved much time and trouble. What has been written above applies chiefly to newspapers, daily or weekly, where the loss of a day, or sometimes of an hour, in learning the fate of a contribution may mean the loss of all possible profit to its author. With magazines it is slightly different, but their topics may be pro- portionally as ephemeral; that is to say, what would be relevant and of interest in one month would be out of date the next, but there is much more time to deal with them; and an editor who has taken no notice of a letter asking for a reply as to the fate of an MS. or its return, cannot in law or justice (two totally different things) complain if it is sent elsewhere. Whether he or the other editor, in the event of dual publication or other mishap befalling, will be likely to bear an appreci- able grudge to the author, is a matter for the private consideration of that individual, and if such matters are of moment to him he will do well to be careful. On the whole, taking their opportunities and advantages into consideration, editors of magazines are more inconsiderate of their uninvited contributors than are editors of newspapers, and it is consoling to reflect that jurors are usually business men, quite capable of properly estimating and dealing with unbusiness- like habits and actions. Looking at the case from the editor’s point of view, it would probably be held in a court of law that the sending of the manuscript implied an offer of the exclusive use of it, the answer to which would have to be that the non-user of it within a reasonable time was an implied refusal. Probably the matter could not be taken further on either side. Inner TEMPLE. IIL.—Tue Queen v. Rivineton, RucistRar oF CopyRiIGHTs. Queen's Bench Division. (Before Lord Cotzriper and Mr. Justice Day.) This was an application made on Nov. to 373 last, on the part of one Alexander Charles Tayleur, for a mandamus to Mr. Rivington, the Registrar of Copyrights, to register him as proprietor of the Whitehall Review under the Copyright Act of 1842. As the Registrar ad- mitted under the Act, the proprietor may apply to him to be registered and he may require him at any time to register an assignment of the copyright under sect. 13 of the Act. It appeared that in October last one Maritz was the registered proprietor of the Whitehall Review, and he assigned it to Mr. Dillon O’Flynn. Then one Pakeman gave notice of an assignment of the copyright to him, and by him to Mr. Tayleur the applicant. But the Registrar had notice of an Injunction to restram Mr. O’Flynn from changing or parting with the copyright, the order bemg made in an action by Messrs. Spot- tiswoode again Mr. O’Flyun, and the Registrar declined to enter the assignment until he had notice of the withdrawal of the injunction, espe- cially as a receiver of the copyright had been appointed. Pakeman, it is to be observed, was not registered proprietor when he made the assignment to Tayleur, and under the circum- stances the Registrar refused to register the assignment without legal authority to do so. On Nov. 10 there was a rule nist for a mandamus, against which Mr. Finlay, Q.C., and Mr. Scrutton now showed cause upon three grounds—(1) that the Registrar was not to exercise a mere mechanical function but was bound to consider legal rights ; (2) that the appellant was not an assignee of the copy- right, and was not entiled (Leyland v. Stewart, 4 Chancery Division) ; and (3) that Tayleur, the applicant, not having an assignment, was not en- titled, and if anyone was so entitled it was O'Flynn, not Tayleur. The so-called assignments were not, in truth, assignments at all, but mere copies of entries which it was desired that the Registrar should copy into the register. [Mr. Justice Day.—But are they not signed?] Yes. (Mr. Justice Day—Then they may be assign- ments.}| They are rather applications to the Registrar to enter the assignments. [Lord Coleridge——They seem to amount to notices of assignment.] O’Flynn is not the applicant ; he might have applied, but the answer would have been the order for a receiver. [Mr. Justice Day.—That is another point. There is a point that there was no assignment.| There is no assignment, and there has only been an applica- tion to enter an assignment. Pakeman is not on the register. [Lord Coleridge—Why is he not so? Why was he not entered?] Because of the cloud on his title. [Mr. Justice Day—A “cloud” he is here to dispel.] There is a claim 324 by the judgment creditor, and it will put the Registrar into a very difficult position. The re- gistration is to be evidence of title. [Lord Cole- ridge.—It is to be of the same effect as if by deed. ] If the Registrar is to register every assignment tendered to him his duty will be absolute, but simple. [Mr. Justice Day.—Is he to refuse to do his duty because he has doubts? Lord Coleridge. —The registration is to have the same effect as a deed, and if the party had no legal right to execute the deed it would have no effect. That is all.| In some cases he may refuse to make the entry where the title is disputed. [Lord Coleridge.—Where two parties are claiming adversely to each other. Mr. Justice Day.—The Registrar is not entitled to refuse to make the entry merely because he is in doubt. Lord Coleridge.—Otherwise what would be the effect of sect. 13, which says that a party may by the entry assign the copyright?] Surely the Registrar is not to register against an injunction? Or, suppose a receiver in bankruptcy has been appointed. [Mr. Justice Day.—These would be legal obstacles. He is bound to obey the order of the court, and if he has legal notice of it he must obey it ; otherwise if he merely hears of it. ] The Registrar states that Tayleur had made no application to him to enter his name as proprietor. The Registrar had notice of the injunction, and surely was entitled to require notice of its with- drawal; and he gave notice to the solicitor who had served him with the order, and then the solicitor gave him notice of the order for a receiver, and that had not been rescinded, though, as the receiver had not given the necessary security, he had no authority to act. Mr. Haigh, who appeared for Messrs. Spottis- woode, said this was so; certainly, though the order was not rescinded. [Mr. Justice Day.— Why? Messrs. Spottiswoode gave notice of it and objected to the assignment. | Mr. Gollan, who appeared for the applicant, said this was so, certainly. Mr. Finlay.—And thus a mandamus is moved for! putting the Registrar in an intolerable position. Mr. Haigh said his clients, Messrs. Spottis- woode, had a judgment against Mr. O’Flynn and obtained an order for a receiver who, however, never acted. If anybody was entitled to enforce the duty upon the Registrar it was not the present applicant. It was only the assignor who was entitled to apply. [Lord Coleridge——Surely the assignee is entitled.] Not until he has an assign- ment. How could the Registrar know that the applicant was entitled, he professing to be assignee? Surely the assignor mustjoin? [Lord Coleridge. — Your clients caused all the diffi- THE AUTHOR. culty. They raised the objection. Mr. Justice Day.—They served the order for a receiver which had practically been abandoned! Why did you interfere? The applicant was not entitled. Lord Coleridge.—According to you no one could ever be entitled, for you say no one is entitled until entered, and then he is not to be entered until he is entitled.] The applicant has not a legal right to be entered. [Lord Coleridge.—Clearly he has. Td Coleridge said the justice of the case seemed to be this, that the Registrar must enter Mr. Tayleur’s name as the party clearly entitled, and Messrs. Spottiswoode, as the parties who had caused all the difficulty, must pay the costs. Ordered accordingly.— Times, Jan. 19, 1894. IV.—Copyricur. On the title-page of the libretto of a comic opera, dated 1892, and just received by me from Paris, is the formula: “Tous droits d’analyse de tra- duction, et de reproduction réservés.” An earlier edition of 1880 does not contain this safeguard. I have not happened to see any legal case which would justify the rather terrifying forbiddal of even the very analysis of the plot of an opera. Perhaps some of our French readers, literary or legal, or both, would expound the technicalities of the word, as here used. J. ON. V.—* Hatr Pricz, Haur Royatry.” Attention has already been drawn to a clause which is attempted, in some cases successfully, the nature of which is indicated by this heading. It takes some such form as the following : “Tf the publisher should think fit to sell the book at half the published price, or less than half, the royalty shall be half the amount stipulated above.” Let us see how this works, taking as usual a six shilling book. The trade price of sucha book varies from ;’, to ,8; of the published price, 7.e., from 3/219 to 3/8, or practically from 3/2 to 3/8. Let us take the mean of 3/5. We will suppose (1) a royalty of 16 per cent., and (2) a royalty of 20 per cent. (1.) In the former case, if the book is sold at 3/- the publisher loses 5d.; but his royalty is reduced from 1/- to 6d., so that his advantage in selling the book at half price is represented by 1d. on each copy. If the trade price was 3/2 he would lose 2d. and gain 6d., so that his advantage would be represented by 4d. a volume. (2.) In the latter case, at 3/5 he would lose the sum of 5d. per volume, but would gain by reduced royalty the sum of 7}d. per volume, THE AUTHOR. so that his advantage would be represented by 2td. a volume, a very considerable inducement indeed. Of course, the proper course, if the pub- lisher is to have a free hand in reducing prices, is to reduce the royalty in proportion. Thus a reduction of 3/2 to 3/- would mean a reduction in the royalty of 16 per cent. to 1553; per cent., and a reduction of 3/5 to 3/- would mean a reduction in the royalty of 16 per cent. to 142; per cent. ee NOTICES TO CONTRIBUTORS. S the Secretary has had requests from some of the readers of the Author to have the list of notices to contributors, which was placed before them in the August number, con- tinued, he has collected a larger and more ex- haustive list, and trusts it may be of some help. DAILY PAPERS. Daily Graphic. Notice To Contrrisutors.—The Proprietors cannot hold themselves responsible for loss of or damage to MSS., sketches, or other contributions arising from any cause whatever. A sufficiently stamped and directed envelope must accompany contributions where their return is desired. Daily News. To CoRRESPONDENTS.—Communications must in every case be accompanied by the name and address of the writer, not necessarily for publication, but in pledge of good faith. We beg leave to state that it is impossible for us to return rejected communications, and to this rule we can make no exception. Eeho. Letters for insertion must be addressed to the Editor of the Echo, 22, Catherine-street, Strand, W.C., and be authen- ticated by the name and address of the writer. No notice can be taken of anonymous communications. Rejected communications cannot be returned. Evening News and Post. Letters to the Editor and contributions should be addressed to the Editor, Evening News and Post, 12, White- friars-street, Fleet-street, E.C. Rejected manuscripts will be returned if accompanied with a stamped and directed envelope. . . P Financial News. THe Voice or THE Pusiic.—The Editor is not respon- sible for opinions expressed under this head. Correspon- dents must accompany all letters with their names and addresses (not necessarily for publication, but as evidence of good faith), and must write on one side of the paper only. Financial Times. We do not necessarily indorse the statements or opinions of our correspondents. Letters signed with a pseudonym must be accompanied by the name and address of the writer, which will, however, be treated as exactly confidential. Communications must be written on one side of the paper ae Globe. The Editor will not undertake to be responsible for any VOL, IV. 375 rejected MS., nor to return any contribution unaccompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. Morning. The Morning will not undertake to return rejected manu- scripts ; but it will endeavour to do so if a stamped and addressed envelope is inclosed. Morning Advertiser. No letters relating to matters of fact, or containing intelligence, can be inserted unless authenticated by the name and address of the writer. We cannot undertake to return the manuscript of rejected communications. Morning Leader. To CoRRESPONDENTS.—Communications for the editorial, department must be written on one side of the paper only and all news items and letters must be authenticated by the name and address of the sender (not necessarily for publica- tion). All such letters should be addressed to “The Editor.” Morning Post. We cannot undertake to return the MSS. of such articles as we may find it impossible to insert. All letters intended for insertion in the Morning Post must be authenticated by the name and address of the writer; either for publication, if they should wish it, or as a confidential communication to the editor. Pall Mall Gazette. NoticE To ContTrisutors.—The Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette does not in any case hold himself responsible for the return of rejected contributions. He is, however, always glad to consider MSS. and sketches; and, where stamps are enclosed and the name and address are written on the manuscript, every effort will be made to return rejected contributions promptly. To ensure this it is absolutely necessary that the name and address of the contributor should be written on the manuscript itself. St. James's Gazette. The Editor cannot undertake to hold himself responsible for the return of rejected contributions. Sun. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.—Inquiries addressed to the City Editor of the Sun, at the office, 20, Bucklersbury, E.C., will be answered under this head. The name and address of the writer must be enclosed. A stamped addressed envelope must be sent if documents are forwarded and are to be returned. No replies will be given by letter. Times. To CoRRESPONDENTS.—No notice can be taken of anony- mous communications. Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by the name and address of the author, not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. We cannot wndertake to return rejected communications. Westminster Gazette. Notice To ContTrisutors.—The Hditor of the West- minster Gazette cannot hold himself responsible in any case for the return of MS. or sketches. He will, however, always be glad to consider any contributions, literary or pictorial, which may be submitted to him ; and when postage stamps are enclosed, every effort will be made to return rejected contributions promptly. The following daily papers contain no notices :— Daily Chronicle, Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard, Standard, Star, DD 326 MAGAZINES, &c. Academy. The Editor cannot undertake to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected MSS. Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday. Correspondents wishing their MSS. or sketches to be returned, should inclose a stamped envelope large enough to contain the contributions submitted. Do not inclose loose stamps. Answers. “ Pur Monry In THY PurseE.”’—One guinea a column is paid for original contributions to Answers. Short, bright articles, dealing with strange occupations and curious phases of life, are the most acceptable. No copied matter of any kind is required. Payment is made immediately upon acceptance. MSS. are not read unless they are accompanied by a large fully stamped addressed envelope for return, and in no case are MSS. returned unless this rule is complied with. A declaration of originality must be inclosed with every contribution. Contributors must write on one side of the paper only. The full name and address of the author must be written upon the MS. itself. Short contributions are much more frequently accepted than long ones. Articles must not exceed 1400 words in length. All contributions to be addressed to Answers, Manuscript Department, 108, Fleet-street, E.C. Wuy Don’t you ComprTrE ?—One guinea is sent every week to the person who sends in the best “ storyette,” written on a postcard. The anecdote may be original or selected; but if not original, the source from which the story is copied must be named. No religious anecdotes will be accepted. The name and address of the sender must be written plainly at the bottom of the postcard. Answers reserves the right to use any anecdote sent in. Atheneum. No notice can be taken of anonymous communications. Belgravia. To CoRRESPONDENTS.—All MSS. should be addressed, prepaid, to the Editor of Belgravia, 31, Southampton-street, Strand, W.C. Every MS. should bear the writer’s name and address, and be accompanied by postage stamps for its return if not accepted ; but the Editor cannot hold himself responsible for any accidental loss. The editor cannot undertake to return rejected poems. Black and White. Notice To Contripurors.—The Editor of Black and White does not in any case hold himself responsible for the return of rejected contributions. He is, however, always glad to consider MSS. and sketches ; and, when stamps are enclosed, every effort will be made to return rejected con- tributions promptly. Builder. All statements of facts, lists of tenders, &c., must be accompanied by the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for publication. We are compelled to decline pointing out books and giving addresses. Note.—The responsibility of signed articles, and papers read at public meetings, rests, of course, with the authors. We cannot undertake to return rejected communications. Letters or communications (beyond mere news items) which have been duplicated for other journals are not desired. All com- munications regarding literary and artistic matters should be addressed to the Editor; those relating to advertisements and other exclusively business matters should be addressed tothe Publisher, and not to the Editor. THE AUTHOR. Building News. Itis particularly requested that all drawings and all com- munications respecting illustrations or literary matter should be addressed to the Editor of the Building News, 332, Strand, W.C., and not to members of the staff by name. Delay is not infrequently otherwise caused. All drawings and other communications are sent at contributors’ risks, and the Editor will not undertake to pay for or be liable for unsought contributions. Chums. Important !—The Editor of Chums will not be respon- sible for the return of rejected manuscripts. If a stamped and addressed envelope is sent with the contributions the Editor will always endeavour to return them ; but when stamps are not sent, manuscripts can in no case be returned. *,* The Art Editor cannot undertake to return sketches sent on approval unless they are accompanied by an addressed envelope sufficiently stamped. Cornhill. Notice To CoRRESPONDENTS.—Communications to the Editor should be addressed to the care of Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co., 15, Waterloo-place, S.W. Every MS. should bear the name and address of the sender. All contributions are attentively considered, and unaccepted MSS. are returned on receipt of stamps for postage; but the Editor cannot hold himself responsible for any accidental loss. MSS. cannot be delivered on personal application, nor can they be forwarded through the post when only initials are given. Contributions should be legibly written, and only on one side of each leaf. Country Gentleman, The Editor does not hold himself responsible for the return of any MS. sent to him. Payment will only be made for those contributions which have been previously arranged for. Cream. Eprroriat Norrcr.—aAll contributions for the Editorial Department should be addressed, if by letter—The Editor of Cream, 1, St. Swithin’s-lane, London, E.C.; if by tele- gram—‘ Letters, London.” The Editor, whilst he will endeavour to return unaccepted contributions, when accom- panied by stamped addressed envelope, cannot undertake to do so. Contributors must, in every case, send the annexed Editorial Coupon for the current week. EDITORIAL Coupon. “ CREAM.” November 25, 1893. Electrical Engineer. Anonymous communications will not be noticed. English Illustrated. All MSS. should bear the name and address of the sender, and must be accompanied by the necessary postage stamps for their return in case of non-acceptance. The Editor will endeavour to send back rejected MSS., but cannot guarantee their safe return. Family Reader. We cannot guarantee the return of rejected manuscripts. Figaro. A stamped and addressed wrapper must be sent if it is desired that rejected articles, &c., should be returned. All rejected contributions which are not so accompanied will be destroyed. If stamps are inclosed all reasonable care will be taken to, ensure the safe return of MSS., but the Editor THE AUTHOR. cannot hold himself responsible for any which may be acci- dentally lost. Fortnightly Review. The Editor of this Review does not undertake to return any MS. It is advisable that articles sent to the Editor should be typewritten. Gentlewoman. LiTERARY.—The Editor begs to state that he is supplied with sufficient Literary Matter and Short Stories, and requests that no MS. may be submitted to him for the next six months. Golden Gates. MSS. sent without prearrangement must be accompanied by a stamped and addressed envelope for return. Guardian. The Editor is not necessarily responsible for the opinions expressed in signed articles, or in articles marked ‘“ Com- municated ” or ‘* From a Correspondent.” NoricE TO CORRESPONDENTS.—The very frequent dis- regard of our rule about the return of MSS. compels us to restate it in a slightly different form:—No MS. can be returned unless a stamped and addressed envelope is sent in the same cover as that which contains the MS. Stamps alone, or a stamped and addressed envelope sent afterwards or in another cover, are not sufficient. Health. Notice to Writers or ARTICLES.—AII articles sent to the Editor of Health must he accompanied by stamps to ensure their return in case of rejection. It must be dis- tinetly understood that the Editor and Proprietor do not hold themselves responsible for the loss of rejected commu- nications. Homeland. Our Prize Srory.—INcREASE OF PrizE.—We offer two guineas each week for the best original story sent in for publication, or one guinea for the best selected story. All original MSS. should be marked ‘ Original—never before published,” and signed. Selected stories may be sent, but the source from which they are taken must be plainly stated. The name and address of the sender must be written on the back of the manuscript. No stories for this competition can be returned. Stories of dramatic and stirring interest are preferred. Contributions must be distinctly marked “ Prize Story Competition,’ and must reach the Offices of Homeland by Saturday morning of each week. All arriv- ing after will be placed in the competition for the week pr ewing. Hospital. Novice TO CORRESPONDENTS.—All MS., letters, books for review, and other matters intended for the Editor should be addressed The Editor, The Lodge, Porchester- square, London, W. The Editor cannot undertake to return rejected MS., even when accompanied by a stamped directed envelope. Household Words. Manuscripts.—The Editor is compelled to give notice that, although every care is taken of manuscripts offered for publication in Household Words, he cannot undertake to be responsible for loss or damage in any case. The number of MSS. sent to this office is so great, that a considerable time must necessarily elapse before notice of rejection or acceptance can be sent to the authors. Idler. To ConrTriputors.— Contributions are invited, and receive immediate consideration. Stories and articles sub- mitted should be short. All MSS. (type-written preferred) should be addressed to the Editors, Talbot House, Arundel- VOL, Iv, Se] street, London, W.C. Every MS. should bear the writer’s name and address, and be accompanied by stamped envelope for its return if not accepted. The Editors cannot hold themselves responsible for any accidental loss. Lllustrated Bits. All letters intended for the Editor should be addressed “Editor, Illustrated Bits, 158, Fleet-street, London.” No notice will be taken of anonymous communications, and no letters will be answered by post unless accompanied by a stamped directed envelope for that purpose. To ArRTists.— Drawings which refer to humorous subjects may be submitted if accompanied by stamps for return if not accepted. All sketches are paid for at time o acceptance. Address—‘ Art Editor, The Bitteries, 158, Fleet-street, London, E.C.” Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. The Editor begs to state that he declines to hold himself responsible in any way for the safety or return of any matter that is sent without his invitation. Industries and Iron. The Editor cannot undertake to return MS. or drawings, although every effort will be made to do go in the case of rejected communications. Where such are regarded as of value correspondents are requested to retain copies. Lady. The Editor of The Lady cannot in any case return rejected contributions. Articles or drawings will not, under any circumstances, be paid for before they have been published. Lancet. EpiroriaAL Notice.—It is most important that com- munications relating to the Editorial business of the Lancet should be addressed exclusively “ To the Editors,” and not in any case to any gentleman who may be supposed to be connected with the Editorial staff. It is urgently neces- sary that attention be given to this notice. It is especially requested that early intelligence of local events having a medical interest, or which it is desirable to bring under the notice of the profession, may be sent direct to this office. Lectures, original articles, and reports showld be written on one side only of the paper. Letters, whether intended for insertion or for private information, must be authenticated by the names and addresses of their writers, not necessarily for publication. Local papers containing reports or news paragraphs should be marked and addressed “To the Sub-Editor.” We cannot undertake to return MSS. not used. Land and Water. No notice will be taken of anonymous letters. We cannot undertake to return rejected communications. Life. NorTicE TO CORRESPONDENTS AND CONTRIEUTORS.— Communications as to the literary contents of this paper should be addressed to the Editor; those referring to advertisements and other business matters to the Manager. We cannot hold ourselves responsible for the safety of any unsolicited contribution, but if a stamped envelope is enclosed with any manuscript, we will do our best to ensure that, if not accepted, the manuscript shall be returned to the writer. London Reader. We cannot undertake to return rejected manuscripts. L London Society. NoricE TO CORRESPONDENTS.—MSS. sent to Editor should bear the name and address of the writer, and must DD2 328 be accompanied in all cases by a stamped directed envelope, for their return if unsuitable. Copies should be kept of all articles. Every care is taken of the papers forwarded by correspondents, but no responsibility is assumed in case of accident. The Editor cannot undertake to return rejected poems. All communications should be addressed to the Editor of London Society. Longman’s Magazine. Novice To CorRESPONDENTS.—The Editor requests that his correspondents will be good enough to write to him, informing him of the subject of any article they wish to offer, before sending the MS. A stamped and addressed envelope should accompany the MS. if the writer wishes it to be returned in case of non-acceptance. The Editor can in no ease hold himself responsible for accidental loss. All communications should be addressed to the Editor of Longman’s Magazine, 39, Paternoster-row, London, E.C. Magazine of Short Stories. Norice.—The editor is always willing to give considera- tion to short dramatic stories (not exceeding 2000 words in length), and to smart, chatty, anecdotal articles dealing with matters or with people of to-day (from 400 to 1400 words). Humorous drawings that are submitted to him also receive careful attention. Such stories, articles, and drawings must be original. Every effort will be made to return rejected contributions promptly, provided that stamped addressed envelopes or wrappers are enclosed; but the editor does not hold himself responsible for any MSS. or drawings with which he may be favoured, nor will he undertake to return them, unless this condition has been acine Mechanical World. Every correspondent should forward his name and address, not necessarily for publication unless so desired. We do not undertake to return MSS. unless specially requested, and in such cases stamps should always be sent. National Review. Correspondents are requested to write their name and address on their manuscripts. Postage stamps must be sent at the same time if they wish their Manuscript to be returned in case of rejection. Nature. Lerrers To THE Eprtor.—The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed by his correspon- dents. Neither can he undertake to return, or to corre- spond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. No notice is taken of anonymous communications. Nineteenth Century. The Editor cannot undertake to return unaccepted MS. Novel Review. All Books and Magazines intended for review must reach the office not later than the 15th instant, addressed to The Editor. MS. will be returned if stamps are sent. The Editor will not undertake to be responsible for MS. in case of loss. All communications should be addressed to the Editorial and Advertising Offices—18, Tavistock-street, Covent Garden, London. Once a Week. Communications in reference to manuscripts, or con- nected with the literary department, should be addressed to Once a Week. Rejected manuscripts will not be returned hereafter unless stamps are forwarded with the same for return postage. Bulky manuscripts will be returned by THE AUTHOR. express. We don’t want short stories. All correspondents who send us short stories or poems will be expected to keep copies thereof. We cannot be responsible for their return. Pall Mall Magazine. All MSS. submitted for approval will be considered, but it must be understood that they are sent at the author’s risk, and the Editors are not responsible for their safe custody or return. They should, in order to prevent confusion, be addressed to ‘“‘ The Editors of the Pall Mall Magazine,” 18, Charing Cross-road, the editorial conduct of the magazine being entirely distinct from that of the Pall Mall Gazette or Budget. : ‘ Piccadilly. The Editor cannot be responsible for the safety or return or manuscripts forwarded for approval. Subscribers are particularly requested to forward all communications con- cerning changes of address or additional copies to the pub- lisher. All communications for the Editorial Department of Piccadilly should be addresseed to the Editor, 248, Craven- street, Strand (end of Northumberland-ayenue, opposite the Hotel Métropole). A Pich-me-up. To ContTRIBUTORS.—We do not hold ourselves respon- sible for the safety of MSS. submitted, but every effort will be made to return such as are unsuitable, provided that a stamped addressed envelope (not loose stamps) is enclosed. The author’s name must in every case be written on the back of the manuscript. Punch. Notice. — Rejected communications or contributions, whether MS., printed matter, drawings, or pictures of any description will in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a stamped and addressed envelope, cover, or wrapper. To this there will be no exception. Railway Engineer. The Editor cannot undertake to return rejected MS. or drawings unless accompanied by a stamped directed envelope. Rural World. Norice.—All communications of a literary character for publication in the Rural World should be written upon one side of the paper only; be addressed to the Editor, 95, Colmore-row, Birmingham; be accompanied by the name and address of the writers, and reach that office not later than the first post on Wednesday. Sala’s Journal. The Editor cannot undertake to return unsolicited contributions; therefore all authors forwarding MSS. to Sala’s Journal are earnestly requested to keep copies thereof. Saturday Review. Norice.—We beg leave to state that we cannot return rejected communications; and to this rule we can make no exception, even if stamps for return of MS. are sent. The Editor must also entirely decline to enter into correspondence with the writers of MSS. sent in and not acknowledged. The following note is now added to all proofs :—“ Please note that the sending of the proof does not carry with it any contract that the article will either be accepted or published.” Sketch. To ConrripuToRS.—The Editor will be glad to consider ady short stories, not exceeding 2500 words in length, if accompanied by a stamped and addressed envelope for return if not accepted. Contributions must be written on one side of the paper only, and should be sent to the Sketch. Manuscript Department, 198, Strand, W.C. The full name —  Bier cata SE Seu lesan eRe emus a ais eas THE AUTHOR. and address of the author must be written on the manu- script itself. Paragraphs must be strictly original, smartly written, and up to date. Every effort will be made to return manuscript when unsuitable, but the Editor will not hold himself responsible for any accident or loss. To Artists.—Sketches which refer to events of the day, or which deal with humorous subjects, may be submitted to the Editor, if accompanied by stamped envelope for return if not accepted. Sketches should be addressed to the Sketch, 198, Strand, W.C. Intending contributors and artists should remember that our motto is “ art and actuality.” Society. Novice To CORRESPONDENTS.—The Editor is compelled to announce that he will not be responsible for any MSS. sent to him, nor will he guarantee their return, even if stamps are enclosed for the purpose. Authors should therefore keep copies of their contributions if they value them highly. Speaker. The Editor cannot return MSS. which are sent to him licited. . unsolicite Spectator. The Editor cannot undertake to return MSS. in any case. Sunday Chronicle. Notices. — Should any difficulty be experienced in obtaining the Sunday Chronicle complaints, should be made to the Chief Office, Mark-lane, Manchester. On all business matters communications should be addressed to the firm, and not to any individual member thereof. No notice will be taken of anonymous letters. Every communication should be authenticated with the name and address of the writer, not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. Articles, stories, sketches, verses, and other contributions should be addressed to the Editor, who, how- ever, does not hold himself responsible for the return of rejected manuscripts. Where stamps are enclosed, and the name and address written on the manuscript, every effort will be made to promptly return unaccepted articles.—E. HvuuitTon Anp Co. Onited Service Gazette. We would draw the attention of our correspondents to the importance of writing legibly, and on one side of the paper only. MSS. cannot be returned unless accompanied by stamps. : 2 University Extension Journal. The Editor cannot undertake to return rejected commu- nications unless stamps are inclosed for that purpose. Vegetarian Messenger. MSS. are not returned unless accompanied with a request to that effect. Winter's Magazine. Owing to the great number of MSS. already accepted, the Editor has no opening for further contributions at present, and none will be read for the present unless sent by request. No MS. returned unless accompanied by fully stamped and addressed envelope. : Writer. Contributions not used will be returned if a stamped and addressed envelope is inclosed. The following magazines, &c., contain no notice: —Admiralty and Forse Guards’ Gazette, All the Year Round, Amateur Photographer, Argosy, British Architect, Chemical News, Christian Pictorial, Christian World, Civil Service Gazette, Contemporary Review, Edinburgh 329 Review, Electrical Review, Engineering, Family Herald, Gentleman’s Magazine, Graphic, Harper's Magazine, Illustrated London News, Minstrel, Modern Society, National Church, Public Opinion, Science and Art, Science Sift- ings, Strand Magazine, Tit-Bits, Vegetarian, World. AUTHORS AND THEIR PUBLIC IN ANCIENT TIMES.* HE above title belongs to a book just issued by Mr. George Haven Putnam, of the American publishing house, G. C. Put- nam’s Sons. It is an inquiry into the origin of literary property and the development of the publisher. The latter, one perceives, must pre- cede the former, for when a poet has completed his work, he may go about reading it or reciting it himself, or he may get others to do it for him, Those who recited for the poet were the first publishers. The minstrels who sang or recited the Homeric poems were the first publishers of Homer. When literature advanced—or de- generated — into the selling of poems, there must have been someone to manage the business, unless the poet himself sold his own productions. Thus arose the publisher of latter times. When literature became commercially valuable, then authors began to guard their property, to protect themselves from ‘plagiarists and from pirates. Mr. Putnam traces this birth and growth of literary property from the earliest historic time to the invention of printing. The subject is interesting, the treatment is adequate. One observes, however, that the book speaks uniformly, and with intention, of the author's interest in his own book as his “ compensation.” The word is not used in our sense, but, apparently, in the sense of “payment.” It should be pointed out that the word begs the question. It assumes that the book is the property of the distributor— as well assume that an estate is the property of the agent or the steward. Mr. Putnam begins at the beginning—with Chaldeza. But we will pass over a thousand years. We thus find ourselves in Greece, where reading and writing were taught in schools as early as 500 B.c. But about the dissemina- tion and circulation of books to read at this early period there is nothing known with any certainty. Later on there were frequent charges of plagiarism. As regards payment for literary work, some of the oration: were written for *“ A Sketch of Literary Conditions, and of the Relations with the Public of Literary Producers from the Earliest Times to the Invention of Printing.’ By G. H. Putnam. 33° order, and perhaps the dramatist had at one time a share in the receipts of the play. The works of Plato and Aristotle were certainly published and sold, but perhaps not for the authors’ profit. Copyists had to be paid. Probably at first the “ cost of production” was the only thing that ruled the price of a MS. There were, however, so nfany libraries that the copying of books and their distribution must have become a trade. At the theatre, between the performances, books were hawked about, which was also a practice of the Elizabethan stage. If books were sold, there must have been booksellers. And the export of books is indicated by the fact that an Athenian ship, wrecked at Salmydessus, a city of the Euxine, contained as part of her cargo chests full of valuable books. Booksellers are mentioned about the year 330 B.c.; and in the list by Nicophon, also of this date, of those who carried on trade in the market are found the booksellers. And there is a story of Zeno, who was shipwrecked and lost all his property near the Pireus. When he arrived at Athens, a beggar, he was consoled by certain words of counsel read aloud by a bookseller. But the name of no Greek publisher or bookseller has been handed down. The centre of literary activity was transferred, in the third century before Christ, from Athens to Alexandria. The famous library of the latter city contained 500,000 rolls, but of these many were duplicates, and of some works there were scores—hundreds. Authorship in Rome presents two novel features—that of being a lucrative pursuit for the author and that of the modern pretence of regarding the work as a pastime, or as forced upon the writer by the dictates of genius. At this time also we first hear the names of pub- lishers. The best known of these, the richest and most important, was Atticus. He organised his book-manufacturing establishment in Rome, with connections in Athens and Alexandria, about the year 65 B.c. He was also a scholar and an author, and in addition to his publishing business he was a banker. Cicero confided to Atticus the publication of all his works, “ Ligarianum preclare vendidisti; posthac, quidquid scripsero, tibi preconium deferam.” So that Cicero looked to the sale of his works for profit; and the words show that there were other publishers. It also appears from the same letter that he took a royalty or a share in the profits. From another letter it appears that complimentary copies were sent out by the publisher. There is nothing to show what share of profits to either party was considered just and fair by the two parties. While Cicero, a better man of business, took his share, Martial THE AUTHOR. sold his books fora round sum down. All the poets of the Augustan age, in the opinion of Simcox, hoped to make a profit by the sale of their books. They had other expectations from the patronage of the emperor and of rich men, but they looked to the trade for the most certain and most steady income. Martial lets us know where one shop, at least, was situated. ‘‘ The doors,” he said, ‘‘ on both sides are covered with the names of poets, so arranged that they can be run through at a glance. Within, the master of the shop will take down, without waiting to be asked twice, a copy of any poem asked for, well finished, and beautifully bound.” At the book shops, too, scholars and men of culture met to discuss literary matters, and. to look at the new books and at the rare old MSS. There were great shipments of books sent to different parts of the Empire. “ Remainders,” &ec., were sent off to the provinces, And, as at the present time, though there was an enormous trade in books, the poet or author who lived by his writings followed, for the most part, a hard and badly paid profession. The literary activity and the book trade of Rome were ruined, as Mr. Putnam shows, by the growing power and influ- ence of the Christian Church. A short chapter on Constantinople finishes the volume. The literature of Western Europe in the Middle Ages is not touched upon. Why not? The book announces itself as covering the ground “ To the Invention of Printing.” But Dante and Chaucer appeared before Caxton. The Troubadours and Trouvéres got their works published, though they had no printer. Surely it would be interesting to the general reader to learn how their poems were multiplied, and how they were sold. But the medieval publisher, in fact, can hardly be said to have existed. In the year 1292, the whole book trade of Paris consisted of 24 copyists, 17 bookbinders, 19 parchment makers, 13 ilumina- tors, and 8 dealers in MSS., otherwise book- sellers. One would like the corresponding figures for London, Oxford, and Cambridge. Mr. Putnam, however, may plead that he follows the example of Lacroix, who, in his three great volumes on the Middle Ages, can find no place for mention of the bookseller. eee BOOK-TALK. R. DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY has added to his novels, which are now becoming numerous, a small volume called “The Making of a Novelist: an Experi- ment in Autobiography.” The author here suggests reflection on two entirely different though THE AUTHOR. allied subjects, the art of the novelist and the art of the autobiographer. He has also some- thing to say on actors and the art of acting, which is particularly appropriate as an illustra- tion to his experiment, because the actor’s life exhibits exactly the same contrast which other men can only find in their books. He has his real life, which is his work of biography, and his stage life, which is the work of fiction. The whole series of questions which surround the art of fiction may be regarded as taking their begin- ning from a principle described by Mr. Murray in the opening sentences of his tenth chapter. He says, “there is a theory to the effect that every man or woman in the world could write at least one readable and instructive novel out of his own or her own actual experience. There is a very apparent disposition to put the idea to the test of practice, though happily not more than half the world’s population has been so far animated by it.” This theory, or prin- ciple, or better, perhaps, hypothesis, seems to us in one way to be very incomplete; it begs the question of literary ability, and it must become more difficult with each succeeding year for every literary aspirant to recognise whether he has the literary gift or not. According to the above sarcastic computation that not more than half the world labour under the idea that they possess it, how shall they know whether it is a delusion or a happy reality? In actual practice the enlightenment is brought about by loss of money, but if this loss could be prevented without the loss of experience, however bitter, there would be less reticence in advising the failure in literature to try some other walk in life. We take it that this theory ought to be rather stated thus: Granting that it is true that most people’s lives are not so entirely dull but that a good story could be made out of them, yet only ten persons in a hundred would have the ability to write it for themselves, while out of the remaining ninety, at least seventy would have received the educational requirements, in these days of extensive teaching, and if a man should mistake an acquired knowledge of words and their arrangement for original ideas—all the blame must now lie at the door of the pedagogues. Translated into modern equivalents—the com- plaint of Caliban is easily paralleled. Thou hast taught me letters, and the profit of it is that I know how to write a dull book. Might not this bea good reason, if not a good excuse, for “ not more than half the world”? It would seem that we ought rather to welcome this apparent disposi- tion to write one’s life story as a test, not, indeed, of ability to write anything, but certainly of ability to write a tale. But that is not all—ifa 331 man could write his own story, it does not follow that he could write a second, for the method of analysing one’s own life must be different from the method which depends entirely upon inven- tion, and here arises the question how far a man has a right to draw on the confidence of others. We should say no right whatever, though observa- tion must be perfectly free. So it appears that Mr. Murray has brought us face to face again with “method” in its philosophical sense, and “methods”? in their application to the art of story-tellmg. As he tells us of his varied experiences, he notes how he has used one incident in one story and one in another. His plan would seem to be that, though having foundation in fact, the incidents should be arranged with an eye to poetic justice. Realties must not be so harsh as to reduce the romantic element to a minimum ; romance must be so heightened that it should gain rather than lose by being found in strange places. And how well Mr. Murray has followed this method there are his own romances to show. He also tells us in the preface to this book what attitude he takes towards other auto- biographies when he approaches his own experi- ment. Unfortunately the preface is all too short. We read what he thinks of Pepys and also of Rousseau, that the latter is flatly mtolerable, and the former as near success as apy autobiographer has yet achieved. And this seems to be his whole opinion in one sentence. “If the real man could be presented to us by any writer of his own history we should all hail him with enthusiasm.” In what sense is it possible to have autobiography more real than that of the novelist putting him- self into his books? Surely he would be far more likely to transcribe the truth and give the real reasons for his actions than if he tried to describe himself among places and people with their real names and relationships. There are so many classics of biography and autobiography, that if Mr. Murray should ever see his way to giving us his opinion about them it would be very welcome, because the criticism of great books, by one who has gone through so much besides books, would be sure to have something delightfully original about it. The current number of the Lorum contains a remarkable article, which is at once an in- dictment and a speculation. It proceeds from the pen of Mr. Sydney G. Fisher, who, as we learn from the same periodical, practices at the Philadelphia Bar. We are thus asked to consider the opinion of a lawyer, and therefore one trained to know the value of evidence, upon a question of pure literature, and so of as much interest to one English speaking people as to another. Mr. Fisher asks the question, “ Has 332 immigration dried up our (¢e., American) literature ?”’ And he comes to the mournful con- clusion that the United States has had no man of letters, born after 1825, who could produce any work of power and genius. All is decay, and, apparently, for this extraordinary state of things there is but one cause. Before 1825 the Americans were a pure race ; since 1825 they have been a mixed race, and the writer presses his argument home by pointing out that Massa- chusetts, which was colonised from one stock in 1640, and afterwards kept itself very much to itself by persecuting fresh arrivals, has produced sixteen out of the twenty-two greatest names in American literature. Therefore, he argues, unity and purity of blood is the cause of literary genius. In such speculations it seems impossible to make the case approach completeness on either side. If there had been no immigration, would it have neces- sarily followed that Massachusetts would have continued to produce writers of power and genius, or, as we should callthem, imaginative writers. The drift of Mr. Fisher’s remarks seems to imply that it would. Literature of genius, he says, is not the expression of the man who writes it ; it is the expression of the deep united feeling of the people Massachusetts, once the home of a pure native stock, has more than 50 per cent. of her population foreign Her homo- geneousness and her literature are destroyed. There is very frequent use of the word “ homo- geneous ’ in this article, and _ to Englishmen it must seem to be slightly ambiguous, from the usual cause, the history and derivation of the word seem to be confused with its acquired meaning. Here it invariably means of the same blood, race, or stock, but we in England are not accustomed to give the term such a restricted meaning. And Mr. Fisher himself writes one sentence which shows that he also uses it in a different sense: “ Savage tribes and half-civilised natures have been homogeneous without having any literature at all.” We, too, in England could say that a savage tribe was homogeneous, but not entirely because of the unity of blood, but because of the unity of occupation. A savage paradise is one in which all the men are hunters and all the women cooks. Massachusetts was not homo- geneous ; in this sense, it was as heterogeneous as circumstances compelled it to be, or there could have been no literature, and therefore instead of asking the question, “ Has immigration dried up imaginative power?” we ought rather to put it thus: “ How long does it take for new settlers, speaking other tongues, and with other habits, so to assimilate their speech and custom to those of the existing population, that one language, whether used in conversation, or in oratory, or in ‘THE AUTHOR. the written literature of all kinds, shall be suffi- cient to express all their most complex modes of thought and their finest shades of feeling?” Three generations, we should say, which must mean at the least seventy years, because the aver- age grandparent is seventy before the grandchild can take an interest in literature. But where the immigration is still going on it must take longer. Now it is barely seventy years since 1825. And there is another view. This mixed race, whose literary shortcomings Mr. Fisher laments, will not probably look to our English literature Elizabethan or Stuart as in any sense theirs; why should French-Canadians and Irishmen care about the English literature, with their constant attitude of hatred toward England and all things English? It follows that New America intends to begin again, and not to let “a deep, strong passion, or a bold grasp of the eternal verities, frighten them out of their wits,’ as Mr. Fisher declares. But strong passions and a bold grasp are the property of the drama, and we English, who read American literature, with as much curiosity perhaps as interest, wonder what sort of a national drama America is going to produce. A people do not deserve to be called a nation by comparison with other nations till they have pro- duced a natioual drama; it isthe drama to which we allude when we speak of the “best that has been thought and said” in Greece, France, and England. J. W.S. Dec A TOAST. — es [The entire mess of the 117th Yaroslav Infantry Regiment, stationed at Slonim, near Grodno, have lately joined the Anglo-Russian Literary Society at the Imperial Institute. ] “ Zdravstuwityé!” (your Russian greeting Puts one’s jawbone out of gear ! Surely, for a ‘ word of fear,” This would take a lot of beating !) Still, Ivan, don’t take offence, or Think we’d criticise your speech— All the same, we’re out of reach Of your extra-touchy censor. And we care not if the latter, Should he read these lines so far, Black the lot with his “ caviar ”— Nichevé, it doesn’t matter ! Well, let’s send congratulations To the Slavs at far Slonim, E’en though some “an idle dream” Call the comity of nations. May these messmates long in Grodno Quaff their quass, and sip their stchi; Though their vodka potent be, Let them ne’er sensations odd know ! Here’s their health! though Britons never, Never will be Slavs, but yet We, too, can at times forget Rivalries that races sever !—ARTHUR A. SYKES.  THE AUTHOR. NOTES AND NEWS. SHOULD lke to remind readers that I have invited their opinion as to the best way of noting new books, I suggest a short description of each book—not a judgment upon it, or a review of it, either laudatory or the reverse—but a plain statement of what the book contains. This method, however, can hardly apply to fiction, in which the most useless and the most mischievous form of notice or review is to tell the story. In that case we can only announce the book. oo As appears in another place, Mr. F. Howard Collins proposes to make an investigation into the subject of correction charges in the only practical way possible. He wants the first proofs as they were marked for correction, and the charges afterwards made for correction in the publisher’s accounts. The proofs without the account or the account without the proofs will be of no use whatever. It was shown in the December number of this journal (1) that corrections are charged by the printer at one shilling or one-and-twopence an hour, accord- ing to the returns made by the foreman; (2) that about eighteen words can be changed in the hour; but (3) that overrunning or altering lines increases the work, and therefore the expense. The way to examine the charge under this head is to count the words, find what amount of overrunning has been caused, and so to get approximately at the fairness or the false- ness of the charge. I have seen an account rendered to the author, in which over £100—I think it was £108—was charged for corrections. This means, at 1s. 2d. an hour, counting ten hours’ work for the day, and a week of five and a half days, 1851 hours, or 185 days, or 33-7; weeks— say, about three times the cost of original com- en But I confess that this stupendous flight of imagination is unique in my experience. —— Do literary men hate each other? The thing has been often asserted, and without doubt part of the contempt with which the world certainly regards the literary profession is due to the way in which literary men have been constantly en- gaged in abusirg and “ slating’ each other. Some kind of decency has been introduced of late years, but there still survives in certain quarters the belief that because a man has written a book, or many books, he has therefore acquired the right to criticise—that is, to abuse and misrepresent— everybody else who writes a book. Nothing is more agreeable to the spiteful mind than the belief that spitefulness is a duty. VOL, IV. 333 I do not find that the better class of writers regard other writers with either envy, hatred, or malice. On the contrary, I find among them— always with one or two exceptions—the most kindly disposition towards each other, and the greatest desire to welcome and encourage the younger men. But undoubtedly there are writers who love nothing so much as to be continually down-crying, depreciating, and abusing. They go out of their way to speak evil—especially of women—and more especially still of women when they begin to enjoy a small measure of popular favour. But I do think that it is not true that literary men regard each other with hatred. Certainly there are groups of men who do not. Everybody remembers the famous group of Southey, Lamb, Coleridge, and Wordsworth. These men actually loved each other, and that with a real genuine belief in each other, and an affection which nothing could destroy. Campbell’s Life of Coleridge brings out this affection very strongly. “ The most wonderful man I ever knew,’’ said Wordsworth of Coleridge, who put the friend- ship to the strongest tests. And Coleridge writes that on hearing the death of John Wordsworth he went to bed for a fortnight. Did he really go to bed for a fortnight? Is that possible? Or was this only a figure of speech to denote the depth and reality of his sympathy ? In every literary generation, that is in every ten years, there is such a group of young men who believe in each other. For the most part after ten years they have flown apart in different directions. But, for the time, they love and respect each other. All that we ask is that they shall so far continue to respect each other as to use the outward forms of politeness for the sake of the dignity of literature. —_. A little book has been sent to me called “ Rambles in Books.” The idea is one that I think might be taken up with advantage. It is that of a brief talk about books, an account of what is remarkable in a book; anything noteworthy about its history, its author, its reception. One can understand ‘how such a book might be made most delightful to read—to some, indeed, reading about books and bookmakers is more delightful than to read the books themselves. There are many books, certainly, which some of us never intend to read; but we like to read about them and about their authors. Or, instead of many rambles by different men, could we have a monthly or a weekly magazine all about books ? We have all got books about which we could tell stories —old books, first editions, forgotten books. There are the forgotten novelists ; I have rows of EE 334 them, chiefly of the eghteenth century—poor forlorn creatures, wrapped and lapped in long oblivion (richly deserved). Think of their grati- tude at being revived again for a brief day of remembrance! There are dramatists, poets, essayists—nobody knows how many essayists there are standing side by side in shameful oblivion. Think of the awful fate of standing on a shelf in the British Museum Library, never, never, never to be taken down at all! And all the time, like every young neglected poet, conscious of superior merit! One would even pray for a fire, and so ascend to Heaven—and Fame— in a flight of sparks. I should call this magazine “The Bookshelf,” or “The Bookstall,’ or “The Book of Oblivion.” I know the right man to edit it, and I really think it would pay its expenses. But, if we cannot have a magazine, let me recommend the idea to editors. ‘ Rambles among Books,” with a page or two pages, and no more, to every book, and an immense staff of bookish men—not that every author is bookish— to write the Rambles for them. Once, says the Saturday Review, there was a missionary in Pulo Penang who came back to France in the year 1854, or thereabouts, and published a book, in which occurred the following story. A Chinese woman, named Wang, had an enemy, who died. After her death the enemy continued her hostilities, knocking about the furniture and throwing stones at the windows. The lady naturally sent for an exorcist. It is what we should all do ourselves. The exorcist observing that plaster and tiles dropped from the roof, remarked that if the devil would only drop money there would be some sense in it. Instantly money was dropped; and it was observed that the coins were wet. The exorcist proceeded with his Mumbo Jumbo, and when the devil had been properly exorcised, he left the house. Outside he met a water carrier who was lamenting the loss of his money. All the coins he had taken that day he had dropped into one of his water cans, and they had mysteriously disappeared. In other words, the devil could only find money by stealing somebody’s money. This little fact, that if the Slave of the Lamp, or the Slave of the Ring, is told to bring her master anything she must steal it from someone else, was therefore understood and appreciated in Pulo Penang so long ago as 1854. In 1886, or there- abouts, a story appeared in Longman’s Magazine by Mr. Walter Herries Pollock and myself, called “The Wishing Cap,” in which exactly the same proposition was advanced and became the motif of the story. It is, you see, impossible to invent anything. THE AUTHOR. A correspondent calls attention to the figures given in the last number of the Author as to the sum received by the S.P.C.K. for a shilling book. I have answered his letter in a note. The society has depots, or offices, in various places ; it has also in smaller places certain shops where its books are sold. These shops and branches are all part of its machinery. <A secular publisher has an office in New York as well as one in London; if he had other offices in Man- chester, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Leeds, they would all be part of the machinery. Subscribers to the S.P.C.K. were formerly, and I believe are still, entitled to buy shilling books for ninepence. Whether the general public are now entitled to the 25 per cent. discount I do not know. The principal purchasers of the books published by the “Literary Handmaid to the Church”’ are, Tam informed, subscribers, either at the depots, or from the central offices, so that ninepence, and not sevenpence, is the average price of one of their shilling books, And it must be observed and kept in mind that the word “profit” on a trading transaction is used to signify the differ- ence between price realised and cost of production. The society, in a certain document, tried to represent profit as what is left after all ex- penses are paid. This is as if a publishing company were to represent as profit what was left after all the servants, all the clerks, all the accountants, all the readers, and all the directors had drawn their wages and their salaries and their shares, This is dividend, not profit. This is the saving of the year, not the profit of the year. The profit pays for the establishment, and in a private firm what is left over is savings, not profit. Two or three correspondents have written for advice concerning a new magazine, The follow- ing is its circular, in which we suppress the title : The objects for which the Audaz has been called into exist- ence are :—Firstly, to enable new and occasional writers of talent to have their tales and poems published in a high- class magazine, side by side with the productions of popular authors of world-wide celebrity. Secondly, to restore poetry to its rightful position as an honoured and prominent feature of present day literature. Thirdly, in the spirit of its title to deal with all subjects caleulated to make life more joyful and harmonious. The difficulty of securing a foothold upon even the fir-t rung of the ladder of literary success is well known to all who have made the endeavour. ‘The editors of popular papers are so deluged with manuscripts that ninety-nine out of every hundred must be rejected, while poetry is usually relegated to the waste paper basket without even being read. Tt is true that there are amateur journals where the payment of a fee will usually secure the insertion of an article, whether worthy of print or not; but it is needless to say that no author who has any regard for his reputation and prospects would risk both by allowing his name to appear in such publications,  THE AUTHOR. The Audaw will not bein any sense an amateur journal. On the contrary, it will be contributed to by some of the most celebrated litterateurs and poets of the day. At the same time a full half of its space will be devoted to the contribu- tions of its subscribers, who will thus have the advantage of an introduction to literature under the most favourable auspices, such as is offered by no other magazine in existence. And further, when a manuscript is received which is faulty, either in style, construction, or otherwise, the editor will in all cases be happy to give his advice, and, if requested, to revise the article, and make such alterations and corrections as to fit it for publication. In order to prevent a greater influx of manuscripts than it would be possible to deal with, these privileges and advan- tages are strictly confined to annual subscribers. The annual subscription, post free, is 7s., but to those who subscribe before Feb. 1 next it will be 5s. only. Sub- seribers paying before that date will be known as foundation subscribers, and their contributions to Audaz will have a preferential claim to consideration and acceptance. Numerous prizes will be awarded each month, in cash, books, musical instruments, &c., and it is hoped shortly to offer for competition scholarships in music at the Guildhall and other colleges. In No. 1 will be announced a scheme whereby it will be possible for almost every reader of Audaz to become the possessor of a high-class type-writer, with all the latest improvements, selected from such famous makes as the Remington, Caligraph, Densmore, Bar-Lock, Yost, Hammond, Munson, and Williams. Type-writing is a profitable and elegant accomplishment for educated ladies, and an invaluable aid to literary men, and this opportunity of obtaining an expensive machine without any expenditure whatever will doubtless be largely taken advantage of. There is no royal road to literature, even through a magazine which professes to be more open to beginners than the ordinary monthly. It is, indeed, obvious that no magazine can command success except for the interest and attraction of its columns, and this magazine must either resort to the usual method of trying to be attractive or it will be a failure. Now, if it is to prove attractive, it must print only good work. What chance will poor work have with this magazine more than with other magazines? However, let those who hesitate take in a few numbers, wait, hear the experience of others, and then, if they are satisfied that it is worth their while to become subscribers they can do so. Mr. John Murray, the publisher, wrote to the Times (Thursday, Jan. 18) a letter of warning concerning a certain person who was said to be going round using his name as a recommenda- tion. The following appeared in corroboration on Monday, Jan. 22: Mr. Mackenzie Bell writes with reference to the letter of Mr. John Murray which appeared on Thursday :— “ Mr. ‘ Wilson’s’ plan of action seems often to be to repre- sent himself to authors as coming from their publishers on ‘literary business.’ He did so in my own case. I am informed by friends who have seen him (I was absent when he called upon me) that he looks like one with whom the world has dealt somewhat hardly. But this does not justify his conduct.”—“H. H. F.,”’ writing from Kensing- 335 ton, says :—‘ The man Wilson, to whose plan of campaign Mr. John Murray has called attention, paid me a visit not long ago, relating a piteous tale of misfortune and want, and representing that he had been advised to come to me in search of work as amanuensis or proof-reader by a firm of publishers with whom I have had dealings. He stated that he had been employed some time ago as private secretary by ‘Ouida,’ and that he had acted quite recently as amanuensis to Mr. Marion Crawford in Italy. He gave a very circum- stantial account of his relations with these authors, and altogether gave the impression of being a man who deserved help. He has doubtless victimised many others, who, like myself, were imposed upon by his plausibility, and moved to pity by his appearance and manner.” Mr. Sidney Lee writes also to the Tvmes from 108, Lexham-gardens, Kensington, W., Jan. 22: I also have been visited by “‘ Mr. Wilson.” He called here thrice, and on the last occasion succeeded in finding me. According to his story, which sounded improbable and proved untrue, he had been sent to me by a well-known novelist, with whom, as it happened, I was well acquainted. He then proceeded to deliver friendly messages to me, with which he insisted he had been charged by “ Ouida” and Mr. Marion Crawford, although I explained that neither of those writers was personally known to me. Finally he represented himself as an amanuensis or secretary in great distress, and spoke snatches of Italian to illustrate his linguistic faculty. To get rid of him was difficult. How- ever, I gave him a shilling, and bade him never come again. He replied that the gentleman he had first mentioned to me never dismissed him with less than half a sovereign. Mr. Wilson has also called upon me. I do not remember that he used the name of Mr. Murray or of any other publisher. But he certainly stated that he had been the private secretary of the lady who writes under the name of “ Ouida,” and he told me several anecdotes of his expe- riences while in her employment. I think, but am not quite certain, that he also mentioned Mr. Marion Crawford as an employer. He was plau- sible, very much down on his luck, and, on the whole, impostor or not, gave me the idea of a man who was to be pitied—and assisted. I therefore assisted him with a trifle. If he calls again I shall take his name and address, and forward both to the Charity Organisation Society. There is a Society called the “ Literary Revi- sion Society Limited,” of which I know nothing good or bad. Therefore lam not going out of my way to attack or to defend its modes and methods, objects and aims. The committee consist of three, the “ Rev. R. A. Westhorp, of Croydon ; Mr. C. W. P. Overend, barrister-at-law ; and Mr. F. W. Sabin, journalist.” No secretary’s name occurs on the paper before me. This paper is an announcement of a prize story competition. Now, it is perfectly within the right of anyone to offer prizes for a competition in anything. At least, I suppose so, being in complete ignorance of the law in the matter of competitions. The “ Society”’ offer four prizes—one of £50, one of £25, one of 336 £15, and one of £10, for stories of length between 60,000 and 80,000 words. Hach story must be accompanied by half a guinea “ towards the cost of perusal.” If there are 300 competitors, the readers will therefore pocket 150 guineas. But, if the committee award no prizes they will return the half guineas, with the stories, tothe competi- tors. In that case the readers will have done their work for nothing, and the ‘“ Society” will lose the postage of the MSS., which at 6d. a piece amounts to £7 10s. on the 300 parcels. Or, if the reading—because nine-tenths certainly will need only a glance to be set aside—be neglected, the 300 competitors will by their half guineas pay for the prizes, and leave fifty guineas over for the society. Or, suppose the wisdom of the committee were to decide that only one, the fourth prize, should be awarded, then the Society would pocket 140 guineas. Of course, there may not be so many competitors. Perhaps there would be only twenty. In that case the above figures mean nothing. But it is as well always to take into account possibilities of great as well as of small numbers. eee There is another little difficulty. A story of 80,000 words — which is about the length of “Treasure Island’? —if it is a good story, is worth a great deal more—a very great deal more —than £10, £15, £25, or £50. Only the holy and venerable Society for the Promotion of Chris- tian Knowledge offers such rewards for good stories. If, therefore, the “Literary Revision Society ” proposes to keep and to handle for its own profit the successful stories, one would seriously advise intending competitors to offer their work first to editors or publishers; when they have ascertained that they cannot place them satis- factorily it will be time to send them in to the competition. But the latest time allowed is March 31. Never mind. There seems every probability that the competition, if not by this “Society,” then by some other enterprising persons, will be renewed. If the “Society ’’ give these prizes out of sheer benevolence, and for the encouragement of literature, allowing the author to retain his copyright, and to publish where he pleases, then the above remarks do not apply. The “ Wilkie Collins’ memorial,” consisting of a library of fiction, has been placed by Mr. Harry Quilter in the room set apart for it at the People’s Palace. Mr. Quilter has had the room painted and papered, has furnished it with chairs and tables, and has hung the walls with reproductions of celebrated pictures. The books consist, with the exception of some poetical works, entirely of novels. They number at present about 1100, THE AUTHOR. but a few sets of novels remain to be added. Mr. Quilter, in communicating the completion of his labours to the 7imes, adds, that any sub- seriber to the fund will receive in due course a detailed account of the expenditure. Water Besant. sec FEUILLETON. Avencep: A Warnine To AUTHORS. OT so very many years ago Mr. Reginald \ Legrath dabbled in literature a little. That was before his uncle died and left him the money on which to set up as a country squire. He wrote in those former days under the name of “ Roger Rixon;” but I doubt whether an ungrateful world remembers either the name or the stories which appeared above it. Young Reggie was at the little seaport of Mul- wick on the Yorkshire coast in the summer of 1887. He used to write dialect stories—lite among the poor, and that sort of thing. He never made any actual attempt (he had some wisdom) to earn his living by his pen; even in his poverty-stricken days he enjoyed a very com- fortable allowance, and he used to dwell on things considerably before he worked himself up to write a story, He spent all the summer of that year at Mul- wick, and gave his friends to understand that he was collecting material for an important novel about fisher-folk and herring boats, and moaning harbour-bars. He did a little in the sketch- ing way, too, now I remember, though he was but a finicking performer with the pencil—however, that is a mere detail. The Mulwick fishermen are very good fellows, and Reggie made himself agreeable to them, as he very well knew how; he used to talk to them by the hour together—all with a view to his story, though he never told them that. He got all their family histories out of them; and every night before he went to bed he made notes of what he had heard. By the end of the summer, and when it was time to go home, the young man’s popularity in the place was immense, and everybody was sorry to lose him. All the children, to whom he had been in the habit of giving toffy and other noxious compounds, wept freely, and refused to be comforted; even Reggie’s landlady, a hard- hearted Calvinist, hitherto supposed to be desti- tute of all feeling, was deeply attected, and begged him to come again. The young man faithfully promised he would; lodgers always do promise that. THE AUTHOR. It was in the autumn of the following year that ‘John Harrowing’s Ordeal,’ a one volume novel, appeared, and met, it must be confessed, with but an indifferent reception, Somehow, the public were “off” the fisherman business that year. Still, the fact remains that, with any and all faults it had, the book was, to a certain extent a faithful picture of the place where the scenes of the story were laid. I knew Mulwick myself, and the people who lived there, and when I read the “ Ordeal” (Oh, Richard Feverell, thou art responsible for much!) I was amazed to find how well Reggie had done the thing. There was no mistake about the place, for it was set down by name, besides being very faith- fully described; and the inhabitants were all set down by name too, and perfectly easy of identifi- cation, excepting only John Harrowing himself, who was (so Legrath informed me) a creation of his own; and that personage was a good deal of a bore. Most of the incidents, however (some of which were of an exciting character), were solely due to Reggie’s fertile imagination. The youth was pleased with his performance ; he could not understand why there was no call for asecond edition. He did not go to Mulwick again, as he had told the guileless inhabitants he would; perhaps he felt that he had exhausted the place. He went to Cornwall for two summers in succession with a sketching party, and forgot all about the Yorkshire fishing village, or the simple folk who lived there. But they did not forget about him. It had never occurred to Reggie that his book might get to that remote region, but it did, and a terrific sensation it produced. The station-master of Mulwick was quite a literary character in his way, and he got hold of “John Harrowing’s Ordeal” in the ordinary course of his reading. He had not struggled through three pages of Chapter I. when he was thunderstruck to find himself set down in black and white, and by name, too, as having com- mitted a murder. Looking on, he found that a number of his fellows were similarly pilloried, though there was no one who was such a deep- dyed criminal as himself, the others being merely accessories after the act. This worthy official, who would not have dreamed of hurting a fly, dashed his gold-laced cap to the ground in a perfect transport of fury, and set himself to discover the perpetrator of the atrocity. He did not know who “ Roger Rixon” might be, but a knowing correspondent in the Yorkshire Argus that same week, who did the literary column, and who “ happened to know,” when reviewing the book stated Mr. Legrath’s real name in brackets after the nom de plume, 337 and thus discovered the offender to the indignant station-master. That worthy, armed with this evidence—and the “ Ordeal” —marched up into the village one evening, and convened an informal sort of town’s meeting in the schoolroom. Here on four succes- sive evenings he read the book aloud—the school- master kindly relieving him when he grew hoarse —amid a scene of such excitement as that peace- ful little port had seldom witnessed. It was a great shock to all right-minded persons to find—as they did within twenty minutes— their respectable station-master saddled with the commission of a terrible crime, and the sympathies of all were extended to him in such a trying situation. But soon it was each man for him- self ; his own injuries demanded his attention. As, one by one, the characters were identified —the reader, to avoid any misconception, looking up from his book in order to indicate with a relentless forefinger the persons named—fresh bursts of execration arose. What especially angered the people was that Reggie had not got ‘properly hold of the dialect, but had supplied his characters with a mongrel speech, half Scotch, half English; “the Neweastle twang” they called it. There was not much humour in the book, but ~ what little there was was supplied by the author’s landlady, who lifted up her voice and wept at the remarks she was set down as uttermg. No vestige of a smile appeared at any of poor Reggie’s jokes; they were felt to be more insulting even than the serious writing. The love story had for its hero a respectable young married man, who sat open-mouthed in astonish- ment when he was sent courting again, and whose wife was nasty with him about it for days afterwards. Mr. Legrath had been too lazy to alter any of his names, and the only character who gave any trouble on the score of identificatign was his own creation, “John Harrowing.” ‘This personage, by general consent, and from the fact of the in- disputable evidence of a black beard, was set down (quite erroneously) as the harbour-master of Sandport, who, after the first evening, was accordingly brought over to attend the successive readings. When the “ Ordeal,’ was finished, and the station and school masters had been voted un- limited refreshment, a great and solemn resolu- tion of censure was passed, and it was decided that if ever Mr. Reginald Legrath should come that way again he should be made to smart for it. The ridicule of being “ put in the paapers”’ was enough to keep hot the anger within the people for an indefinite period. 338 Mr. Reginald Legrath, all unconscious of the sensation which his work had produced among that small section of the public who “ took the liberty to reside” at Mulwick, enjoyed himself amazingly in his two sketching parties in Cornwall. He met the same girl again the second year, and they became engaged. Her name was Firman—Laura Firman—a girl with a great deal of light hair and not too much sense. It did’nt really come off afterwards—this is a detail—and she married young Stockley, the painter. She broke it off before Reggie’s uncle died, or possibly—but there is no use in going into that. What is to the point is this: Reggie and Miss Firman, having exhausted Cornwall, the next simmer went up the East Coast sketching and idling, with Mrs. Firman, a nice mild old lady, to watch over them. In the course of their wander- ings they came up to Mulwick, having walked over from Sandport, where they were staying, one afternoon. Now, of course, Miss Laura had read the * Ordeal,” and considered it, as was natural, quite awork of genius. When she found they were coming to the scene of the story she was delighted. “Ts this weally the place ?’’ she asked (she had from long association with curates in early life entirely dropped all r’s out of her conversa- tion). “The very place,’ said Reggie, with pride. During the last half mile over the cliffs he had been expatiating on his labours while writing the novel. ‘The only way,’ he said with a solemn shake of the head, “is to live with the people as I did all that summer, and talk with them, get to know all about them, study their characters.” “Ah, yes!” said Miss Laura in a rapture. “JT was quite a favourite, I believe,” pursued the young man nonchalantly; “ everyone seemed honestly sorry to part with me.” “Why, of course they were,” with more rap- ture. “ And they’re really good, straightforward sort of people; there’s backbone about them ; their minds seem to be as muscular as their bodies” (Mr. Reggie was growing quite eloquent). “It has often struck me as amusing that they should never know of what use they have been to me.”’ “Yes ; isn’t it funny ?” _ “They'll remember me, you'll find, although it’s three years ago. They’re the best-hearted ae shall have a warm welcome you'll ind.” * Here the two lovers had to wait for Mrs. Firman, who had lagged behind. They all three entered the village together. THE AUTHOR. As they crossed the old stone bridge where the brook runs out on to the shingle, Reggie be- nignantly hailed a man who was leaning over the parapet: “ Hullo, Sam!” “Sam” started, turned round, glared upon the speaker, and without a word got off at a rapid pace up the village street. “What a howwid fwowning man!” Laura. “Did you know him, Weggie? “ Hr-er; no,” said Mr. Legrath somewhat dis- composedly; he began to point out the beauties of the landscape. “What are all these men coming for? ” lisped Miss Laura a few moments later. A crowd of fishermen was marching down towards the visitors in a determined manner. The rest of the story is almost too painful for narration. Reggie thought at first that the demonstration meant that he was to receive a triumphal welcome, and prepared himself to make a polite speech of thanks. He was speedily undeceived. Amid the shrieks of the two ladies and his own ineffectual struggles, the victim was seized ; the iniquity of his offence was made known to him, and a hurried court-martial was held. Some were for throwing him over the pier- head, and drowning him off-hand—the morose landlady spoke strongly in favour of this pro- ceeding; but the majority was more merciful. “ Put’n in the quay pool!” they cried. Then, while the distracted Miss Laura and her mother rushed about wildly calling for the — invisible police, poor Reggie was carried igno- miniously down to the harbour until he was nearly done for. Quay pools, to put it mildly, are not salubrious, and when the wretched man was at length allowed to stagger up on to comparatively dry ground, he presented an awful appearance. He was always a bit of a dandy, was Reggie, and he had been faultlessly arrayed in a new knicker- bocker suit, with spotless spats and lovely brown boots. Nearly all the rest of him was brown (with a mixture of many neutral tints) when he came out of the pool. He was a comic sight; but the fishermen were too indignant to discern the humour of the pro- ceeding. Old Sam, as spokesman, roared out to him one parting salute: “ That’ll teach thee to put folk i’ the paiapers!” Then they all turned, and left him to think it over. And Laura cooled to her “dear Weggie” from that moment. said Miss ) ANDREW HORNE. ee 1 x a THE AUTHOR. THE WOMEN OF TENNYSON. — N\HE Laureates’s women! That a poet of such delicate craftsmanship should have painted many pictures of the sex which is said to influence and inspire poetry most is, per- haps, natural; that so great a master of language and imagery should have failed to depict any woman (save, perhaps, Guinevere) “splendid, ardent, and passionful” is a subject for sincere regret. Elaine may be taken as the type of Tennysonian women, possessing all the exquisite, cold shallowness of her kind. Even Guinevere, whom we have excepted from the category, has a hardness of outline, a frigidity of pride encircling her womanhood which never allows her to lose the Queen in the woman, until she throws herself at her husband’s feet, and listens to his condemnation. This scene, how- ever, is instinct with the magic of the fairy land of Arthurian legend. In “The Lady of Shalott,” which is one of Tennyson’s most popular poems, the heroine is delightful, dainty, enticing, but she is not one of flesh and blood. The qualities, indeed, which Lord Tennyson’s women characters almost all of them lack. The poem is a picture of the class of “St. Agnes’ Eve”’ rather than a presentment of humanity. It is characterised rather by spiritu- ality than humanity. In (none, it is true we have a trace of passion, but it is that rather of a child than ofa woman. A child’s passion in its abandonment. Lord Tennyson’s muse is far less dominated by woman, and sympathy for her weaknesses and femininity, than either that of Swinburne or Dante Rossetti. Even in ‘‘ Maud,” a poem which with younger readers is probably more popular than any other, the heroine is only sketched, “youghed in” so to speak. She is not a finished portrait, nor does she in the sense of reality take hold on the imagination as the heroines of some even far lesser poets do. Maud with her exquisite face, And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky, And feet like sunny gems on an English green, Mand in the light of her youth and her grace. Ts in a certain sense an abstraction rather than a reality. She is one of the somewhat bodyless, English girls, lacking in breadth of sympathy and feminine characteristics, which the Laureate was most happy in painting. The May-Queen, and other women of the “English idylls,’ follow a somewhat conven- tional type. The former is, through all her pro- Sperity and adversity, health and sickness, a peasant very much of the type favoured ia the old rural comedies. She lacks energy, force, 339 humanity; so greatly so, indeed, that for her to be always rose-crowned, and perpetually leading a docile, garlanded lamb, excites no feeling of surprise or unfitness. In this poem, as in many others, the value is in its exquisite treatment and word-painting rather than in the conception of the main character. For word painting what could be finer than “Beneath the waning light You'll never see me more in the long grey fields at night, When from the dry, dark wold the summer airs blow cool On the oat grass, and the sword grass, and the bulrush in the pool.” It is in “The Princess,” notwithstanding its gaiety and delicately subtle mockery, that we find, in the person of the princess herself, perhaps the most nobly conceived of Tennyson’s women characters. Certain it is that this princess is the woman who thinks most nobly out of all the female characters in the poet’s works: there is no other woman in his poems who troubles herself much about ideals. As we have indicated, his women are very mucha man’s women, whose chiefest troubles or joys are concerned with love. They are passionless, respectable—in the best sense “ respectable ’’—women ; cold, and generally inately well-bred. Here in “The Princess,” how- ever, we have a woman who constructs for herself a noble and beautiful ideal, wrong at its basis, without doubt, but nevertheless admirable in many respects. In the pourtrayal of the princess the poet has worked upon a larger and more human scale than heretofore. “ Liker the inhabitant Of some clear planet closer on the sun Than our man’s earth,” She is almost the only woman Tennyson has succeeded in making heroic, and that in spite of the mock heroism of the poem itself. Tn his most elaborate work, “The Idylls of the King,” the poet has made little or no attempt to endow his characters with life. Ina word, they are not “human,” and we are inclined to think that for this reason—admirable as many of the pictures conjured up undoubtedly are—that the “Tdylls” are least likely to attain immortality. The men and women are not transcripts from life, are not sentient, moving beings ; they belong to the region of pictures—poetical, imaginative, illustrative—but without the light shining in their eyes, or the breath of life animating their forms. Enid is a man’s woman in her submis- sion, of the ‘ Patient Grisel’’ type—a_ lone- suffering variety of woman, which in our day, to our thinking, scarcely merits the description of “heroine” at all. Almost the sole womanly touch in the poem—but this one touch a gem of perceptive art in its way—is where the poet 340 causes Enid to put ov the old faded dress in which her lover first beheld her. Guinevere, stormy, dark, unhumbled by her sin, is a striking figure, it must be admitted; but she is Malory’s conception after all, an echo of an old prose poet. Elaine, full of pathos though she be, touches no very high level of sympathetic womanhood. She, too, is somewhat an echo of Malory, a child-woman, as they were when the “ spinning world was young.” She is an idealised Malory’s Elaine, just as the poet’s Arthur is Malory’s Arthur idealised, who would scarce touch us at all were she removed from her old- world setting. Here is a piece of “ setting ;” there is true poetry in this. See :— “ Soin her tower alone the maiden sat. His very shield was gone ; only the case, Her own poor work—her empty labour left ; But still she heard him, still his picture formed And grew between her and the pictured wall. Then came her father, saying in low tones, ‘ Have comfort,’ whom she greeted quietly. Then came her brethren, saying, ‘ Peace to thee, Sweet sister,’ when she answered with all calm. But when they left her to herself again, Death, like a friend’s voice from a distant field, Approaching through the darkness, called; the owls’ Wailing had power upon her, and she mixt Her fancies with the sallow-lighted glooms Of evening, and the moanings of the wind.” After the reading of such passages one almost feels that to point to anything as constituting a weakness or excellence inthe poet’s work is futile, almost insolent, criticism. ‘The beauty and elegance of the poetry exists, of that we are aware ; quite why we know not. The charm is like that of the face of a beautiful woman ; it is irrespec- tive of its teaching or moral excellence. Tseult has an interest for us in addition to her treatment by Tennyson, inasmuch that she has been made a study by three great poets of our day. The Laureate’s Iseult is like so many more of his women, merely a sketch, comparing un- favourably with Swinburne’s masterly study. Vivien is in many ways a great conception of a Delilah type, but she lacks the essential to make a complete study—the subtle craft to hide her vileness. We have touched upon almost all the women of the “ Tdylls,” and the impression gained is that the late Laureate made no attempt to present a notable study of feminine character. His desire, apparently, was merely to “ render’”’ the “Morte d’Arthur” in his own delicate, word- picture way, retaining the enchanted atmosphere of the story, which in itself militated against the creations of characters of flesh and blood. It is thus that the whole series of women’s portraits gives us the impression of a stately pageant of knights and ladies, filing by, spectres of the THE AUTHOR. romantic past with the splendour of jewels, armours, and banners, but to a large degree passionless, inhuman because unliving. Of all Tennyson’s women, Mary Tudor, with her unsatisfied, craving heart, her love un- requited by love, and her deadly sickness of jealousy, is the most human. A sombre delinea- tion of life without youth, and middle age over which the leadenness of autumn sere leaf with impending death perpetually hung. Tennyson has at least here grasped with firmer hand than before the fibres of disposition which differentiate woman from man, We see a betrayed woman, deceived by the husband she adored passionately, fanatically ; and it is in her relations with her husband Lord Tennyson has reached his highest point of introspection. The picture is sorrowful, sad in its humanity. Amongst the remaining women of Tennyson, are Edith in “ Harold,’ a pure but somewhat listless, lifeless abstraction, presented vaguely; and Rosamond and Eleanor in “ Beckett.’ The latter is not, at least to our thinking, an altogether satisfactory or successful study. A clinging, sweet, soft woman, as Eleanor is pre- sented, would not logically know of the crimes which are alleged against her; nor, when afraid, is it a characteristic of an essentially sweet woman to turn so venomously bitter, Rosamond, perhaps, ranks as Lord Tennyson's sweetest woman. In conclusion, the late Laureate’s women are rather what one would describe as “ feminine ” than as “womanly.” They are timid, dependent, clinging ; loving after a passionless, highly dis- creet fashion, but risking, daring, very little for “love’s sweet sake.” The impression given of the poet’s feminine characters is that they are drawn rather from ideal abstractions than from living, moving, human beings. His high ideal of womanhood, however, has served to lift many to the “higher plane.” It no doubt did much to make him a great poet in the truest sense of the word; and in this age of crumbling ideals we may well feel grateful for these sweet women pictures of the dead past. CuivE HoLianp, spect JOURNALISM IN BURMA. HE first time I entered a newspaper office in Burma I was struck with its picturesque- ness. At the entrance sat a number of curly-whiskered, white-turbanned durwans, who rose and with military precision gravely saluted my friend and me. One of them pulled a curtain  Meee et gore mos bet THE AUTHOR. aside and ushered us into the editorial office, an airy white-washed room decorated with several graceful palms. Ata table, with his back to the window, sat the editor, attired simply in cricketing trousers and a white shirt. He was busy, for the European mail had just arrived, so after a short conversation with him we passed on into the compositors’ room, which was a decidedly novel scene. Burmans with gorgeous turbans and brillant dungy?s, or skirts, Chinamen with white jackets and short blue baggy trousers, and Hindoos attired in spotless white, stood side by side at the case, smoking huge cheroots and chattering gaily as they worked. The foreman was a very imposing person, decidedly fat, and attired in the smallest amount of clothing which the proprietors would permit. He was a mixture of at least four Oriental races, but not wishing to give undue precedence to any one of them, he always described himself as an Englishman. He spoke several Asiatic languages fluently, and possessed five wives. From the compositors’ room to the printing room was not an agreeable change, for the Hindoo coolies, who are cheaper than engines for working the machines, were not pleasant objects. At the present time there are some seven or eight newspapers in Burma, but only one or two of them are of any importance or can claim any literary merit. The proprietor is generally the editor, and having been successively ship’s steward, loafer at Theebaw’s court, and rice merchant, he feels fully qualified to run a paper, especially if he has a grievance, real or imaginary, against the Chief Commissioner or some other high official, The editorials are therefore fre- quently very amusing when the subject is most serious, and I read one article in which the writer commenced with the editorial “we,” but finding when half way through that he could express himself more clearly in the first person singular, he boldly launched out into “I,” and finished the article in that style. One paper attacked Sir Richard Temple’s son, who is president of the Rangoon Municipal Com- mittee, in a leading article, of which the following is the commencement: “The President’s ‘ Lying Spirit.’ I will be a lying spirit.—1 Kings xxii. 22. He deceiveth them that dwell on the earth (in Rangoon).— Rev. xiii. 13. * We can quite imagine the feelings of our readers when they observe, probably for the first time in their lives, quotations from the Sacred Writings at the head of a newspaper article. We - quite admit that it is not a very desirable novelty, but the quotations in question so aptly illustrate the spirit and tone of Major Temple’s remarks at 341 last Thursday’s meeting of the Municipal Com- mittee that we cannot refrain from quoting them.” This extraordinary journalistic innovation and its attempted justification was followed in a few days by the confidential announcement that the editor had purchased, at the sale of an advocate’s library, a copy of the “ Law of Newspaper Libel,” which he hoped would enable him to steer clear of the court in his series of articles on the “ Lying Spirit Abroad.” Another paper failed to make its appearance on the usual day of publication, and its non-appear- ance was explained later on in the following editorial : ‘Our excuse is this: Our whole staff, including the editor, were so much knocked up with the excite- ment of the sports last Saturday, that on Sunday they were laid up with what our readers will charitably call Arakan fever. Monday was fixed as settling day for certain bets made on Saturday, which, unfortunately for this paper, were won by the wrong side. As the losers could not stump up at once, the winners bombarded and took pos- session of the office and press, and refused to vacate until payment was made. On Tuesday the staff of this paper in turn assailed those in posses- sion, and, aftera hard-fought battle, routed them, but it took all Wednesday and Thursday to collect aid arrange the forms and types, which had been freely used as missiles in Tuesday’s battle. The proprietor claims that he could not get the police to assist him, as most of them were suffering from a surfeit of Christmas dinner and other things too numerous to mention. But all’s well that ends well.” Several old Wellington College boys being in Burma, they decided to have an old boys’ dinner, and the day fixed upo1 for the festivity was the anniversary of the Buttle of Waterloo. This reached the ears of an up-country editor, who immediately penned an article which unintention- ally created much merriment among those who read it. With virtuous indignation he pointed out the impropriety of celebrating our victory over a nation with which we were now on friendly terms, and impressed upon his readers the utter absurdity of men calling themselves “ Old Wellingtonians” when they had neither served under the Iron Duke, nor, in fact, been born until many years after the great battle. There are two daily papers published in the vernacular, but they do not contain much original matter, the editors contenting themselves with translating the news published in the chief Rangoon papers. Bah Goon, the editor of the Priend of Burma, with whom. I had many a long chat, is probably the most picturesque editor in the world. 342 Attired in gorgeous native apparel, and always smoking a huge cheroot, he sits with a fan beside him writing his articles in letters consisting of circles and segments of circles. Opposite to him sits his assistant, less brilliantly arrayed, but of course puffing at a cheroot. One of his duties I noticed was to go outside and purchase sweet- meats for his chief from a shamefaced Hindoo who daily took up his position under a neighbour- oe Henry Cuaries Moore. neces FROM A BEGINNER'S POINT OF VIEW. BEGAN my literary career as an editor, having at a very early age assumed the direction of an interesting family magazine, laboriously copied out on Saturday afternoons, for private circulation. This periodical, after flourish- ing for nearly six numbers, came to an untimely end, owing chiefly to an unfortunate disposition on the part of our serial writer to begin a new romance every week, which, as the previous one was invariably guaranteed “to be con- tinued,’ and never was continued by any chance, caused dissatisfaction among our readers. The editorial duties, too, were unduly heavy, in- volving as they did the stirrmg up of unwilling contributors, the evading of sarcastic parents and governesses, and the painful and difficult deci- phering of manuscript written with stumpy pencils in cast-off copy books, previously well inked and thumbed. My editorial chair was the forked bough of a certain nut-tree ina retired orchard ; and, in spite of the aforesaid drawbacks, T loved it, and availed myself to the full of all my privileges ; altering, correcting, and condensing at my own sweet will, When time pressed, indeed, and my hand became tired, and the editorial chair felt particularly knobby, I con- densed to such a degree that the staff grew wrathful, and we quarrelled among ourselves just like real authors, and called each other names, and were very literary indeed. I have felt a certam sympathy for editors ever since those early days, and though, like all other right-minded people, I cannot fail to see and deplore their faults, I can realise the difficulties which engender them. Their judgment is, from their very mode of life, liable to be warped, and there is certainly a distressing lack of candour among them; but authors, especially young authors, should pause before rushing to condemn them in fiery terms (and occasionally imperfect English) in the pages of such organs as are open to them. They should remember that when an editor assures a would-be contributor that he has THE AUTHOR. “ carefully examined”’ his manuscript, whereas it seems he has omitted to unfasten the pages which that ingenious and suspicious youth has glued together, he means to be kind and polite. And when, in declining a document, he thanks you for kindly affording him an opportunity of seeing it, though you may know that he probably mur- mured something far less grateful and compli- mentary as he tossed it on one side, you should reflect that his little formula was conceived in the most considerate spirit possible. Authors should be more tolerant. There is no use in trying to educate an editor, either by remonstrat- ing with him, or even by being playful. It is perhaps more disastrous to be playful than any- thing else. I knew a young person once who sent some jocular verses to an editor on the back of one of the printed forms already mentioned; these, after jestingly alluding to the “thanks” set forth in neatest copper plate therein, ended with the suggestion that ‘“proofs”’ betokened grati- tude the best. Well, the joke was not appre- ciated as it deserved ; indeed, it must have rankled in the editorial mind, for two years afterwards, when that guileless young author sent another contribution to the same magazine, not only did — the MS. come back by return of post, but it was accompanied by that identical printed form on which he had scrawled his funny verses. This was the editor’s little joke ! The beginner may, perhaps, take comfort from the thought that if editors are not as truthful as one could wish them to be, publishers, on the con- trary, are an exeeedingly outspoken race, and reviewers are quite refreshingly candid. Your friends, too, as you find, when at last your book is out, have an engaging way of telling you to your face that they do not like your heroine, and that the nicest character in the whole thing is the villain. Of course they recognise Mr. Snooks and Aunt Jemima, and have dark misgivings that the sensational part was suggested by personal experience. These are trials common to writers of every degree, but there are certain others peculiar to beginners. It is a trial, for instance, when a friend intro- duces you to a celebrity, whose works you have admired from afar for years, as “another author”! And the celebrity doesn’t quite catch your name, and has never heard of your pub- lishers, and smiles and bows affably as your kind friend energetically praises your book, And — you go home and think of it all at night when — you are in bed, and kick at the blankets. Then there is the other friend, who has “dabbled a little in literature, too,” and thinks he would like to write in collaboration with you. You needn’t trouble about the plot, you know, he ~  : 1 i | 1 1 ; i i 1 1 | THE AUTHOR. assures you, when you assert that you do not look on yourself in the light of a dabbler, and couldn’t collaborate with anyone—he’ll do all that, you need only just write what he tells you, and he’ll send you up a little manuscript to look over just to give you an idea of his style. He prefers rather an antiquated style, he adds, and the period he generally selects is about the time of Canute. Then there are the people who give you kind advice. Why didn’t you make the hero marry Aunt Jemima, and the villain repent and ally himself with the herome? That would really have made a fine story. And what on earth induced you to give it such an absolutely meaningless title? I know one lady who writes a little herself who is especially strong on this point. What she always does, she says, is to think of a good name first, and write the story to match. It simplifies matters immensely. Suppose, for instance, you call your book “ A Snake in the Grass”’ and open it with a strong situation, such as a widower living in the country with two daughters, and engaging a governess for them who is a very handsome and designing woman— something striking and original of that kind— why there you are, you see, at once. In such matters as these the writer of long standing has distinctly the advantage of the beginner. It is, I believe, an understood thing that when you invite a celebrated author to dinner you are not to talk of books. Golf, and fencing, and fishing, and society are subjects which he is quite willing to discuss with you; but literature, /i donc! This rule does not, however, hold good where the young author is concerned ; everybody considers him to be burning with anxiety to talk—not about the work of other people, which would be a refreshment and delight to him—but about his own. People want to know what you have made by your book, what you are writing now—won’t you give them just an idea of the plot? Have you had good reviews? “Of course,’ somebody says in a cheerful and parti- cularly audible voice, just as there is a pause in the general conversation, ‘everyone saw that excellent notice in the .” Here he breaks off, and you see an uneasy recollection beginning to dawn on him that it was the which cut you up so unmercifully. If you have a sense of humour you may be amused by the incident; but it not infrequently produces a little awkwardness. Those reviews cause you a good deal of trouble altogether. You may have been guileless enough, if you are very young, to stick them in a book and show them to some of your friends. This is all very well when they happen to be of a lauda- tory order, but when the “‘ nasty ones” begin to come in, and your friends go on asking you if 343 you haven’t got any more notices to show them, either your principles or your feelings must go to the wall. It is not a pleasant sensation in the latter case to hand over the exasperating slip which perhaps kept you awake all night, and to watch your friend struggling to assume an expression which shall neither be compassionate nor amused. You know he’ll be too polite to laugh when he comes to the last bit ; and yet you feel it must be a struggle to refrain. You couldn’t help laughing yourself when you read it, though you are naturally sensitive about your own work ; you laugh now as the reader returns the review with a funereal air, and remarks solemnly that it strikes him as being very unfair. A good laugh is perhaps the best panacea for the troubles of a literary beginner ; and, after all, few of these have not their comical side. A sense of humour is, they say, a rare thing at the present day ; how grateful then should one be to the kind fate which without any trouble on one’s own part enables one to cultivate it. M.S. pecs CORRESPONDENCE. Correspondents are requested to state their case in as few words as possible where the facts speak for themselves ; and if they advance opinions to regard brevity before style. The limited space of the Author requires attention to these points. I.—A Joint Stock Company Journal. ET me sound a note of warning to literary aspirants who have anything accepted ina journal conducted by a joint stock com- pany. Insist on being paid weekly; place no dependence on promises; if a cheque then is not forthcoming, do not supply any more copy. Please read what happened to me because I neglected these particulars. I wished to write a series of weekly articles, novel in treatment, suitable for a ladies’ journal. I knew it was useless to apply to one long esta- blished, whose literary staff was complete, and whose editor would neither look at nor consider an outsider’s contribution, no matter how meri- torious it might be. Accordingly, I called at the office of a comparatively new journal. I sent my card to the editress, Miss A., who politely gave me an audience. She had a pleasant, though a somewhat sad, face, as if the weight of editorial cares had dispirited her. I briefly explained the ideas for my intended contributions, and I am pleased to remark that she fully appreciated them. In fact, she was so delightfully urbane, that I regretted 344 that all London journals could not be transformed into ladies’ journals, controlled by those who resembled this charming editress. She suggested a development of my idea, which of course I assented to. We then discussed terms, and arrived at a complete understanding upon this practical matter. I sent in my promised articles, which appeared regularly. I also sent a poem, possessing the merit of brevity, which had the honour of an illustration. Three weeks having elapsed, I called for my cheque, but not being fortunate enough to see anyone connected with the financial administra- tion, I had to repeat my visit. At last I saw the charming editress, polite, but sadder than ever ; and opposite her was seated a solemn young man with a vinegar visage. Being a very diffident person I did not press for my account. I merely asked them when they paid. The solemn man suggested every three months. He might have said three years for the matter of that, as the sequel will show. However, the kinder-hearted editress agreed to settle accounts once a month, which was very reassuring. At theend of a month I called. The vinegar-visaged man informed me that every cheque had to signed by three people, as the paper wasa joint stock company, and that the editress, one of the signatories, was out of town. I had, therefore to wait till she returned. She stopped along time away, long enough to have enjoyed a European tour. Doubtless it was a great relief from editorial cares to solace herself with travel ; at the same time, I wanted my cheque. At last we met again in one of the offices. My speech was polite but resolute; I determined IT would not budge from the spot without my cheque. The fair editress, as usual, was sweetly affable. There was a cheque book in front of her. She opened it. My heart pulsated with joy! She took up her pen. She rose. ‘‘ Wait a moment,” she said in mellifluous tones, “I am going into the ny room to let you have your cheque,” and she eft. I waited patiently and eagerly for an hour. She never returned. When I eventually went into the outer office, I was informed that Miss A. had long ago left. The charming editress had cleverly eluded me without a word of explana- tion! After further futile efforts to obtain my due, I placed the matter in the hands of my solicitor, who obtained judgment against the company for my debt. I afterwards ascertained that many judgments were out against them. My amount was not large enough to wind-up the company, and none of the other judgment creditors would join me in doing so. THE AUTHOR. In the face of all this, the paper, well got-up and illustrated, was carried on for months, but how, or in what way, is “a mystery of mysteries.” Last week the place was closed up, so I expect the concern has either been wound up by themselves or by the court. AndI conclude that none of the contributors will ever get a penny for their hard- earned work. LUNETTE. [Copy.] DEAR Mapam,—On the 26th of October I applied to the “A, B. Company” for payment of the £3 3s. due to you. I wrote again on the 4th of November. I have received no acknowledgment whatever of either letter. Ihave sent down three times to the office to see the editor or manager, and have always been met with the excuse that he is out, even though I made an appointment to call. Under these circumstances I can do nothing further, except take proceedings in the County Court to recover the amount, supposing it to be worth while to do so, which is doubtful. If you are not disposed to take proceedings, I cannot help thinking that the matter should be exposed, and that you cannot do better than write to the Editor of Truth, setting forth the facts, and asking him to give publicity to the matter in his journal, and thus prevent others from being done out of their hardly-earned prizes.—I remain, yours faithfully (Solicitor’s signature). TL—“CHarnLes Lams on PUBLISHERS.” As I have been writing under the pseudonym of “Templar” in a weekly paper for the past eight years, I may be mistaken for the writer so signing himself in your issue of last month. I did not write the letter, nor do I agree with “Templar” No. 2 in regarding publishers as the “common enemies of authors.” Publishers are simply men of business, who, like most persons engaged in trade for the purpose of making living or fortune, strike the best bargain they can. Authors who don’t understand business matters get imposed on by publishers just as they would (only more so) in buying a horse or a house, or driving any other bargain. Hence the value of an honest literary agent. But I fancy imposi- tions are less frequently attempted now than when I was young and simple-minded, owing to the Society having exposed the methods of the shady houses. As in other businesses, there are many honourable men in the publishing trade with whom it is pleasant to deal, but few, if any of them, will pay a higher price for MSS. than they are obliged. Why should they? Unless, indeed, they are a religious society actuated by very high principles. Then, of course, great care is taken by the bishops, deans, &c., who direct the affairs of the society, to see that no one, whether it be editor, clerk, shopboy, author, or authoress, is inadequately compensated for his work. Joun BICKERDYKE. [‘ Mr. Bickerdyke’s” remarks are true, no doubt, to a certain extent, but not wholly true. For it is not a question of price, as a rule, but a question  THE AUTHOR. of paying the publisher for managing a property ; in fact, the royalty system is becoming almost general. A business agent will best manage the price in case of a buying and selling transaction. The royalty is too often managed by the author himself, to his great loss and injury. Perhaps “Mr. Bickerdyke’’ would look again at the Society’s book, “Methods of Publishing.” Or he might cast an eye upon the two agreements published in the December Author. He will then see that it is not just a simple buying and selling. Of course, the publisher would not give more than the MS. is worth. Why should he? But does the Society expect him to do so? We ask for nothing but fair play.—Eb. | TIl.— EXPERIENCES oF A LiTERARY BEGINNER. Lunette’s letter under this heading is interest- ing, but she seems somewhat unduly surprised at the degree of success achieved by the ‘‘ beginner” who detailed his experiences in the Globe. She specially congratulates him on “ the happy judg- ment which enabled him to supply copy actually wanted,” Precisely ; this is half the battle. 'To suit the contribution to the paper is a principle which it is to be feared many beginners utterly neglect. Lunette’s “ five chances to one against acceptance” will not bear examination. As to the first, a few journals may never take “ outside” contributions; but most of those which do “ possess a regular staff” take contributions from outsiders when such contributions are suitable, No. 2 may apply to a few magazines, but hardly to daily or weekly publications. _ No. 3 is simply a supposition on the part of Lunette that an editor does not know his business. Nos. 4 and 5 are matters on which the author can be, as a rule, as well informed as an editor. It isin neglecting these two points—suitability and length—that many “outsiders” waste so much powder and shot. Lunette’s other “chances against success,’ again—“bad handwriting, forced style, and many others”—are simply faults of the contribu- tor, not of the editor. It seems slightly absurd for a man in any profession to describe querulously his own ignorance, or want of train- ing, or clumsiness with his tools, as “ chances against success.” Of course they are, and it is a beginner’s first duty to overcome such obstacles, not to complain of them. The use of “ MSS.” as a substantive singular twice in Lunette’s letter seems to suggest that her own equipment is not perfect. Perhaps I may be allowed to add my own experience as an “outsider.” Although I had written a fair sprinkling of articles, most of 345 which were accepted and paid for, before last year, it was only in 1893 that I made a steady and systematic use of the pen as a subsidiary income-earner. I may add that I have no per- sonal knowledge of any editor, nor any literary connections whatever; but that from fifteen to twenty years before I put pen to paper I had been a diligent reader and student of literature. Now for my statistics. At the close of 1892 I had thirty articles unpublished, of which seven- teen still remained undisposed of. In the course of 1893 I wrote 108 articles (short and long). Out of this total of 138 papers, 94 were published (and paid for) in the course of 1893. This leaves 44 unpublished; and of these 19 are accepted and waiting publication, 7 I have dropped, and 18 are carried forward to 1894. when I hope to dispose of most of them. My work does not bring in a large sum, but it does bring in a substantial and very welcome addition to a nominal income of very moderate propor- tions. Moreover, the additional money is earned by work which fills my leisure hours, and is itself a constant source of pleasure. I should like to add that, although some of my papers have had to knock at several doors before gaining admit- tance to print, I have always felt, with regard to those of my papers which have turned out failures, that their fate was deserved. Jan, 10, 1894. Movitua. IV.—Tue Reririne Forry. Among the “ Notes and News” contained in the January number of the Author, the fact is stated that, “ Every year there is a certain per- centage of members elected, who, as it afterwards appears, enter in the hope of being helped to publishers and a public, About forty retire from the Society every year, either by resignation or by ceasing to pay their annual subscription, Most of the forty belong to this mistaken class. There is no royal road to literary success.” Of course not. Everybody knows, or ought to know, that literature, ¢.e., book writing, is the deadest of dead failures for more than 75 per cent. of those who are engaged in it. But there is something else besides book writing. There is the vast field of journalism, which either does pay or may be made to pay. Possibly some of the forty persons who annually retire from the membership of the Society of Authors expected that the Society would assist them in the pursuit of journalism. Has the Society done all that it might have done in this direction? The fact that forty members retire annually is a serious fact, Are the forty retiring members alone in fault t Might not something be done to retain themt The question at least is worth considering, if the 346 Society intends to remain on its present working basis. Can nothing be done to regulate newspaper copyright? There are thousands of newspapers that exist by petty literary larceny. Now, let me state a case to illustrate my point, and my point is this: Literary failure is not of necessity due to the lack of literary ability. A certain author wrote three books. By the unanimous report of a large number of very able reviewers they were pronounced good books, but they failed from a financial point of view. The author therefore turned his attention to journalism. His articles were accepted eagerly by the editors of two daily papers. He continued to write, and they con- tinued to print. At length, feeling that he had in some sense established his position as a writer, he mildly suggested that he would be pleased to hear something about guid pro quo. He thought he would like, say a guinea, or at least half a guinea, a column. What did these editors say? They both said exactly the same thing. ‘ We shall be only too pleased to insert your articles. We have no fault to find with them, none what- ever. We naturally prefer original articles when we can get them for nothing, but we cannot afford to pay forthem.” Our friend wished these editors a very good morning, and ceased newspaper writing as he had ceased book writing, and the editors who could not or would not afford to pay for original matter simply went back to their old game of scissors and paste. Now, my point is that there ought to be a second-hand price for a second-hand article, and if a provincial editor is content to fill his paper with extracts he ought to pay for those extracts. This does not apply to short extracts copied from a book under review, because, as George Bentley used to say, the public wants to know what is in a book, and the reviewer gives a sample. Ifa publisher complains of this, a wine merchant might as well complain of his customers sampling the casks in his cellar. The law of copyright requires altering to prevent wholesale piracy, and if this were done it would give many a poor author a chance, who has no chance whatever now. In the days of my innocent youth, when papers of a certain type appeared, I was simple enough to send a story, and a whole storehouse of literary odds and ends that I had been some years in collecting, to a certain office, which held out the one guinea bait. Of course, my little offering was accepted and used—.e., it was subjected to the process com- monly called “ gutting,” and I never saw my guinea. In this way an expensive staff is dis- pensed with, and a handsome dividend assured to THE AUTHOR. the literary pirate. Nothing would induce me to purchase a paper of this sort, or to permit its presence in my house, and so long as such papers are allowed to flourish the profession of literature will not be worth cultivating by the rank and file writer, otherwise known as the common or garden author. HJ s [We commend this letter to our friends of the excellent Institute of Journalists. _ The falling off of forty members in the year out of over 1200 members—.e., 34 per cent., is no more than is expected and experienced in every society. The vacancies are far more than filled up every year, and our numbers steadily grow. But our corre- spondent thinks that we ought to do something more for journalists. Will he kindly read our Memorandum and Articles of Association, and, remembering that this document limits and defines our powers and our aims, advise us as to what we can do to help aspiring journalists P— Ep. | V.—Wantep, Nove tists. Coming from England, where literature is an overstocked profession, it strikes one as curious to find that there is a country where the demand for authors exceeds the supply. I have been in- quiring for modern Greek novels and stories, and am told that there are almost none. And this in the city of Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes ! The same answer comes from my Greek friends, persons of culture and learning, who are anxious to read, and from booksellers who are anxious to sell. I enter a bookseller’s shop and ask for some Greek novels; the polite Hellene offers me a volume in Greek type, and on the paper cover I find a name which looks ike BEPN. After a moment’s consideration I perceive that this is the native rendering of Verne, and I am in the presence of our old friend Jules! “ But this is a translation from the French; have you nothing else ?’’? The bookseller brings forward another volume, bearing the name of Ouggo, which word represents Hugo—our old friend Victor. I think that if some enterprisimg young English author would rub up his ancient Greek, and come here and add to his knowledge an ac- quaintance with modern Greek, which resembles the ancient with differences, he might find a market for original wares which do not sell readily in England. The Athenians are great readers ; every shoeblack and cabman devours his daily—nay, hourly—Acropolis and Ephemeris, as also his weekly comic paper, Scrip ; but, if anyone wants a book for himself, a novel for his wife, or a story for his children, he must needs accept a  THE AUTHOR. 347 translation from the French, or perchance, though more rarely, from the English. F, Bayrorp Harrison. VI.—Opps anp Enps. I.—A PROFITABLE CATALOGUE. An account has just come into my hands in which the author is charged £5 for advertising in the publishers’ catalogue. Said catalogue is forty-eight pages fcap. 8vo. Announcement of author’s book occupies half a page. The catalogue would cost for 3000 (the number issued) about £7 10s. Assuming each author has been mulcted at the same rate (and I know two others who have), the transaction would come out thus : ninety-four half pages (two comprised title) at £5 — £470, less cost £7 10s. = £462 10s. net profit to the publisher; not bad in these hard times. Inthe same account is charged £16 gs. 5d. for eight and a half reams of paper, my paper merchant says he would be delighted to supply a few thousand reams of the same thing at 13s. per ream. II.—A WORD TO THE PUBLISHER OF THE “ AUTHOR.” Will you kindly, my dear Sir, not have the “‘voucher”’ copies of the Author so tightly rolled up; why rolled at all? My copy reached me of the shape and consistency—the paste having been very liberally applied—of a piece of a walking stick; and after using it as a ruler for afew days, I managed to devote a spare quarter of an hour to unpacking it with a penknife. When it has lain for a few weeks under a heavy weight, viz., a volume of last year’s Punch, I shall then, perhaps, be able to read it without its curling up in my fingers. III.—A COINCIDENCE. My friend, Colonel R. Manifold Craig, com- pleted, in 1892, a charming Anglo-Indian story entitled “‘ Sacrifice of Fools.” Itis full of Indian colouring, and has in it a clever description of the opening of a bridge, and some well-known local characters, notably, the engineer and others. In the last Christmas number of the /llustrated London News appears a story by Rudyard Kip- ling entitled ‘“‘The Bridge Builders,’ giving a description of the opening of a similar bridge, the same officials, and a number of local events alluded to by Colonel Craig. It is impossible that either of these two writers could have learned the other’s thoughts in any way, though they were both in Indi. at the same time, and both contributing to the same journal, and were both probably present at the same ceremony. R. VIIl.—Some Meruops or PUBLISHING. A few months ago I sent a story to a certain firm. The reply was that ‘after careful con- sideration they were happy to inform me they would publish it. I had only to send cheque for £55, and it should be in the printer’s hands at once for that autumn’s sale.” It was then October. This mode of publishing I declined. They then gratified their spite by sending me a pamphlet for “struggling authors.’”’ Having had three novels accepted by one of the best firms of the day, besides various stories by a magazine, and another novel placed for this year, 1 am content not to consider myself a ‘struggling author.” But the point is this: That firm advertised for MSS. I wished to judge of their method, and this they at once enabled me to do by forwarding a catalogue of the books they had published. I am tolerably well up in current literature, and was astonished to find that in a fiction list of twenty- seven pages there is only one book and author of whom I had ever heard. Yet these books go to help to flood the market with useless third-rate literature, or sink at once, unknown, unheard of. The moral is twofold. All these writers are probably victims of this firm to the tune of £55 and upwards, for mine was a short story ; and also that good work will find honourable pub- lishers who can command the best reviewers to bring it before the public. Mary Enz. Srevenson. [There is hardly a number of the Author since its commencement in which this precious firm has not been exposed.—Eb. | ——_—_ VITI.—Tue Reapers’ PEensions. In the paragraph in the duthor for January, referring to the appeal issued by the printers’ readers, this sentence occurs: ‘‘ We think the appeal would be better received if the committee would state more clearly how it comes about that widows were not included in the first pension, and on what grounds the thirty years’ qualifica- tion in some cases and twenty years’ in others was arrived at.” Widows are not excluded from the benefits of the First Readers’ Pension, as is shown by the following quotation from the appeal for help in founding the Second Pension: “The First Readers’ Pension is open to both men and women, and the qualification is twenty years’ subscription.” Asa matter of fact, the pension is now held by a widow; while at the election in March last three widows of readers and the mother of another reader received votes arising from the First Readers’ Pension. The reason for the rather long subscription 348 THE AUTHOR. qualification is that the pensions granted by the Printers’ Pension Corporation are graduated according to the length of membership of the Corporation. As the pension for readers founded by the Rev. Francis Jacox are equal to those enjoyed by subscribers to the Corporation for forty years, the Council stipulated that a reader to be eligible for a Jacox pension must have sub- scribed for at least thirty years. In the same way the Council required a twenty years’ sub- scription from every candidate for the First Readers’ Pension, it being of the value of £16 a year. If, as will probably be the case, the Second Pension is smaller, the subscription qualification will be proportionately reduced. It may be of interest to add that, assisted by the votes from the First Readers’ Pension, a reader who was eighty-one years of age, and another who was incapacitated by partial blind- ness, were both elected on their first application for a pension. Two hundred guineas have been placed in the hands of the Printers’ Pension Corporation towards the foundation of the Second Readers’ Pension, and further donations will be gladly welcomed. Only a month ago the London Asso- ciation of Correctors of the Press—the repre- sentative body of the printers’ readers of London —voted 10 guineas to the Second Pension, and the University Press, Cambridge, has given a like amount. Joun Ranpatt, Hon. Sec. Atheneum Press, Bream’s-buildings. IX.—Tue Meruops or PusLisHING. I have often noticed in the Author more or less serious mistakes arising from incomplete technical knowledge of the inner workings of a publishing firm. In the January number, however, a very misleading statement occurs, which was perhaps only a slip of the pen. In commenting on the transactions of the S.P.C.K. with the late Mrs. Ewing, you state that the publishers received gd. per copy for a shilling book, leaving them a profit of 33d. after paying the author 57d. As a fact, the publishers received at the most 7d. to 7id. per copy, taking into consideration the odd copies to the dozen, American and other export sales—probably a considerable item —and extra trade discounts. Their profit is thus reduced to 2d.. and out of this, from the figures you give, I suppose they would have to pay for advertising and cataloguing, as well as the expenses of distribution, a factor which cannot be overlooked in such a case. In writing on the subject of business expenses some time ago you said that if a publisher reckoned his expenses, the author should also reckon his; and in some cases—e.g., when the publisher commissions an author to write a book, or when it is published on “half-profits” — the author’s expenses in- curred in its production should be placed to the debit of the account. But it cannot “be worth a publisher’s while to undertake a book on such terms as will not allow him to cover the expenses of distributing and pushing it. These expenses may be reckoned at 10 per cent. of his receipts, and it will thus be seen that the publishers’ profit in the case in question was about the same as, or more probably less, than that of the author, and not three times as much, as you state. May I say, too, that I think you habitually underrate the immense amount of work entailed in the publication of a book? It is most em- phatically not a mere matter of routine, except possibly in some forms of novel publishing. Every book has to be treated individually from start to finish; the style, type, and paper care- fully thought out, the binding settled, and when this is done, and the book has been seen through the press and produced, special means have to be taken to bring it before the right class of buyers in each particular case. If the book is illustrated the labour and care required is of course greatly increased. But it is not possible to give an outsider any idea of the amount.of time and trouble necessary to the production of a satisfactory book. You speak often of “ secret profits,” and I do not deny that they may exist in some firms—on this point your experience is worth more than mine—but you do not take into. account the secret losses and secret expenses incurred by the publisher. To give the bare cost of composition, &c., paper, print, binding, and advertising, does not convey an adequate idea of the expense of bringing out a book. Publishing is not so simple a matter as you would have authors believe. I inclose my card, and remain,— Yours faithfully, CLERK. [As regards the S.P.C.K., their publications are sold chiefly, I believe, at their own depots, but very largely by private order from schools, clergy- men, and others. Put the case this way, however. Sold in this way the shilling book produces 9d. Sold in smaller quantities through the trade the shilling books produce, I am told, 73d. But it may be 7d. if our correspondent chooses, At all events, we were perfectly well advised as to the facts. As regards the general question, we have no desire to minimise the work done by the publisher, for which he is paid by having a share in the property. At the same time we must insist that with most books produced the work is sheer routine, and that the amount of thought and care devoted to a book—always excepting those e uk  100 THE AUTHOR. few which must be excepted—are very small. For instance, the thought and care expended over the production of such a book as Stanley’s latest work must have been very great indeed. But the thought and care expended on a three-volume novel, or a six-shilling novel, or a book of essays, or a book of poems, are very small indeed, and not worth considering. It is routine work. In the same way with the placing of a book. An exceptional volume will call for exceptional treatment. An ordinary volume surely requires nothing but routine work. In most houses this is all, certainly, that it receives. One does not deny that the production of a book entails labour, but for the most part it is routine labour. As regards “secret profits,” our correspondent wants us to balance against them “secret losses.” One does not understand what are secret losses. Some books do produce a remunerative return; some books do not pay bare expenses. These things happen, no doubt; but what are “secret losses” ? And as for secret profits, our correspondent must not forget that the law speaks very harshly indeed of the man who spends £100 in producing a book and tells his partner that he has spent £120; and that is what we mean by secret profits. To get secret profits the accounts must be falsified, and the falsification of accounts means—what? Let our correspondent reply. Therefore, when we speak of “secret profits,” we refuse to remember anything except the Com- mandments andthe Law. There is another point. Profit, in every other business, is the difference between proceeds by sale and cost of production. So it is, of course, in publishing. And when people talk about publisher’s profit beginning after he has paid all his clerks and people, they forget the very important question—* What claim has the publisher to any share in the book when his services are paid?” We do not say that he has none, but we should like to know what, and why, it is? Then, how is the estimate of 10 per cent. arrived at? We do not say that it is wrong, but where are the figures? We have no right toask? But, indeed, we have; because those figures affect the administration of our own property. Then about this 2d. or 24d or 44d. profit on each volume. Let us take the book in question. Our correspondent asks if the adver- tising, cataloguing, and distribution are to come out of it? Of course they are. Suppose a sale of 30,000—in this case it was more—the S.P.C.K. profit at 2d., 23d. or 32d.a volume would be £250, £312, or £418. Does our correspondent seriously maintain that more than a mere fraction of this money would be spent in advertising, cataloguing (7.e., the services of the humblest boy clerk), and distributing ?—Ep.] 349 WHAT THE PAPERS SAY. I—tTue Baroness Tautpuevs. ARONESS JEMIMA VON TAUTPHEUS, author of the popular novels “The Initials,” “ Quits,” “ At Odds,” and “ Cyrilla,” died at Munich on Nov. 12, in the eighty-sixth year of her age. Her maiden name was Montgomery, and she was of Irish birth, with a strain of Scotch blood in her veins. In 1836 she visited Munich, where she married Baron von Taut- pheeus. The fruit of this union was one son, who died some eight years ago as Bavarian Ambassador at Rome. The shock occasioned by the sudden death of their only child so affected her husband that he fell into a decline and expired a few weeks later. Baroness von Tautphceus was a cousin of Maria Edgeworth, and one of the pleasantest and most vivid recol- lections of her youth was her association with this charming lady and with the versatile and somewhat eccentric Lady Morgan. She was endowed in an eminent degree with the fresh and kindly humour which is the heirloom of her race, and which in her case age could not wither nor the severest blows of fate wholly destroy. It was this genial quality which in her childhood and early maidenhood caused her family and friends to pun on her name and call her “the gem.’ Her novels, like Jane Austen’s, have taken the rank of English classics, and seem to have suffered no diminution in popularity during the forty years that have elapsed since she pub- lished her first work of fiction. Edition has suc- ceeded edition with remarkable regularity up to the present time, and only a few weeks before her decease a new German translation of “ Quits” appeared at Weimar, and was warmly greeted by the German press. It is also pleasant to note that she received from the sale of her works in the United States, where there was no legal obligation to pay her anything, a much larger sum than from her London publisher.* In her contract with the latter she was far too modest, and consented to accept whatever pittance he chose to offer, so that her pecuniary compensa- tion was very trifling, and bore no proportion to the literary and commercial value of her writings. A like modesty led her persistently to refuse to furnish editors of biographical dictionaries and compilers of cyclopedias with any information concerning her life ; to the numerous applications of the kind received she uniformly replied that her place in literature was not sufficiently con- spicuous to render personal items of this sort of ~ * Her American publishers were Henry Holt and Co.— Eps. Critic. 30° any interest to the general public. For this reason her name nowhere appears in such books of reference, and not the slightest sketch of her life derived from authentic sources has ever been printed. No urgency on the part of her friends could overcome this native reserve; even her husband knew nothing of her literary work or ever saw her engaged in it, and was as surprised as any stranger would have been when the finished volumes lay on the table before him. After his death she shrank from forming new acquaint- ances, and confined her social intercourse to a sympathetic circle composed of her nearest kin and a few congenial friends. She now lies at rest by his side in the family vault at their country seat, Castle Marquardsteim, in the Bavarian Highlands.— The Evening Post. Il.—TyPr-wRiTINne. The ways of that particular class of Indian vermin known as “the common anonymous peti- tioner” are peculiar. One of them lately indited an elaborate series of charges against a superior magistrate. “This new hakfm [wise man ],” wrote the complainant, “ habitually neglects his duty, All day in kachahri [cutcherry, the office] he amuses himself by playing the baja [piano], and never listens to the witnesses who come before him.” The instrument on which this unhappy judge really performs is a type-writer, with which, being threatened by writer’s cramp, he has to record the depositions !—Bombay Gazette. 7 “AT THE SIGN OF THE AUTHOR'S HEAD.” R. F. HOWARD COLLINS (Churchfield, Edgbaston, Birmingham) is endeavouring to get together a collection of corrected proofs and of the charges, by publisher or printer, for the corrections. Neither the charge nor the proof is valuable singly. They are wanted together for comparison. He invites readers of the Author to assist him by the loan of the first proofs, with the MS. corrections upon them, and the bill for corrections as rendered to the author. The names of the lenders will be regarded as confidential, and the proofs, &c., returned as soon as they have been tabulated. “Safe Studies” is a volume of essays by the Hon. Mr. and Mrs. Lionel Tollemache (William Rice, 86, Fleet-street). It contains essays on and recollections of Charles Austen, Grote, Babbage, Dean Stanley, and Charles Kingsley, with other papers, all reprinted from the Fortnightly Review, where many of our readers have seen them. THE AUTHOR. “Stones of Stumbling” (second edition, and same publisher), by the Hon. Lionel Tollemache, is another collection of essays, also reprinted from magazines. It contains four papers—on “ A Cure for Incurables,” “‘ The Fear of Death,” ‘‘ Fearless Death,” ‘The ‘Divme Economy of Truth,” “ Recollections of Pattison,” and others. Mrs. Rentoul Essler has written a volume called “ The Way they Loved at Grimpat,” village idylls, consisting of nine short stories, which show that the author of the “ Way of Trans- gressors”” is equally skilful in either form of romantic literature. Under the title of “Songs Grave and Gay” (Horace Cox, Windsor House, Bream’s-buildings, E.C.), Mr. Doveton has collected a variety of his poetical contributions to different journals, including our own pages. Our readers are acquainted with his more serious work, we there- fore give an example of one of his more humorous productions. The two following stanzas are from a poem called “ Belittling Byron”: I have some leisure time to-day, My proofs are all corrected, And for my “ Memories of Gay” The data I’ve collected. I’ve finished, too, that touching rhyme, “ The ills that men environ,” What shall I do to pass my time, Why, I'll belittle Byron. * * * * * * His breast was thrilled with martial fire, To free a fallen nation, But striking the poetic lyre Was not his true vocation. His slipshod muse lacks subtlety, Our modern bards have blamed him, And then with ease—this should not be— His readers understand him. Miss N. A. Woods has brought out a little book of verses called “ Rosemary,” some of which have already been published. The follow- ing is part of a poem called “ A Tryst”: Come to me, sweet, for the lights are low, And the whole wide house is still ; The duties were ended long ago, And the heart may have her will. It is all so quiet—no leaf was stirred Since the darkness fell outside ; There is only that faint far-moan we heard, Darling, the night you died. Was it death indeed? were the stories true Of the harps and fadeless flowers ; Or is there a world beyond the blue Human and real as ours ? “Down by the Sea,” by Sydney Wyatt, is a shilling volume, The author gives a series of sketches of an imaginary place called “ Ditch- boro’-on-Sea,”’ its peculiarities, and its characters, Sam RP Gin RO lg ee ee |  THE AUTHOR. where the chief personages in the story are supposed to spend their holiday. Mr. C. Adley has written an allegorical poem on the legend of Beowulf called “The Victorious Hero.” It is a narrative told in some 450 stanzas, of which, with the exception of one or two songs, the following are examples : Mysterious the wondrous lay Of doughty combats bold, Erstwhile borne down the rifts of time, From weird wraith days of old. Inspired with loftiest chivalry, ‘vheir gallantry, their pride, For woman’s love they dared the worst, For woman’s honour died. We have lately come across a little pamphlet entitled “The Blessedness of Books,” which is part of an address delivered by Mr. Showell Rogers at the Bearwood Institute, Birmingham, in October, 1893. There can be no better idea than to try and create in the people of our large towns a taste for book-buying—they would thus learn to think more of the free library as a charity which must not be abused —because they would better under- stand how much the books in the free libraries must have cost. The author of “Mark Tillotson” is hardly likely to issue another novel this year, as it is stated he has received a commission to do one of the “Pen and Pencil” Series, as the one on Greece by Professor Mahaffy, for the Religious Tract Society; and this society will also shortly issue another volume by the same author, upon “A Great Forgotten Englishman,” being the life of Peter Payne, who formed the link between Wyclif and Luther. Mr. James Baker will make a tour in Bohemia early in the spring, this being his seventh journey through that country. He was elected a Fellow of the Journalists’ Institute at the last council meeting. Miss E. C. Traice has written a small volume forthe young called “ Mistress Elizabeth Spencer,” the scene of which is laid in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It is a romantic little story, the Queen herself playing the chief part in bringing the love interest to a satisfactory conclusion. The Arena (the Boston magazine now pub- lished in this country by Messrs. Gay and Bird) has in its January number, among some sixteen articles, two which are of especial interest to “ our side.” One is the third paper on Gerald Massey, poet, prophet, and critic, by the editor, Mr. B. O. Flower ; and the other is “Silver in England,” by the Hon. John Davis, M.C. The latter treats some of the points in the silver question from a historical point of view, which clearly brings home 33? to us how dangerous, and perbaps at the same time how widespread, is the fallacy of believing that money is in any way the creation of the State because the coins happen to bear national badges stamped upon them. In a notice of the report of the Congress of Religion at Chicago, to be published shortly, we find this, to us, extremely odd phrase: “It was the first Ecumenical Council the world had ever seen—the first time there assembled together representatives of the earth’s great religions (if we except a few high evangelicals of Christendom).”’ The italics are ours. If this is the Church of England, in the case of Read and others v. The Lord Bishop of Lincoln, which was the high evangelical ? Mrs. Tweedie’s book, “A Winter Jaunt in Norway,” has just been brought out by Messrs. Bliss, Sands, and Foster, and has already hada considerable success at the libraries. A volume of poems by Mr. Francis H. Clifte is in the press, and will shortly be published by Remington and Co. By an oversight in the last number of the Author the name of P. W. Clayden was men- tioned as that of the editor of the Daily News. The editor is Sir John Robinson. The letter by Mrs. Ewing quoted in the same number was said to be dated 1889. The letter is dated “13th May, 1884.” One more erratum. By some accident Mr. Stanley Lane Poole’s new book was omitted in the lists of the month. It is called “The Moham- madan Dynasties,’’containing Chronological Tables of all the 118 Dynasties of the Mohammadan Empire from the Foundation of the Caliphate to the Present Day. (Westminster: Archibald Con- stable and Co., Publishers to the India Office, 14, Parliament-street, S.W.) Messrs. Tillotson and Sons’ List of Authors for 1894 includes most of the best known names in current fictional literature. Serials have been secured from Mr. William Black, Mr. Hall Caine, Miss Braddon, Mr. G. Manville Fenn, Mr. D. C. Murray, Miss Dora Russell, Mr. Henry Herman, Mr. W. Clark Russell, Mr. F. W. Robinson, Miss Florence Marryat, Mr. Joseph Hatton, and Mrs. Hungerford. 352 THE NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. History and Biography. AsHpown, CHarues H. St. Albans Historical and Picturesque, with an account of the Roman city of Verulamium. Illustrated by Frederic G. Kitton. Elliot Stock. CAMPBELL, J. DYKES. Nar-rative of the Events of his Life. 10s. 6d. Conway, Moncurr D. Centenary History of the South- place Society. Based on four discourses given in the chapel in May and June, 1893. 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James and William Tassie : a biographical and critical sketch, with a catalogue of their portrait medallions of modern personages. Edinburgh, W. G. Samuel Taylor Coleridge: A Macmillan. Patterson. Hewison, JAmes K. The Isle of Bute in the Olden Time. With illustrations, maps, and plans. Vol. I., Celtic Saints and Heroes. Blackwood. Kine’s Hussar, A, being the Military Memoirs for twenty-five years of a Troop Sergeant-Major of the 14th (King’s) Hussars. Edited by Herbert Compton. 6s. Lzz, Sipney. Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by. Vol. XXXVII.: Masquerier—Millyng. Smith, Elder, and Co. Levy, ArTHUR. The Private Life of Napoleon. Trans- lated by Stephen Louis Simeon. In two volumes. Bentley. PicToRIAL AND DxEscRIPTIVE RECORD OF THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT oF ARMS AND ARMOUR, to which are appended 133 plates specially drawn from the author’s collection at Oaklands, St. Peter’s, Thanet, and Burleigh House, London. By Edwin J. Brett. Sampson Low. : Poik, Wm. M. Leonidas Polk. 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